BillM

Paul, this is an interesting topic. I've posted this here before, but will repost it as it directly addresses your request. A few years back, I got brutally honest with God and myself and told God I didn’t think God existed anymore. I won’t go into all my reasons for it, but I just doubted whether or not God was real. But contrary to what I expected, I didn’t feel a sense of rejection or abandonment at that point. Instead, I felt a huge sense of relief. And then I felt (notice how my subjectivity is coming into play here) an over-whelming sense of acceptance, like I was okay. I had committed blasphemy, but I was feeling this (words are failing me now) buoyancy around me, like I was a tiny leaf floating on a huge ocean. I suspected this might be, may be, God, but had no way to know for sure. But, true to form, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, so I let God have it. I informed him of all my problems with the Bible, all my problems with Christianity and Christians, all my problems with doctrine. I figured he already knew all of the problems with me (and there are quite a few). And I waited for the ocean to dissipate and for fire to set in. It didn’t. Instead, I continued to have this feeling that I was accepted “just as I am”. But I wasn’t even pleading that Jesus died for me. I was just there, my soul naked before what I call Reality, and this GOD was okay with me. For the first time in my life, I didn’t just "believe" that God was love, I felt it. It wasn’t a doctrine, it was an experience. It was “beyond reason”, but it was not contrary to it. I am not at all saying that others will have this experience. This was between me and the Reality that I call God. My experience is descriptive, not proscriptive. I don’t feel this Presence all the time now or even every day. I think things may go in cycles, maybe like a spiral staircase. And while I cannot in any way prove my experience to anyone else, neither can I deny the reality of it. My reason still enjoys and appreciates study. But, in my journey, Bible study did not cure my doubts. In fact, I still have many doubts about things that sometimes bugger up my head and heart. But I also know, experientially, that God is bigger than my head and heart. Thankfully, the God of Love embraced me in spite of my beliefs (or lack thereof) and though I lost much of my religion, I was never lost to Love.

Well, Rom, I guess I would start with a couple of assumptions. (None of us really have a clean slate, you know) So let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Jesus was onto something when he said that God is Spirit. And let's assume that the apostle Paul was onto something when he said that the fruit of the Spirit (what God produces in our lives) is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are, for me, key to my concept of God. So to disprove my concept of God, at least to me, prove to me that these qualities are not good for us individually or collectively. Or prove to me that this "fruit" or evidence for the Spirit does not exist. Give me evidence that these qualities are bad or that they don't exist, and we will have a good starting place in disproving God to me. Fair enough?

And neither do protons or neutrons or electrons or gluons, mesons, quarks, or black holes - none of which I have ever personally seen. I wonder if all these things are just human labels we give to unseen forces or influences in our world in order to try to explain our understanding and experiences of the universe. If you see what I mean.

Despite some of my language, Joseph, I think you're right. For me, God is not some Being out there saying, "Please believe in Me." Certainly not some Being saying, "Believe in Me or else!" For me, God is simply experiencing and living by what we call "the fruit of the Spirit." It's not a cognitive belief-system, it is a participatory way of living. For me.

Rom, has science changed so much since I was in high school? I was taught that science was a method for testing hypotheses for truth or falsehood. If that is still true, I don't see how you can say that it doesn't prove things. It seems to me that it proves hypotheses to be either true or false, right? What you describe is what I call the "Nothing Buttery Syndrome." Love? Oh, that is "nothing but" this enzyme working with that enzyme. Justice? Oh, that is "nothing but" ideas formed by firing synapses in our brains? Compassion? Oh, that is "nothing but"... Again, to me what you describe is the notion that the material world can (and should) explain everything in life. As I've said, I do understand why some people take this point of view. But I think you misunderstand that God, for me, is not the "God of the gaps" that fills my lack of understanding (which would be a big God indeed). Rather, God, for me, is the epitome of our highest ideals. As to whether this is or comes from an actual Person, I do not know. But if it is true that our highest ideals are "nothing but," then, yes, I do find that sad and depressing. Why? Because despite the value we might find in our highest ideals, we would be self-deceived in thinking that there is actually some meaning or purpose in life and that we have any worth beyond the $4.50 that chemists tell us our body is worth. We are "nothing but" chemicals thrown together that have somehow become sentient, nothing more? Like I said, I am biased and believe there is something More. I call this More, God. I can't prove God. But I also doubt that you can disprove the More.

