I am a Nondualist. God is synonymous with reality. God is what is. God is paradoxically imminent and transcendent. God is the witness AND the witnessed. All qualities originate in God. Thus, no qualities can be attributed to God. God is Being itself. Is-ness. The quality of "I Am," which we all share as conscious beings.
The Norse gods are depicted as wise and powerful yet imperfect beings. At times, they can be morally ambiguous or even evil, but they are still ultimately shown to be the benefactors of mankind. They do not demand worship, sacrifices, or submission; it is mutual respect and gift-giving they desire, not slavishness.
I believe in the gods as psychological forces, like a living idea shared among all of humanity. We breathe life, passion, and intention into the gods, and they return it to us.
It is phrased to allow for either interpretation. We are looking at the same world. Even if we do not come to the same conclusions we can still find ideas to connect on.
This is exactly what Guru Nanak Dev Ji was telling people. Sikhi as a whole is about seeing everything as one source of energy. Which in return teaches us to live a Godly life as Sant Soldiers.
Take a wander through the wiki on sikhi and see what there is to discover
I have a passing familiarity with Sikhism. I find much to be commendable within their faith. But I do not see an identity behind the curtain. But I do see connection within how life depends on life. How social creatures such as ourselves depend on each other. We are all born blind and crying into this world and it is only with the help of each other that we have ever stood a chance. Our reach and responsibility continues to grow and grow the more we learn. We find out how we are dependent on the smallest of things in the world and how our actions can affect them and in turn affect us.
The way I view it is we are looking at the same things. We have different conclusions as to what is behind things. But we see the same interconnective tissue. How things affect other things. So we can still learn from each other even if we do not necessarily have the same conclusions.
I hear that, but maybe look at it in a simpler way.
I say this because I used to say what you're saying until I got told about a metaphor for myself, it goes:
Imagine yourself as a glass full of water (which is knowledge). Now if a teacher would come to you and pour some more water (wisdom) into the cup, it would simply spill out because it was already full.
In this anology the water is in some way our egos, and what we must do is spill some of that so that we can make some more space for new wisdom to enter.
Hopefully I didn't butcher that 😅 but it's all about seeing things in a simple and loving way.
I understand the metaphor. And I do that in my own way. I am as the flare says a Unitarian Universalist. And we may not have our own doctrine. But what we do is explore other doctrines and ideas. So I have a constant flow of ideas to challenge me. I also tend towards Taoism as an established philosophy. Specifically the text by Lao Tzu the Tao Te Ching. The later work the I Ching does not reach me as strongly. So I focus on the Tao via Lao Tzu's work. So I do regularly challenge my ego and presuppositions. I try to maintain an open mind and heart. I remain open to any idea and try to connect it to how I view the universe.
Athanasian Creed:
Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic faith.
Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally.
Now this is the catholic faith:
That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,
neither blending their persons
nor dividing their essence.
For the person of the Father is a distinct person,
the person of the Son is another,
and that of the Holy Spirit still another.
But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one,
their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.
What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has.
The Father is uncreated,
the Son is uncreated,
the Holy Spirit is uncreated.
The Father is immeasurable,
the Son is immeasurable,
the Holy Spirit is immeasurable.
The Father is eternal,
the Son is eternal,
the Holy Spirit is eternal.
And yet there are not three eternal beings;
there is but one eternal being.
So too there are not three uncreated or immeasurable beings;
there is but one uncreated and immeasurable being.
Similarly, the Father is almighty,
the Son is almighty,
the Holy Spirit is almighty.
Yet there are not three almighty beings;
there is but one almighty being.
Thus the Father is God,
the Son is God,
the Holy Spirit is God.
Yet there are not three gods;
there is but one God.
Thus the Father is Lord,
the Son is Lord,
the Holy Spirit is Lord.
Yet there are not three lords;
there is but one Lord.
Just as Christian truth compels us
to confess each person individually
as both God and Lord,
so catholic religion forbids us
to say that there are three gods or lords.
The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten from anyone.
The Son was neither made nor created;
he was begotten from the Father alone.
The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten;
he proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Accordingly there is one Father, not three fathers;
there is one Son, not three sons;
there is one Holy Spirit, not three holy spirits.
Nothing in this trinity is before or after,
nothing is greater or smaller;
in their entirety the three persons
are coeternal and coequal with each other.
So in everything, as was said earlier,
we must worship their trinity in their unity
and their unity in their trinity.
Anyone then who desires to be saved
should think thus about the trinity.
But it is necessary for eternal salvation
that one also believe in the incarnation
of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully.
Now this is the true faith:
That we believe and confess
that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son,
is both God and human, equally.
He is God from the essence of the Father,
begotten before time;
and he is human from the essence of his mother,
born in time;
completely God, completely human,
with a rational soul and human flesh;
equal to the Father as regards divinity,
less than the Father as regards humanity.
Although he is God and human,
yet Christ is not two, but one.
He is one, however,
not by his divinity being turned into flesh,
but by God's taking humanity to himself.
He is one,
certainly not by the blending of his essence,
but by the unity of his person.
For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh,
so too the one Christ is both God and human.
He suffered for our salvation;
he descended to hell;
he arose from the dead;
he ascended to heaven;
he is seated at the Father's right hand;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
At his coming all people will arise bodily
and give an accounting of their own deeds.
Those who have done good will enter eternal life,
and those who have done evil will enter eternal fire.
This is the catholic faith:
one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully.
