Topic: God

I'm a Buddhist / Taoist... really depends how I choose to define myself that day. Tao is a Chinese word and it can be translated to a few things of which the most common meaning is "way". I believe in God. I call it Tao. Because the word Tao does not define anything. It simply states that there IS something there, but does not explain what is it. Word "God" however does define things to an extent. The word God means different things to different people. But still, when people hear it they have some kind of image in their head about this concept. So that's why I like the word "Tao".

The reason why I do not want to use the word that defines things too much is because, first of all, Tao is not definable. And neither God is to me. God to me is everywhere, it is everything, it is eternal and omnipresent. To me it simply do not makes sense to put something eternal, omnipresent and infinite into a finite definition. Because if we define this as something as IT IS by default we also define it as something it IS NOT. For example, if we say God is an apple then it is an apple and it can not be orange, because we define it as apple. But once we define it as a red apple even further then it can not be a green apple anymore. See how definitions are limiting? It's, in my opinion, insane to define and even attempt to explain what God is. Because once we say what it is it automatically is not something else, which is false cos it is everything. Neither it makes sense to try to understand God intellectually with human mind because human mind is limited. The very essence of how human mind functions is by defining things. We can KNOW God tho but we need to discard our intellectual mind to do that and go to a place where we can have an insight beyond the mind. This is the ultimate goal of meditation for me. To go beyond the limiting mind and deeper in yourself, which is where the kingdom of God is supposed to be - within you. That's how I feel anyways...

Why do I believe what I do? I don't know. Somewhere along the way I have seen things, heard things, experienced things what made me draw those conclusions. I had those views long before I even found Buddhism or Taoism, what those religions helped me do it to put a definition on my belief system, which can be useful sometimes.

As far as NoFap goes, my religions have no rules about that. I just do this to get rid of addiction and make my brain more healthy in general. In Buddhism sexuality is completely fine, as long as one does not harm anybody by practicing it, or is a monk. And knows their limits, and is conscious about it. I went a little too far with it tho, hence I'm here. In Taoism we even have some sexual practices. Avoiding release of semen can be considered good because like that we avoid wasting our life force (Chi). I don't know how much of that is true, I am not into that part of Taoism, but I definitely feel better now that I stopped P, M and O. So maybe there is something to it.

How about yourself? Why do you hold the beliefs you do? What do you think God is like?

 

Nice thread! I sure hope it doesn't get all argumentative and awful like a few I've seen in the past about God and religion.

I'm a moderate Catholic, and I also take spiritual insight from Taoism and Buddhism like the person above.

I believe that there is one true essence, and our religions are different ways that help us find that. Alternatively one might find this essence by not being religious at all. Everyone's on a different journey, everyone has a different burden and everyone contributes something different.

 

Roman Catholic. I see it in terms of two parts of an equation; there is us and there is God; what we experience, and what we don't. Both poetic and philosophic reason gives us intimations of God, or point toward such a Supreme Being, which would enjoy all the perfections that we find ourselves lacking. Of course such a Being transcends us, and we would not really know anything meaningful or substantial about it unless this 'God' chose to communicate with us. And there you have revealed religion.

 

I would consider myself spiritual, but non-religious. I was raised in the church but broke away in my young adult years because I don't agree with all the rules and structures that religions impose on their believers. The shortest path between two points is a straight line. I'll go straight to God with my issues rather than going through an intermediary like a priest or pastor or what have you. That being said, I fully believe in everyone's right to worship in their own way and I certainly do not look down on or disparage religious people. It's just not my thing.

 

I identify as a non-denominational Christian (if that's possible). I follow the teachings of the Bible as best as I can. I usually fail miserably, but that's what makes Christianity so unique. The entire New Testament is focused around a central theme of grace (receiving something that isn't deserved). I have found Jesus Christ to be exactly who he claimed to be, that is, God himself. I believe that mankind, by default, is corrupt and incapable of doing anything to earn their way to heaven. Jesus Christ came to earth to pay my legal debt towards God and since Jesus Christ died to pay my debt and was raised back to life I now live as someone who is in a correct standing with God.

I have found God to be just, perfect, all powerful, and all knowing. I have found God to be creative, wise, and personal. I have also found God to be loving, kind, merciful, and gracious.

