God
The universe and everything in it, including ourselves, was created by the most wonderful and loving being. This being is our Mother and Father.
It does not matter what name or gender we assign to this being, but for historical and cultural reasons many of us call our creator “God”, and we label God with a masculine gender and human characteristics. You can choose to envision God in terms of whatever helps you to develop a loving relationship with Him.
For most of us it might not be helpful to think of God as “All that ever was”, or "Source", or some other abstract concept. We do not love concepts the way that we love people. God has character and He loves us!
God explained Himself as a loving father, and this is very easy to understand. A loving father is someone in a position of leadership whose role is to teach and guide us, and that is exactly what His creation is designed to do.
God loves each of us unconditionally. His love is totally accepting of who we are. He is a loving and compassionate father, not a stern and dictatorial ruler. God is cheerful, happy, and He has a wonderful sense of humor.
God asks His children to love Him, ourselves and each other. This is not complicated or difficult to understand. We should be loving whether we “believe” in God or not.
Loving God, ourselves, and each other is part of the same process. This is because we are all connected, and we are pieces of the same and only whole. If you do not understand this, do not worry, but know that many wise people have expressed this in terms of "what we do to others, we do to ourselves".
Our understanding of God’s creation is limited while we are experiencing a human incarnation, but His creation is perfectly fair and logical nonetheless.
What God asks of us is timeless. Love is not "old-fashioned".
We get closer to God when we act in accordance with the Golden Rule, and willingly develop unconditional love for Him and all of His creation.
God created us, and as one of Him children we have much more potential and power than we know. We can summon this power by aligning with God and believing in our own divinity.
God is not hidden, but for most of us the full wonder of God is veiled from us while we are in this physical incarnation. If we understood just how much He loves us we might love Him based on the rewards, in which case our love would be conditional.
God is never overbearing, oppressive, jealous, judgmental or controlling. He does not punish us.
God has high standards, but the rewards that align with these standards are commensurate with the effort.
There is only one God, and when religions centered on the Golden Rule refer to God, they are referring to the same God.
Much of God’s creation is significantly more spiritually advanced than mankind. All of this creation recognizes the one and only God, whether they know it or not. This recognition comes in a myriad of different forms.
Learning about God is not an intellectual exercise, it is an exercise for the heart.
God has no secrets, just things we cannot understand while in the physical world. Do not listen to claims that God gave certain groups special or secret knowledge, or status that provides superiority over others. These claims will lead you astray. God’s message to humankind is simple and universal, and He does not confer special benefits to individuals or groups. We are all His special children.
God gave us freewill, otherwise He would have created nothing more than programmed servants. He respects our right to use our freewill to choose our thoughts and actions. God will not interfere with our freewill, but He will intervene if we talk to Him and ask for His help. This is caller prayer.
You do not have to be religious to pray, but you do have to be loving and sincere. The focused and loving intention of prayer is very powerful, but God responds according to our best interest.
Our use of freewill comes with consequences! God established karma as a feedback and teaching mechanism. "You reap what you sow" is the immutable result of God’s karmic law, and we will suffer if we choose to misuse our freewill and ignore the Golden Rule. We will, however, reap our reward if we choose to live our lives as God commands.
Throughout eternity karmic law links what we experience to the choices that we make about how to think, feel and act. Our karma is dissolved when we have learned the lessons that it provides.
Many people reject God because He does not keep us from harm, and they find this very difficult to accept. It is important to understand that God is not a puppet master, and we are not programmed servants. We have freewill, but with freewill comes responsibility for our actions, as well as the consequences that arise from them.
The pain and suffering of the innocent is used by some to support the contention that God does not exist, or if he does, he could not be a loving God if He allows such things to happen. These are judgments that we are not able to make accurately from our limited earthly perspective. We are here to learn to react to pain and suffering with unconditional love.
Jesus was innocent, but he was willing to suffer in order to teach us to love. Many advanced souls willingly incarnate and accept suffering because they know that their suffering is temporary, and that it brings out the love in others.
People often get frustrated because it is so difficult to fully understand God while we are experiencing this physical incarnation. When we accept that God wants us to develop our ability to love unconditionally, our search for a detailed understanding of God becomes less important. Acceptance of why we are here is the key to our growth.
A relentless, knowledge based quest to know God can be a barrier to our growth. It is love that causes growth, not knowledge.
God wields a multidimensional science that is far beyond our ability to understand while we are anchored in this physical universe.
Human logic suggests that God must have been created, so who created God? This question will never get answered from within the confines of a human incarnation, and may never be answerable. We are told that God is eternal and that He exists beyond time, but we cannot know conditions of existence that do not apply to the physical universe, some of which are probably beyond our ability to conceive.
Asking questions about the origin of God does not detract from the love and wonder of God.
Proof of God
There can be no proof of God's existence from within the physical universe, because this proof is defined in terms of scientific laws which are based on the science of the physical universe. In other words, our physical science is based on three dimensions of space and one of time, and is not capable of proving the existence of something which originates from outside of itself, and is subject to science which is far beyond our ability to understand.
If you know God you do not need proof of his existence, because His existence is obvious.
Non-scientific proof of God is accessible to anyone who is open minded and motivated, but it comes in the form of faith and wisdom. It takes time and effort to develop these qualities.
We have faith when we have no proof of something, but believe or know it to be true.
If we had scientific proof of God, and knew for sure that our loving acts would be rewarded, how genuine would our actions be? In the absence of scientific proof, our faith and trust in God drives loving behavior that comes from the heart and is genuine and sincere.
