Alright, theres always helllla posts about religion in this forum......and I was wonderin what everybody thinks about when the issue of who's God is real comes up. Does anyone believe that their God is the ONLY God, just because that happens to be your choice in religion do you believe other people are any less credible in believing in their God? Or do you think that "God" is a personal belief, and that theres no need for an "only" God becuase faith is really what "God" boils down to????
Yall got me thinkin bout this shit........
- Thread starter WcMalice
- Start date
"Who's God is real" --
If one thinks about it, God is not a possession waiting to be verified as "real". No one has a monopoly on God, nor possession of Him. We don't even possess our own bodies.
God exists. Some realize this, others don't.
He is the Absolute, the all-pervading Supreme Being.
*Regardless* of the name of God one uses to worship Him by, they are addressing and worshipping the one same unchanging Supreme Lord.
Krsna: [color=sky blue]"Unintelligent men, who know Me not, think that I have assumed this form and personality. Due to their small knowledge, they do not know My higher nature, which is changeless and supreme."[/color] Bhagavad-gita 7.24
Thus, the impersonal Brahman or Void or the impersonal mental fabrications of various "religions", are not representative of the Supreme Person, God.
The incomplete and unmanifested impersonal effulgence is subordinate to the complete and eternally manifested Supreme Person. Brahman is dependent on Parabrahman, just as the formless impersonal sunshine is dependent on the localized sun globe which possesses form.
Personally I view the Supreme as being a conscious, intelligent, and infinite Person. His name is Krsna. Others view the Supreme as YHWH, Jesus, Void, Allah, Siva, Buddha, etc...
It is not that there is "ONLY" such and such God, but that different people come to different levels of ***realization*** of the supreme and unchanging God.
Some view Him as impersonal, unintelligent, unconscious. Some view Him as a parental figure, who is "angry" whenever bad things happen and who is "beneficent" whenever something good happens. Some view Him as nonexistent. And then there are those who are able to perceive Him AS HE IS, in His eternal, transcendental form.
Whatever form one perceives of God as, one should attach their mind to it more and more, inquire about it more and more, and if one is fairly certain He is there then they should sincerely ask for direction and empty their mind onto Him. In this way the Supersoul within the heart will give the understanding by which the conditioned soul may reawaken.
If one thinks about it, God is not a possession waiting to be verified as "real". No one has a monopoly on God, nor possession of Him. We don't even possess our own bodies.
God exists. Some realize this, others don't.
He is the Absolute, the all-pervading Supreme Being.
*Regardless* of the name of God one uses to worship Him by, they are addressing and worshipping the one same unchanging Supreme Lord.
Krsna: [color=sky blue]"Unintelligent men, who know Me not, think that I have assumed this form and personality. Due to their small knowledge, they do not know My higher nature, which is changeless and supreme."[/color] Bhagavad-gita 7.24
Thus, the impersonal Brahman or Void or the impersonal mental fabrications of various "religions", are not representative of the Supreme Person, God.
The incomplete and unmanifested impersonal effulgence is subordinate to the complete and eternally manifested Supreme Person. Brahman is dependent on Parabrahman, just as the formless impersonal sunshine is dependent on the localized sun globe which possesses form.
Personally I view the Supreme as being a conscious, intelligent, and infinite Person. His name is Krsna. Others view the Supreme as YHWH, Jesus, Void, Allah, Siva, Buddha, etc...
It is not that there is "ONLY" such and such God, but that different people come to different levels of ***realization*** of the supreme and unchanging God.
Some view Him as impersonal, unintelligent, unconscious. Some view Him as a parental figure, who is "angry" whenever bad things happen and who is "beneficent" whenever something good happens. Some view Him as nonexistent. And then there are those who are able to perceive Him AS HE IS, in His eternal, transcendental form.
Whatever form one perceives of God as, one should attach their mind to it more and more, inquire about it more and more, and if one is fairly certain He is there then they should sincerely ask for direction and empty their mind onto Him. In this way the Supersoul within the heart will give the understanding by which the conditioned soul may reawaken.
Religion is a prehistoric science...
Sigmund Freud, Austrian physician and pioneer psychoanalyst (1856-1939).
"It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be."
"In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is palpable."
"The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life."
Freud certainly regarded belief in God as an illusion that mature men and women should lay aside. The idea of God was not a lie but a device of the unconscious which needed to be decoded by psychology. A personal god was nothing more than an exalted father-figure: desire for such a deity sprang from infantile yearnings for a powerful, protective father, for justice and fairness and for life to go on forever. God is simply a projection of these desires, feared and worshipped by human beings out of an abiding sense of helplessness. Religion belonged to the infancy of the human race; it had been a necessary stage in the transition from childhood to maturity. It had promoted ethical values which were essential to society. Now that humanity had come of age, however, it should be left behind. [A History of God]
Albert Einstein, German born American threoretical physicist (1879-1955).
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." [From a letter Einstein wrote in English, dated 24 March 1954. It is included in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, published by Princeton University Press.
