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To: One-Four-Five
...my belief in God ...

I'm curious. Since you don't subscribe to the Judeo/Christian God...then what God do you believe in.

102 posted on 09/09/2006 11:39:38 PM PDT by csense
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To: csense

If it bothers you that I'm not interested in being more specific, then I'm sorry. My faith does not require such specifics. Even if it did, I will say I find it a bit spiritually counterproductive when people define themselves on the basis of their chosen God in a way that suggests that it may be a crutch of sorts.

But that may sound judgmental, and that's not something I really want to be. If it makes anyone feel any better, I'm not going to insist that it's not what they perceive to be the Judeo-Christian God, although I tend to view the entire issue differently than most folks. I will say that I can't see Buddhism or Hinduism or Paganism or a whole bunch of others as making any more sense, and I do think there's something to the idea of this country being founded on Judeo-Christian principles, so that bothers me less than a lot of other aspects of the relationships others have, or claim to have, with whatever God it is that they believe in.

It ain't Allah, I can and will say that with no small certainty.

But I have no use for rituals, dogma, Scripture, Sunday School, or spiritual pursuits in the name of religion that simply make no sense to me. And while there are exceptions, most religious 'leaders' I've come into contact with were sanctimonious boors from whom I could never imagine receiving spiritual guidance. So I leave them & their followers to whatever it is they wish to do, think, pray, and think of folks like me who inevitably make judgments even though I do my best to live and let live.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster don't work for me (but then I was only agnostic for a short period of time, and was never looking to wear atheism as a badge), and the issue of how Christmas is treated in public vis-a-vis the ACLU, atheists, and major retailers is a pathetic episode that I don't pay much attention to, except to lament that I don't really care if the atheists were pissed about it in decades past. I think we all managed to deal with it okay, and we have bigger fish to fry. That said, I try not to be overly sensitive to feeling as though I'm having religion pushed on me, but during times when one feels uncomfortable in such a scenario, I will say it's not the nicest, warmest, pleasantest feeling. But moving on, in this country, anyway, shouldn't be too difficult.

Mostly to confound people, I do make it a point to use Kwanzaa stamps every December. I sometimes derive pleasure from immature chuckles, and if someone wants to hold that against me, that's their affair.

If anything like that interferes with someone's faith, then I'd say they're still searching. I don't need a name or an identity for the God I believe in. For me it's a matter of Faith that just doesn't seem to fit anything I'm familiar with, and I don't consider it necessary to seek out the pigeonhole that best describes & informs my experience. I just don't need the security blanket it looks like some folks cling to in their relentless pursuit of applying Scripture to each & every possible argument one can put forth. Maybe someday I'll find it, or it'll find me. I won't lose faith without it, or at least I don't think so. What's important is what I feel, and that's all that matters so far as I'm concerned.

Sorry for the long-winded response. It's just not the sort of thing I feel capable of answering properly in two sentences.


112 posted on 09/10/2006 12:08:22 AM PDT by One-Four-Five
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To: csense

How many Gods do you think there really are?


129 posted on 09/10/2006 1:03:47 AM PDT by stands2reason (ANAGRAM for the day: Socialist twaddle == Tact is disallowed)
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