Religion In what God(s) do you believe ?

[Questions]

I know I already posted another thread with poll named "What is your religion", but this survey is a bit different. I am NOT asking what is one's religion, but only if you believe in God(s) regardless of what specific religion you belong to.

The Silurian Druids were the first people in Britain to accept Jesus. The Druids before them had 'Zeus, Jupiter and the Oak'. They stretched from Pelasgian Crete to Pelasgian Thessaly, to the Ligurian Nemeton at Massalia and the sacred groves of Cornwall.

 

[EV13SON]

I like the Gods of old and Nature Spirits they seemed to ground us more to this world, but if I want to think it through I'd have to arrive at what the "Diest" thought...One supreme entity that created everything and does not interfere...To me to deny the existence of God would be to deny your own...I'm really hoping we are not judged for our actions...that would be a real pity...I'm not really into being a complete goody-goody, where is the fun in that?

 

[torzio]

the one that supports Full Gender Equality

 

[Angela]

I wish I had Jung's certainty.

 

[firetown]

I wish I had Jung's certainty.

Added:
Please see clarification here:
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...believe/page10?p=644078&viewfull=1#post644078

 

[Angela]

I am drawn to both, his confusion and his certainties. "I know" is something I can now relate to in terms of whether or not g-d exists. Not in a religious manner. Religions tried to explain and wrote stories around it. Many silly ones as well.

There we differ. If I were to say I believe, much less "I know", the only God to whom I could claim allegiance is the one I described in post 205, and for the reasons I outlined there.

I also don't know if you have read How the Christian Revolution Created the Western Mind; I highly recommend it even for those who will wind up disagreeing with it.

https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...the-Western-Mind?highlight=Christian+Humanism

 

[bigsnake49]

There we differ. If I were to say I believe, much less "I know", the only God to whom I could claim allegiance is the one I described in post 205, and for the reasons I outlined there.

I also don't know if you have read How the Christian Revolution Created the Western Mind; I highly recommend it even for those who will wind up disagreeing with it.

https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threa...the-Western-Mind?highlight=Christian+Humanism

After suppressing the western mind for about a thousand years, sure...

 

[Angela]

After suppressing the western mind for about a thousand years, sure...

I make it a point not to debate people who are closed to religion; it’s fruitless, especially for someone with her own doubts.

I would just say that imo the pagan gods were childish, and had little to do with the philosophy of the ancient Greeks. On the other hand, Christianity is the OT fused with Greek and Roman philosophy, especially Greek philosophy. There would be no Christianity but for Plato and Aristotle. I had to sit through enough classes on the writings of the Church fathers and especially Thomas Aquinas to at least be certain of that. It is all very far from the Yahweh of the OT.

 

[firetown]

I wrote this here about two years ago. I'm still an agnostic, but if I were to believe in a god, this is what he would be like.

" Originally Posted by Aberdeen

Okay, you seem to really know this stuff, so I'm going to ask you a question that, AFAIK, an insular European such as Kierkegaard didn't feel the need to address. After one ponders spiritual issues, if one decides to make a leap of faith and believe in a god, why should one decide to believe in the christian god rather than some other deity? Is it simply a cultural issue? It seems to me that, just as with positing the idea that the existence of a universe necessitates some unspecified creator, deciding on the need to believe in some kind of creator does not get you to a justification for believing in a specific creator.



It’s been a long time since I’ve read any of these theological works. Most of my copies of their books are in a box in the attic. (You can see how far I have fallen away.) All I have on my computer are quotes from them that I’ve kept.


Here is a very Kierkegaard like one from Hans Kung:
“historical arguments; traditional apologetics breaks down here. Since man is here dealing with God and this by definition means with the invisible, impalpable, uncontrollable, only one attitude is appropriate and required : believing trust, trusting faith.”

FWIW, I don’t remember Kierkegaard ever addressing even the question of Judaism. For him, Christianity is an absolute.

A few of their books are still in my bookcases, and I’ll see if I can find some pertinent quotes.


I can say that personally, if I were to be a believer, I would be a Christian.


Christianity, and Judaism before it are totally different from paganism and the eastern religions-Hindusim, Buddhism, Tao.


