Who or what is God to you?

I think the protestants had their own version of your Redemptorist priests Q. I remember reading an article by Rod Liddle I think] in the TLS. 'I was a teenage Evangelist'. Rod [or the lit crit who wrote it] Was a Youth for Christ trained evangelist going round colleges and universities trying to convert students to that brand of evangelicalism. He wrote about what they called 'Dangling them over the pit' a pre scripted sermon and series of answers designed to frighten the punters and persuade them that unless they joined up then they were going to Hell to such an extent that they came forward at the end to be 'saved'.

I never thought about hell much growing up. My family has a Spiritualist history (my grandparents from both sides), but I grew up in a Baptist Church. When I hit my early teens I began to fear hell for the usual reasons of boys in their early teens.
Anyways, my fear became so great at one point that I honestly wished I would die, so that I could face 'the Judgment Seat of Christ' ahead of others I knew. Honestly, beating the bible over my head didn't make me a better young man, it just made me a very frightened one.
Once I hit my later teens I stopped believing in hell. I turned towards Spiritualist thinking at that point. I've attempted to 'go back' to traditional church a few times, but their way of thinking just doesn't stick any longer.
IMO, to believe that God would torment His children in burning fire forever and ever is the most ludicrous dogma that was ever created.
Even if "scaring the hell" out of people worked, are the people converting out of fear, or out of love?
If it's not out of love, then it aint worth much.

Quiet wrote:

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

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

If it's not out of love, then it aint worth much.

Good summary Eirefox

Growing up, I was more afraid of my parents than of going to Hell.

We never got taught that abusive nonsense in Lyceum but we did have one primary school headmaster who was a big shout in the Methodist chapel who made us all troop into it once for a service where the minister gave it large on damnation-unless.
Must have been about six at the time but I still remember thinking what a crock it all was. This daft balloon with his collar on back to front half way up the wall in a kind of enclosed shelf bollocking little kids who he didn't know and cared less about. We never even got cake or juice afterwards. You always got cake and juice at Lyceum.
I told my old Dad who must have given the headmaster a proper taste of hell because I was excused chapel attendance after that.

It was the absence of cake that swung it.
"Why don't you get cake at the chapel Daddy?" was all I asked.
BOOM! My SNU committeman and medium Dad exploded. A gentle man,it was possibly the first time I'd heard him swear.
Had their been a nice slice of chocolate cake or even a Chelsea bun on offer then who knows I might have been posting on a Methodist forum today.
Any religion that does not involve lots of cake is, to my mind; a hollow sham.

Loneblossom wrote:Growing up, I was more afraid of my parents than of going to Hell.

My father was a dragon in the family,very strict.
Very fair but one did what one was told.

Joan

Do we prey to God because it is habit?
I still think of him as the main figure in religion.
Then thoughts of what I read in the Silver Birch book,made sense.
One called the 'Great Spirit'.
No other religion but this mysterious 'god' ?

You ask nine out of ten spirits what God is all about and they'll give you variations on the theme of...
No idea.
Guides from way back [who passed pre Spiritualism] might say God cos that's what they were used to using. Spirit/God/Great Spirit are different names for the same power.
Summerland/Heaven = same place with different ideas on this side as to what it is like.
Seeing as spirits who come back live there I tend to go along with what they say and what I've been shown which pretty much reflects what AJD, Doris Stokes and others who have had a glimpse of it describe.
Nice place, lovely neighbours, excellent schools and shops. Quality of starter homes over there depends on what we built via our deeds whilst on this side.

KatyKing wrote:You ask nine out of ten spirits what God is all about and they'll give you variations on the theme of...
No idea.
Guides from way back [who passed pre Spiritualism] might say God cos that's what they were used to using. Spirit/God/Great Spirit are different names for the same power.
Summerland/Heaven = same place with different ideas on this side as to what it is like.
Seeing as spirits who come back live there I tend to go along with what they say and what I've been shown which pretty much reflects what AJD, Doris Stokes and others who have had a glimpse of it describe.
Nice place, lovely neighbours, excellent schools and shops. Quality of starter homes over there depends on what we built via our deeds whilst on this side.

Now I find that strange,KK
I assumed that once we passed into spirit,we would know exactly how and whom was in charge.
Not saying we would know everything,but as regarding religion (whoever or whatever) would be made obvious to us.
(shows how much I know about the spirit world)
Housing....Yes,I read about that.
Did you ever read the book titled 'What Dreams may Come'?
A lot of research went into that book.
So much information and I assume was correct from the research.