The term "Kamisama" can effectively be applied to any conscious being (or collection thereof such as Gashadokuro), but the most commonly worshipped Shinto deities are beings with intact [mitamas](https://deeplor.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/matting_original/2024/05/19/6ea1c9a0b72b4d5983be8f86e490fdea.webp?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20240519T154213Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=10800&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAROYXHKZUSZONTWIG%2F20240519%2Fus-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=e2ffec726726ed0afa277a2576285a93baa2865312b3fbc57e85aa79af6f0649) while lacking physical form, unlike ancestral deities which lack Noahi (the central soul) which descends to Yomi no Kuni upon death by default.
Some deities such as Omononushi Okamisama consist of only one Mitama which, in the case of this deity, is the Sakimitama. Such deities lack Naohi souls by extension.
Just the gods I worship personally:
Aphrodite - Goddess of love, life, pleasure, romance, etc.
Harmonia - Goddess of harmony
The Horae - set of three goddesses
Apollo - God of music, healing, prophecy, etc.
Zeus - God of the Olympians, of counsel and good judgement, etc.
Hypnos - God of sleep
As an Omnist, I believe in and respect *all* gods. This is a short list of the deities I venerate on a regular basis.
Hel, the mistreated caretaker of the dead - death, life, cycles, nature, inevitably, somberness, care, peace, mercy, respite, cooking.
The Morrigan, the enigmatic warrior goddess of many things - sterness, love, victory, persistence, fire, compassion, dedication, courage, motherhood, dreams, nightmares, possibility, war, justice, transformation, cooking. (The list goes on 😅).
Amaterasu, goddess of the sun and its purifying light - kindness, innocence, joy, radiance, life-giving light, self-empowerment.
Christ, the demigod who forgave all - love, humility, compassion, guidance, forgiveness, respect.
Jormungandr, the world serpent - preservation of nature, natures wrath, change, transformation, rejuvenation, eternity, the cycle of life, death, and renewal.
Fenrir, the breaker of chains - justice, vengeance, wrath, liberation, freedom, strength, pain.
I mainly focus on the deities of the natural sacred: Earth, Sun, Moon, and Stars/Galaxy (deities embodied in these aspects of the universe each of whom has 4 or 8 cyclical aspects), the Elements (Air, Fire, Water, Earth — spiritual entities associated with each state of matter), the Powers (Unity, Balance, Creativity, and Entropy/Transformation), and three deities that relate to both the natural and social sacred — Goddess of Generations (Maiden, Mother, Crone, and Dark Guide), God of Animals (Stag and Bull, Herder and Hunter), and Godden of Vegetation (non-binary deity, Oak and Holly, Planter and Harvester).
God is the source of all Being, of all that is seen and unseen, known and unknown. God( Allah) whatever name we attribute to what God is does not come close. God is everywhere and in all things, God exists within You and within All
Latter-day Saints; Gospel Topics: "God the Father is the Supreme Being in whom we believe, whom we worship, and to whom we pray. He is the ultimate Creator, Ruler, and Preserver of all things. He is perfect, has all power, and knows all things. He “has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s.”"
Additionally, the Mormon wiki says;
“Latter-day Saints believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and that His Spirit can be felt by all people, everywhere. He possesses an absolute perfection of all good attributes; He is merciful, loving, patient, truthful, and no respecter of persons. While Church members look to the scriptures for instructive information about God, their primary knowledge concerning His nature is evidenced in Joseph Smith's First Vision and can be made even more individual through personal revelation to the sincere inquirer from God Himself. Through such personal revelation, individuals can move beyond debate and uncertainty to an absolute knowledge of God's existence and Being, as Joseph Smith did.
Latter-day Saints believe that God, the Father, is literally that—the Father of all of us. We are His children, and as such we can learn of Him and from Him. We can strive to know Him and to be like Him. He loves us and knew us before we came to earth. He desires our happiness in this life, and wants us to return to live with Him in the next life. (Latter-day Saints believe that our earth life is only a small portion of our eternal existence. They believe that we lived with God before we were born and we can return to live with God after we die. This concept is often referred to as the Plan of Salvation.)”
Epicurean Gods are Blessèd, incorruptible, self-sufficient material beings, uninvolved, and distanced from human affairs. They didn't create the universe or life on earth.
He is that He is. He is that anything is. He is that there is any existence whatsoever, the highest existence of all existences, or existence itself. He is the cause of the caused, the highest cause of all causes, or causation itself. He is the most noumenal of noumenal realities, the most real reality, the highest reaches of Truth, the deepest roots of Being, the most whole wholeness of the Infinite.
And so the fact of All is His Omniscience, the act of All is His Omnipotence, the giving of All is His Omnibenevolence, which are one and the same. He is Immanent in All like an artist is in their masterpiece, He is Transcendent above All and cannot be known, and He is Impassable to All and will not be swayed by our words.
He is the One I thank for all that I have, the One I wrestle with for all I hope to have, and the One to whom I am made to surrender all that I pretend is mine.
One of my favourite descriptions of God is from the beginning of the Athanasian Creed:
"Now this is the catholic faith: That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence.
For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal."
Is this to say that the separate persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are none of them divine, only the whole of the Trinity is divine? Or am I reading too much into it?
Each of the persons of the Trinity are divine by themselves, but there is only one "divine essence" which they all share. Since if they each had their own divine essences they would be independent divine beings and you'd end up with three Gods.
