Faces of God

[RacerChic]

This aint comin from no profit
Just an ordinary man,
when i close my eyes i see, the way this world shall be
when we all walk hand in hand.
When the last child cries for a crust of bread
When the last man dies for just words that he said
When there's shelter over the poorest head,
We Shall Be Free.
When the last thing we notice is the color of skin
and the first thing we look for is the beauty within
when the skies and the oceans are clean again
We Shall Be Free.
When we are free to love anyone we choose,
when this worlds big enough for all different views
when we all can worship from our own kind of pew
We Shall Be Free.
When money talks for the very last time and nobody walks a step behind
when there's only one race and thats mankind
We Shall Be Free.
Stand straight, have a little faith, walk proud
and We Shall Be Free!

Garth Brooks

Words that I live by and raise my kids in this belief

[weavesilk]

Mr. Personality and Racer Chic - I SO agree!
Racer Chic - your kids will grow into fine human beings with this outlook and belief. I had the same and my son & daughter grew into caring, responsible, loving/giving citizens who are now teaching their children the same way. By what you're doing, others will learn from you by example and these beliefs will spread. We shall be free!

[Tumult]

I get it now.

My God doesn't exist. My God is the collective will of the people who, through every way they can find to go against it, say hurting others is wrong, loving one another is right. That collective will that has allowed us to get along well enough for long enough to achieve all that we have as a species and family. That collective will itself is a powerful force that lends to the furthering of our societies until we forget about it and have to start all over again. That force that keeps us all together on some level is my God.

I appreciate this perspective as it is virtually identical to mine.

God is the force of all aspects of collective consciousness (including subconscious & unconscious) of which the sum is greater than the parts i.e. Capable of altering "reality". The highest form(frequency) of this consciousness is Love.

I'm glad to see people are keen to the Love movement.....

[Phoenix Within]

I've always had this twisted thought... If god did make us in his own image, and if there's truth to evolution, then we're going to be shocked as hell to see a monkey sitting on the throne!

Yea i know I'm going to Hell, but at least i won't be lonely!

[Piecemaker]

I get it now.

My God doesn't exist. My God is the collective will of the people who, through every way they can find to go against it, say hurting others is wrong, loving one another is right. That collective will that has allowed us to get along well enough for long enough to achieve all that we have as a species and family. That collective will itself is a powerful force that lends to the furthering of our societies until we forget about it and have to start all over again. That force that keeps us all together on some level is my God.

I appreciate this perspective as it is virtually identical to mine.

God is the force of all aspects of collective consciousness (including subconscious & unconscious) of which the sum is greater than the parts i.e. Capable of altering "reality". The highest form(frequency) of this consciousness is Love.

I'm glad to see people are keen to the Love movement.....

I tend to think along the same lines...didn't know is was the Love movement!

I was raised with the pictures, such as B_a posted, and the usual religious icons. I no longer think of God as an entity sitting "up there" keeping track of my good deeds and my bad ones.

I think the face of God is in a mountain, a flower and a friendly smile. It's in a kind word, a cat's purr and a dog's wagging tail. The face of God IS in a lemon meringue pie...and a good cup of coffee. The face of God is in a comforting hug and music that stirs the soul. The face of God is in generosity and compassion. The face of God is in friendship and the falling snow. The face of God is in trees, a deep laugh and a bubble bath. The face of God is in cotton fabric and chocolate.

[unclemarty]

The face of God IS in a lemon meringue pie...The face of God is in cotton fabric (cotton candy?) and chocolate.

...and the face of satan, the dentists drill.

[fluffy]

Just thought I'd chime back in with my two cents. Like I said before, I find this sort of discussion difficult because so much of my spiritual beliefs are based in feelings that are hard to put into words, hence my absence for the past couple of months.