[O my Lord]
BY RABI'A
TRANSLATED BY JANE HIRSHFIELD

O my Lord,

if I worship you
from fear of hell, burn me in hell.

If I worship you
from hope of Paradise, bar me from its gates.

But if I worship you
for yourself alone, grant me then the beauty of your Face.

Lovely prayer. Thank you Q.
Joan I have no idea really about who gets to know the big man in Spirit. Just going on what I get. Way I hear it squares with what I was taught [nd completely ignored]when I was a kid.
We all go to Summerland and most stay there. Once everyone we knew is also back home then we and they can opt to go up. Where I don't know but spirits from above [for want of a better word] pop down to Summerland for the odd chat. It's that level who work as guides here too in the main. Sort of a higher degree of spirit [Angels is what Elaine next door reckons those are]. Now I presume but don't know; that it's those or maybe even another lot above them as are nearer to head office as it were. So they do know more about God than those lower down [figuratively] in Summerland.
Now then there are also them as come back here from that higher level to Earth to mark our collective card now and then. Hence your Buddha,Jesus, Dalai Lamas and the like who are reincarnated as real people to do a particular job. Their equivalents who come as higher spirits are your SB, White Feather and Eagle etc.
We'll all know more eventually that's for sure. I'm settling for Summerland and sticking to that. Might change me mind after a few million years. Who knows? But just suppose that Throneroom of God stuff is right and it's all harps and Alleluias up at head office. I don't fancy that one bit plus I don't think they'd want me really. I can't sing.

Great stuff, KK. I would be happy in Summerland for a while I think I saw a little bit of it once. Beautiful place

In one of those YouTube sound tapes of Silver Birch speaking he says quite clearly that he is a human being. Note the IS

And he says that beings at his level still make mistakes. Not the first time I've heard this . Made me feel better.

That Bab too as started the Bahais. He was another. Ann Lee possibly for the Shakers and I'd say Joanna Southcott too [so would she] but the still jury's out on Joanna. We'll know for sure if ever they get round to sorting out opening her box of sealed prophecies. Best not to hold our breath for that to happen any time soon though!

I really don't get this whole worship thing. Isn't the need for worship in religion just another way it maintains power and control over people? By Putting God/Jesus at the top of the ladder and us at the bottom, it disempowers us and gives us very sore necks from having to prostrate ourselves and look up all the time.

With the spark of the divine within us all, where is the need to worship something that is already a part of us? Thanks and gratitude are far more appropriate and more empowering, as we would thank a friend who walks alongside us, asking of us nothing more than we express the spirit within us to the fullest extent we can manage.

Make mistakes!
Guides?
Thee wash thy mouth mistress!
Says Joanna.
;-)

You are so right Q. Guides are as good as their fallible human instruments. I was inherited by mine, she kinda runs in the family; but my Dad did better by her than ever I have done.

Yep that more or less sums up Summerland attitude Wes. No one especially bothering to look up. and each personally responsible for own development. But this worship malarkey is a bit of a theme in all religions so you never know.
Not my cup of tea though. I've had enough of heirarchies down here to want anything to do with 'em beyond. That whole up and down language is figurative. Maybe further progressed is better.

KatyKing wrote:Yep that more or less sums up Summerland attitude Wes. No one especially bothering to look up. and each personally responsible for own development. But this worship malarkey is a bit of a theme in all religions so you never know.
Not my cup of tea though. I've had enough of heirarchies down here to want anything to do with 'em beyond. That whole up and down language is figurative. Maybe further progressed is better.

Further progressed or more evolved, either way it doesn't mean superior or worthy of worship

I would like to take a quote from "The Unobstructed Universe" by Stewart Edward White.
This is his late wife Betty talking through Joan,their close friend.Joan is in a trance.

"Recognition of the creator as greater than the thing created," she
answered promptly. "Acceptance of the Oneness of Consciousness as a
whole. Realization that man's thoughts and activities are a real and
vital part of the scheme of things, having their effect on the Whole as
well as on himself. Not only here and now, in his own little segment of
the universe, but on out in an eternal continuity. Immortality! Not as
some vague and distant possibility! But you--here--now! This is the thing
you must recapture as an immediate and working principle if the new
pattern is not to crumble as has the old."

Such, Betty told us, is the purpose of her divulgence.

"I must make reasonable," said she, "the HERENESS of immortality. For you
as well as me, and for me as well as you. Man has always had some
conception of the THERENESS of immortality. And the thought was
good--fertile in aspiration and inspiration, pregnant with comfort and
content. But the new thought I would bring to you is better. For the
HERENESS of immortality, once you understand it and accept it, will make
what has seemed to you vague, entirely and triumphantly real."

kind regards to all
Stephen

skfarblum wrote:I would like to take a quote from "The Unobstructed Universe" by Stewart Edward White.
This is his late wife Betty talking through Joan,their close friend.Joan is in a trance.

