Re: Who or what is God to you?

by Quiet Sat Apr 07, 2012 11:30 pm

KatyKing wrote:Two mediums = Three opinions.
Ten of us in our church fifteen if you count the card and related trades readers.
What was the main topic of conversation last time most of us were together?
Simon Cowell's return to judging Britain's Got Talent and possible impact on Saturday night meeting attendance.
[Down last week and don't know this week as it was my night off. Watched BGT, jolly good it was too].
We are a chaotic lot but luckily Elle Presidente [EP] and a couple of her capos keep things ticking over pretty smoothly. Be lost without 'em so we would.
EP says.... trying to manage mediums is like plaiting fog.

by KatyKing Sat Apr 07, 2012 11:36 pm

I reckon there is reincaration but hopefully it's limited and voluntary. Very much of a mind with Joyce LaJudice late historian at Lily Dale who said....
There'll be claw marks on the clouds if they try to get me to come back.......
No digging tomorrow still raining it'll be too heavy.
Bed ways is best ways.
Nite nite Q I have really enjoyed chatting. Thank you.

by Quiet Sun Apr 08, 2012 12:00 am

KatyKing wrote:I reckon there is reincaration but hopefully it's limited and voluntary. Very much of a mind with Joyce LaJudice late historian at Lily Dale who said....
There'll be claw marks on the clouds if they try to get me to come back.......
No digging tomorrow still raining it'll be too heavy.
Bed ways is best ways.
Nite nite Q I have really enjoyed chatting. Thank you.

Love the idea of claw parks! My first teacher said much the same. I don't think I want to come back either but I guess many feel like that towards the end. I am not at the end - more in the late afternoon.

Yes, it has been nice chatting, KK.

It's been like the many hours spent chatting with friends in street cafes over brunch and good coffee.

But .... and this is sincerely intended ...... the tutorials and focused discussions are valuable too. I do understand where Obiwan is coming from but learn better in the the more informal style - just lateral I think. People are quite different in their modes of expression and learning.

Have a good sleep. It is Sunday morning here.

by KatyKing Sun Apr 08, 2012 12:56 pm

I spend my working life in tutorials etc so this is a nice change. Danger of virtual learning is that it can lead to virtual forgetting. Best learning is a shared social process but some can't get to centres to do that and others who could do don't like to favouring autodidacticism to inter and intrapersonal encounter. That latter preferred learning style is easy to spot online.
Up at the crack this morning to drive and buy half price camera from Argos as recommended by Leslie on here who has joined Corinthians for his insurance etc. First time since we moved here six years ago that I have been to that shopping complex. It was shut for Easter Sunday! Typical.
Try again tomorrow

by tmmw Tue Apr 10, 2012 7:14 pm

Loneblossom wrote:I was raised as a Catholic so 'God' to me was the Holy Trinity (made up of Father, Son & Holy Spirit). I now believe that there is only one God entity.

As a Spiritualist, who or what is God to you?

How did you come to hold this belief?

I was also raised Catholic Loneblossom and when younger I could relate to your earlier belief of what God was to you at the time. Lately I am struggling to answer that question. Who is God, Where is God, What is God? I don't know. A theory maybe, sorry that is as good of an answer I can give you now. Perhaps I have lost faith? Perhaps. To me it is like one of those complex math problems that hurts to figure out. Maybe it really isn't so important to figure it out. Perhaps the importance is in living true to yourself and causing harm to no one. Or striving to get to that point.