Rhino, for the record, I don't see it as a futile exercise either. Please bear with me a moment while I share how I see this. To me, in theism there are two extremes. One extreme says that because God is immanent (present with us in the world, usually through a book or a person or a community), God can be fully known. Or, known enough to say exactly what God is like, what God likes and dislikes, what God's will is in almost every situation. This extreme offers the comfort of, for the most part, purported black and white answers to life - why are we here? where will we go when we die? what is right and what is wrong. The other extreme says that because God is transcendent (above or different or not with us in the world), we can know absolutely nothing about God. God, if God even exists, is so beyond human ken that we have no idea what God is like or what God's will might be. This extreme offers us the freedom of pretty much doing anything we like because our stance is that God is either unknowable, nonexistent, or uninvolved. For me, I don't find either of these two extremes viable for my life. I guess I live in the middle somewhere where I believe certain things about God (such as God's presence with and in us) and the importance of the Golden Rule. But I don't hold to the "certainty" found in both extremes that God can be fully known or that God can't be known at all. I think we can know some things, but not all things. What these things are forms a good basis for discussion, do they not? Some Christian forums have God and God-discussions so "boxed" that there is really no discussion. Doctrinal statements are put forth and everyone is expected to agree to those views of God and not to deviate from the establish definitions and interpretations. I don't believe we have that kind of forum here. But if we go to the other extreme and say that God is either non-existent or so transcendent that God can't be known or experienced, then, as my question asked, why are we having religiously-oriented discussions? So, for me, I like what you said about "catching glimpses of the Divine." This, IMO, is the "middle ground." It implies that we don't fully see the Divine, while affirming that there is still a Divine to be glimpsed. And it is in this Shadowland that I find the discussions (and life itself) the most interesting.

I have always been fascinated by the person of Jesus. How could this one person have the influence on the world and on history that he has had? That is one of the central questions of Christianity i.e. who is Jesus and why does he matter? Like many others, Christianity is both the religion and the culture I was raised in. It is, therefore, the "language" I speak when discussing the Sacred. At the same time, my reasons for being interested in Jesus have changed over time. At 53, I believe in Jesus differently than I did at 12, I see him differently now than I did then. And I also see the religion about him differently now than I did as a youth. For instance, if Christianity is about believing certain theological statements to be absolutely true (such as found in the Creeds), then I'm not a Christian. But if Christianity is about the journey of a deeper relationship with and into God, as I believe Jesus' journey was, then I am a Christian. So my understanding of Jesus, God, the Bible, and even life has "progressed." Well, it has certainly changed. And I hope the change is a "progression." This doesn't mean that I think that Christianity or Jesus is the only way to enjoy a relationship with God, for I don't believe God is a Christian. I have respect for most other religions, but I simply don't have the time to study them all. In fact, I sometimes think this forum, as wonderful as it is, would be better served by calling itself "Progressive Spirituality", for the label "Christianity" carries a certain aspect and amount of "baggage" with it that many of us here no longer hold to. But I suspect it holds to this label to maintain its ties to its "mother religion" and because we do often discuss the same subjects that traditional Christianity does, but we have the freedom to not be bound by doctrine and dogma. Some of us have dropped the Christian label altogether. Some of us still wear it but interpret it differently. And others, no doubt, wonder how we could even be Christians in this age of enlightenment. But, IMO, the beauty of being "progressive" is realizing that each of our journeys today is just as sacred now as were those of Jesus or Paul or Buddha or Lao-Tzu, and that God is just as much "with us today" as God was with and in others. There is, to me, great freedom and joy in knowing and sharing that. As always, just my 2c.