In the early years of my life I attended church and learned about God from the people around me. My parents, pastors, and friends have all shaped and moulded the view I have of God. When I grew older I began to investigate all my ideas and thoughts I had about God/spirituality and have found some of what I was taught to be false. The main thing that I have found is that God is so much more than I can ever expect to understand. Little by little I understand a little bit more about Him. I really enjoy light philosophy which has also shaped my view about God.

Lastly, and primarily, I am in the process of getting to know God by reading the Bible and praying to Him.

Heffe

 

I grew up as a non-denominational Christian, so it's definitely possible! I am now an atheist, and came to that when I realized that I was learning about what "The Church" believes because I couldn't say that I believed any of it when somebody asked. Life just makes so much more sense without imagining that a deity is controlling things in ways that we can't know until we figure out how it works without the deity and then we just say the deity is controlling something else behind it. This belief change has helped my recovery from PMO because I'm starting to take ownership of my own body instead of trying to believe hard enough that God would give me the strength/knowledge/willpower to beat it.

 

Celtic christian world spiritualist here!
half "pagan", half "christian" and half "world spirituality"

i am free to choose which world spirituality i like to emerse myself in with out rules nor boundaries, im a firm believer that no-one is right nor wrong, at the end of the day we all want peace and i can respect most religions without binding myself to any of them, i was raised as an Irish catholic but left the church when i was young, tried atheism for a while but was left feeling empty, basically i have no answers other than there "is" something there!

the flower and tree of life is ever present in all views that i hold, peace to you all!

ps great to see people discussing this without hate, Nofap is so cool!

 

I myself do not believe in the traditional God that is seen in most faiths. I am a person who is very oriented toward science and physics. I however do believe that the universe is made purely of energy, and that energy is within us all, within the grass and trees, within the birds and bees. I believe that if God does exist, he is everywhere at all times. Not as a being, not as a deity, not as a ruler or a supernatural occurrence, but as pure energy. I do not mean this to be blasphemous to anyone, or to offend anyone. It is simply my belief and I encourage everyone to have their own faith and belief and live by it if it makes them feel more connected to the universe and to nature. Whatever you wish to call it, there is energy.

According to the big bang theory, the universe began from a single point of infinite energy and expanded into what we now know. You could call that God. An infinite existence that expanded into life and energy. I find myself to be a person who aspires to be extremely connected with nature and the universe. We are all produced from the universe. Believe it or not, we were all (man, tree, bird, planet, even our sun) born from the deaths of other stars. Energy being transferred from one thing to another down through the eons of incomprehensible amounts of time. Death and rebirth is the process by which the universe lives, and so do we as products of it. I believe that when we die the greatest honor is for our body to return to the soil that new life may spring and blossom. That is the process. I believe our universe began and will die in much the same way.

When I feel bad and depressed I look at the sun (not staring directly into it of course). I look at the water running in the rivers, I look at the trees and the birds and the oceans. I look at the mountains. I look at the moon and the stars and the planets. I marvel at the fact that I am part of this incredibly awesome and infinite cycle of energy and life. Even to the age of the universe there is believed to be only a small window of opportunity for stars to form, and so planets and life and so on. We are a part of that. A glimmer in the sun, a glimpse into time and and way for the universe to know itself. Imagine what we are, we are beings created from the universe. Computers that were born through nature itself, with the capability to look out upon it and attempt to comprehend itself. We are the consciousness of nature, understanding our place in it, and just what we are. I couldn't comprehend anything more magnificent and awesome in beauty than that.

Which is what leads me to my life of pacifism. I have never been in a physical fight in my life, and I hope I never will be. I do not wish to harm any other being (yes everyone kills flies and roaches etc, I do too, I don't want to harm them but my human nature comes in to play and it just happens.) To me, everyone is my brother and sister, we were all born of the same things, we all are made of the same ingredients, it's not skin color, beliefs, the past or whatever that make us who we are. We are each other, we are all part of everything and everything is part of us.

 

Well, I have to say it is nice to find threads from time to time, whether about hitting on woman, or thinking about God, that are not all doom and gloom.

I'll start this post with something relevant to all who frequent forums like these; desire. For those that raise their heads above the animal level, there is a common desire for self-development which often expresses itself in an interest in spirituality and religion. And then there's a popular distinction drawn these days between spirituality and religion, where the one focuses on purely private experience, and the other on public communion. Yet, I wonder if too much is made of this distinction when spirituality becomes the positive term, and organized religion, like organized crime, becomes the derogative. I think this just reflects our individualistic culture. Yet, what both spirituality and religion seek is an escape from ego.