Lynn

by KatyKing Tue Apr 10, 2012 9:25 pm

You may have lost what you were told was 'faith' tmmw but you know better now. That was just a bill of goods and your insightful sensitive posts indicate that you have found something far more valid and durable. Or maybe 'it' found you.

by Wes Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:36 pm

There's a spiritualist church here in Brisbane that has very few redeeming features, in fact the only one I can think of right now is a very nice stained glass window with some colourful designs and the words "Knowledge, Love & Reason" in the middle. Faith might be one way a belief system can take hold when you are young, but as you grow older it can never take root and flourish if it doesn't also appeal to your sense of reason. So I suspect people like Lynn persisted with faith until their expanding knowledge and reason could no longer put up with it Very Happy

Maybe the window should have said "Knowledge + Love + Reason = Change + Growth + Freedom"

by KatyKing Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:54 pm

Having worn one in younger days I always wondered why SNU missed 'Love' off their badge wording.
When, in later years; I got to mix with mutually loathing NEC types; it kinda made sense.

by Loneblossom Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:15 pm

tmmw wrote:
Loneblossom wrote:I was raised as a Catholic so 'God' to me was the Holy Trinity (made up of Father, Son & Holy Spirit). I now believe that there is only one God entity.

As a Spiritualist, who or what is God to you?

How did you come to hold this belief?

I was also raised Catholic Loneblossom and when younger I could relate to your earlier belief of what God was to you at the time. Lately I am struggling to answer that question. Who is God, Where is God, What is God? I don't know. A theory maybe, sorry that is as good of an answer I can give you now. Perhaps I have lost faith? Perhaps. To me it is like one of those complex math problems that hurts to figure out. Maybe it really isn't so important to figure it out. Perhaps the importance is in living true to yourself and causing harm to no one. Or striving to get to that point.

Lynn

I can relate to the complex math problem analogy. But, unlike you perhaps, I 'feel/know/believe' in God but struggle to pinpoint a description for the entity (my brain-ache maths problem).

by tmmw Wed Apr 11, 2012 12:11 am

KatyKing wrote:You may have lost what you were told was 'faith' tmmw but you know better now. That was just a bill of goods and your insightful sensitive posts indicate that you have found something far more valid and durable. Or maybe 'it' found you.

Thank you KK for your kind words, I understand now what you mean by the term 'faith'. I didn't realize until you pointed that out to me that what I was told was faith was what I lost. More difficult to explain is the feeling I have now, and true it is more durable than before, seemingly strength when most needed.

Lynn

by tmmw Wed Apr 11, 2012 12:14 am

Wes wrote:There's a spiritualist church here in Brisbane that has very few redeeming features, in fact the only one I can think of right now is a very nice stained glass window with some colourful designs and the words "Knowledge, Love & Reason" in the middle. Faith might be one way a belief system can take hold when you are young, but as you grow older it can never take root and flourish if it doesn't also appeal to your sense of reason. So I suspect people like Lynn persisted with faith until their expanding knowledge and reason could no longer put up with it

Maybe the window should have said "Knowledge + Love + Reason = Change + Growth + Freedom"

Very nice Wes, it makes so much sense.

Lynn

by eirefox Wed Apr 11, 2012 2:57 pm

To me, God is the Primeval One; the Fount of all Life. He is Infinite. He is One. There is none like Him; none equivalent to Him. He can't degress, or He woldn't be perfect. He can't get any better, because He is already the Best.
He is creating beings in His own image (spirits). All spirits are like Him in that we are immortal. However, we will never be equal to Him, because we are not, nor can we ever be Infinite.
I believe that God has never been idle. From infinity He has been creating. We can't comprehend this now, but when we've attained the rank of Pure Spirit, we may understand it then.

by KatyKing Wed Apr 11, 2012 4:12 pm

tmmw wrote:[quote ="KatyKing"]You may have lost what you were told was 'faith' tmmw but you know better now. That was just a bill of goods and your insightful sensitive posts indicate that you have found something far more valid and durable. Or maybe 'it' found you.

Thank you KK for your kind words, I understand now what you mean by the term 'faith'. I didn't realize until you pointed that out to me that what I was told was faith was what I lost. More difficult to explain is the feeling I have now, and true it is more durable than before, seemingly strength when most needed.
Lynn[/quote]

Sounds Good Lynn. Spirit never stops giving. Some folk just stop asking.
:-)

by Dodo737 Thu May 03, 2012 10:02 pm

For me its just the great source or call it Great Spirit if you listen within yourself you will find it

by Quiet Thu May 03, 2012 11:06 pm

Dodo737 wrote:For me its just the great source or call it Great Spirit if you listen within yourself you will find it

Thanks Dodo.