Rom, I have to admit that if God really is as much of the Bible says he is or as conservative Christianity says he is, I would be agnostic or atheist also. I'm not at all saying that this is why *you* are agnostic, I'm only speaking for myself. I don't care for the God found in much of the Bible and much of Christianity. I don't find him, to me, to be very believable or worthy of worship. But neither do I hold to a material, secular view that only things provable through the scientific method exist or are real. I appreciate the scientific method and the Newtonian way of looking at the universe. Nevertheless, I think there is more going on the what materialism can account for, much as astronomers say there is more "matter" to the universe than what we can currently measure, but we call it "dark matter" because it doesn't seem to conform to the normal laws of matter and how we know of its existence and influence. This is where, for me, "unprovable" notions like love and compassion and understanding and joy and patience (etc.) come into play. These things are, IMO, real, but they are not directly measureable. We can only experience their influence. Therefore, again for me, if we could take notions like love and compassion and connection magnify them as being the "biggest" or most important things we know (Love, Compassion, Connection), then these things, for me, become God to me. As to whether this is a conscious Being with a will, I don't know. I can only speculate and guess. But there seems to be, IMO, a More to life and existence that pure materialism cannot account for. It is this More that I call God, but it is sometimes like the God found in the Bible and Christianity, but often not.

>>God cannot look upon sin nor can sinful beings be in His presence For me, though I have heard this claim all my life, I found it to be unwarranted. Even if the "Garden of Eden" story were true, God continued to fellowship and be with Adam and Eve outside the Garden. God's speaks to Abraham out of the burning bush. It was the bush, not Abraham, that was on fire, right? Moses was in God's presence without a blood sacrifice being offered, wasn't he? So was Joshua and David, right? And probably the prime example of the fault in this logic is that, according to conservative Christians, Jesus was fully God (fully human, also, but still no diminishment in his Godhood). And yet, He looked upon sin and sinners, and even loved them. He had no problem being in their presence. I see no records in the gospels of sinners spontaneously combusting from being in the presence of the God that was Jesus. Sure, some begged him for forgiveness or asked him to go away. But no one burst into flame or encountered some sort of "holy force field" around him (except for maybe those who came to arrest him, ha ha). And while "Christ" supposedly knocked Saul to the ground, causing him to go blind, Saul was, according to his own claim, a "sinner in God's presence." So I love how some Christians come up with these theological scenarios that are long on the "theo" but short on the "logical."

Rom, I enjoyed your page. I also noticed that the "Jesus Sayings" didn't really talk much about the common themes of Christianity (such as how we are born sinners, need our sins forgiven through blood sacrifice, and have a destination of either heaven or hell). And, what, Jesus never talked about homosexuality? I will have to look into the Campbellian approach. There is a correlation in this for me concerning our "God discussion". Conservative, fundamentalists (bless their believing hearts) will tell us that the gospels (all four) portray Jesus exactly as he really was with little to no human interpretation or embellishment. They can't help this because their hermeneutical approach is the every word in the Bible comes directly from God. But modern "Jesus scholars" (Borg, Crossan, Funk, etc.) tell us that it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to get to the "historical Jesus." We can't even be absolutely sure he existed. But most insist that we can have confidence in the "kinds" of things Jesus said and did. Our faith does not require "the letter of the law." We simply make our best guesses. That is the best we can do unless we want to shelve the whole thing. Similarly (and again my opinion), it is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to get to the "real God." We can't even be absolutely sure God exists (by scientific proof, anyway). There is too much human subjectivity involved. Nevertheless, I think we can have confidence in the "kind" of God that exists from majority input of the best of our religions i.e. that God can be related to on some level and that God is behind the Golden Rule rather than the Darwinian approach of CYA. My faith in God (and it is faith) does not require "letter of the law" explanations or definitions. I make my best guess as to what I believe God is really like and try to live according to that guess. And, yes, my conservative brothers and sisters would (and have) disfellowshipped from me for not insisting that I agree with *their* explanations and definitions. But I have to live according to the light I have. When I know better, I will try to do better.