If this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him? [Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950), p. 27.]
During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution, human fantasy created gods in man's own image who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate influence, the phenomenal world... The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old conception of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes... In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vase power in the hands of priests. [Albert Einstein, reported in Science, Philosophy and Religion: A Symposium, edited by L. Bryson and L. Finkelstein. Quoted in: 2000 Years of Disbelief. by James Haught]
Sigmund Freud, Austrian physician and pioneer psychoanalyst (1856-1939).
"It would be very nice if there were a God who created the world and was a benevolent providence, and if there were a moral order in the universe and an after-life; but it is a very striking fact that all this is exactly as we are bound to wish it to be."
"In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is palpable."
"The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life."
Freud certainly regarded belief in God as an illusion that mature men and women should lay aside. The idea of God was not a lie but a device of the unconscious which needed to be decoded by psychology. A personal god was nothing more than an exalted father-figure: desire for such a deity sprang from infantile yearnings for a powerful, protective father, for justice and fairness and for life to go on forever. God is simply a projection of these desires, feared and worshipped by human beings out of an abiding sense of helplessness. Religion belonged to the infancy of the human race; it had been a necessary stage in the transition from childhood to maturity. It had promoted ethical values which were essential to society. Now that humanity had come of age, however, it should be left behind. [A History of God]
Albert Einstein, German born American threoretical physicist (1879-1955).
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." [From a letter Einstein wrote in English, dated 24 March 1954. It is included in Albert Einstein: The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, published by Princeton University Press.
If this being is omnipotent, then every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and every human feeling and aspiration is also His work; how is it possible to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before such an almighty Being? In giving out punishment and rewards He would to a certain extent be passing judgment on Himself. How can this be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to Him? [Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950), p. 27.]
During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution, human fantasy created gods in man's own image who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate influence, the phenomenal world... The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old conception of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes... In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vase power in the hands of priests. [Albert Einstein, reported in Science, Philosophy and Religion: A Symposium, edited by L. Bryson and L. Finkelstein. Quoted in: 2000 Years of Disbelief. by James Haught]
I just think everyone has their own 'definition' of what/who God is. I don't think that there's a God of any religion that is better than the God of the next. How do I know my religion is the right one? How do I know that the God I worship is the right God? I don't. I don't think there is one right religion & one right God. But I think that religions are just people's different ways of viewing who/what God is.
I agree with this, but you have to ask yourself: If everyone is living under the same God, isn't it very likely that "it" has made itself available to be known to us?
An opinion is a belief or a judgement, and does not represent truth. "That painting is beautiful", is an opinion of an object, but it is subjective and is tainted by personal desires and preconceived notions rather than an objective and unchanging truth (2+2=4).
If all there is are opinions, then that means the Supreme Being wishes for us to be ridden with doubts, fears, anxieties, and does not want to be known. That is simply untrue, for the eternal occupation of the soul is to be the friend, lover, parent, associate, and servant of the Lord. The Lord gives us the scientific method by which one can realize Him as He is, and awaken the soul to it's natural constitutional position. God can be seen face-to-face, by those who are able to peer behind the curtain of maya.
What most people think is that God either cannot or has not communicated Himself with man, and that man is forced to guess, speculate, hypothesize and offer opinions about "it", and never actually "Know" conclusively whether or not there is a God and what it's nature is.
But if you look at death, we can't say that in our opinion we will die. It is not an opinion, it is unchanging truth. It is absolute knowledge of something beyond all doubt and belief. So if we can know something such as our own mortality with such pure certainty, why would anyone assume that God has not made Himself available to be known in the same exact way??
In my opinion 2 plus 2 equals 4.
Truth is truth, and opinions are judgements and beliefs about that truth.
You are right though, most people mistake opinion for fact.
An opinion is a belief or a judgement, and does not represent truth. "That painting is beautiful", is an opinion of an object, but it is subjective and is tainted by personal desires and preconceived notions rather than an objective and unchanging truth (2+2=4).
If all there is are opinions, then that means the Supreme Being wishes for us to be ridden with doubts, fears, anxieties, and does not want to be known. That is simply untrue, for the eternal occupation of the soul is to be the friend, lover, parent, associate, and servant of the Lord. The Lord gives us the scientific method by which one can realize Him as He is, and awaken the soul to it's natural constitutional position. God can be seen face-to-face, by those who are able to peer behind the curtain of maya.
What most people think is that God either cannot or has not communicated Himself with man, and that man is forced to guess, speculate, hypothesize and offer opinions about "it", and never actually "Know" conclusively whether or not there is a God and what it's nature is.
But if you look at death, we can't say that in our opinion we will die. It is not an opinion, it is unchanging truth. It is absolute knowledge of something beyond all doubt and belief. So if we can know something such as our own mortality with such pure certainty, why would anyone assume that God has not made Himself available to be known in the same exact way??
In my opinion 2 plus 2 equals 4.
Truth is truth, and opinions are judgements and beliefs about that truth.
You are right though, most people mistake opinion for fact.