Sabine Grant

Bonjour JOEJOEJOE ! I think you will recieve different responses to your questions as theists (mono I assume)tend to believe in various doctrines and even have various perceptions of their god. Aknowledging that will prevent labeling and generalizing all theists under one particular post.

Please keep my comment in mind as you read my response.I do not pertain to represent all theists. Nor do I wish for my replies to be generalized. This is my belief, my personal choice not necessarly another theist's choice. Also I will have to give you some of my background to allow you to examine closely the progression of my own perception of God.

I grew up mostly in theistic cultures( both Islam and catholicism). As a child, my perception of God thru the catholicism of my mother was some old bearded man sitting on a cloud who would give me a pat on the back if I did good or chastedize me if I did bad.

In my teen years, I naviguated in agnosticism ( my father's influence)with the belief that there was a divine somewhere but " surely he had to be greater than some entity who did not show mercy to the ones who did bad". I slowly drifted into pantheism later as I found the notion of perfection around me in natural elements. I could not attribute it all to only an accident.

In my mid thirties, I decided to explore the character of Christ as described in the 4 Gospels. I was deeply attracted by his character. I then found the divine in him. I associated the spirit ( reply from Agapeo) with his character and accepted Christ as the sole representative of the divine. I make no difference today between Christ and the character of the divine. He fulfilled my quest for a greater image of God. He needed not to resurrect or make any miracles to fulfill that quest. I am content with the guidelines and teachings he has presented. They fit what I need to be a " better version of myself".

In my case, faith is indeed based on personal experiences. It was a process. Still ongoing today. The believer I was 2 years ago is different from the believer I am today.

Even though I can relate to Agapeo on a faith level, because Agapeo is not me and I am not him, we both may have different perceptions of God. We did not live the same lives. Did not share the same experiences.Do not have the same memories.

However, we may both try to look up when looking all around does not bring the answers.

agapeo

Hi again, Joe,
I agree and thus I generally keep my posts brief and hopefully to the point.
To which I can't disagree, except to say I'm not one who is complaining.
That was not a complaint but rather an observation.
Fair enough. I'll give it a whirl your way. Although my answers may still seem vague. For time constraints reasons though I will have to take it slow.

You ask:
"What is your God?"

My God is love.

A previous respondant to this topic already anticipated (in a sarcastic manner) this answer and so I thought why bother stating it again. But let's go with that one and see where it leads.
The only way I can interpret my God is from the text that claim to make Him known. The question is always going to be whether my interpretation is correct. But hey, it works for me.

agapeo

I agree, Sabine with this sentiment and I take it as very thoughtful and considerate of you to say.

Defiant Heretic

What is your god?
The Invisible Pink Unicorn

How do you know?/Where do you get your information?
From the <a href="http://www.geocities.com/ipuprophecy/scripture.html" target="_blank">IPU Scriptures</a>. (Now in convenient .chm format)

Are there any special rules we need to know about interpreting this information? (i.e. Is all/some/little of it true? Is all/some/little of it accurate? When is something literal or metaphorical? Do we need to believe first, before we can interpret? Are there any supercessions that we know about, and what precisely do they supercede? etc.)
If the scriptures appear to contradict each other, it's only because we humans don't understand them properly.

When you ascribe adjectives to your god(s) based on your understanding of the information, how is it different from us ascribing adjectives to your god(s) based on our understanding of the information?
It's not different at all, provided you understand the information correctly.

Which personal experiences count, and which don't?
Only the ones that are really from the IPU count.

Why does this god(s) get preferential treatment over other hypothesised gods? Or: Why does the information that you have get preferential treatment over the information of other gods?
Because the IPU is the one true goddess.

Sabine Grant

Do you find the practice of pertaining to penetrate the mind of other people and speak for them a rational one? I really do not. You certainly lack the ability to reflect what my mind may contain.

I guess you just wanted to add fuel on the fire.
I was under the impression that JoeJoeJoe sincerely wanted to see theists add water to the well.

Sabine Grant

The commoness is the means we both have to find an answer. Whether it is the acceptance of hardship or the quest for the " better version". In either case, we both percieve that our God is love. You have this character in your screen name. You can be held more accountable than I can because you carry the word "love" with you. And I must say as a touch of encouragement that you carry it well.

( that was a moment of agape offered by two theists who will be raved and ranted at for the rest of this thread) hehehehehe

Celsus

Hi agapeo,

You've so far told me that your god is a spirit, misunderstood, and that he is love (personified I presume). Now, how does this Love display its/his characteristics?

I wouldn't wish to inflict Pascal's wager on you, so rather than asking you why, I'll ask you: How do you make this interpretation?

==================================================

Bonsoir Sabine,

As did I. I take it from other posts you were in Africa? I was a missionary kid, born in Niger, that beautiful but starving country normally ranked second last on UNDP Human Development Reports (and the last place usually goes to the country with the worst war going on, most recently Afghanistan). Having also lived in Singapore (mostly, but not confined to Buddhist, Islamic, Christian and Hindu religions), Ghana (animist, Islamic, Christian), Nigeria (ditto) and England (agnostic, Christian) I would say that I've experienced the whole gamut of world religions somewhere along the line.

Quite a liberal interpretation you've got there. Respect. However, if he is all powerful, and all knowing, why doesn't he know how to be perfect, or able to become perfect? Surely the knowledge of becoming perfect is available through omniscience?