SteveS55, I appreciate your input on this. I'm not a Trinitarian, so what you said resonates with me. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I think we are "in God" and can experience and live out of a "oneness" with God, but that doesn't make any of us God. Another analogy that we sometimes hear on this forum for panentheism is that of a fish living in the ocean. The fish is in the water. There is water in the fish. But the fish is not the water nor is the water a fish. Perhaps unlike others here, I don't value the gospel of John very highly. Modern biblical scholarship holds that it is the least historical of the gospels and that, more than likely, nothing said by "Jesus" in John's gospel actually goes back to the historical Jewish Jesus of Nazareth who would have considered it sacrilege to think of himself as Yahweh. For some people, this doesn't matter. But for me it does as it is my belief (yes, bias) that Christianity should get as close to the historical Jesus as possible, not the mythical "Christ" who is the Jewish Yeshua deified into a God-man in order to make him palatable to the Greek world. To me, the gospel of John compared to the synoptic gospels is like the myth of Santa Claus compared to the real Saint Nicholas. This doesn't mean that I don't find John and his take on Jesus interesting, but I don't think it really has much to do with the person or teachings of the mystic from Nazareth. Interestingly, much of Christianity is centered in the gospel of John. Perhaps this is why it is called "Christianity" instead of "Jesusism"? Most new Christians are told to go read the gospel of John first and then, usually, the book of Romans. If memory serves, many biblical scholars think that the gospel of John was written by a follower of Paul who, of course, never knew the historical Jesus. All of this gets very interesting when (IMO) our main notions about God being love come from the gospel and epistles of John. And seeing as John seems to think that the main way we know that God is love is because Jesus died as a human sacrifice in order to allow God to forgive our sins and take us to heaven someday...well...that simply is not a theology or theory of atonement that I hold to. So I am much more convinced that our Creator is love (good will towards us) because of the good we see around us and my own experiences of "God" than by proof-texting the Bible. But that is me. I never tell people that God loves them because Jesus died for them. I would rather simply love them and share, if asked, my own experiences of God's love. Other's mileage may vary.

Related good-natured question: If we all agree that God or god is transcendent (beyond all categories of thought or description), then why are we even discussing God at all? Why discuss what can't be known? Isn't that an exercise in futility, a waste of time? Isn't it, perhaps, like discussing "dark matter"?

BTW, Roman, I’m a Douglas Adams fan also! He was a very gifted and funny writer who could get us to seriously consider much of our human nonsense through wit, humor, and sarcasm. I’m not into relativism either (as best as I understand it). I think some things and ideas to come closer to the truth and reality than others. Is this Socratic? But I’m not a pantheist that believes everything is God or that God is everything. I am more of a panentheist. Of course, these are still human concepts of God, so I don’t know for certain who/what/if God is. I just believe that because there is something rather than nothing, and because we didn’t make it, it seems reasonable to believe in a Creator. Does this mean, as you have said, that I have some left over Christian beliefs? Yes, it certainly does. And that’s okay with me. I hope not to shove them down the throats of others (that wouldn’t be nice), but I do enjoy good conversations like we have here. Thanks for your part in this one.

There is, IMO, a balance to be found in words. As Joseph and others have said, God (and reality) cannot be contained in words, for words, as wonderful as they are, are finite. Nevertheless, because we cannot absorb one another’s experiences through osmosis, words are the best tools we have for conveying our ideas to one another. And like all tools, they can be used for good or used for evil; they can be used to heal or used to harm. It is not that I am into “word games” or “definition games.” I just realize that words are like baskets that help us carry our ideas around. Given this metaphor, if I have a basket labeled “apples,” then it would be reasonable to find apples in it, would it not? But if you peered into my basket and found oranges there, you might think that something was amiss, right? The label “apples” is not the apples themselves, but it does (or should) point to the reality of the apples. If what is really in the basket is oranges or snakes, then it would be wise on my part to change the label on my basket. One of the blessings to me of liberal religion is seeing how all-encompassing or all-inclusive we can make our labels and ideas. This is, to me, a fun and challenging thing to do. What/who is God? What/who is Christ? What reality did these labels point to in the past? What reality do they point to now, or may they point to in the future? And I think it is rewarding to consider something like how the word “Christ” originally meant “anointed” and how/if that idea is still valid today. How far can we stretch a word from its original meaning and still maintain its ties with the past but be relevant today? As I said, this may be a fun, challenging, and rewording thing to do. But I’m not convinced, speaking only for myself, that, when dealing with words, we are being responsible with them if we take either extreme of saying that 1) they mean nothing or 2) they can mean anything we want them to. If they mean nothing or point to nothing, then we are left unable to have meaningful conversation. And if we can infuse them with any meaning we like, regardless of their history or cultural meanings, then we can distort them to where they are unrelated to the past or even nonsensical to the present. It seems to me that many conservative Christians worship words. They value literal translations of the Bible and will argue endlessly over the meaning of certain words in the scriptures (like “homosexual”). I don’t find that very profitable. Words shouldn’t be worshipped because they are only pointers. On the other hand, I don’t think they should be thrown out as meaningless or recast into ideas that have absolutely nothing to do with their roots. It is always challenging to honor the past while not letting it bind us. And this is the approach, IMO, I think works best for our religious words. What did the words “God” and “Christ” mean to the ancient Jews and the early church? Are these meanings still relevant today? Why or why not? If not, should we let the irrelevant words go or should we re-infuse them with new meanings, calling oranges “apples” and everyone as “Christs”? These are just questions I’m asking.