My reason leads me to believe in a transcendent God, the creator of the universe, not a god(s) who is part of the universe. The pagan gods were just immortal men, subject to all the vices and sins of ordinary men. Buddhism and Hinduism, while they are profound religions which exhibit deep reflection on the nature of reality, the divine, and the meaning of life and suffering, are really pantheistic religions in which, reduced to their essence, the godhead is basically the universe itself.


It’s only in the monotheistic religions of the Near East that we have an individual transcendent God who creates the universe. That makes more sense to me.


Moreover, he is a God who manifests himself in history and with whom we can communicate. He is a personal God.


Also, the eastern religions do not, in my opinion, satisfactorily address the question of human suffering. The “solution” to suffering in the eastern religions is to stop existing. That is the goal. When, after multiple reincarnations you have learned the necessary “lessons”, you will be rewarded by never being incarnated again, and merging into the formless universe. In Christianity, suffering is the means…it’s through the redemptive suffering of Christ and our participation in that suffering, that we and the world are redeemed. That redemption leads to an afterlife in which the individual identity remains intact.


To use the old formulation, death will be no more, not because we will be blessed by non-existence, but because we will have a different, but still unique, individual existence.


Also, in Christianity there is, contrary to the eastern religions, a definition of the godhead as a loving God. A God, moreover, who, to quote Kierkegaard again, became man and suffered because of that love for mankind, and in the process could say to mankind, "See, here is what it is to be a human being."

The differences between Christianity, Judaism and Islam would be a whole other long post, but I think some of the differences can be inferred just from what I have written.


Of course, I’m aware that the form my logic, my reasoning takes, even my preference, perhaps, if you will, for this definition of God, for this theology, is grounded in a very “western” oriented, “humanistic” philosophical and theological view of the world, God, and man."​

I think that the First Congress of Nicea was where the blueprint for the upcoming Holy Roman Empire was developed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
Here is something Jung once stated:

„Well, I was sitting opposite of her one day, with my back to the window, listening to her flow of rhetoric. She had an impressive dream the night before, in which someone had given her a golden scarab-a costly piece of jewellery. While she was still telling me this dream, I heard something behind me gently tapping on the window. I turned round and saw that it was a fairly large flying insect that was knocking against the window from outside in the obvious effort to get into the dark room. This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window and immediately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. It was a scarabaeid beetle, or common rose-chafer, whose gold-green color most nearly resembles that of a golden scarab. I handed the beetle to my patient with the words “Here is your scarab.”“

– Carl Jung

 

[firetown]

Apparently Jung regretted giving the "I don't need to believe, I know" reply to the question if he believed:
https://steve.myers.co/jungs-regret... most famous televised quote,” (Jung 1959a, p.

[FONT=&quot]After the interview, Jung expressed concern that most people thought “the truth is simple and can be expressed by one short sentence” (Jung 1959c). In Jung’s view, the truth about God is complex because God is a mystery whose nature is beyond human comprehension. In trying to understand God, we each create our own image of him – and the image is never accurate. Jung recognised this about his own image of God:[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Whatever I perceive from without or within is a representation or image… caused, as I rightly or wrongly assume, by a corresponding “real” object. But I have to admit that my subjective image is only grosso modo identical with the object…[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]our images are, as a rule, of something… The God-image is the expression of an underlying experience of something which I cannot attain to by intellectual means… (Jung 1959c)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In another letter, Jung makes it clear that he would have given a different response if he had been asked whether he agreed with anyone’s particular image of God (Jung 1959b). Because of the mysterious and incomprehensible nature of God, no image of God will ever be adequate. He therefore asserted the inadequacy of all images of God, including his own.[/FONT]

 

[Angela]

Apparently Jung regretted giving the "I don't need to believe, I know" reply to the question if he believed:
https://steve.myers.co/jungs-regret... most famous televised quote,” (Jung 1959a, p.

"But I have to admit that my subjective image is only grosso modo identical with the object…
our images are, as a rule, of something… The God-image is the expression of an underlying experience of something which I cannot attain to by intellectual means… (Jung 1959c)
In another letter, Jung makes it clear that he would have given a different response if he had been asked whether he agreed with anyone’s particular image of God (Jung 1959b). Because of the mysterious and incomprehensible nature of God, no image of God will ever be adequate. He therefore asserted the inadequacy of all images of God, including his own."

