Make me a believe please.

reply to post by graphuto


OMG! All this time i've been looking for actual evidence. I'm saved!

And if 2 doctrines (2 religions) contradict each other.....then what?

reply to post by Itisnowagain


The old play on fate - "you never had free will"

Cool story, bro.

Also, just because you ask "when is it ever not now?" doesn't prove that the universe (or reality) is eternal. I mean... it COULD be but that still doesn't prove there's a god or omnipotent being behind it.

I can understand concepts such as the Fibonacci sequence and the mandelbrot set without assuming there's a creator.

That's my point about God, no one can prove there is or there isn't. So i am very skeptical of those who say they KNOW.

reply to post by awake_and_aware


Has freewill been proven? Have a look on wiki for opinions concerning freewill.

reply to post by awake_and_aware


It is always now so that to me means eternally now. It does not translate to forever in time. Finding the importance and relevance of the now moment can be very benificial in the game of life. This now moment is very powerful when you realize that this moment can not happen without you. Whether you notice this or not is where you have a choice. This is the only choice, this is consciousness. You are conscious of being conscious.
You know where you are.
You are right here and right now.
The eternal now is omnipotent.
Always start and end here.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


Of course things seem inevitable when something has been said or done and there's no going back.

It's not surprising to me that people believe life is pre-written,that fate has made the decision all along, before you were even born.

reply to post by awake_and_aware


If you notice we can only ever comment on something after the event, we can only ever narrate. Life happens and we put words to it. It's all poetry.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


i agree but it's the choice which decides the poetry.



Peace

reply to post by Itisnowagain


i agree but it's the choice which decides the poetry.



Peace

reply to post by TheAmused


You are not alone in your struggle. I struggled with similar issues concerning Christianity. One difference is that I believed in, what I called for a long time, a "higher power". I just wasn't sure it was the God the Christians taught. I read about many religions and for the most part they were simuilar. Sure, there are differences but they all seemed very narrow to me.

I finally came across a book called The Urantia Book. It describes a God that is loving and caring and is no respector of persons. He recongnizes even the faintest flicker of faith, and everyone is given an intelligent choice to pursue the eternal career or not. It also describes an unbelievibly huge universe with more types of life forms than you can comprehend. For example, concerning humans or mortals, there is potential for 7 trillion inhabited planets.

The Urantia Book is not a religion per say. I consider it more of a guide book open to individuals interpretation. No two humans think exactly alike, nor had the same experiences. We are all unique. In all of infinity there will never be another you or me, but if we choose we can maintain our identity eternally by union with God's spirit. Also The Urantia Book may not be your cup of tea, but that is ok. Just know that something beyond our comprehension created this vast universe and enabled us to be created.

reply to post by UB2120


God never made a copy of himself. God is like a diamond with many beams of light reflecting, we are no more that a beam of light. The little light beam thinks it is separate and being separate is scary. The fear that is produced by the separateness, is unfounded. The beam of light tries everything to find it's way home, looking at all the other beams struggle and fight for survival or salvation. It looks at other beams of light (mirages) to hold on to but they all crumble and collapse because they have no real substance.
One day the lightbeam gets so tired or disillusioned that it gives up completely. Instead of falling apart there is a return to source. I am the diamond.
You are the diamond, we (inclusively) are 'one' big blissful diamond, that is our base, our true home. This diamond splits itself into what looks like (appears to be) separateness to enable it to go out to play.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

It is my belief that God did make a copy of himself, he's called the Eternal Son and together they created the Infinite Spirit thus bringing into existance the Trinity. So he actually has 2 co-ordinate beings of equal status to himself and together they constitute undivided Deity.

We all have a small piece of God's spirit that indwells us. This is our potential for eternal life, becoming one with this eternal spirit. This spirit will ultimately lead us back to the source, God. So your analogy is pretty spot on.

reply to post by UB2120


The copies though are just refractions, reflections of himself.
I see the trinity as God the source, the projector and the image. We could liken ourselves to the projector, it all flows through us from the source and is then seen by the source.
The projector gets a bit carried away and thinks it is separate in this trinity. No part of the trinity could appear without all three being present. Somehow, the projector miraculously assumes personal, separate, individualness, and thinks it has to control 'things'. But the 'things' are only projections from the same source.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


God is the First great source and center and there can't be 2 first sources. He is the one uncaused cause. Everything else that exists is due to the volition of God. I'm not sure what you mean by thinking we are seperate. Perhaps you are referring to a previous post from someone else. We are certainly not seperate from God. God is in us and in him we live, move and have our being.

