h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It might be easier to divine the true nature of Him/Her/It if one were to consider what He/She/It is not. I believe, as many religions teach, that He/She/It created everything and that all things come from Him/Her/It.

A Christian says "God is good." But God created Lucipher and God is omniscient. So God knew Lucipher would fall when He created him. Can God create something with an ultimate impact beyond His grasp? Not if He is omnipotent. So God created evil. Ideas like this cause Jehovah's Witnesses to run in terror, by the way.

Because all things in Creation (according to my belief) derive from organization and structure I suspect that organization and structure may be the nature of a Supreme Being, not "goodness." Although structure and organization may be seen to be "good" qualitities, remember that Hitler had quite a tidy plan.

But, being omnipotent, God is Good because who's going to argue with Him/Her/It? God could be Trixie the Pink Wonder Poodle if He/She/It so chose -- since He/She/It can do the pillar of salt trick we had all still better say "good choice, God. pink is your color."

Before someone chimes in that chaos is the opposite of organization, ponder this: a universe of absolute chaos would be "structured" in its uniformity. Chaos provides contrast for structure. In fact, if chaos did not exist there would be no need to organize anything. The fact that everything in this perfect place was uniform would render "structure and organization" as meaningless as in our universe where everything was chaos.

So to answer my question, if you, like me, believe that God is everything, everywhere, then the only thing that God is NOT would be -- NOT God.

And my frontal lobes are beginning to hurt, it's time for a break.

Regards,



-THDoM

P.S. And who are we, anyways, to try to pigeonhole a supreme being into a tidy little set of beliefs using fancy words, incense, and "belief"?

god creats good, some good turns bad, god knew this was going to happen, true. but god did not creat evel we brought that appon ourselves from the time we were given the ability to reason. and if you have any religous beliefs you should git down on your hands and knees and beg for forgiveness.

It hurts to think, doesn't it?



-THDoM

> "if you have any religous beliefs"

... which involve a traditional judeo-christian viewpoint of god...

If, on the other hand, you are a taoist, buddhist, or any one of a hundred other religious beliefs, .... ?
--

Btw, according to judeo-xtian beliefs we weren't *given* the ability to reason. We stole it. Tree of knowledge, apples, serpents, remember? God, it would appear, was quite happy for us to remain innocent and ignorant forever.

The god of self-righteousness, blind piety, denial, and hatred is probably not the god to whom you would want to be praying. I pray to a God of love and light, who tells me to "judge not lest ye be judged."

Matthew 7:1-5

I have been blessed with miracles in my life, miracles of light and love. I believe God is too big to be corralled in a tiny little birdcage of faith and kept hidden away like a private treasure to be shared only with others of identical understanding.

I believe this is contrary to God's will.

Christ's message was not a message of division and separation, but of love and unity. He preached to the mighty and the outcast alike, and yet today the pious scorn the different and the outcast while walking the path of self-righteousness. That path is NOT the path that Christ walked.

I speak from a Judeo-Christian background, but Buddha walked among men and spread the word of God, as did the prophets of Islam, as have dozens of other messengers throughout the ages.

God of my understanding casts the tapestry of the universe before us and sends each and every one of us out into His/Her/Its creation to witness its splendor and to spread love.

God of my understanding speaks many tongues, so as to be heard and understood by many people, not just a chosen few.

God of my understanding has many names, and answers to them all.

God of my understanding has many faces, some dark, some light, some male, some female, all filled with compassion and love.

God of my understanding has many houses, be they temples, shrines, altars, mosques, churches, quiet hillsides -- wherever there is a needy soul.

My God IS all-powerful, and all-knowing. Who am I to tell God who He/She/it can or cannot be? Who am I to judge another in His/Her/Its name?

Just because I believe that God created evil when He/She/It created *all* things does not mean that I believe that God IS evil. But one must assume with an intimate hand in Creation that He/She/It must also carry an intimate understanding in the aspects of that Creation.

What this boils down to is that God understands the sinner. That does not mean He/She/It approves, it just means that God understands our nature because He/She/it created it. God does not approve of sin because it distances us from Him/Her/It, but He/She/It understands how it happens.

In all of God's tongues, in all of God's houses, by all of His/Her/Its names, forgiveness is given to those who seek redemption.

If it suits you to cower in fear, so be it, but do not let that fear blind you to the wonder of Creation that enfolds us all, to the many faces of the Creator, and to His/Her/Its many voices, each of which speaks the same message if we have only the ears to hear.

Peace,


-Joe G.

P.S. I'll leave the THDoM thing for less serious conversations.

I'm not quite clear how you can say the word of Buddha is the word of God... they are atheists, you know...

As I recall Buddha speaks about respect for all creatures, and being in harmony with our surroundings?

That to me is another little whisper.

I try to listen to a message, not a messenger. Wisdom can come from some of the most unsuspected places if you just keep your ears open.

-Joe G.

oh I see - when you say "word of God" you mean what I would call words of wisdom and suchlike.

In which case, carry on!

Hey Joe G. have you read "Conversations with God"? They are some truly amazing, most beautiful books by an american author named Neale Donald Walsch. By the character of your speaking, I´d presume chances are big that you have. I really want to get back to this topic with some quotations and an introduction to these books, since they (to my mind) present the PERFECT and COMPLETE answer to the question posed by h2g2. In addition, the source is apt to be classified reliable, as the content was given to Neale from highest level, speaking; from God itself. I really recommend reading them to EVERYBEING!