Perhaps you should address these sorts of ideas in the Evolution/Creation boards. I'm not an expert, but nature is far from perfect, and shows a great deal of chance (as does life, which we would expect if it originated by chance).

Why did you trust the gospels over other things? How did you know the Christ depicted in the gospels was accurate? Why did you believe Christ was the "sole representative of the divine"? (Do you see why I phrased the questions as I did?)

So basically, you found what you were looking for. Is it possible, that what you found was really a reflection of yourself - an ideal that you longed for but couldn't crystalise in your mind? There is nothing wrong with this, except that many people of different personalities looked and found exactly what they were looking for in their holy texts. Sometimes it was a call for inquisition, sometimes for charity sometimes for holy war, sometimes for asceticism, sometimes for intolerance, sometimes for love, sometimes a defense of slavery, etc. Personal experience (and personal values, formed through experience) did play a big role in all these interpretations of their holy book. Given the importance you place on personal experience, it should not surprise you that sick people came up with sick interpretations (and the atheists here are keen to tell you about it).

Now I've no personal problems with your interpretation, but I do have general problems with the interpretation of people who use it to justify their own ends. In some cases, the end is good (like yours, perhaps), in other cases the end is terrifying (think Southern Baptists during the American Civil War, etc.) Do you recognise why we atheists feel that something beyond personal experience must be used to judge whether a book shows truth or not?

Thus when we purportedly misrepresent your god, what we are giving is (usually a worst case scenario) how someone, given the right (or wrong) inclinations, will use it to justify horrific things. Because theists place their book as an authority from which to base their beliefs, they inadvertently let bad people justify their actions in the name of a god.

We call this higher thing that is superior to personal experience, "reason". It is safely operable in an open society, because everything can be questioned, and nothing is too divine to question. Sure it can be abused (if not checked), but it does not claim to be always right. It can always be questioned, unlike the fundamentalists' holy books.

Here's hoping you'll look inwards when all around doesn't bring answers.


Cheers,
Joel

P.S. Perchance, Sirenspeak, thanks for your attempts, but we don't want to risk distorting god, in a thread about not distorting god, do we?

Defiant Heretic, it may be embarassing to admit now, but I wrote some of those scriptures, so piss off.

schu, I never really expected a reply anyway, but it's nice to have a couple now.

Sabine Grant

I am glad to meet you JoeJoeJoe. There is one quote in the middle that is not mine... the one about God being all knowing etc... not that I disagree but it appears that you thought it was my comment.

I lived mostly in Senegal, Ivory Coast, Madagascar and Morocco.Loved it all.My father traveled to Nigeria several times.

I want to respond to your question and yes I understand why you phrased it that way. I suppose that since I had been exposed to christianity, it made sense that I would seek that betterment thru something already familiar. Allah never thrilled me....and I already pointed that I refered to the 4 gospels to discover Christ.

Your argument ( very humanistic) that it is a projection of myself was presented to me before. The fact is that the theist is not self dependent but god dependent. I do not refute that at all.
It also brings in the notion of not being self centered but god centered.( at least if one is really growing in faith).

Now Joe can you accept that I may thrive more as a person being god dependent than self dependent? I realize it is not the recipe for all. But for my own "cooking", it works.

There is also the fact that I sincerely have love for Christ. It does not matter to me that I cannot see him or touch him. I do not even think I love him because of his sacrifice as depicted in the Bible. I love him because he is who he is. He is my inspiration. What more can I say. I care not to justify my faith because it is not justifiable by means of reason. It is something very personal. I can explain how "it feels", what " it does" but I cannot justify it.

Oh if you ask me more questions I may not be able to reply for a while. so please be patient. I will definitly check this thread as soon as I can.

You all have a good night.
Veronique.

Jobar

Joel said:
"So basically, you found what you were looking for. Is it possible, that what you found was really a reflection of yourself - an ideal that you longed for but couldn't crystalise in your mind? There is nothing wrong with this, except that many people of different personalities looked and found exactly what they were looking for in their holy texts. Sometimes it was a call for inquisition, sometimes for charity sometimes for holy war, sometimes for asceticism, sometimes for intolerance, sometimes for love, sometimes a defense of slavery, etc. "

Precisely.

Hateful people have hateful gods; good and loving people have loving gods. Each individual theist sees their own individual god.

Any two theists, if brought together and allowed to discuss god in a free and open atmosphere, in which no social or theological pressures are being brought to bear, will in fairly short order find disagreements about their conceptions of god, no matter that they were raised in the same tradition, in the same town, in the same church.

And, quite possibly, they may wind up each accusing the other of distorting the truth about god. Happens all the time. Why, sometimes it progresses to open warfare and bloody murder. The history books are replete with examples.

As the far-and-away best represented religion here, let's look at Christianity. How can you ever expect a clear and undistorted explanation for a religion whose saviour figure comes: a) bringing not peace, but a sword; and b) teaching love for your enemies, and the turning of the other cheek? There is simply no way to give a complete and undistorted understanding of a flatly self-contradicting description of god.

Joel, I admire your restraint, and would be delighted to be shown how my view of their god is incorrect; as a moderator of the EoG forum, I listen every day for honest and believable answers to your questions. I can't say I ever expect to see those answers.

[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: Jobar ]</p>

Pitshade

This one is going to General Religion...