If you want to push your mind to the limits of comprehension about God, search for The Urantia Book. Read the first 5 papers which are about God the Father.

reply to post by UB2120


Yes, i totally agree, we do not have personal volition, it is all god.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


We have personal volition, free will, its just limited. I can't create a nebula, but I can choose to believe in God or not. If it was all God why would he want some people not to believe in him?

reply to post by UB2120


It is all part of the game. We are born whole and complete (oneness, god) and pass through what seems like a dream of separation. Babies are pure god. But god has been pure god and wants to go out to play in the world of things. So god splits himself up into 2 or more things and the world is created. God could not experience if he remained as one black solid lump.
Light shines out of god and is split into billions of beams. He can now look and experience light that looks like 'things', all the 'things' are different. But all the apparent 'things' are sourced (or shone) from god.
The hands you see in front of you, the pc monitor, the body even the mind are 'things' shone by the light of god.
The seer that looks through your eyes is god veiwing his creation.
At no time is there anything but god.
He does not have to be believed in. He wants to play and experience all the parts. For him it is like us watching a movie we like to believe it is real so we can experience different feelings.
He may completely forget it is no more than a movie, then life can be quite terrifying.
When there is a remembering life is seen for what it is.
Experiencing. It's god veiwing himself.

reply to post by UB2120


Until god remembers himself, life can be taken very seriously. Babies and small children do not know what it is to take life seriously. This seriousness is caused by god forgetting (on purpose) that we are gods image made. If he didn't forget it would be a pretty boring game.
He knows deep down that he has forgot something, a feeling says there is something missing, something lost. This is the of game hide and seek. Something to be found, but where is it and what is it?
The searching begins as soon as the feeling of separation occurs. The feeling of separation brings loneliness, isolation, shame, guilt, hope, fear and anxiety. Who ever you are and where ever you are, these feelings are real and scary and the search is not a choice it is more like it is our destiny to feel the suffering to pull or push us to find the cure.
The cure is anything to take the pain away, it maybe shopping, drinking, drugs, women, relationships, education, anything to find something to make life bearable.
There is a deep wanting and needing in each of us. What is it though that we have lost? What would ever be able to fill that hole?
All the time we search for the missing piece 'out there', it will not be found.
Look at where you are looking from and from there see the world of 'things'.
Images appearing within you, as you.
God is all. The word god however is not a mans name. God is being.
You are being.
When it is known (remembered, realized) for sure that is all you are, that's that.
Consciousness is conscious of itself.
God is known, by himself.
It collapses into oneness.
No more confusion, no more conflict, peace.

Originally posted by jiggerj

Originally posted by Lionhearte
reply to post by jiggerj

 

Your idea of God is too small. Sorry, brother. I'll pray for you.

Oops, sorry. I'll make it bigger: There is no such thing as an ALL-knowing, ALL-powerful, invisible being, who created the WHOLE Universe, and who lives in another dimension called heaven. Who has always existed and will always exist, and is perfect in every way and always will be perfect. Who is all-merciful, even in killing everyone on the planet, except Noah, in a flood; in killing everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah, and who turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt for merely turning around. Who will help the faithful find a missing watch, but ignores the cries of millions tortured and starving throughout the world. Who will cast all of the homosexuals into a fiery hell for all of eternity, but will accept a repentent mass murderer into heaven. Who has the power to erase Satan without even blinking an eye, but instead allows the beast to tempt and torture all of the people that this Almighty One claims to love and protect.

It's a fairy tale that's gotten WAY out of hand.

prove it !

I never knew you could MAKE someone a believer?

I thought this is all based upon faith.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


In essence you are correct. God is a the programmer/creator of everything (mostly indirectly), so in the highest sense everything comes from Deity. I'd like to share a quote from The Urantia Book, paper 1:

"The absolute perfection of the infinite God would cause him to suffer the awful limitations of unqualified finality of perfectness were it not a fact that the Universal Father directly participates in the personality struggle of every imperfect soul in the wide universe who seeks, by divine aid, to ascend to the spiritually perfect worlds on high. This progressive experience of every spirit being and every mortal creature throughout the universe of universes is a part of the Father's ever-expanding Deity-consciousness of the never-ending divine circle of ceaseless self-realization. It is literally true: "In all your afflictions he is afflicted." "In all your triumphs he triumphs in and with you." His prepersonal divine spirit is a real part of you. The Isle of Paradise responds to all the physical metamorphoses of the universe of universes; the Eternal Son includes all the spirit impulses of all creation; the Conjoint Actor encompasses all the mind expression of the expanding cosmos. The Universal Father realizes in the fullness of the divine consciousness all the individual experience of the progressive struggles of the expanding minds and the ascending spirits of every entity, being, and personality of the whole evolutionary creation of time and space. And all this is literally true, for "in him we all live and move and have our being."

The prepersonal spirit mentioned is our chance at immortality. God is the only immortal being in all the universe and it takes some level of oneness with him to share that immortality. That is why it is said we are in his image, we have a fragment of his eternal nature that we can fuse with. The "image of God" does not refer to physical likeness nor to the circumscribed limitations of material creature endowment but rather to the gift of the spirit presence of the Universal Father in the supernal bestowal of the spirit of God upon the humble creatures of the universes.

Search for The Urantia Book and check out papers 1 - 5 which are about God and papers 107 -111 that are about the spirit of God that we can become one with.