What Does God Mean to You?

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I live 4 God, my whole life is based on his teachings and is a serivce to him.

To me, God is who He says He is in the Bible, nothing more, nothing less.

Forgive me if any of this isn't very clear; I usually visualize abstract thoughts more strongly than I put them into words....and I'm getting a little sleepy....and I often tend to write really long posts when it comes to stuff like this, so feel free to skip over-it's just nice to write all this out and have it here and be able to contribute to such an interesting and thoughtful thread.

To me, faith in God ( which to me would be some form of a higher being or consciousness that we humans probably can't fully comprehend) as well as an order and purpose to the universe and scientific discovery are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary, and I value both. We humans, with our wonderful but probably limited brains have the ability to make discoveries about and make sense of our universe and in that way increase the sum of our knowledge about it, but there is probably a lot we do not yet know and perhaps can't even comprehend. That's where faith comes in, provided that one doesn't take a contradictory religious doctrine literally (which I don't, I take them as very insightful allegories and stories, but I don't mean to criticize anyone). To me it's recognizing that there are things I cannot see and do not know and that are greater than myself, and hoping that somewhere in these unknown and unseen things-as well as in known and seen things-is an order, a purpose. Knowing that things like love, friendship, a beautiful landscape, etc. can be broken down into scientific processes does not make them any less significant or meaningful or wonderful to me. I'm just glad that the laws of the universe work in such a way that allowed these things to come into existence and for me and others to experience these things. That, to me, is rejoicing in God's creation. In that way, the saying someone mentioned about seeing God in a sunset and a person's face makes sense to me because I see it that way as well. I also find it interesting that many religious/spiritual concepts are nearly universal. The fact that certain concepts are nearly universal and that religion itself is nearly universal probably indicates that we have evolved in such a way that these things are ingrained in us, and I find that significant that the laws of the universe have lead to beings that can comprehend that there is something bigger than themselves, and believe that there is a meaning to things, and has the ability to discover more about it, and comprehend some of it, and are consciously aware of it-for if there was no conscious awareness of it, it may as well not even exist. To me it seems no accident. In a more abstract sense rather than in a more specific, concrete sense (for example, the theme of a religious story rather than it's particular details) some of those concepts seem to make sense from a scientific viewpoint as well. Prayer and meditation, for example, have been shown in studies to facilitate healing and contribute to the overall health of a person, as well as complementary/alternative healing techniques, many of which are closely tied with religious/spiritual traditions. One might argue that you have to believe in some of these things in order for them to work effectively, and that is probably true in some cases, but that just has to do with the powerful effect the mind has on the body, which to me isn't that much different than the effect, say, a pill would have on the body-and thinking, meditating, praying, etc. doesn't have any nasty side effects. These healing techniques can be a very nice complement to traditional Western medicine with it's largely materialistic and strictly scientific focus because each can fill in the space where the other is lacking, and they take two different approaches with Western medicine dealing more with the parts and complementary and alternative medicine dealing more with the whole and to me that's a nice metaphor for science and faith. There are aspects-particularly the more abstract ones- of Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, the three monotheistic religions, as well as other religious/spiritual traditions that make a great deal of sense logically and scientifically in addition to the one mentioned above. They don't explain the mechanics of scientific principles, but they capture their essence, if that makes any sense. Science explains the individual parts and processes and laws, and the concept of God brings it all together.

Someone pointed out something I agree with, that (and I'm very loosely paraphrasing here) that it's usually just the reality of religion that is disillusioning, rather than the ideal (and certainly there are real-life examples of the ideal). I mentioned before about the good qualities of people that the laws of the universe have facilitated the existence of, but there are negative ones as well-oppression of the weak, greed, hate, exclusion of those who are different, just to name a few; however, I think we also have the ability-although it may be somewhat limited (the fact that we are self-centered beings won't change anytime soon, I don't think, for instance)-to overcome some of those qualites, especially the ones that are taught to us by our culture rather than being ingrained, such as exclusion and oppression, and I think those concepts that are nearly universal, whether in religion or individually, such as peace, compassion, kindness, love, etc. can help to achieve this, provided they do not let the darker aspects of their nature take over when applying their religion/spirituality or other beliefs/ideologies/personal philosophies by using it to exclude and oppress others. And whether one follows these concepts through a religion/spiritual tradition or individually, I think the results are often the same, and I think the former and latter are, in a way, the same sort of thing, provided that one is allowed to choose their religion/spiritual tradition I started off following an organized religion, then broke away and thought about these things as carefully as I could for many years (a very scary thing to do, I understand why not everyone would want to do this) and came to value many of the concepts that are at the core of many different religious tradition, including the one I started with (although I don't follow all of the particulars and specifics). It's all a massive challenge, but I think that makes it more fulfilling. Maybe that's an example of a good point SB2 was making before, about how perhaps religion was necessary to keep some sort of order among groups of people-not to say that I believe in using it to control them, because I am completely against that sort of thing, but because it can create a sense of community and give us some sort of structure and meaning and allow us to some extent to at least partly trump the darker aspects of our nature that lead to destruction and disorder. I also think that back when we humans had extremely limited means of figuring out the world around us, the world would have been to d*mn scary without having a religion or something similar to explain things. And I know for me-and probably others too-that looking at everything from a strictly scientific viewpoint is still scary or unfulfilling or insufficient given all the things that have yet to be explained and discovered and the fact that it cannot now give us an answer to the age old question of why. To me, science is the how to the why, and God is the why to the how-they are complementary, and perhaps even one and the same. Of course, the major fallacy in all this is that I said our brains our probably limited, and so I have no way of knowing if anything I believe has any weight at all, but because I cannot know, I have faith and I try to find meaning in things and make things as fulfilling as possible. And I see God in everything.
I'm sorry this post is so long.

God Bless you Midge.

And stop apologizing every time you share with us.

It is ok to have passion

I think God is real as is One Being not three in one like the Trinity makes God be something He is not.

God have giving Us freedom to choose to believe or not in Him.

God does care for all of Us (humanity).

Man has used religion and God for its demise.

God what Us to worship Him in Spirit and Truth.

Mankind has many religions it has made but not truly not Spiritual toward God.

We have learned from Science and much knowledge. We are trying to understand what We have learned.

Mankind has in the years have blamed God for many things that has happened in this World, and it no way was Him but it was Humanity instead that should have been blamed.

It is better to be Spiritual than Religious towards God.

Mankind has a lot to Learn to Understand to gain Knowledge of the Understandings of God.

Mankind could and should Learn from God, but has not done so yet.

God's Gifts are Free.

Bump up for more debate on this subject.

What does GOD mean to me?
Now let me think um!

It is DOG spelt backwards,

BTW, "!wow !wod" is also "bow! wow!" mirror reversed

Nothing. He's never even proven his existence to me.

Man created God

In his own image

For as long as people believe in God

God will have everlasting life (in the mind of Man)

But if people stop believing God will cease to exist

And Mankind will be free from War, predjudice, bigotry and evil.

Have you ever wondered where the word "GOD" might have come from? Take a look at the word real hard for a couple of minutes and then think real hard about it. Don't you notice something unusual? If you notice it, it has got to make you wonder why such a person would come up with the word "GOD."

- Ray M -

I do not believe in god. Lack of evidential proof. And I have always wondered, that are we meant to believe that he appeared out of nowhere and suddenly created us, or when was god born? I thought at one point maybe he was the big bang, but Nevertheless I do not believe in god. If God actually existed, how comes my prayers are never answered? Also, if he existed, how comes God let's people suffer?

im sure if there is a god hes a swell guy