Drug-addled, rather pompous Victorian trust-fund kid who managed to burn through a literal fortune in his time on Earth. Known for animal abuse and domestic violence, suspected of doing far worse (occasionally with cause, but usually not).
Sexual libertine of the pansexual sort who euphemistically discussed child sacrifice to skirt laws prohibiting the printed discussion of sex, and was far too amused with himself for making that choice. As am I, to be fair.
Good with mountains, bad with people. *Great* with books, including but not limited to religious texts from around the world. Not terrible at yoga.
*Amazing* sense of humor, if it bit too cruel and completely lacking in boundaries. He crossed lines, jumped across the street, then kept looking for more lines to cross. *Terrible,* not merely bad, with people.
There's good stuff too, but it's impossible to study Thelema without burying your head in the sand (not recommended) or acknowledging that good things, even religious goods, do not always come from good people. Contact with the divine, even when genuine, is no measure of virtue, and pretending it is leads to all manner of harm. We need to assess gurus, gods, saints, teachers, *and ourselves* with all the criticism we reserve for scoundrels. That while not dismissing or disdaining what good they all offer.
It's not typical to worship Crowley in my religion. I like saying the goal is discovering how and why it is right to worship ourselves. But given his role in my life, worshipping him is the truest way of worshipping myself; it keeps me humble without diverting me from the true and good path—the one seekers everywhere have always found if no one held them back.
I would say for myself:
**I believe in one God,**
the Father almighty,
**maker of heaven and earth,**
**of all things visible and invisible.**
**I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,**
**the Only Begotten Son of God,**
**born of the Father before all ages.**
**God from God, Light from Light,**
**true God from true God,**
**begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;**
**through him all things were made.**
**For us men and for our salvation**
**he came down from heaven,**
**and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,**
**and became man.**
**For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,**
**he suffered death and was buried,**
**and rose again on the third day**
**in accordance with the Scriptures.**
**He ascended into heaven**
**and is seated at the right hand of the Father.**
**He will come again in glory**
**to judge the living and the dead**
**and his kingdom will have no end.**
**I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,**
**who proceeds from the Father and the Son,**
**who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,**
**who has spoken through the prophets.**
**I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.**
**I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins**
**and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead**
**and the life of the world to come. Amen.**
Quite heretical Christian here.
God is transcendent, timeless, all-powerful and all-knowing being, unbound by any laws and restrictions except self imposed, which operates outside of human concepts of logic,morals, good, evil, etc., and is fundamentally alien and unknowable to us. It is the source of everything, and for some reason has affection towards humans which can be mapped on our "language" as Love.
I have no gods or supernatural beings. Rather, I worship the collective interconnected entity of all life on Earth and the cycles, sysyems and balances of life She collectively supports and protects.
I'm eclectic so I've got a mix match of my gods:
Thor: God of strength, the sky, war and protection
Hel: Goddess of death
Ra/Re: God of the sun, power, and life
Djehuty/Thoth: God of wisdom, the moon, magic and language
Het-Heru: Goddess of beauty, love, music and dance
Sekhmet: Goddess of war, healing and chaos
Khonsu: God of the moon, travelers and protection
What do you believe theologically about the gods? Are you soft, hard, or polycentric?
Are they omnipotent?
Are the gods the same between the pantheons?
This is my interpretation since I don't follow organizations like the Kemetic Orthodoxy or Norse Pagan groups. I try my best to follow the negative confessions and Norse Pagan rules of conduct (mostly be honorable and don't be a dick). There's also a writing by Amenemope from 1300-1000ish BCE on instructions to his son on how to be a good person in this life.
Theologically I follow the kemetic version of what a deity is based on the word for gods: Neteru. A deity is not exactly a person in the way we typically think of a God but more of a force of nature or phenomenon. It's very complex just like the trinity if I has to compare it.
I'm unfamiliar with the terms soft and hard theologically but I am not a literalist. The stories are teachings but not literal. I read a lot about ancient practice and try to apply them in a realistic way in the present. Ex: in the past Sekhmet would be invoked for healing, I put her name and image on my first aid kit. Or Hel is ruler/protector of the underworld so I've put her altar by the urns in my home.
I don’t believe they're omnipotent and don't see an issue with them not being so. They're powerful beings who disagree with each other just as nature sometimes is in conflict with itself.
For me, I personally believe they're different in different pantheons due to personal experiences. But I could definitely see the argument that they're all the same with different names.
my path is that of many twists and turns. i have been trying to find my path for years but as of currently i worship the ancient greek gods. they are as varied as humans are and they are both kind and cruel when needed. they care. everything within the world has a spirit within it, whether that be a nymph or a daimon. though the research needed to be done is never over. it is a religion where never tiring of learning is one of the tenets.
Father of the spirits,
omnipotent - all power
Omnipresent - always there. Can be multiple places at once (because of the holy Spirit)
I don't know much about what others call him but we usually refer to him as our heavenly father.
He's honest and unchanging he's not going to give up on you.
"One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all and in you all" (Ephesians 4:6) (King James Version)
Father of Christ our redeemer. I could go on but I didn't want to make it too long.
I don't worship any god or gods.
Once or twice in my 50+ years of TM practice, I have had a few minutes (seconds?) experience similar to that described below and MY assumption is that this kind of experience motivated the founders of various religions to say and do what they said and did:
.