I can tell you one thing for sure, the idea of God as a conscious intellect of some sort just doesn't wash with me, it just doesn't feel right, and that, in a nutshell, is where I'm at. Feelings. In particular, feelings about right and wrong, good and bad, that sort of thing. Call it conscience if you like. Or collective will. It is the bottom most level of our heart and soul, the place where all our personal fears and desires are pushed aside and all there is left is truth. Am I making any sense? Like any human, I can let my personal agenda get in the way of what I know to be right and good and true. I can get into twisted justifications and mental acrobatics that let me feel like I am right in doing something which I know in the depth of my soul to be wrong. Even in day-to-day dealings with others, the little white lie, the fabricated excuse for letting someone down, the momentary slip in "cash register" honesty (did you ever get too much change back at a store and just left with it?), all these things that fall under the bad/wrong heading, no matter how small, are forms of spiritual poison, but most of the time I can find some sort of justification that gives it a mask of acceptability. If I look at the same situation honestly and recognize the false reasoning I am using to justify the"wrong" deed, if I can just get fluffy out of the way for a moment, when all I have left is right and true and good, then that's where God lives. He speaks to me in a soft voice, the little angel on my shoulder that gives me a nudge when I'm wandering off the path. He is always there but there are plenty of times when that committee of doorknobs that is the mind of fluffy is making so much racket that it drowns Him out, but there are signals to let me know when I am on or off the path. Doing the wrong thing carries a special feeling with it. Guilt, shame, fear, anger, all the nasty stuff, it's there when I'm I'm straying into the land of bad/wrong. Heightened stress levels, that knot in the stomach, a nagging inability to get the situation out of my mind, these are the markers I've come to recognize as God's absence. Just in the same way there is a peace and serenity that comes from doing the right thing and that is the sign that I am staying on the path. The right thing is not always the easy thing, but it is the right thing nonetheless.

Call it what you want, but at this point in my life I'm calling it "God", and it's working for me.

[Piecemaker]

Good post, fluffy. There is a lot of humilty in your words. Perhaps that and the ability to listen is where wisdom or "God" originates. Many spiritual teachings advocate listening, meditation, being still and the like.

BTW, I particularly liked the visual of "that committee of doorknobs that is the mind of fluffy is making so much racket that it drowns Him out...!" There is so much "noise" in today's society that often we can't hear anything.

[Tumult]

...the idea of God as a conscious intellect of some sort just doesn't wash with me...there is a peace and serenity that comes from doing the right thing....

This is the evolution of God, this is, in my opinion how God can have a future with people. When we shed the old anthropormorphic ideas of God as a being, an entity we can find great meaning and connection. It is much more personal, less detatched, less external. Thanks for sharing your perspective, it makes a lot of sense to me!

[fluffy]

This is the evolution of God, this is, in my opinion how God can have a future with people. When we shed the old anthropormorphic ideas of God as a being, an entity we can find great meaning and connection. It is much more personal, less detatched, less external.

My life's path to date has not been without the odd bump, but I was fortunate to become involved with a group that deals with alcohol addiction through spiritual means. I draw a distinction between spirituality and religion in that I think for the most part today, organized religion tends to blur the true meaning of spirituality. The message tends to get lost in the delivery. It was important for me to get some sort of a handle on a "higher power" if I was going to meet with any success in dealing with my addiction, a handle that I was comfortable with, and I couldn't find that in the Christian religions that I had been exposed to. I was leaning towards something a little more "Obiwan Kenobi-ish". I was okay with the thought that there might be some unifying force at work, some life energy shared by everything from the rocks and trees to more complex life-forms. Over the years this concept evolved into something a little more personal, the thought that the good stuff... love, truth, beauty and the like, all flowed from the same source, (a source I choose to call God) and that source could be blocked by the bad stuff like fear, anger, guilt and that sort. Today I know that leading a clean and virtuous life carries with it the rewards of peace of mind. That's not to say that I am a pillar of virtue by any means, I screw up as much as the next guy, that's part of being human, but I know that I have the tools to to make things work properly if I can discipline myself to use them.

The neat thing about this is that the face of my God is a constantly evolving thing, the concept I hold today is nothing like the concept I held a few years back. It will being interesting to see what He looks like a few years down the road.

[steven lloyd]

I draw a distinction between spirituality and religion in that I think for the most part today, organized religion tends to blur the true meaning of spirituality. The message tends to get lost in the delivery.

Definitely agree with you on this, as does the incessant criticism of those who draw comfort from a more organized search for their own spirituality. We each have to follow our own path and conduct our own search for spiritual meaning – or be free not to bother.

I was okay with the thought that there might be some unifying force at work, some life energy shared by everything from the rocks and trees to more complex life-forms. Over the years this concept evolved into something a little more personal …

For me the concept of God became very personal due to vivid experience. The God I believe in has no face. He (She/It) is an Infinite Force that exists everywhere, that has existed always, even before the Creation of this universe, and will continue to exist even after this universe is gone.

By the way, I don’t follow any religion or belong to any religious group or faith.

[fluffy]

By the way, I don’t follow any religion or belong to any religious group or faith.

I can't claim affiliation with any one gang either, the path I follow today is cobbled together from a lot of different sources. Some of the eastern religions like Buddhism hold my attention longer than others, mostly because of their deep respect for life in all its forms. The recovery program that started this whole thing rolling for me is very open-minded on the subject, asking only that members come to terms with a God of their own understanding, which pretty much leaves the door wide open for any concept that works for them.