People have different points-of-view, especially on religious matters. Myself, I believe Jesus was crucified for *not* taking on the role of the Jewish messiah in claiming the throne in Jerusalem for God. I think when he failed to literally fulfill the scriptures predicting messiah to rule, the crowd turned on him and demanded his death as a false messiah. My view. But I see deeper meanings in some of the "unChristlike" events in the gospels than just Jesus getting pissed-off for his own selfish reasons or because he was mentally disturbed. So I wouldn't put these events in the same category as killing a little girl. On the other hand, the book of Revelation does tend to portray this kind of messiah, doesn't it? I believe that everyone is a child of God, but I don't believe that everyone equally reflects God's image or is Christ-like. I don't buy into the dualistic notion that everyone is slated for either heaven or hell and that God has unchanging criteria by which he might make these determinations. But neither do I buy into the liberal stance that says, "I'm okay, you're okay. I'm God, you're God. I'm Christ. You're Christ." I don't think the solution is to put everyone into the same box. Rather, I think we can be more godly or less godly. Or more Christlike, or less Christlike. That's how I see it.

>>I would argue every person is a living Christ - not just has potential to be. I would, respectfully, disagree. Our notions for who Christ is or what a Christ is are rooted in the Judeo-Christian viewpoint of someone annointed by God for a specific purpose. And, to me, I just don't see what I would call Christ-like character in each and every person I meet or hear about. Whoever killed the little girl in my neighborhood this week, I don't believe them to be "a living Christ" or "one with God." Now, if we want to move our definitions of Christ beyond the Judeo-Christian viewpoint and make Christ mean anything we like, then (tongue-firmly-in-cheek), yes, I suppose that anyone is and can be Christ, from the murderer in my town to my cat to a cockroach in the breakroom where I work. But, for me, I just don't think the language or idea works that way. For better or worse, the notion of Messiah was a human being (not a deity) that was annointed by God to act as God's agent on earth in order to accomplish his will. I just don't find this child's murderer or my cat to meet that standard. Just my 2c. PS - Jesus himself is reported to have said that many would claim to be the Christ, but they should not be believed.

I'm probably one of the few theists on this forum because I still tend to view God as a being who is a Creator. I guess there is enough religion or traditional Christianity left in me that I still view God as a "Thou", even though, as has been pointed out, this view does have its problems. Yet, I agree that when the Bible says that God is love, the apostle John is more than likely speaking of the tribal deity of young Christianity. From what I can tell, John's community saw God as the source of their love. Yet John also makes it clear that if we claim to love God but hate others, then our claim to love God is false. And this, to me, is where the rubber meets the road. Regardless of what God is or is not or our definitions of God, the practical side of the theology is how we treat one another. So even for the apostle John, God and God's love was something that connects us, something that calls us to see ourselves and each other as part of a larger whole, and, as a result, love is action. Love is more than how we feel, it is what we do. Now, if I held to a strictly deistic view of God, my own theology would contradict itself. For it would make no sense for me to believe that our love (which calls us to do) has its roots in God's love (who doesn't do anything). But I am not a strict deist in that, to me, God is still here, still creating, still influencing. God is still the power for good in our world (IMO). But as to whether or not we make the connection to God and let God's power flow in and then out of us to others, that is our choice, that is, in the biblical record, being good stewards of our planet and ourselves. We have the response-ability to do something about the state of our world. And, IMO, the world is much the way it is simply because we are like little children who refuse to clean their room, share their toys, and think about anyone but themselves.