Anyway, I guess all we can really do, outside faith in revealed religion, is to begin with ourselves, and that's where desire is so central. I think the great 'schism' that exists between the thought of the East and that of the West, if I can apply those terms so loosely, relates to their fundamental approach to human desire. I can't help but think there is underlying the Oriental experience a disappointment of desire, it will always be frustrated, and so there is the project to free ourselves from desire altogether. Contrast this to the Occident, and you see quite an opposite project, that of directing desire to its proper and positive 'object'. Accordingly, 'God', whether the ground of being, the ultimate truth, whether transcendent or immanent, or both, will mean very different things to the two traditions or intellectual cultures.

What makes me typically human is my desire, and especially my rational desire, my will. And like everything else in this wonderful world of ours, our nature strives, develops, and grows. And where vegetation grows toward a physical sun, our vegetating mind [how we do a disservice to vegetables in thinking them inert... the organic analogy is much better than the mechanical one] grows toward an ideal, a perfection, which seems to exist metaphysically, just as our own mind does, beyond or behind, or antecedent to the world. In a word, it is destiny we travel toward making of life a journey. This life is no illusion, neither is my personality, nor my desire. The illusion is the ability of the mind to fold in on itself, to negate the world, to negate our ideas. From the Occidental perspective, which is a heroic one, a humanism, one which seeks to rise above and overcome, to believe, the Oriental appears as one which is almost dehumanizing in its retreat from the world, and in its disappointed desire which leads to doubt. Where the one is a fullness, plenitude and activity, the other seeks to negate our very concepts of these and lull ourselves into a meditative and passive sleep.

And so in sum, in our conversation of God, we should allow the possibility of existence to this divine being, and not disallow that existence off the bat by questioning all our ideas of God which lie within us like so many signposts. That disquieting image of the serpent swallowing its own tail comes to mind.

 

Filthy atheist right here, always been. Since my childhood I've been very skeptic about religion. I come from a Catholic family but my parents let me believe (or don't) anything I found the best for me. I just need proof of what all the religions say.

That said, I respect people who decide to believe, and I'm open to believe in any God if I can find proof or a good reason.

 

Religion or no religion, god gods or no god.... it doesn't matter. Morals should be based on your own heart... and PMO is morally wrong.

 

My belief is very close to yours, I thought I was atheist for a long time. I am just like you, I need proof. However I started to realize that God can be neither proven or disproved. No scientist or preacher, guru or shaman, philosopher or believer can ever totally prove or disprove the existence. Whether God does or does not exist is something beyond the comprehension of mortal man. We are simply not able to know completely. That's why they call it 'faith' and 'believing' because no one knows for certain, they just put their faith into an idea (whatever helps them). However I believe one can have faith and belief in himself, in nature, and in others without the necessity of a god.

Again, I didn't write this to try to sway anyone. I am a firm believer in letting people believe, however they choose to. Whatever one believes is right is his/her own personal choice and should be taken with equal merit as anyone elses beliefs. I just had to jump in cause I once was very close to being atheist and I want you to know that there is nothing filthy about being an atheist and nothing wrong with it. It has equal value and justification as any other belief in the world

 

According to your heart maybe. But morals are subjective.

 

Here's the problem with rational proof. It is setting the bar too high. We can't prove anything. Try proving the world really exists beyond a collection of images in your brain. Try proving you exist as a moral agent with free will [and one that can overcome addiction etc]. A belief in the world and our selves requires... belief. And if we are to exercise belief in these matters, as all sensible and sane people do, why deny ourselves belief in religious matters? And then why deny ourselves the fullness of being and joy that comes with these beliefs? I think a coherency, in all the aspects of our existence, is a better ideal to aim for than that of rational proof. Because using that as a standard for our beliefs only leads to nihilism... when consistently applied. And nihilism to despair, and despair to..

 

Totally agree with you!

I see what you mean, it is very hard to prove anything, but today that's the way I feel. Who knows, maybe tomorrow someone is gonna prove or I'll get a sign, I'm very open to the possibility of God's existance. I like the way you think, that post was gold

 

Very good point! I think that belief itself is a very primal and instinctual behavior in humans. It's like fight or flight. When someone who could be the most non believing person in the world is having a near death experience, they might start praying right then and there. Simply because we seek something that is greater than us to help us. If a man is pointing a gun at your head you might start praying, even though you're non-religious. Why? Because we're reaching for something higher than us to come in and protect us, to save us and secure us. Something that has control over this situation. This is why man has spent thousands and thousands of years searching for something greater. Trying to understand a higher being and creating temples, religions, ideologies, philosophies and lifestyles devoted to finding a higher power. This is why when something incredible happens that people cannot explain, they thank god (and it's called a miracle). I've done it, you've done it, we've all done it. Whether we believe in this religion or that, I think everyone is searching for something beyond their comprehension, beyond their mortality, beyond their consciousness.