Hey Joe G. have you read "Conversations with God"? They are some truly amazing, most beautiful books by an american author named Neale Donald Walsch. By the character of your speaking, I´d presume chances are big that you have. I really want to get back to this topic with some quotations and an introduction to these books, since they (to my mind) present the PERFECT and COMPLETE answer to the question posed by h2g2. In addition, the source is apt to be classified reliable, as the content was given to Neale from highest level, speaking; from God itself. I really recommend reading them to EVERYBEING!

Hey Joe G. have you read "Conversations with God"? They are some truly amazing, most beautiful books by an american author named Neale Donald Walsch. By the character of your speaking, I´d presume chances are big that you have. I really want to get back to this topic with some quotations and an introduction to these books, since they (to my mind) present the PERFECT and COMPLETE answer to the question posed by h2g2. In addition, the source is apt to be classified reliable, as the content was given to Neale from highest level, speaking; from God itself. I really recommend reading them to EVERYBEING!
Namaste,

"God" is the common word for something so much larger.

I believe "God" is a way for us to put a name on something in human terms that is much more vast than we could ever hope to encompass within language.

I believe that atheists, sociologists, psychologists, physicists, agnostics, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Taoists, Hindus, Shintoists, Wiccans, et al have pieces of the puzzle. Every living being has a hint of the voice, a feature of the face, and a thought from the mind.

I believe when we listen to and look towards commonality we become closer to the Greater that is Creation.

I also suspect that "God" is to the reality of this Greater as is a grain of sand to all the beaches of the world.

-Joe G.

P.S. I have always had a hard time grasping the universe simply as an ornament hung above us to make our night sky pretty, haven't you?

OOps. sorry about that. I WAS trying to make a statement, but not triple edition. This was the first time writing so beginners errors are forgiven right? At any rate
Aum nama shivaya.
CCG

Cheshire: I have not, but I will.

I have come to my belief through years of atheism, agnosticism, and finally a few eye-opening miracles where I was touched, and my skepticism erased.

When my skepticism was cast aside my eyes were opened to wonders I never thought possible, simply because I had refused to see them.

And with my ears open I hear the voice every day.

Peace,

-Joe G.

For starters...
God is not... you. God is not me. God being present in everything doesn't mean God IS everything, or vice versa, that everything is God. I just swallowed a penny. Does that mean I'm copper? Umm.. no. Another point that needs clarification - I fail to see how God's omniscience about Lucifer's rebellion infers that God created evil. Think about it. God's nature is purity and perfection. He cannot create anything but goodness. If that goodness decides of its own free will to go bad, then even if foreseen, God didn't bring badness into being. For example, say I'm the world's first chemistry professor and I instruct a student how to make aspirin (knowing that, with this knowledge, he could make all sorts of things). He then graduates and makes poison. I created a chemist, but did I create poison? No.

I'm not sure what your point is regarding organization and structure, but I think you might be getting at something St. Thomas Aquinas said regarding the existence of God, namely that the existence of design requires the existence of a designer.

Hanz.

on the other hand, if you were there (omnipresent) when he was making the poison, and you were able (omnipotent) to stop him doing it, and you knew (omniscient) that he was going to kill someone with the poison, then in most countries you're an accessory to murder, and will be put in prison for a period of time.

Failure to prevent evil occuring is evil. All that requires for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing, remember?

Yeah, but I never said the guy poisoned anybody, he just created something, which didn't exist before and which I, as his instructor, am not liable for (i.e. nobody can accuse me of creating poison, right?) God could've made the angels and mankind into robots, doing only whatever he says, making it physically impossible to do anything else, but where's the love in that? How can there be a relationship with an army of automatons? It's like a father saying "look son, you're gonna be locked up the attic with no food until you decide to say you love me and mean it!" God DOES go around preventing evil from occurring, inasmuch as our free will cooperates with him. If we choose otherwise, he doesn’t magically force us to change our minds. That’s the meaning of the word FREE in free will.

I feel there is a paradox somewhere inside this argument.. If God is omni- present, scient and potent, that gives him a whole lot of responsebility, doesn't it? When God made mankind, he allready knew everything everyone would do with their lives, because he knows every human intimatly. (He has to, he's omniscient) Then he would know that some (quite a few actually) would fail to meet his standards. These people are damned to hell, exiled from heaven or whateever other punishment God made humans give themselves (If I have understood this right; God doesn't punish, humans punish, right?)

This I fail to understand: God makes humans but is not responsible for humans. God has the power to do anything, but chooses to let us destroy ourselves because he loves us. I say ban free will. If I could have lived an eternety in bliss, never having to make a single decisision, never knowing anything at all and just jump around eating fresh fruit, I would be happy. Wouldn't you?

You'd think so, but I would rather have the charge of my own life, so that when I feel happy it's because I've accomplished something, not just because an all-powerful being has made my life perfect. If I /had/ no free will, I'd like it like that, but because I have the free will to be stubborn, I choose to stay the way I am.

~~A~~

You'd think so, but I would rather have the charge of my own life, so that when I feel happy it's because I've accomplished something, not just because an all-powerful being has made my life perfect. If I /had/ no free will, I'd like it like that, but because I have the free will to be stubborn, I choose to stay the way I am.

~~A~~