Finger-Painting God

First select your colors. Choose whichever colors you like. If you prefer Orange to Red then grab the Orange and trash the Red.

Next, pick a piece of colored paper, any color will do. Spread the paper out and start slinging paint! Mold the picture of God into any shape or form you wish, it’s your God and you can make him out any way you like. Too much Orange, drop in some Yellow and lighten it up. There you go, keep pushing that paint around until you get it right where you want it.

If you don’t like one thing but prefer another, that’s ok, just make the change. This God is your God and can be made to fit any preconceived bias or notions that you have. Now, take this God of your own design and run around with it held high over your head. Show all the other children what you’ve created. They can show you their God as well.

If you see something about their God that you would like to adopt for your God, no problem, just take your God back to the paint and splat away. Your God after all is an evolving God and is open to change. But wait! There’s something about your God that you didn’t see before, something that you do not like. Does this disturb you? Fear not, your concerns are nothing that a new smear of paint cannot fix. There, your God is perfect yet again.

No one is seeking God on these forums. No one wants the truth; they only desire to mold a God of their own design and then claim him as their own. Read the forums and see if I’m not wrong. They say things like, “Well, that’s not what I see in God I think he is more like this or that.” Or, “Well, God wouldn’t be like that because that’s just wrong, my God is…” They write a lot about what God is like or is not like and back it up with little or no reason outside of their own desire as to why God is the way they believe him or her to be.

As I read these forums and watch people molding a God after their own heart I recall a piece of Word from the mind of the one true God.

2 Timothy 4:2-4 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away [their] ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.


Machine

Machine I understand what you are saying....

People want a modern God.....many say that we are living not as yesterday but today is a different world to what it was....This very''NEW WORLD'' we live in, will actually be the coming of the Antichrist...

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and for ever (Heb. 13:8):

here is a parable......

And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray;
the one a Pharisee,
and the other a publican.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself,
God,
I thank Thee,
that I am not as other men are,
extortioners,
unjust,
adulterers,
or even as this publican.
I fast twice in the week,
I give tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven,
but smote upon his breast,
saying,
God be merciful to me a sinner.
I tell you,
this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. (St. Luke 18:9-14)

Thus, when they do good, they should always remember Jesus’ admonition to His disciples,

So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do. (St. Luke 17:10)

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom...." (Proverbs 1:7) and "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell" (St. Matthew 10:28)

"...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." (Phil 2:12)


IX
helen

You know what. This is a great post. Impressive Machine.

However, I would argue that you are guilty of the same thing. So, keep finger painting. If your done fingerpainting, thats ok too. Just criticise the error in everyone elses paintings!

Machine...I love your analogy. It carries a valuable lesson and does so in simplistic terms which are, IMO, the only correct types. To obfuscate meanings with arcane drivel only makes understanding murky and indefinable.

I have only one problem with it, though.

The piece of paper, coloured the way the child liked and adapted again by the child when compared to anothers'...is external.

Are you implying that God is external and can only be external?

Hes implying that he is right and anything that you disagree with him on in regards to a god.....is wrong in your perspective. After all you just made it up to suit your views.

Obviously, you cannot agree 100% with his spiritual viewpoints. So, obviously you are wrong.

Great analogy!

See these things for what they are. Insults. This was an insult to you masqua. It was an insult to me. The problem is that people dont think enough to see it.

I believe that truth is absolute and does not yield to independent interpretations. I also believe in the Holy Bible as the standard by which all truth is to be measured. I did not decide what the standard would be, I simply found it, investigated it, and now abide by it.

When I searched for God I didn’t start by creating a template of what I would and would not accept in a God. I only sought after the truth and was ready to accept it in whatever form I found it.

The lessons for today’s world are just the opposite. They start off with a list of what God can and cannot be then look for that God of their own design. If the truth gets in the way of their search they dismiss it and move on. If, after their search is complete they could not find a God to their liking they make one up and run with it.

It reminds me of a reporter I gave a story to many years ago. I told him the facts of the crime and he clearly understood them. The following day the story ran and it had several serious errors of fact. I called the reporter and asked him why he had changed the facts of the story. His reply is one that I will never forget.

