DEFINITION OF GOD - All of Existence is Itself a part of God - God is the Sum of ALL Natural Processes – The Ground of ALL Being - Omnipresence, the Supreme.. or Ultimate.. Reality. The Creative and Controlling Force in the Universe - The Force regarded as causing and regulating the Phenomena of the World by the Universal Natural Laws - God is both Outside.. and Inside.. Space-Time. Not subject to the cycle of Birth and Death - The Ultimate, the Absolute, Infinite and Eternal….. The word – GOD – functions as a SYMBOL.. representing.. the underlying Unity.. and.. or.. as a METAPHOR.. representing a personification of a Motivating Power.. of a Value System.. that functions in Human Life.. and in the Universe. The Force.. and Energy.. that supports the World - A personification of the Energy.. or Force.. that seems to regulate the Physical Universe - An anthropomorphic idea whose dynamism.. and symbolism.. are filtered through the medium of the psyche..
“God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.” - Joseph Campbell
Albert Einstein wrote - "The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is."
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." - Albert Einstein
The Bible speaks consistently of a KNOWLEDGE of God... not a belief... and there is nothing supernatural in it.. only POETRY.. symbolism and metaphor.. The stories have two meanings..
Belief - is used only in the context of – believing in the words of the prophets... for example.. when they say the system is corrupt... and is misleading us... etc.. etc.. They are speaking the TRUTH...
The God of the New Testament is clearly defined as.. God and Mankind being - POTENTIALLY - one and the same... and God existing.. or not existing.. in human hearts and minds.. a concept which is very popular in our times..................... Nothing supernatural about that...
Jesus taught that God is Spirit............. St Paul further clarifies that God is a Spirit that is alive inside human hearts and minds.............. Notice.. neither of them say.. God is a Supernatural man in the sky………….. it is a foolish idea.. and the people who wrote the Bible were extremely smart.. Try writing something that people would still find interesting.. and meaningful… (that attacks the corrupted system.. that STILL exists)………… over 2000 years from now… if you doubt how clever they were..
AND... The God of the New Testament is defined as being.. the Spirit of Loving kindness.. Righteousness.. Justice.. Peace.. Wisdom.. Truth.. and Freedom..... the Spirit that Jesus manifested in his words.. and actions.... while the god concept of the Old Testament.. was made obsolete by the New Testament of Jesus..
And it is this KNOWLEDGE of God that the scriptures teach us....
There's nothing supernatural about this teaching... the supernatural being idea.. is due poor reading comprehension.. and by some people reading the Bible literally..
People are often confused by the language used in the Bible.. because the writers were poets.. and story-tellers.. and poets.. and story-tellers.. are the last people you want to read literally…
QUOTE - "Do you not know that you people are God's temple, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? The temple of God is holy, which temple you people are."
Then we have the god-man that was spoken of by Friedrich Nietzsche… the The Übermensch (German for "Beyond-Man") ..........Jesus was leading us by example.....
“Once more the Jews lifted up stones to stone him. Jesus replied to them: "I displayed to you many fine works from the Father. For which of those works are you stoning me?"
The Jews answered him: "We are stoning you, not for a fine work, but for blasphemy, even because you, although being a man, make yourself a god."
Jesus answered them : "Is it not written in your Law, `I said: "You are gods"'? – I John 10:31
Jesus was quoting Psalms 82:5 in his defence that God and mankind were – potentially – one and the same..…. AND............ Psalms 82:5 clearly says....
“They have not known, and they do not understand; In darkness they keep walking about; All the foundations of the earth are made to totter. I myself have said, 'You are gods, And ALL of you are sons of the Most High.” - Psalms 82:5
“Every church is a stone.. On the grave of a god-man: It does not want him to rise up again.. under any circumstances.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
"So in this idea, then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality. Not God in a politically kingly sense, but God in the sense of being the self, the deep-down basic whatever there is. And you're all that, only you're pretending you're not. And it's perfectly OK to pretend you're not, to be perfectly convinced, because this is the whole notion of drama." – Alan Watts
The ULTIMATE REALITY BEING…
“The misconception which has haunted philosophic literature throughout the centuries is the notion of 'independent existence.' There is no such mode of existence; every entity is to be understood in terms of the way it is interwoven with the rest of the universe.”
“The foundation of reverence is this perception, that the present holds within itself the complete sum of existence, backwards and forwards, that whole amplitude of time, which is Eternity.” - Alfred North Whitehead
"The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him." – Socrates
Joseph Campbell: Transforming Religious Metaphor
“Every myth is psychologically symbolic. Its narratives and images are to be read, therefore, not literally, but as metaphors.”
“When you translate the Bible with excessive literalism, you demythologize it. The possibility of a convincing reference to the individual's own spiritual experience is lost.”
“Mythology is composed by poets out of their insights and realizations. Mythologies are not invented; they are found. You can no more tell us what your dream is going to be tonight than we can invent a myth. Myths come from the mystical region of essential experience.”
“Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions, for example, are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves believers because they accept metaphors as facts, and we have others who classify themselves as atheists because they think religious metaphors are lies.”
“All religions are true but none are literal. Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.”
“What is a god? A god is a personification of a motivating power of a value system that functions in human life and in the universe.”
“The ultimate, unqualified mystery is beyond Human experience”
“God is within you! You yourself are the creator. If you find that place within you from which you brought this thing about, you will be able to live with it and affirm it, perhaps even enjoy it, as your life.”
“The best way to help mankind is through the perfection of yourself.”
“How does the ordinary person come to the transcendent? For a start, I would say, study poetry. Learn how to read a poem. You need not have the experience to get the message, or at least some indication of the message. It may come gradually.”
“Mythology is not a lie, mythology is poetry, it is metaphorical. It has been well said that mythology is the penultimate truth--penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words. Beyond images, beyond that bounding rim of the Buddhist Wheel of Becoming. Mythology pitches the mind beyond that rim, to what can be known but not told.”
“That is what myth is. Myth is a manifestation in symbolic images, in metaphorical images, of the energies.”
“Is the god the source, or is the god a human manner of conceiving of the force and energy that supports the world?”
“I don't have to have faith, I have experience.” - Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
The God symbol also functions as a symbol of Wholeness.....
The Whole being greater than the some of its parts....
"Hermes: Hush, son! and understand what God, what Cosmos is, what is a life that cannot die, and what a life subject to dissolution. Yea, understand the Cosmos is by God and in God; but Man by Cosmos and in Cosmos....
The source and limit and the constitution of all things is God." - Corpus Hemeticum
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