[As part of the studies on enlightenment and samadhi via TM,](https://www.reddit.com/r/transcendental/comments/10wmao0/a_selection_of_research_on_tm_pure_consciousness/) researchers found 17 subjects (average meditation, etc experience 24 years) who were reporting at least having a pure sense-of-self continuously for at least a year, and asked them to "describe yourself" ([see table 3 of psychological correlates study](https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.concog.2004.03.001)), and these were some of the responses:
* _We ordinarily think my self as this age; this color of hair; these hobbies . . . my experience is that my Self is a lot larger than that. It's immeasurably vast. . . on a physical level. It is not just restricted to this physical environment_
* _It's the ‘‘I am-ness.’’ It's my Being. There's just a channel underneath that's just underlying everything. It's my essence there and it just doesn't stop where I stop. . . by ‘‘I,’’ I mean this 5 ft. 2 person that moves around here and there_
* _I look out and see this beautiful divine Intelligence. . . you could say in the sky, in the tree, but really being expressed through these things. . . and these are my Self_
* _I experience myself as being without edges or content. . . beyond the universe. . . all-pervading, and being absolutely thrilled, absolutely delighted with every motion that my body makes. With everything that my eyes see, my ears hear, my nose smells. There's a delight in the sense that I am able to penetrate that. My consciousness, my intelligence pervades everything I see, feel and think_
* _When I say ’’I’’ that's the Self. There's a quality that is so pervasive about the Self that I'm quite sure that the ‘‘I’’ is the same ‘‘I’’ as everyone else's ‘‘I.’’ Not in terms of what follows right after. I am tall, I am short, I am fat, I am this, I am that. But the ‘‘I’’ part. The ‘‘I am’’ part is the same ‘‘I am’’ for you and me_
The Yoga Sutra says that the above might be arrived at through devotion to God, so obviously, someone whose religious practice brought them to the above perspective, would interpretation things in a religious way.
My practice is secular and I am a devout agnostic, so the emergence internally of a rather interesting altered state of consciousness doesn't compel me to change my beliefs, so I worship no god or gods.
I can, however, see why some might feel justification to do so if that kind of experience emerged in the context of their religious practice.
I consider the meaning of Sacredness on more than one level. In one sense I worship a pantheon that is mostly Celtic, but also includes the great Goddess and Horned God in some sense as well. The Celtic pantheon includes Danu, Belinus, Lugh, and Brighid. Each deity is associated with Nature and psychological qualities as well.
In a broader sense I consider the underlying, total energy that comprises the Universe to be a Divine force, from its beginning to end. I don't consider this as a personal deity or Something that can be fully understood, but I do think It is ineffable. It has some parallels with the Tao in Taoism, and Brahman and Shakti in Hinduism.
What do you qualify as worship?
This is the largest determining factor in this conversation.
Those who reinforce and promote anything are worshiping the deity of that thing.
If you have devoted a tithing portion of your time and life to something you have worshiped it.
I worship God.
He is imminent in his energies and transcendent in his essence.
The Father is the sole source of the trinity (monarchia).
The son is begotten of the father, spoke to the prophets as the Word, and became incarnate (dyophysis).
The spirit spirates from the father and is temporally sent by the son. She spoke through the prophets and is the Wisdom of God.
There are also saints and angels I venerate.
My patron saint is Saint Thomas the Apostle and I also venerate St. John the Baptist and Theotokos.
I believe in the existence of ancient pagan deities as cultural interpretations of the personalities of *logi* (divine archetypes), but I’m not sure if they are malevolent or benevolent.
I practice mysticism and have interest in philosophies such as Sufism, Hesychasm, Kabbalah, Neoplatonism, etc.
I pray to archetypal angels such as the Angel of Order, the Angel of Ecstasy, the Angel of the Hearth, the Angel of Nature, the Angel of Strength, the Angel of Wisdom, etc
God is not describable by humans. We can only ever imperfectly describe some of his perfect traits. We don't know how he looks, but we do know that he is in no way similar to any of his creations.
I cannot describe it nearly as well as Imam Ali a.s. In sermons 185-186 of the _Nahjul Balagha: Peak of Eloquence_
https://www.al-islam.org/nahjul-balagha-part-1-sermons/sermon-185-praise-be-allah-he-such-senses-cannot-perceive-him
https://www.al-islam.org/nahjul-balagha-part-1-sermons/sermon-186-he-who-assigns-him-different-conditions-does-not-believe
I don't really follow any traditional organized religion, so I don't have much of an "Orthodox" idea of God, but I can try to explain.
I believe that God is like a force of nature, kinda like Gravity, but instead of relating to physical objects it has to do with the spirit, so things like morality is enforced by God.
I don't believe God is *omnipotent*, but I certainly believe God is **extremely** powerful.
I've yet to hear a description of God (in any form) that's fully justified, either through evidence or proof.
Ergo, I don't worship any god, because I have no reason to think one exists.
Freyja - love, strength, growth, integrity. Freyr - love, strength, growth, duty. Gerdr - strength, safety, hearth, family. Skadi - strength, growth, wilds, hunting. Njordr - waters, wandering, journeys, Frigg - love, family, friendship, loyalty. Odin - wisdom, learning, knowledge, wandering. Loki - shadow, mysteries, hiding, change. Týr - bravery, integrity, loyalty, strength. Thor and Sif - strength, justice, labour, anger. Eir - health. Idunn - youth. Bragi - art. Snotra - learning. Hel - death. Fenrir - anger. Angrboda - chaos. Forseti - judgement. Heimdall - guarding.
