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I know many of us have gone through what we might phrase as a “realignment” of our beliefs that were once steeped in Mormonism. The traditional Mormon God is a man of flesh and bones, perfect, all-knowing, who works through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which has a divince commission to help mankind achieve salvation. But given the realignment….is this your current conception of God? If not, who is HE?
I have no idea who or what God is or even if he exists. To confine him to the Mormon concept of God is somewhat frightening. A god who hands out reward and punishment based on obedience and has a 1000 little rules and regulations is not a God that inspires me. If I have to take a stab at it considering the condition of the world I am more of a Diest. God created the world but has little interaction with its ongoing workings. It is for us to work it out or blow ourselves up.
Of course I also like the notion of aliens. God or Gods are just an advance alien race that has been using our evolutionary process to get us to a level that we can behave ourselves and become members of the intergalactic neighborhood.
I have no idea – but I really love the symbolism of God as Father – so that’s what I choose to accept. SilentDawning wrote:I know many of us have gone through what we might phrase as a “realignment” of our beliefs that were once steeped in Mormonism.
The traditional Mormon God is a man of flesh and bones, perfect, all-knowing, who works through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which has a divince commission to help mankind achieve salvation…But given the realignment…. is this your current conception of God? If not, who is HE?One of the main reasons I believe in God is because I just don’t believe that everything happened exactly this way completely by chance for the Earth to support life and then to end up with humans of all the things that could have evolved instead. So I see God as a creator that had some influence on the development of life even though I think some things happen randomly and not necessarily because God wanted everything to happen exactly the way it did. I don’t think God really needs to be what people want or expect him to be sometimes such as all-knowing, perfectly benevolent, and all-powerful at the same time and whether or not he has a body or looks human doesn’t matter that much either way to me. All it would really mean for God to be responsible for the creation and development of life is that he would be more intelligent, powerful, and have a better understanding of how everything works than humans which is already reason enough for me to respect God and continue to pray.
Old-Timer wrote:I have no idea – but I really love the symbolism of God as Father – so that’s what I choose to accept.
I had the same thought as I read this thread. I love the phrase Joseph Smith used – “The Great Parent of the Universe”.
I don’t know either. But after becoming comfortable with that, I feel closer and more at peace with this being. Paradox rules the universe! Nice topic, SD My belief in God is close to the descriptions of Cadence and the DA. I havn’t been free from the chains long enough to extensivly explore this concept, but I do feel that being free I am in a bigger ocean that I am now at liberty to explore.
Anxiously awaiting the answers from others, and cwald
f4h1
To me, now, God is my Source and my Home, the lover of my soul and the truth of my nature. And more than I can understand or even currently experience. Not a scapegoat. Not Santa Claus. Not my slave. Not a jerk. Not demanding, or difficult, or vindictive, or frustrated. Stunningly innocent, satisfyingly wise, imperturbably jovial, arrestingly sober.
For me, he’s someone that essentially leave me alone, but occasionally parachutes into my life to help with some long-term, vexing problem. Whether he’s a man, a spirit, or some other force, I don’t think has really mattered to me — only to the extent that it made for good debate or discussion with people of other faiths. As far as the parachuting force role goes, I worked to save money for a mission in my early twenties. Toiled hard for a long time and go nowhere. Then, suddenly, a bunch of things happened that got me student debt-free and on a mission, mostly self-funded, within one year.
My wife and I were unable to consummate our marriage for 10 years. Then, after I told Him I was leaving the relationship while I was still relatively young and somewhat attractive since the situation wouldn’t unlock IF THINGS DIDN’T CHANGE, a strange set of events happened that ended up motivating my wife to solve the problem. Truly strange and suddenly — within two weeks of my decision to leave.
On my mission, we had stubborn investigators and when we knelt and prayed we had powerful spiritual experiences that I attribute to God. The fact that everyone in the room seemed to acknowledge what they felt the same thing (in one case, four people in total) provided some “inter-rater” reliability that we had all felt the same thing.
Beyond that, his role and influence is mysterious to me, governed by mysterious rules that don’t appear to be consistently applied.
I’m still influenced somehwat by the BoM or D&C quote that says that God is angered when we don’t acknowledge his hand in all things, so I acquiesce that he has probably moved a few things around in my favor over the years — and to my detriment to try to change me.
SilentDawning wrote:I’m still influenced somehwat by the BoM or D&C quote that says that God is angered when we don’t acknowledge his hand in all things, so I acquiesce that he has probably moved a few things around in my favor over the years — and to my detriment to try to change me.
I don’t know if angered is the word even though that’s what it says in scripture. I think it’s more of a disappeared when one doesn’t acknowledge him and is more transparent when one does acknowledge him/her/it. This is what causes me to believe that God is an energy source because the more a person says thank you and is grateful, the quicker he/she/it shows up and I think this is just because we notice how much more involved he/she/it really is.
I’m working out my belief on what God is exactly and not too worried about that as the last time I checked, the only requirement to getting into heaven is by believing in Christ –as far as the mistranslated scriptures are concerned.
I don’t know for sure, but since nothing else has replaced my belief in a Heavenly Father, I still pretty much see Him the same as I did before, pretty much the traditional Mormon view of Elohim and Jehovah. I have changed more of my view of how much He intervenes in my life or in the world, but I haven’t changed my view of what He is.
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