It's hard for me to believe on a daily basis that god exists, simply because I am in a physical body. I think that's why a lot of us need 'proof'. I like to think however that there is something, whatever it may be, an energy, even just light itself, something that transcends our being.

 

For me miracle doesn't necessarily mean something we can't understand. For example we do understand how lighting works but it's still pretty damn miraculous to me. There is a proverb in Zen; “Before I sought enlightenment, the mountains were mountains and the rivers were rivers. While I sought enlightenment, the mountains were not mountains and the rivers were not rivers. After I attained enlightenment, the mountains were mountains and the rivers were rivers.” First you see world of wonders. Then you brake it down and examine it so deep that it loses it's magic, like a magic trick when it is revealed to you how it's done. That's what science does. We are so deep in trees that we can't see forest anymore. Then eventually we realize that just because we know how things work does not have to take the magic away. Change your perception of what a miracle is and you'll see them all around you. When I don't understand how things work I say "God does it". When I finally, thanks to science, understand how things work... I now know HOW God does it.

I can notice and see it too. I think we all have some kind of unsatisfying hunger in us. A bottomless hole of desire. Some people try to fill it up by going after success. Some prefer to distract themselves from it with TV, books, video games, work, maybe P. I think ultimately it's a desire to be one with the infinite. Something that's beyond our limiting physical and mental bodies. I feel it too. Maybe there is nothing there, I don't know.

 

i just want to say that after reading your comments guys, its a breath of fresh air to see the tolerance in your views, i believe tolerance is the key to a happy society and a happy life, and no matter what religion or creed its great to see that we can discuss this topic in a rational and thought provoking way without insult or offense, which prooves that we can easily co-exist without hatred,
ive always believed that its not the people themselves who ruin peace and tolerance its the leaders and religious zealots who do, for centuries in my country (Ireland) Catholics and Protestants have been killing each other non-stop, same thing happened in many European countries, millions were slaughtered in the name of the true religion which was a total waste of time and human life as both religions are in fact very simular apart from a few differences, it all boiled down to the political views of kings and queens and popes at the time and it was they who created the divide based on their own preferences , politics and lust for power and it was the "people" who were sent off to die in battle, completely insane in my opinion!

war itself is one thing but to kill someone because your dont like their definition of what God is, is frankly pathetic and shows a complete lack of biological and spritual evolution!

the only time i would "not" like a person due to their beliefs is when that person is so brainwashed into hatred that they would harm others based on their religion or beliefs, thats where i would draw the line, because life is too short and precious to argue over the symantics of the existance of anything,

God is many things to many different people,

God is the compassion in yourself ,

and if you dont believe in God then compassion for others .... is God!

ps shotdunyun dont ever call your self a filthy atheist your beliefs are just as good as anyone elses!

remember that Nofap is a secular Army, most important thing is that we all stand together against our common enemy ......Porn!

i think we would all agree that "porn" is "not" God.

 

And......It's hard for me to believe that god does not exist simply because I am in a physical body.

It's interesting how the two statements are so similar, so rational, yet so opposite. This I think goes to show how our Will, our rational desire, comes first and foremost, and then we go to Reason, like we would to a workshop, in order to hammer out some justification for our beliefs.

In the past, when we stood at the crossroads of religion and science, philosophers referred to this phenomena of mind, where reason could equally argue one way then the other on such topics of the Soul, God and an Infinite Universe, as the antinomies.

So there was a recognition that reason, of itself, simply could not decide the matter. Other resources had to come into play. We experience ourselves as moral agents, and ask what the Good Life is. We perceive the reality of our aesthetic experience, and look to art. We experience ourselves as social animals, and see our selves as part of a community. Taking these things together, as one would grasp a bundle of sticks in hand, you had a pragmatics of belief, an existential basis for belief. It wasn't a rationalism, or an ideology, but a humanism. Because we experienced ourselves all too human, we also instinctively believed that there was more than the physical.... which is all too often just a limiting abstraction of our own minds.