I definitely have an inner lesbian!

Paul, This just happened in my home-town last night: http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Body-found-in-tarp-in-Saginaw-neighborhood-213940401.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_212385728909895_760286_212497418898726 For me, there is absolutely no way to reconcile a God who is BOTH loving and in control with tragedies like this. To me, if God was BOTH loving and in control, he would have prevented something like this. But it happened. Because (for previous stated reasons) I do believe that God is a loving Creator, I then am forced to reject the notion that he is in control. He has left us to be stewards of our world and each other, and evil certainly can happen. Conversely, if God is somehow truly in control, then he is not loving, for a loving parent who was controlling all events would not allow one child to kill another. If they did, that parent would, IMO, be evil themselves. So I am forced to conclude that God is not in control of this world or his creatures. He influences through the Spirit, but he does not force nor manipulate events.

And if there was ever someone whom, I believe, sought to trust his heart, it was Paul. Paul didn't get his "revelation" from the OT or from the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. His "gospel" didn't come from the other apostles. He claimed that it came directly from Christ, which some might interpret to be the ascended Jesus while others might interpret it to be the inner divine nature. But the point is that Paul clear went against the scriptures of his day that required circumcision of Gentile proselytes and that stipulated who you could fellowship with and what you could eat. The apostle Peter had a similar revelation concerning fellowshipping and eating with those whom his religion said were "unclean." We sometimes forget how renegade and revolution these people were to go against their religious culture and their scriptures in following the Spirit. Interestingly (at least to me), Jesus said it is the Spirit, not the scriptures, that would lead his followers into all truth. And then he said that it is just about impossible to predict what someone born of the Spirit is going to do. But we live in a time of Christianity where being "biblical" is often the most respected status a Christian can have i.e. "They live according to the Bible." But to say that God has lead me by the heart in an area that isn't address by the Bible or that the Bible even warns against or condemns leads to sideways glances and murmers of heresy. Our hearts, being human, are not infallible. But if we don't entrust them to God and entrust the Spirit to lead us forward, then what are we really following? The experiences (hearts) of others? The past? The letter of the law? Tradition for tradition's sake? Both Jesus and Paul said we are to be filled with and follow the Spirit. That is where life is.

Paul, The main Christian view of “God is love” that I have heard all of my life is that if we believe in Jesus, God will save us from going to hell and take us to heaven when we die. Though there are certainly many Christians who adhere to this view, I don’t think it lines up with metaphysical reality whatsoever, neither do I think it is moral. Atheists, especially the New Atheists, are quick to point out that if God existed and God is love, there would be no pain or suffering in the world. But, to me, this is based upon a false presumption of the retail God that the reason God exists is to prevent pain and suffering for his creatures and his creation. If the Bible demonstrates anything about ideas about God, it is that people have always questioned pain and suffering, even while still believing in God. Speaking only for myself, while these New Atheists are good at deconstructing the retail God who, they believe, is supposed to encase his creation in a plastic bubble to prevent all harm, I wish they would address the question of why there is goodness, love, joy, beauty, compassion, and other good things in this world. To me, I don’t find Darwinism and “survival of the fittest” a convincing reason for all of the good that does exist. Of course, being a theist is no guarantee of escaping the greed and corruption that exists in our world. And being a theist, despite the claims of many Christians, is no guarantee that we won’t experience pain and suffering. Anyone who is honest knows this. But I have not heard, to date, a cogent argument from the atheist community as to why there is good in this world. They appeal to how good is a means to clan or tribe survival, that it is in our best interest to help one another, but I don’t find that appeal to get us very far because I don’t generally see that played out on a national, political, or economic scale. Humans, IMO, are naturally very selfish beings who, apart from God’s influence to live for the benefit for others, while watch out only for number one (my opinion only). So while the atheist may wonder, why is God love, I wonder why some (perhaps even most) people are loving? Not all, of course. But why have we survived this long, given that most of us are not the “fittest”?