“I never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”


Machine

Sight2reality
Hes implying that he is right and anything that you disagree with him on in regards to a god.....is wrong in your perspective. After all you just made it up to suit your views.

My point was clear. My wife sometimes makes the same mistake that you have made. I tell her something in a clear and concise manner, she then attempts to read more out of it than what I said. Take what I say as literal and straight forward. I don’t mince words.

My rant on this post was not against someone who may hold to a different religious view. The rant is against the intellectually dishonest manner in which they seek to formulate that view. One person may seek God and find what they believe to be the truth in the Quran. He then studies his new found faith and follows it without adding his own prejudice and bias. This is honest in my view. But most of the posts that I read in this forum are not that at all. It’s just various people making up the rules as they go along.

Clear enough?


Machine

I fully understand your issue with the process of logic. The formulation of perspective is incorrect. You are correct about that. However, that does not take away your belief that arises as a result. The belief that you are right, and all those who disagree with you on these matters must be wrong as a result. Even your own wife.

You believe that all truths begin with the bible. Lets figure out what these truths are, and why you trust them so much.

I challenge you to discuss your beliefs with me, in open forum. No insults. Just logic. I know the end result of a discussion like this will be disagreement between the two of us. However, it should be a good way to show everyone who the both of us are. Deep down, where do you stand? Find out by having this discussion.


[edit on 22-8-2005 by Sight2reality]

Originally posted by Machine

If you see something about their God that you would like to adopt for your God, no problem, just take your God back to the paint and splat away. Your God after all is an evolving God and is open to change. But wait! There’s something about your God that you didn’t see before, something that you do not like. Does this disturb you? Fear not, your concerns are nothing that a new smear of paint cannot fix. There, your God is perfect yet again.

I think we are at the beginnings of a great debate about how we perceive Deity. In the above analogy, the child adapts a concept of Deity which, if I may extrapolate, concurs with his or her logic. (Let's from this point on call the subject Tom) As he forms his vision of the Deity through logic, he is actually communicating his inner spirituality onto a material object.

Tom is producing an idol...a material manifestation of a Deity.

Whatever is produced from the mind of mankind and held up to be a material manifestation of Deity can be determined to be similar, no matter how strident Tom is that it was the hand of Deity that guided him.

What then can we say of all the works produced in the worlds religions?
Are there any artifacts which are purely the work of Deity, unsullied by the hands of mankind? This extends to statues, books, dogmas and laws.

And where does logic fit into this? Do we really need to externalize Deity by producing 'inspired' works?

The only reason we do is so we can have symbols of the Deities...so we can show them to others and say; "Here is my God. See how I have made Him". Also, one can say to others; "Here is my Deity, bow to Her or else!"

This is my main displeasure with religion...that we construct an effigy of our logic and show it to others. It smacks of pride that we think we can understand Deity and it smells like war and death that we must convince others of Their authenticity, sometimes at the point of a sword.

I submit the first step onto the wrong path is when we attempt to encompass a God with our logic.

Great Post Machine,

The holy Bible has different versions doesn't it? King james, the revised king james,
God's Word
King James
Life Application
Message
New American
New American Standard
New Century
New International
New International Reader's Version
New King James
New Living Translation
New Revised Standard
Revised English
Spanish Language
Today's English

So because of this confusion and after our talk on the other thread, I ordered a children's bible that has all the stories from the old and new, since I agree about things being in their simplist terms...
I thought this would be a good place for me to start since my bible at home is hard to understand and I spend more time concentrating on what they are trying to say then the true meaning of the stories/advice/warnings/ect.

By the way, when I wasn't in search for truth about god (meaning anything but opening a bible) I created my own god/essence... It was more spiritual then it was about jesus and the meat and potatos of it all. I'm glad i've found the truth now though. I won't be painting anymore pictures of the kind of god I want, because the god I want was right in front of me the whole time (in the bible).

ps: does bible really stand for, basic intstructions before leaving earth?