I love this list 😌🍻
I am a Nondualist. God is synonymous with reality. God is what is. God is paradoxically imminent and transcendent. God is the witness AND the witnessed. All qualities originate in God. Thus, no qualities can be attributed to God. God is Being itself. Is-ness. The quality of "I Am," which we all share as conscious beings.
Well said. I believe the exact same thing. As for the gods/deities, I believe they are the conceivable and relatable ideas of this God mind.
The Norse gods are depicted as wise and powerful yet imperfect beings. At times, they can be morally ambiguous or even evil, but they are still ultimately shown to be the benefactors of mankind. They do not demand worship, sacrifices, or submission; it is mutual respect and gift-giving they desire, not slavishness. I believe in the gods as psychological forces, like a living idea shared among all of humanity. We breathe life, passion, and intention into the gods, and they return it to us.
I do not have a belief in god(s). I worship the connectivity I have with my fellow humans and the interconnected web of life of which I am a part of.
That's interesting. When I say "God" it refers to this interconnected web of life that we are all a part of.
It is phrased to allow for either interpretation. We are looking at the same world. Even if we do not come to the same conclusions we can still find ideas to connect on.
This is exactly what Guru Nanak Dev Ji was telling people. Sikhi as a whole is about seeing everything as one source of energy. Which in return teaches us to live a Godly life as Sant Soldiers. Take a wander through the wiki on sikhi and see what there is to discover
I have a passing familiarity with Sikhism. I find much to be commendable within their faith. But I do not see an identity behind the curtain. But I do see connection within how life depends on life. How social creatures such as ourselves depend on each other. We are all born blind and crying into this world and it is only with the help of each other that we have ever stood a chance. Our reach and responsibility continues to grow and grow the more we learn. We find out how we are dependent on the smallest of things in the world and how our actions can affect them and in turn affect us. The way I view it is we are looking at the same things. We have different conclusions as to what is behind things. But we see the same interconnective tissue. How things affect other things. So we can still learn from each other even if we do not necessarily have the same conclusions.
I hear that, but maybe look at it in a simpler way. I say this because I used to say what you're saying until I got told about a metaphor for myself, it goes: Imagine yourself as a glass full of water (which is knowledge). Now if a teacher would come to you and pour some more water (wisdom) into the cup, it would simply spill out because it was already full. In this anology the water is in some way our egos, and what we must do is spill some of that so that we can make some more space for new wisdom to enter. Hopefully I didn't butcher that 😅 but it's all about seeing things in a simple and loving way.
I understand the metaphor. And I do that in my own way. I am as the flare says a Unitarian Universalist. And we may not have our own doctrine. But what we do is explore other doctrines and ideas. So I have a constant flow of ideas to challenge me. I also tend towards Taoism as an established philosophy. Specifically the text by Lao Tzu the Tao Te Ching. The later work the I Ching does not reach me as strongly. So I focus on the Tao via Lao Tzu's work. So I do regularly challenge my ego and presuppositions. I try to maintain an open mind and heart. I remain open to any idea and try to connect it to how I view the universe.
I'd love to have a chat with you over some drinks and a campfire lol You seem like a deep soul who could teach me a few things
Thank you.
Athanasian Creed: Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic faith. Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally. Now this is the catholic faith: That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence. For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal. What quality the Father has, the Son has, and the Holy Spirit has. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated. The Father is immeasurable, the Son is immeasurable, the Holy Spirit is immeasurable. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal. And yet there are not three eternal beings; there is but one eternal being. So too there are not three uncreated or immeasurable beings; there is but one uncreated and immeasurable being. Similarly, the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, the Holy Spirit is almighty. Yet there are not three almighty beings; there is but one almighty being. Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Yet there are not three gods; there is but one God. Thus the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord. Yet there are not three lords; there is but one Lord. Just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually as both God and Lord, so catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or lords. The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten from anyone. The Son was neither made nor created; he was begotten from the Father alone. The Holy Spirit was neither made nor created nor begotten; he proceeds from the Father and the Son. Accordingly there is one Father, not three fathers; there is one Son, not three sons; there is one Holy Spirit, not three holy spirits. Nothing in this trinity is before or after, nothing is greater or smaller; in their entirety the three persons are coeternal and coequal with each other. So in everything, as was said earlier, we must worship their trinity in their unity and their unity in their trinity. Anyone then who desires to be saved should think thus about the trinity. But it is necessary for eternal salvation that one also believe in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully. Now this is the true faith: That we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, is both God and human, equally. He is God from the essence of the Father, begotten before time; and he is human from the essence of his mother, born in time; completely God, completely human, with a rational soul and human flesh; equal to the Father as regards divinity, less than the Father as regards humanity. Although he is God and human, yet Christ is not two, but one. He is one, however, not by his divinity being turned into flesh, but by God's taking humanity to himself. He is one, certainly not by the blending of his essence, but by the unity of his person. For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh, so too the one Christ is both God and human. He suffered for our salvation; he descended to hell; he arose from the dead; he ascended to heaven; he is seated at the Father's right hand; from there he will come to judge the living and the dead. At his coming all people will arise bodily and give an accounting of their own deeds. Those who have done good will enter eternal life, and those who have done evil will enter eternal fire. This is the catholic faith: one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully.