"Recognition of the creator as greater than the thing created," she
answered promptly. "Acceptance of the Oneness of Consciousness as a
whole. Realization that man's thoughts and activities are a real and
vital part of the scheme of things, having their effect on the Whole as
well as on himself. Not only here and now, in his own little segment of
the universe, but on out in an eternal continuity. Immortality! Not as
some vague and distant possibility! But you--here--now! This is the thing
you must recapture as an immediate and working principle if the new
pattern is not to crumble as has the old."

Such, Betty told us, is the purpose of her divulgence.

"I must make reasonable," said she, "the HERENESS of immortality. For you
as well as me, and for me as well as you. Man has always had some
conception of the THERENESS of immortality. And the thought was
good--fertile in aspiration and inspiration, pregnant with comfort and
content. But the new thought I would bring to you is better. For the
HERENESS of immortality, once you understand it and accept it, will make
what has seemed to you vague, entirely and triumphantly real."

kind regards to all
Stephen

I love this.

It gives me a sense of my true nature as spirit and a sense of power in creating my own life and reality, integrated with others. I need be a bystander no more . We can be caught in the momentum of spiritual growth which happens across worlds.

My former teacher comments often that the next dimension is very close and that we continually bump into loved ones who have passed. We can be close to them when conditions are right.

Until she said that I had images of various spirits sloshing down through fog and mud into our somewhat pedestrian world.

'Worship' is a theologians construct. Having to go to some wee hoosie at a fixed time to do so is simply because that's when the collection plates are brought out.

There are times, naturally, when we feel the need for gratitude to the great spirit, giving thanks for the very fabric of our lives and other occasions when we request help for someone, but this is done personally and privately.

'Worship' is a theologians construct. Having to go to some wee hoosie at a fixed time to do so is simply because that's when the collection plates are brought out.

There are times, naturally, when we feel the need for gratitude to the great spirit, giving thanks for the very fabric of our lives and other occasions when we request help for someone, but this is done personally and privately.

Quiet wrote:

skfarblum wrote:I would like to take a quote from "The Unobstructed Universe" by Stewart Edward White.
This is his late wife Betty talking through Joan,their close friend.Joan is in a trance.

"Recognition of the creator as greater than the thing created," she
answered promptly. "Acceptance of the Oneness of Consciousness as a
whole. Realization that man's thoughts and activities are a real and
vital part of the scheme of things, having their effect on the Whole as
well as on himself. Not only here and now, in his own little segment of
the universe, but on out in an eternal continuity. Immortality! Not as
some vague and distant possibility! But you--here--now! This is the thing
you must recapture as an immediate and working principle if the new
pattern is not to crumble as has the old."

Such, Betty told us, is the purpose of her divulgence.

"I must make reasonable," said she, "the HERENESS of immortality. For you
as well as me, and for me as well as you. Man has always had some
conception of the THERENESS of immortality. And the thought was
good--fertile in aspiration and inspiration, pregnant with comfort and
content. But the new thought I would bring to you is better. For the
HERENESS of immortality, once you understand it and accept it, will make
what has seemed to you vague, entirely and triumphantly real."

kind regards to all
Stephen

I love this.

It gives me a sense of my true nature as spirit and a sense of power in creating my own life and reality, integrated with others. I need be a bystander no more . We can be caught in the momentum of spiritual growth which happens across worlds.

My former teacher comments often that the next dimension is very close and that we continually bump into loved ones who have passed. We can be close to them when conditions are right.

Until she said that I had images of various spirits sloshing down through fog and mud into our somewhat pedestrian world.

Imagine a cardboard box pressed flat before usage,identify that with the physical world. Dimension 3.
Now imagine a cardboard box opened to it's full size. That is the spirit world. Dimension 4.
As described to me.
Joan

Dear Quiet,
I am so pleased that Betty's words resonate with you.I also felt so much like you wrote,

I would go so far to say that this expresses my personal
life philosophy.Simple,altruistic and being a unique part (even if minuscule) of something
beautiful and wonderful.
Thank you
Stephen

Dear Joan,
A useful description.Have you considered holographic spheres of different
vibrations,one within the other and yet all occupying the same single sphere.
Consciousness at different degrees of awareness.All united by a single magnetic
force ,which we would call Love.(perhaps one could call this God)