In the minds of the skeptical or agnostic, everything is a balance of probabilities. Science is beginning to tip the balance towards the probable existence of God because of the recognition that other dimensions may exist.
You do not demand proof for many things you take for granted. You cannot see electricity, radiation, gravity or light, yet you see the evidence of their existence. You take these things for granted even though science frequently struggles to explain them using the three dimensional science of the physical world. For example, many theories have been developed to explain the force of gravity, but in many respects it is still a mystery.
Those who genuinely know God do not require proof. They accept that the full wonder of God and His love is beyond our capacity to understand while we are in the physical world.
In order to know God you need to be open minded and motivated to learn about Him. You may need to free yourself from your misconceptions, as well as what you have already been conditioned to believe.
It is love, not knowledge, that enables us to evolve.
Quotes
If I accept the fact that a god is absolute and beyond all human experiences, he leaves me cold. I do not affect him, nor does he affect me. But if I know that a god is a powerful impulse in my soul, at once I must concern myself with him, for then he can become important… like everything belonging to the sphere of reality.
Carl Jung, Psyche and Symbol, 1958
The mind is a wonderful thing and therein we possess that which is after the image of the Creator...
St. Basil
God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.
St. Augustine
What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God.
Eleanor Powell
The reality is that God, in the form of Christ and according to the Bible, gave no quarter for argument. His teachings never used the words "should" or "may" or "could" or "ought to". They all used the word "Shall" which leaves no room for discussion or dissension.
John Cannon
You are not obliged to put on evening clothes to meet God.
Austin O’Malley
But I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.
Vincent van Gogh, Dear Theo: An Autobiography of Vincent van Gogh, 1937
It is easy to understand God as long as you don't try to explain him.
Joseph Joubert
In making up the character of God, the old theologians failed to mention that He is of infinite cheerfulness. The omission has caused the world much tribulation.
Michael Monahan
To define God is to limit Him. Still it seems inevitable that man should do that in order to get some edge to which his mind may cling.
Heywood Broun
God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive.
Ayn Rand, Aquarius
I certainly do believe in God ... I only have to look around me to know that he exists. How else can you explain the world we see around us in all its wonders?
Bing Crosby
There is a major shift in basic spirituality from dealing with life and God as a problem to be solved and with life and God as a mystery to be entered.
Eugene Peterson, letter 1/29/99
People who think of God as a warrior may become warriors themselves, whether in a Christian crusade, a Muslim jihad, or an apocalyptically oriented militia. People who think of God as righteous are likely to emphasize righteousness themselves, just as those who think of God as compassionate are likely to emphasize compassion. People who think God is angry at the world are likely to be angry at the world themselves.
Marcus Borg, The God We Never Knew
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.
Joseph Campbell
The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.
Stephen W. Hawking
Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe in the God idea, not God himself.
Miguel de Unamuno
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mystical. It is the source of all true art and science.
Albert Einstein
It gives me a deep comforting sense that ‘things seen are temporal and things unseen are eternal.’
Helen Keller
Doubt isn't the opposite of faith it is an element of faith.
Paul Tillich
What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of science is not able to make an oyster.
Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)
Is it faith to understand nothing, and merely submit your convictions implicitly to the Church?
John Calvin
I have yet to meet a single person from our culture, no matter what his or her educational background, IQ, and specific training, who had powerful transpersonal experiences and continues to subscribe to the materialistic monism of Western science.
Albert Einstein
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1
Faith is to believe what you do not yet see the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.
St. Augustine
Faith is an oasis in the heart which can never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
Kahlil Gibran
Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
Sir Francis Bacon
For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God.
Saint Teresa of Avila
If you want to create an apple pie from scratch, you must first create an universe.
Carl Sagan.
Some things have to be believed to be seen.
Ralph Hodgson on ESP
He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.
Saint Augustine
The self-appointed spokesmen for God incline to shout. He, Himself, speaks only in whispers.
Martin H. Fischer
God is love in its purest form ... To be in his presence and share his love, we must become as he is and learn to love without judgments or conditions.
Betty Eadie
God does not care about theology. God cares mostly about your heart.
Rev. Howard Storm
God has promised not to intervene in our lives unless we ask.
Betty Eadie
Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous.
Albert Einstein
For God to prove himself on demand, physically, would be a grave disappointment, and the strongest Christians should be considerably grateful that he chooses not to do so. The skeptic endlessly demands proof, yet God refuses to insult the true intelligence of man, the '6th sense', the chief quality, the acumen which distinguishes man from the rest of creation, faith.
Criss Jami, Killosophy
It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.
Ghandi
If thou hast not understood, said I, believe. For understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that thou mayest understand since, "except ye believe, ye shall not understand."
Saint Augustine
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.
Saint Thomas Aquinas
Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
Kahlil Gibran
The scientific discourse misses the fact that the ability to deny is an amazing human phenomenon, a product of sheer complexity of our emotional, linguistic, moral and intellectual lives. Denial is a complex unconscious defense mechanism for coping with guilt, anxiety and other disturbing emotions aroused by reality.
Stanley Cohen
A little faith will bring your soul to heaven, but a lot of faith will bring heaven to your soul.
Author unknown
I shall always be convinced that a watch proves a watchmaker, and that a universe proves a God.
Voltaire
God will never reject you. Whether you accept Him is your decision.
Charles Stanley
For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.
Stuart Chase