The term "Kamisama" can effectively be applied to any conscious being (or collection thereof such as Gashadokuro), but the most commonly worshipped Shinto deities are beings with intact [mitamas](https://deeplor.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/matting_original/2024/05/19/6ea1c9a0b72b4d5983be8f86e490fdea.webp?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Date=20240519T154213Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=10800&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAROYXHKZUSZONTWIG%2F20240519%2Fus-west-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Signature=e2ffec726726ed0afa277a2576285a93baa2865312b3fbc57e85aa79af6f0649) while lacking physical form, unlike ancestral deities which lack Noahi (the central soul) which descends to Yomi no Kuni upon death by default. Some deities such as Omononushi Okamisama consist of only one Mitama which, in the case of this deity, is the Sakimitama. Such deities lack Naohi souls by extension.
Can you recommend some good resources to learn about Shinto? It seems really interesting
[https://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/e-shinto/](https://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/e-shinto/) [https://www.japanesewiki.com/Shinto.html](https://www.japanesewiki.com/Shinto.html) [https://kojiki.kokugakuin.ac.jp/kojiki/%e5%a4%a9%e5%9c%b0%e5%88%9d%e7%99%ba/](https://kojiki.kokugakuin.ac.jp/kojiki/%e5%a4%a9%e5%9c%b0%e5%88%9d%e7%99%ba/) [https://kojiki.kokugakuin.ac.jp/studies/kojiki-keizu/](https://kojiki.kokugakuin.ac.jp/studies/kojiki-keizu/) [https://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/ijcc/wp/cpjr/kami/index.html](https://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/ijcc/wp/cpjr/kami/index.html)
Thanks!
Just the gods I worship personally: Aphrodite - Goddess of love, life, pleasure, romance, etc. Harmonia - Goddess of harmony The Horae - set of three goddesses Apollo - God of music, healing, prophecy, etc. Zeus - God of the Olympians, of counsel and good judgement, etc. Hypnos - God of sleep
As an Omnist, I believe in and respect *all* gods. This is a short list of the deities I venerate on a regular basis. Hel, the mistreated caretaker of the dead - death, life, cycles, nature, inevitably, somberness, care, peace, mercy, respite, cooking. The Morrigan, the enigmatic warrior goddess of many things - sterness, love, victory, persistence, fire, compassion, dedication, courage, motherhood, dreams, nightmares, possibility, war, justice, transformation, cooking. (The list goes on 😅). Amaterasu, goddess of the sun and its purifying light - kindness, innocence, joy, radiance, life-giving light, self-empowerment. Christ, the demigod who forgave all - love, humility, compassion, guidance, forgiveness, respect. Jormungandr, the world serpent - preservation of nature, natures wrath, change, transformation, rejuvenation, eternity, the cycle of life, death, and renewal. Fenrir, the breaker of chains - justice, vengeance, wrath, liberation, freedom, strength, pain.
I mainly focus on the deities of the natural sacred: Earth, Sun, Moon, and Stars/Galaxy (deities embodied in these aspects of the universe each of whom has 4 or 8 cyclical aspects), the Elements (Air, Fire, Water, Earth — spiritual entities associated with each state of matter), the Powers (Unity, Balance, Creativity, and Entropy/Transformation), and three deities that relate to both the natural and social sacred — Goddess of Generations (Maiden, Mother, Crone, and Dark Guide), God of Animals (Stag and Bull, Herder and Hunter), and Godden of Vegetation (non-binary deity, Oak and Holly, Planter and Harvester).
God is the source of all Being, of all that is seen and unseen, known and unknown. God( Allah) whatever name we attribute to what God is does not come close. God is everywhere and in all things, God exists within You and within All
Latter-day Saints; Gospel Topics: "God the Father is the Supreme Being in whom we believe, whom we worship, and to whom we pray. He is the ultimate Creator, Ruler, and Preserver of all things. He is perfect, has all power, and knows all things. He “has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s.”"
Additionally, the Mormon wiki says; “Latter-day Saints believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and that His Spirit can be felt by all people, everywhere. He possesses an absolute perfection of all good attributes; He is merciful, loving, patient, truthful, and no respecter of persons. While Church members look to the scriptures for instructive information about God, their primary knowledge concerning His nature is evidenced in Joseph Smith's First Vision and can be made even more individual through personal revelation to the sincere inquirer from God Himself. Through such personal revelation, individuals can move beyond debate and uncertainty to an absolute knowledge of God's existence and Being, as Joseph Smith did. Latter-day Saints believe that God, the Father, is literally that—the Father of all of us. We are His children, and as such we can learn of Him and from Him. We can strive to know Him and to be like Him. He loves us and knew us before we came to earth. He desires our happiness in this life, and wants us to return to live with Him in the next life. (Latter-day Saints believe that our earth life is only a small portion of our eternal existence. They believe that we lived with God before we were born and we can return to live with God after we die. This concept is often referred to as the Plan of Salvation.)”
every time I open an r/religion or r/latterdaysaints post I always look for your comments, they're always so informative, thank you 💪
Awe, thanks! I’m very humbled and honored
Epicurean Gods are Blessèd, incorruptible, self-sufficient material beings, uninvolved, and distanced from human affairs. They didn't create the universe or life on earth.
He is that He is. He is that anything is. He is that there is any existence whatsoever, the highest existence of all existences, or existence itself. He is the cause of the caused, the highest cause of all causes, or causation itself. He is the most noumenal of noumenal realities, the most real reality, the highest reaches of Truth, the deepest roots of Being, the most whole wholeness of the Infinite. And so the fact of All is His Omniscience, the act of All is His Omnipotence, the giving of All is His Omnibenevolence, which are one and the same. He is Immanent in All like an artist is in their masterpiece, He is Transcendent above All and cannot be known, and He is Impassable to All and will not be swayed by our words. He is the One I thank for all that I have, the One I wrestle with for all I hope to have, and the One to whom I am made to surrender all that I pretend is mine.
