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Alright folks, here is your chance to bring together into one thread the question that has been dodging in and out of several other threads: what does the term God (or, if you prefer the lower case – god) mean to you? It’s your chance to wax lyrical or satirical, serious or mysterious.
I’ll start with full disclosure. I am a member of the Religious Society of Friends, aka Quakers. My particular branch of the Quaker tree is of the silent meeting sort; we sit for hours together in silence, “waiting on God,” straining to hear what He/She has to tell us. Sometimes that is very little, other times quite a lot. Like our founder four hundred years ago, George Fox, we strive to meet “that of God in everyone.” So what is that?
My working definition of God is that which compels nearly all of us, at unpredictable occasions, to give of ourselves to others even though we expect nothing in return. When we do that, we are knowing God. That’s it. There is no pie-in-the-sky we are working toward. All that we will ever have is here with us now. God is that fragile bond between humans that makes us human.
OK. Anyone else want to chime in? If not, you can go back to the evolution/creation thread and argue about fossils, primordial goo, and Darwin’s soul.
I’ll start with full disclosure. I am a member of the Religious Society of Friends, aka Quakers. My particular branch of the Quaker tree is of the silent meeting sort; we sit for hours together in silence, “waiting on God,” straining to hear what He/She has to tell us. Sometimes that is very little, other times quite a lot. Like our founder four hundred years ago, George Fox, we strive to meet “that of God in everyone.” So what is that?
My working definition of God is that which compels nearly all of us, at unpredictable occasions, to give of ourselves to others even though we expect nothing in return. When we do that, we are knowing God. That’s it. There is no pie-in-the-sky we are working toward. All that we will ever have is here with us now. God is that fragile bond between humans that makes us human.
OK. Anyone else want to chime in? If not, you can go back to the evolution/creation thread and argue about fossils, primordial goo, and Darwin’s soul.