Paul, I agree with you, this deistic view doesn't seem to be very "loving." And I like your parental metaphor. I have four children, so I know what it is like to try to provide a safe, nurturing, loving environment for them. I put food in their tummies, clothes on their backs, shelter over their heads, gave them medicine when they needed it, read them stories, cuddled them, took care of their hurts, and many other loving things for which I never expected payment or some kind of recompense. I did it simply because they are my children and I love them. Two of those children (from my first marriage) are now grown with families of their own. I no longer do all of the things for them that I used to do because it is now up to them to build their lives. This doesn't mean that I love them any less. In fact, I often worry about them more because I can't fix things for them. Should those grown children now accuse me of "walking away" or of no longer loving them because some things in their lives are screwed up (one was on drugs, the other had a nasty divorce)? What kind of loving parent am I to not protect them and care for them throughout their whole lives? It seems to me that, against my scenario of love, there are two other major possibilities. The first is the afore-mentioned Christian notion that despite all the pain and suffering in life, God is still in control and manipulating events according to a "loving" plan that only he is privy to. The second is, as you know, there is no God. For me, I actually respect the atheistic view more than the typical Christian notion of God being a big Protector in the sky. But the problem with the atheistic view, at least for me, is how to account for all of the good things (and there are many) in life. Is it all chance? Or dumb luck? On a practical level, Paul, there may not be much difference between my deistic view and the atheistic view. In both views, God does not directly intervene in human affairs. In mine because God will not. In yours, because God is non-existent. So I no longer expect God to be my protector, my shield, my fortress, my cleft in the rock, my great shepherd, my warrior, etc. Other than God's presence with me as an influence, I am left to make of my life what I will. And I (and we) are left to make of our world what we will. Sure, those starving could complain to my deistic God about why God walked away. But the truth of the matter is we have more than enough money and resources to feed everyone on this earth -- but we won't due to national and corporate greed and apathy. I don't blame God for that. IMO, God has given us some pretty good examples about how to love one another. But most of us expect a supernatural God to fix things, and I just don't think it works that way. Just my 2c.

Seeing as I seemed to stir the pot, Paul, I'll proffer my view. I think all who have a retail God believe that God loves them. Christians believe that God loves Christians. Jews believe that God loves Jews. Muslims believe that God loves Muslims. I suspect that we all have this deep need for unconditional agape love, and our retail God meets this need. After all, who would want to worship or be in a relationship with a God who they believed hated them? Now, I've never been Jewish or Muslim, but I have been Christian, so I'll offer my Christian understanding...and then I'll reject it. Ha ha! For many (most?) Christians, God is love because, no matter what, God works all things together for the good of the beloved (a la Rom 8:28). So no matter how bad things get, God is in control, has a plan, and will make everything ultimately turn out alright. This is a very attractive view, is it not? God is love because God either manipulates events in life for the good of the beloved (for either here or in the hereafter) or because God strongly desires the good of the beloved while leaving much to human free will. Again, I find this view attractive. But I am not convinced that it is true. I've seen too many bad things happen and continue to happen to believe that everything in life goes according to God's perfect plan and that no matter how bad things get, God will make it up to us. A dear friend of mine just lost her grand-daughter to a drunk hit-and-run and my friend believes that this is part of God's plan. I don't. But I am not about to tell her that. If people believe in this kind of "loving God", I think they have to close their eyes to reality and have blind faith. But that is my opinion. Yet, yes, I believe that God is love. But I have to define what *I* mean by that and qualify it. What I mean by love is not that God manipulates events in our world for the best, but that God has, in fact, given us a world that, while not perfect, does have elements of joy, laughter, contentment, peace, growth, harmony, fellowship, and other good qualities that are available to many of us if we work at it. In other words, God is good because God has provided what we need in order for us to make ourselves fairly happy, despite all the suffering and pain in the world. Now, are these things equally available to everyone at all times? No, I think not. But I suspect that, other than natural disasters, the reason these things are not more universally widespread is not due to God, but to us. We are still quite selfish creatures who believe that as long as we get ours, who cares about others. So I don't think the problem is so much that God is not love, but that we aren't. So my definition of God as love is that God created at least one world where life and many good things that go along with it are possible. Guaranteed? No. Fairly distributed? No. Could God have created this world in such a way that suffering and pain don't exist? I don't know. But creation does seem to have a life/death cycle at its core. It happens to amoebas, it happens to stars. We shouldn't expect to be excluded. Does any of this rule out an afterlife? I think not. If God so desires, God can and will find a way to give us life beyond this life. But, to me, God is love because of the life-possibilities that we have which most of us seem to enjoy and appreciate (otherwise we would all commit suicide). God could have created a universe with no life whatsoever. But things have taken a different course. Is this love? Is this a God who is love? I think each of us must decide that for ourselves.