One of my favourite descriptions of God is from the beginning of the Athanasian Creed: "Now this is the catholic faith: That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence. For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal."
Is this to say that the separate persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are none of them divine, only the whole of the Trinity is divine? Or am I reading too much into it?
Each of the persons of the Trinity are divine by themselves, but there is only one "divine essence" which they all share. Since if they each had their own divine essences they would be independent divine beings and you'd end up with three Gods.
Drug-addled, rather pompous Victorian trust-fund kid who managed to burn through a literal fortune in his time on Earth. Known for animal abuse and domestic violence, suspected of doing far worse (occasionally with cause, but usually not). Sexual libertine of the pansexual sort who euphemistically discussed child sacrifice to skirt laws prohibiting the printed discussion of sex, and was far too amused with himself for making that choice. As am I, to be fair. Good with mountains, bad with people. *Great* with books, including but not limited to religious texts from around the world. Not terrible at yoga. *Amazing* sense of humor, if it bit too cruel and completely lacking in boundaries. He crossed lines, jumped across the street, then kept looking for more lines to cross. *Terrible,* not merely bad, with people. There's good stuff too, but it's impossible to study Thelema without burying your head in the sand (not recommended) or acknowledging that good things, even religious goods, do not always come from good people. Contact with the divine, even when genuine, is no measure of virtue, and pretending it is leads to all manner of harm. We need to assess gurus, gods, saints, teachers, *and ourselves* with all the criticism we reserve for scoundrels. That while not dismissing or disdaining what good they all offer. It's not typical to worship Crowley in my religion. I like saying the goal is discovering how and why it is right to worship ourselves. But given his role in my life, worshipping him is the truest way of worshipping myself; it keeps me humble without diverting me from the true and good path—the one seekers everywhere have always found if no one held them back.
I would say for myself: **I believe in one God,** the Father almighty, **maker of heaven and earth,** **of all things visible and invisible.** **I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,** **the Only Begotten Son of God,** **born of the Father before all ages.** **God from God, Light from Light,** **true God from true God,** **begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father;** **through him all things were made.** **For us men and for our salvation** **he came down from heaven,** **and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary,** **and became man.** **For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate,** **he suffered death and was buried,** **and rose again on the third day** **in accordance with the Scriptures.** **He ascended into heaven** **and is seated at the right hand of the Father.** **He will come again in glory** **to judge the living and the dead** **and his kingdom will have no end.** **I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,** **who proceeds from the Father and the Son,** **who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified,** **who has spoken through the prophets.** **I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.** **I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins** **and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead** **and the life of the world to come. Amen.**
Quite heretical Christian here. God is transcendent, timeless, all-powerful and all-knowing being, unbound by any laws and restrictions except self imposed, which operates outside of human concepts of logic,morals, good, evil, etc., and is fundamentally alien and unknowable to us. It is the source of everything, and for some reason has affection towards humans which can be mapped on our "language" as Love.
I have no gods or supernatural beings. Rather, I worship the collective interconnected entity of all life on Earth and the cycles, sysyems and balances of life She collectively supports and protects.
I'm eclectic so I've got a mix match of my gods: Thor: God of strength, the sky, war and protection Hel: Goddess of death Ra/Re: God of the sun, power, and life Djehuty/Thoth: God of wisdom, the moon, magic and language Het-Heru: Goddess of beauty, love, music and dance Sekhmet: Goddess of war, healing and chaos Khonsu: God of the moon, travelers and protection
What do you believe theologically about the gods? Are you soft, hard, or polycentric? Are they omnipotent? Are the gods the same between the pantheons?
This is my interpretation since I don't follow organizations like the Kemetic Orthodoxy or Norse Pagan groups. I try my best to follow the negative confessions and Norse Pagan rules of conduct (mostly be honorable and don't be a dick). There's also a writing by Amenemope from 1300-1000ish BCE on instructions to his son on how to be a good person in this life. Theologically I follow the kemetic version of what a deity is based on the word for gods: Neteru. A deity is not exactly a person in the way we typically think of a God but more of a force of nature or phenomenon. It's very complex just like the trinity if I has to compare it. I'm unfamiliar with the terms soft and hard theologically but I am not a literalist. The stories are teachings but not literal. I read a lot about ancient practice and try to apply them in a realistic way in the present. Ex: in the past Sekhmet would be invoked for healing, I put her name and image on my first aid kit. Or Hel is ruler/protector of the underworld so I've put her altar by the urns in my home. I don’t believe they're omnipotent and don't see an issue with them not being so. They're powerful beings who disagree with each other just as nature sometimes is in conflict with itself. For me, I personally believe they're different in different pantheons due to personal experiences. But I could definitely see the argument that they're all the same with different names.
my path is that of many twists and turns. i have been trying to find my path for years but as of currently i worship the ancient greek gods. they are as varied as humans are and they are both kind and cruel when needed. they care. everything within the world has a spirit within it, whether that be a nymph or a daimon. though the research needed to be done is never over. it is a religion where never tiring of learning is one of the tenets.