Could I ask you not to write in violet? It is quite a pale colour against the blue and difficult for some people to read.

The more contrast in print, the better for all people not just those with visual impairment.

Many thanks. Smile

by Wes Fri May 04, 2012 7:48 am

Just the word "god" itself can have negative connotations that get in the way. My partner has a definite dislike of the word and a few times she has gone to a spiritualist church with me, only to switch off and stop listening as soon as any speaker has said the G-word. It's not that surprising, as anyone who is familiar with the old testament could not help but have a mental picture of god as a bipolar mass murderer of his own children. I really wonder how those who take all of the bible as literal truth can reconcile the contradictions in god's behaviour.

by Lis Fri May 04, 2012 8:47 am

"god as a bipolar mass murderer of his own children"

How apt Wez!

Having gone through the High Church system as a child and adolescent, I remember all too vividly that horrible 'god' of the Old Testement, as against the apparently much more benign 'god' of the new. Mind you, even that God seemed a bit arbitrary!

by Admin Fri May 04, 2012 8:52 am

Its a tad worrying that this is the same God of Islamic Tribes, of the Jewish Tribes and the Christian Tribes. On the whole he does not come out with the type of reputation that such a good being should do but then that is the human factor at work.

by Admin Fri May 04, 2012 9:05 am

Actually this tribal thing is very important for all of us to understand, remember it is over 120,000 millenia ago that modern man moved out of Africa. Over 14000 years ago teh waves of Aryans left Turkey accross Siberia,into America round into Germany, through Europe. The locust plague of humanity was on its way driving back all those early settlers.

Fascinating because every place has its own view of religion, which was to cause such havoc. All of the Abrahamic traditions are quite late, well after the actual creation, circa 2,000 BC, not way back 118,000 BC or before, all out of Persia where humanity did not start, so the Abrahamic view of creation is well off, by maybe 100,000 years. Primitive and punitive religions too many people want still to follow.

Well gone time we modernised our views of Spirit utilising the reality that we continue life beyond death in this physical world.

by KatyKing Fri May 04, 2012 11:25 am

Who was it said
Religion is ossified tribal taboo?
Not that medium who after a well received demonstration was taken to task by the irate chairman for her repeatedly using the G word during her prayer and presentation.
Medium, all apologetic; replied...
'I'm so sorry I forgot you were SNU. I mainly work the GW circuit. I'll try to remember for next time so I won't do that again here....[pause] ...God willing'.

by Lis Fri May 04, 2012 12:00 pm

I will pay you that one KK!

by KatyKing Fri May 04, 2012 12:06 pm

by Left Behind Fri May 04, 2012 8:34 pm

I always try to remember that who or what God is to me is a far less important question than the question of who or what God is.

by Quiet Fri May 04, 2012 9:45 pm

Lis wrote:"god as a bipolar mass murderer of his own children"

How apt Wez!

Having gone through the High Church system as a child and adolescent, I remember all too vividly that horrible 'god' of the Old Testement, as against the apparently much more benign 'god' of the new. Mind you, even that God seemed a bit arbitrary!

When I was a kid the Redemptorist priests used to come around to little country parishes every so often to do 'missions'. I guess these were a kind of refresher course in Catholicism for people who only had mass once a fortnight.

It was great for us because we had the full force of Catholic ritual - incense, different Latin ceremonies but BEST OF ALL were the hell fire and brimstone stories. The Redemptorists were really good at those and we were too innocent to see them as very different from nursery rhymes.

The Catholics were often better at telling you what hell was like than what heaven was like. That tells you something, doesn't it?

We were too young then to have been exposed to the great thinkers and mystics of the Church who do a slightly better job at this Smile

But I think it is great that we can later work out for ourselves what God means to us.

by Quiet Fri May 04, 2012 9:47 pm

Left Behind wrote:I always try to remember that who or what God is to me is a far less important question than the question of who or what God is.

A mysterious statement.

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