Just a couple more (hopefully) brief thoughts on this. So here is my coworker who says that his God won’t allow homosexuals into his heaven. And here I am saying that my God doesn’t have a problem with homosexuals or homosexuality as long as it isn’t harmful to others (rape, with children, etc.). I have to agree with Norm (if I understand him correctly) and admit that both of these Gods may not, in fact, exist. Both may be figments of our imagination, our own egos magnified. This would certainly account for why my God is not like my coworker’s God. In fact, his God has more credibility than my own because he has Bible verses from both Testaments that he can point to in order to prove that his God is opposed to homosexuality and homosexuals. All I have is opinion, no overt scripture verses. Nevertheless, neither God may exist. I have to admit that because the existence of God is something that, IMO, cannot be proven. But, at least for me, I think the fact that there is something rather than nothing lends evidence or credence to the notion of a Creator. And, speaking only for myself, I do think this Creator is some kind of Being or Entity with a consciousness and will. But this is what I think and I can’t prove it, for it goes back to my subjective experience and, perhaps, my own conditioning. But if this Creator does exist, given the size and complexity of our universe, how much interest would this Creator really have in what we puny humans do with our reproductive organs? We this Creator really be as obsessed with “dirty sex” as our Biblicist brothers and sisters have us believe? Would such a Creator really disregard the good character of one of its creations and exclude that creature from its Presence simply due to a sexual orientation or preference? These are questions I ask myself about my understanding of God (which is, granted, retail). But these are questions that my Biblicist coworker will not entertain because he believes his retail God is the wholesale God, God as God really is without any human perception mixed in. I know enough to know that my understanding is retail, and that, as Norm says, it may even be just my own imagination. But if that is the case, it would be, IMO, absolutely foolish for me to denigrate and condemn others based upon figments of my imagination. If I am going to imagine, I want to image big, not small.

Norm, You may well be right. I certainly can't say for sure because I can't escape the "limitations" of my own subjectivity. God may be a figment of our collective or individual imaginations. But I don't think so. You're right that our notions of God can be (and probably often are) rooted in fear - fear of our lack of control over our world, fear of our mortality. But this is not the only role that God serves. Something (or Someone) made all this. It wasn't me. It wasn't any human I know. It had to be Something (or Someone) More, even if that something is Evolution. It is this More that I call God or the Sacred or the Divine or the Creator. And it is my experience (which is my primary source for my beliefs) that this More was/is here whether we humans are or not. This, to me, is the WHOLESALE GOD, GOD apart from human labels and descriptions. Does this GOD really exist? I am convinced this GOD does. Others may not be. It is when this GOD is described in human terms (such as all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present) that we are talking about the RETAIL God. And then we wonder how this God could exist because if we were God (this RETAIL God), we would allow what God allows. Or we would do what God won't. What I am musing about is that, IMO, people (Christians and otherwise) believe that their RETAIL God is the WHOLESALE GOD. So they think that their ideas about God (which are limited to human understandings) completely capture and describe GOD (which, IMO, is beyond full human comprehension). My coworker believes he knows exactly what God will and will not do because his Bible tells him so. My point is that the God found in the Bible (as wonderful as that God can sometimes be) is still ideas about God from human opinion (that of the ancient Jews and that of the early church). Therefore, IMO, these ideas are limited to time/place/culture/education, etc. The Bible doesn't tell us everything about God, no matter what my coworker insists. I want my ideas about God (my RETAIL God) to be closer to the actual GOD that exists apart from human concepts. Perhaps you don't believe GOD does. That is the atheist POV and I respect it. But that GOD has certainly allowed for homosexuality to exist in our world as a seemingly natural part of the way things are. That GOD is quite a bit "bigger" than the God of the Bible who has a problem with homosexuals, penises with foreskins, eating shellfish and pork, and women preachers.