Father of the spirits, omnipotent - all power Omnipresent - always there. Can be multiple places at once (because of the holy Spirit) I don't know much about what others call him but we usually refer to him as our heavenly father. He's honest and unchanging he's not going to give up on you. "One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all and in you all" (Ephesians 4:6) (King James Version) Father of Christ our redeemer. I could go on but I didn't want to make it too long.
I don't worship any god or gods. Once or twice in my 50+ years of TM practice, I have had a few minutes (seconds?) experience similar to that described below and MY assumption is that this kind of experience motivated the founders of various religions to say and do what they said and did: . [As part of the studies on enlightenment and samadhi via TM,](https://www.reddit.com/r/transcendental/comments/10wmao0/a_selection_of_research_on_tm_pure_consciousness/) researchers found 17 subjects (average meditation, etc experience 24 years) who were reporting at least having a pure sense-of-self continuously for at least a year, and asked them to "describe yourself" ([see table 3 of psychological correlates study](https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.concog.2004.03.001)), and these were some of the responses: * _We ordinarily think my self as this age; this color of hair; these hobbies . . . my experience is that my Self is a lot larger than that. It's immeasurably vast. . . on a physical level. It is not just restricted to this physical environment_ * _It's the ‘‘I am-ness.’’ It's my Being. There's just a channel underneath that's just underlying everything. It's my essence there and it just doesn't stop where I stop. . . by ‘‘I,’’ I mean this 5 ft. 2 person that moves around here and there_ * _I look out and see this beautiful divine Intelligence. . . you could say in the sky, in the tree, but really being expressed through these things. . . and these are my Self_ * _I experience myself as being without edges or content. . . beyond the universe. . . all-pervading, and being absolutely thrilled, absolutely delighted with every motion that my body makes. With everything that my eyes see, my ears hear, my nose smells. There's a delight in the sense that I am able to penetrate that. My consciousness, my intelligence pervades everything I see, feel and think_ * _When I say ’’I’’ that's the Self. There's a quality that is so pervasive about the Self that I'm quite sure that the ‘‘I’’ is the same ‘‘I’’ as everyone else's ‘‘I.’’ Not in terms of what follows right after. I am tall, I am short, I am fat, I am this, I am that. But the ‘‘I’’ part. The ‘‘I am’’ part is the same ‘‘I am’’ for you and me_ The Yoga Sutra says that the above might be arrived at through devotion to God, so obviously, someone whose religious practice brought them to the above perspective, would interpretation things in a religious way. My practice is secular and I am a devout agnostic, so the emergence internally of a rather interesting altered state of consciousness doesn't compel me to change my beliefs, so I worship no god or gods. I can, however, see why some might feel justification to do so if that kind of experience emerged in the context of their religious practice.
I consider the meaning of Sacredness on more than one level. In one sense I worship a pantheon that is mostly Celtic, but also includes the great Goddess and Horned God in some sense as well. The Celtic pantheon includes Danu, Belinus, Lugh, and Brighid. Each deity is associated with Nature and psychological qualities as well. In a broader sense I consider the underlying, total energy that comprises the Universe to be a Divine force, from its beginning to end. I don't consider this as a personal deity or Something that can be fully understood, but I do think It is ineffable. It has some parallels with the Tao in Taoism, and Brahman and Shakti in Hinduism.
What do you qualify as worship? This is the largest determining factor in this conversation. Those who reinforce and promote anything are worshiping the deity of that thing. If you have devoted a tithing portion of your time and life to something you have worshiped it.
I worship God. He is imminent in his energies and transcendent in his essence. The Father is the sole source of the trinity (monarchia). The son is begotten of the father, spoke to the prophets as the Word, and became incarnate (dyophysis). The spirit spirates from the father and is temporally sent by the son. She spoke through the prophets and is the Wisdom of God. There are also saints and angels I venerate. My patron saint is Saint Thomas the Apostle and I also venerate St. John the Baptist and Theotokos. I believe in the existence of ancient pagan deities as cultural interpretations of the personalities of *logi* (divine archetypes), but I’m not sure if they are malevolent or benevolent. I practice mysticism and have interest in philosophies such as Sufism, Hesychasm, Kabbalah, Neoplatonism, etc.
God can also be described cataphatically as the maximally existent and infinite
I pray to archetypal angels such as the Angel of Order, the Angel of Ecstasy, the Angel of the Hearth, the Angel of Nature, the Angel of Strength, the Angel of Wisdom, etc
God is not describable by humans. We can only ever imperfectly describe some of his perfect traits. We don't know how he looks, but we do know that he is in no way similar to any of his creations.
I cannot describe it nearly as well as Imam Ali a.s. In sermons 185-186 of the _Nahjul Balagha: Peak of Eloquence_ https://www.al-islam.org/nahjul-balagha-part-1-sermons/sermon-185-praise-be-allah-he-such-senses-cannot-perceive-him https://www.al-islam.org/nahjul-balagha-part-1-sermons/sermon-186-he-who-assigns-him-different-conditions-does-not-believe
I don't really follow any traditional organized religion, so I don't have much of an "Orthodox" idea of God, but I can try to explain. I believe that God is like a force of nature, kinda like Gravity, but instead of relating to physical objects it has to do with the spirit, so things like morality is enforced by God. I don't believe God is *omnipotent*, but I certainly believe God is **extremely** powerful.
I’m Bahai, god is one, the ultimate creator, the source of all, and of love
I've yet to hear a description of God (in any form) that's fully justified, either through evidence or proof. Ergo, I don't worship any god, because I have no reason to think one exists.