Yes, I agree with what he said. No one can comprehend the true nature of God completely, if indeed he exists. What I was trying to express was why the image of the Godhead in Catholic dogma "appeals" to me so much more than the images of God presented by the other major religions. Of course, it appeals for a lot of reasons, because of the years of, some would say, indoctrination in Christian theology, because it is a "western" concept of God, although whether Christianity created the western mind or the western mind created Christianity is an open question for me. It appeals, unlike Judaism, because it speaks to, and offers salvation to, every human being on earth, not just one ethnic group.

It's also because it answers the needs of my own personality. The omnipresence of human suffering is very "real" and "visceral" to me. Every psychological test I've ever taken reports very high levels of empathy, although I didn't need tests to tell me that. It was one of the problems I had with my profession. I was literally becoming ill from the constant exposure to the suffering inflicted on people by other human beings, in addition to the suffering that is just part of existence, the suffering of innocents through disease, physical as well as psychological. That's why I could never have become a doctor or psychiatrist or social worker. It's as if I feel people's suffering myself, and I've come to believe that in too many chases there is nothing that we can do. I want that suffering to have meaning.

I also am extraordinarily attached to the people I love, not must parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, but also extremely close friends. Their loss is an open wound. My mother died almost two decades ago; speaking of her suffering and death to others is still almost impossible for me because I embarrass myself by dissolving into tears. I don't want a God where upon my death my consciousness disappears into some "universal soul". It's not enough. I want to know her, them, as myself. I want the reunion promised by Christianity.

So, Christianity is the religion which most "appeals" to me, answers questions about existence in a manner that satisfies me.

However, is it "true"? Is it close to the reality? I still don't know. I wish I had the belief that I used to have in my childhood and young adulthood, but I don't. I haven't been able to make that "leap" into faith that Kierkegaard discusses. I know people who still attend Mass, recite the Nicene creed by rote, take Communion, but don't really "believe" some of the tenets of that Creed. I can't do that. It isn't enough that I could recite it in my sleep; if I can't BELIEVE all of its tenets, then I'm not really a Christian, and so I won't go.

 

[firetown]

Yes, I agree with what he said. No one can comprehend the true nature of God completely, if indeed he exists. What I was trying to express was why the image of the Godhead in Catholic dogma "appeals" to me so much more than the images of God presented by the other major religions. Of course, it appeals for a lot of reasons, because of the years of, some would say, indoctrination in Christian theology, because it is a "western" concept of God, although whether Christianity created the western mind or the western mind created Christianity is an open question for me. It appeals, unlike Judaism, because it speaks to, and offers salvation to, every human being on earth, not just one ethnic group.

It's also because it answers the needs of my own personality. The omnipresence of human suffering is very "real" and "visceral" to me. Every psychological test I've ever taken reports very high levels of empathy, although I didn't need tests to tell me that. It was one of the problems I had with my profession. I was literally becoming ill from the constant exposure to the suffering inflicted on people by other human beings, in addition to the suffering that is just part of existence, the suffering of innocents through disease, physical as well as psychological. That's why I could never have become a doctor or psychiatrist or social worker. It's as if I feel people's suffering myself, and I've come to believe that in too many chases there is nothing that we can do. I want that suffering to have meaning.

I also am extraordinarily attached to the people I love, not must parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, but also extremely close friends. Their loss is an open wound. My mother died almost two decades ago; speaking of her suffering and death to others is still almost impossible for me because I embarrass myself by dissolving into tears. I don't want a God where upon my death my consciousness disappears into some "universal soul". It's not enough. I want to know her, them, as myself. I want the reunion promised by Christianity.

So, Christianity is the religion which most "appeals" to me, answers questions about existence in a manner that satisfies me.

However, is it "true"? Is it close to the reality? I still don't know. I wish I had the belief that I used to have in my childhood and young adulthood, but I don't. I haven't been able to make that "leap" into faith that Kierkegaard discusses. I know people who still attend Mass, recite the Nicene creed by rote, take Communion, but don't really "believe" some of the tenets of that Creed. I can't do that. It isn't enough that I could recite it in my sleep; if I can't BELIEVE all of its tenets, then I'm not really a Christian, and so I won't go.

I had to let go of all I've been told in the past as those who "taught" me were conditioned and confused themselves. What appeals to me is the synchronicity encounter Jung stated. There are others. There are many. It doesn't mean we have to identify "the force".

 

[EV13SON]

Well If I had to settle on one I gotta go with Christianity...I love my beer, wine, and bacon! Plus Jesus is a really nice guy, be like Jesus