At what age did you come to realize that God/Devil/Heaven/Hell/Angels/Demons are all man-made fairy tales?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

It's only a matter of time before you come out Steven

Serious question, what does 'total union with god' mean to you? It means nothing meaningful to me, certainly nothing that demands fidelity to an omnipotent being that has the 'bliss' of humankind as its focus. All you seem to be saying is that we are part of the universe we inhabit and will always remain part of it, at least in the sense that the atoms and particles that make up our physical mass will remain part of it. Great, that's what I believe as well.

My understanding of it is like a child's understanding of what a mother and father are to them. What is God? The alpha and the omega - the one who is. It's a mystery and that's part of my religious experience and faith.

[Jenn! 918]

I had a conversation with my grandmother about her religious beliefs and she sure sounds like an agnostic to me. But in a million years she will not admit she is anything but Catholic.

[mawilson 2,133]

Believing in heaven and hell and defining what they are, are not one and the same. You, unfortunately, were indoctrinated as a young child, with a very rigid fundamentalist viewpoint which claims to have all the answers. Heaven, as I believe in, means total union with God - the rest is mystery, beyond our comprehension. Some people don't like that kind of spirituality. They want to know all the answers. You seem hellbent on challenging the answers that not every religion pretends to know.

Come on, dude. You call yourself a Christian, yet you don't believe that Jesus Christ is God?

My understanding of it is like a child's understanding of what a mother and father are to them. What is God? The alpha and the omega - the one who is. It's a mystery and that's part of my religious experience and faith.

"What is God" is not a mystery if you're a Christian. The Bible has all the answers - try reading it sometime.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

"What is God" is not a mystery if you're a Christian. The Bible has all the answers - try reading it sometime.

Rev1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega,"says the Lord God, "the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty."

[mawilson 2,133]

Rev1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega,"says the Lord God, "the one who is and who was and who is to come, the almighty."

Yes, also the Beta, the Gamma, the Delta, the Epsilon, the Zeta, the Eta and other letters of the Greek alphabet.

[웃 910]

My understanding of it is like a child's understanding of what a mother and father are to them. What is God? The alpha and the omega - the one who is. It's a mystery and that's part of my religious experience and faith.

A child? Or a newborn? I'm pretty sure even a 2 week old baby has a much better understanding of their parents than you do of the thing that never existed until a couple thousand years ago even though the planet is billions of years old. Kind of a crushing blow to religion considering the fact that most people in the era between 50AD and 1850AD thought that God created Adam and Eve a few thousand years back (some even think this today).

Then again nobody has EVER seen or heard from God. And there is a reason you are advised to seek psychiatric evaluation if you EVER DO hear or see God!

Hard to believe a God so cruel to murder children, innocent men/women over petty things back in the days (see Bible for countless examples) but now that millions of Atheists/Agnostics mock God by the minute He hasn't retaliated. Strange, don't you think?

Then we know that the universe is so large you can travel for thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, billions, even 10s of billions of years and still not have traveled far at all in the universe! And at what speed are we talking? We are talking the speed of light! 186,000 miles per second for 10 million years (take a breather), 10 million years (take a pit stop), 100 million years (relax for a few million years), travel another 5 or 6 billion years, etc. I can't even handle traveling 3 hours in a plane without wanting to pull my hair out.

So how then can our earth and our human population be of any significance when compared to the size of the universe? It is not!

[Peikko 1,575]

My understanding of it is like a child's understanding of what a mother and father are to them. What is God? The alpha and the omega - the one who is. It's a mystery and that's part of my religious experience and faith.

Another meaningless statement. It's fine, this is VJ and you are not obligated to defend your faith to anyone on a message board. Were I religious, I would not do so either.

Edited November 25, 2010 by Madame Cleo

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Another meaningless statement. It's fine, this is VJ and you are not obligated to defend your faith to anyone on a message board. Were I religious, I would not do so either.

Meaningless only to you. Some people can embrace the mystery of their faith, while others want all the answers.

[mawilson 2,133]

Meaningless only to you. Some people can embrace the mystery of their faith, while others want all the answers.

So are you a Christian or do you believe in a mysterious abstract God who has nothing to do with Jesus?

[one...two...tree 2,762]

So are you a Christian or do you believe in a mysterious abstract God who has nothing to do with Jesus?

Believing in the Messiah means there's no mystery to it?

[Ban Hammer 12,836]

Meaningless only to you. Some people can embrace the mystery of their faith, while others want all the answers.

i kinda like the mystery of embracing faith.

[VanessaTony 3,567]

Come on, dude. You call yourself a Christian, yet you don't believe that Jesus Christ is God?

It is my understanding that Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the SON of God. Not God.

[Peikko 1,575]

Meaningless only to you. Some people can embrace the mystery of their faith, while others want all the answers.

Play semantics if you wish but you are simply making statements that have no substance at all. You have also put words in the mouths of those who reject theism by suggesting that a belief in god is the only way appreciate the wonder that is our universe. Poppycock.

There may well be some people that want all the answers, whatever that is meant to mean in relation to the human ability to process information (quite plainly no single person knows everything about everything even in terms of human knowledge) but I am not one of them, and in fact I have not seen a statement yet made in this thread by an atheist or agnostic who wants to know all the answers.

Not only that, but I have clearly stated that for myself the question of why the universe is, or what the point of life is is entirely irrelevant and I seek no answer to it. In fact, I have come to the conclusion that it is an entirely pointless question because as Scandal succinctly put it, it relies too heavily on a human vision of time/space and as scientists will tell you, the human mind is not the perfect vehicle for appreciating the entirety of the known universe.

I was only joking in the beginning when I said that you were a hairbreadth away from atheism, but unless you believe that god can manifest himself to humans, can influence individual human destiny and cares for every single human that has and will ever live to the point of selecting those who fit god's preferences to spend eternity 'with' him in some form that fits into our current consciousness and rejecting those who do not and will spend eternity paying the price for their 'sins' which is what all the major religions credo teaches, I have no idea what religion you believe you practice. In fact, that is the biggest mystery in this thread, what religion do you belong to?