Welcome to COOL!

If truth is the reality that we each individually see and feel and the undefined "presence" is a mystery without resolution except what each person knows and feels in his or her heart without prejudice or judgement and that all people are loved without exception then count me in.

 

That depends on what you mean by love.

 

So.. is starting your own religion the new thing to do nowadays?
Maybe I will start one, cause god was telling me the other day that powerhungry people with a big ego are starting their own religions left and right and that needed to be stopped.. so join me!

 

Perhaps you'd care to define for us what you think love is.

 

Lol. I'd love to define for you what I think love is.

Caring.

 

And make us laugh, or is that politics?

 

Do you think God cares? I mean is He caring?

 

'Love is Heaven and Heaven is Love'.


I don't like to try to define it too much - I'm happier to leave it to poets etc.
Caring is an inadequate definition in my understanding.
There is One love and there are different kinds of love, even human love. I've been fortunate to experience love of man for woman, father for child, child for parents, human for animal, even love of the Divine felt as both given and recieved. In the end I suppose it's a state of being - like a state of grace.
It is a thing of the heart more than the mind, and hence I feel that all our attempts at definition must fall short.

 

I don't have the ability, intellect or capacity to define it...it is and that suits me fine.

 

Yes. Don't necessarilly designate gender to God, but I don't think you intended that.

 

That is assuming that compassion was not first a trait of God.

I don't equate God with what God does. Lots of beings love, it doesn't mean that they are love. A dog is a dog even when it loves its companion.

I don't think (caring) love is anthropomorphic. When my one rat Baby died, nephertiti (my other rat) was depressed for several days. Before Baby died, Nephertiti never sat near people for long periods, wouldn't lie in our laps, always hid in dark corners. When Baby died, Nephertiti just sat there staring off into space for a couple days, laying out in the sun on a pile of towels. Nephertiti would sit in our laps for a bit too, became much closer to us after Baby died. When we got a new (baby) rat (Indy) to be Nephertiti's companion/cohort, Nephertiti brightened up and mother instincts kicked in. It was beautiful.

Anyway, I said this to point out that caring about (or loving) others is not a distinctly human trait (anthropomorphic).

I want to reply to the rest of your comment, have some more ideas, but need to get ready. My friend wants to get downtown for a couple of brews.

Care,

k

 

We are God. All of us together. If we care...God cares. If we don't care.......

 

you know, all of these questions about 'god', i think what we need to realise is that whatever, if ever, is big, freindly and nontangble (my own perception of what 'god' or 'a god' is), do not absolve US of the reality that WE are creating collectively the conditions we individualy experience.

i'm not saying this 'being god' collectively means there can't be a seperate god or gods also. there's no reason there can't, and lots of reasons to feel that there is, but it's still our own doing, and not what something nontangable feels about our doing it, that is making things the way they are.

=^^=
.../\...

 

Point well made..
What I was trying to say specifically, is this.....no matter who God is, (He, She, It, whatever...) "God's" actions are carried out through us. Therefore, if "God" is caring, kind, vindictive, unkind, etc.... it is because of our collective tendencies to interpret it thus. If we all interact with the world kindly, then "God" must be kind. "God" is basically, (IMHO) our collective conscience. No matter what we name "God", (Jehova, Buddha, Vishnu,...Manson?..)
it is up to "us all" to make sure that "God" cares.

 

I know what you're getting at..I think.
Problem though with saying 'God's actions are carried out through us' is that most ideas of God would say He existed prior to the human speices, and indeed, the manifest universe.
Also there may be other beings on other planets quite unlike us - presumably there might be tendency for them to think God is just like them and shares their traits.

 

So by logic then, if God is caring, God is love - circle completed.

 

Thank You for allowing me to clarify that.
What I'm saying is that when we "represent" God (and we tend to do that) with our actions, we indicate to others what we think "our God" is like. If all of us would for instance act kindly on "God's behalf", it would be safe to say....God is kind.

 

I don't see it. Surely it is ourselves we represent by our actions. True, our ideas of God may influence or determine our actions up to a point, but generally it's only at second or third hand - I mean it comes from established religious teachings about how God wants us to act rather then any direct action of God through us, or direct knowledge of His will.
I'd say only if we are actually conscious of God in the given moment could we really be said to be acting on His behalf, or that He is acting through us in any direct sense.

Consider also that in the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, God is evidently telling his disciple Arjuna to engage in destruction and fighting on His behalf - something Christians for instance find hard to accept. So by the same reasoning that says 'we are kind so God is kind', we could say 'God is violent so we are violent'. But actually most followers of the Gita promote peace and love.