RaptorWizard
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- Mar 19, 2012
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I found a very interesting post below about different philosophies on God from another thread.
I don't know, but then if I have to say about my relationship with God. I think it would be this:
"I don't believe in God, but I miss him." I am haunted by this certainty: all my life would be spent seeking for a God who does not knows and loves me.
I grew up in a non-religious household. My parents believed in Taoism and most of my relatives subscribed to Buddhism with the occasional one or two Roman Catholics and Muslims. I was never expected to choose a religion, or to believe in a God. I think it is the way Taoism works, you kind of choose and craft your own Way - your spiritual beliefs and values - and this organic and malleable system has sort of framed my own beliefs on God. I don't know with certainty. I kind of believe there is a cosmic force at work; something greater and grander than we could comprehend, it may be God or it may not be. It has the sensibilities of a Spinoza's God. And I think the lack of God and a religious structure for moral conduct and ethics during my childhood and teenage hood kind of influenced me. I am horribly uncertain about my own beliefs and values towards God - the only thing I am sort of certain or would like it to be true: God is a product of human societies and minds - a long history of shaped human perceptions, motives and actions.
When I see this world, laid and constructed so beautifully, I want to believe in a God created world. But I don't know. I like to believe God is a watchmaker, impartial and unconcerned with the trivial affairs of Man. For Man was not a carefully constructed being it created. I think I am afflicted with this curse or this wanting or desire to pursue God; to seek for my spiritual Truth or my Way. I become incredibly envious and sad when I see my religious friends talking about their religion. Because they share or have this private spiritual world that I can never belong to and it feels incredibly lonely and sad. Once, I fasted with my Muslim friend during the fasting month (actually I just felt really bad eating in front of her since she looked so hungry; so I ended up not eating for the whole day) and during the moment when they broke fast, where we were seated in a Muslim eating place, it was incredibly beautiful to hear the Islamic prayers and see them joined during that brief moment that commenced the end of the fasting session. And I feel like I can never truly belong to any part of it.
I read the Bible, some of the Buddhist scriptures, attempts to read the Quran - all in the vain hopes of finding a God that I could love and believe in. But then with churches and organized religions, I don't know, at the end of the day, they are created with human intentions and motives and values and so they are flawed and imperfect interpretations of the Christian God. The different groups have different motives for valuing a belief over another. For example, the Bible states that homosexuality is a sin, but then stealing and lust are also sins and he has never explicitly stated a hierarchy in the sins. So why is there such a huge hooha over homosexuality being a greater sin than the mentioned? I don't know, I think that maybe it is because humans manipulate and bend them for their own purposes. And at the end of the day, even if there was really a God (loving or impartial), our human minds and interpretations blinds us from the real truth. (?) I don't know. Probably explains why I can't seem to subscribe to the Christian God or as a matter of fact, to any other Gods.
But then I am still searching and wandering.