I believe in God but I don't believe in Religion.
I refer to God as HIM for simplicity, He has no manifestation of Himself. He is just GOD.

(Christianity)
Religion teaches that God is a Jealous God and there are other Gods but He is the Supreme God.

I know that there is only one God. All other references to Gods are of beings that by their limitations cannot be God.
God is not Jealous, He doesn't Fear, He has no need to be deemed Supreme because He possesses no Vanity. God is baseline. Everything that exists is of God, part of God. Even the so-called other gods are of God.

Religion teaches us to petition with Prayer. Not only do you need to do it right, you need to pray often and in masses. "I will pray for you everyday." "Let us pray for the children." "On my knees with hands held high I pray."

I was taught that God know your intentions, is all-seeing and almighty.
If that is so, would it not be best to say one prayer by one person?
Is it to be assumed that God can't hear your prayers? That He doesn't quite understand your needs? That your prayers need amplification? Is it to be assumed that God will not answer your prayers because He finds you unworthy? Of the ones you deem answered, do you think it was the nagging or the volume of the prayers that made them come to pass?
Religion will tell you that you need to pray a certain way, at a certain time with a certain frequency. Is that a requirement of God or of the religion?

Religion says to have Faith.
When you pray, do you have faith that God hears your prayer? If you do, there is no need to repeat the prayer, is there?
After a prayer, can you have faith that God has answered? Do you have faith that God might know more about the subject than you do?

Millions of people prayed for the souls on the Twin Towers when the planes struck. Did the towers fall because not enough people prayed hard enough? Did God have 'other' plans for those that perished? or was it physics?

Too often I see things in Religion that coutermand their own teachings. Religions are flawed, badly flawed. God cannot be flawed because everything is God.

God is also Chaos.
God is also Chance.
God is also Science.
God is also Life.

God granted us free will. I choose to follow His lead.
How can I know His will over my own? Since I am of God His will is already in me. I fully understand that my place on Earth is not for evil. I also fully understand that others may be on Earth for evil. Who am I to question God's motives?

My beliefs don't fit into a religion. There are some of you that struggle to make yours fit into your religion. There are still more that have no issue with religion. Its all good as long as you are at peace inside. You can believe what you want but when I believe differently than you do not persecute me on your beliefs.

If infidels were an abomination of God why would he fill the world with them? Are we implying that God doesn't know what He is doing?
Are we to assume that we have to clean up his mess in order for us to be in Grace?

Consider that each of us may be a part of God exploring and learning more about himself. His imagination unrestrained from his own perception. He made us to be something different, now he watches us to see what we will do, what we will dream, what we fear, what we love and how we face the reality of being.

So I say: Is it God or Religion
They are not the same thing.

Amen! Well said.

God is the only absolute, He doesn't need anyone.

The creator of all things; The sustainer of all things.

Incomparable!

He is also the three in one God - Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Religion is bondage: Don't eat this, don't wear that.....

The way I read it is, there are two separate beings. The spirit they are made of is some kind of energy. This spirit can divide, and it can flow back and forth like water.

Christianity to the best of my knowledge does not teach that there are other Gods.What I believe it does say is that men have created other gods(small g) but there is only one god.It is a contradiction of terms to talk about more than one God (capital g) Since God is supposedly supreme there can only be one supreme.
Reference to a Triune god is religious dogma.

So are God the father and Jesus one and the same?

That is a matter regarding religious beliefs.I am not a christian so I will not enter into a discussion about what various religions might teach or believe.My original post was merely pointing out that I believed Tom was misrepresenting what christianity teaches not the validity or otherwise of that teaching.

Misunderstanding,you quoted what I had posted but I made no mention of Jesus or God the father,I couldn't figure why you asked me to answer that question.

Obviously not same.

God & religion are two different things.

Those who considers being religious means having faith in god are lacking in knowledge of god.

God is God,religion is what people believe,write or say about God.Religious is a term generally used to describe the people who follow these beliefs on a regular basis.However I can religiously go to work every day without believing in any God or religion.

The Christian 10 Commandments.
God acknowledges other Gods.
If God refers to them as other Gods then who should argue.
Money is a God. Man created Money.
The Cross is an Idol. Sometimes Worshiped as a God.
For some The Bible is a GOD.
Christ was a Savior but worshiped as a God.

I respectfully suggest you study your bible a little more before you start preaching false doctrines,as far as I know the Bible says there is only one God,if that is true then there cannot be any other God.Men may call the sun god,or money god but that does not make the sun God.Men can worship the sun as a god but it still doesn't make the sun God.If there is only one God then everything else is not God.When you find another god then you are contradicting your own bible.I also question the notion of Christian Ten Commandments.The Ten Commandments existed thousands of years before any christian.What I see here is the gospel of Tom.

First I don't care what anyone thinks. I don't care to study any religion. I don't quote scripture to anyone. There is only one God as I said. Everything else is just a manifestation of Him.

Religion is more about trying to make someone subject to someone elses doctrine then use that doctrine to make them feel unworthy of their own lives. Religion is a manipulation.

God is God.

The only gospel I can have is the Gospel of Tom so thank you for the compliment.


God is everything, everywhere and everywhen so yes, Jesus (the man) and Christ (the Savior) is God.
So are you and I.


I am PREACHING NOTHING but I do try to understand.
I see your arguments and understand that my information may be wrong.
Shall I carry my cross for you to nail me to or will you deliver it?


Well, to those men it does? Men may call Horace God and to them Horace would be THEIR God. Same with Osiris and any other Gods.
The point I was making (which I failed to do so miserably) is that all of everything is of God. Even other "Gods" whether they be deemed a deity or not.


Interpretation is open to the reader. If that is what YOU get from it then it is your belief and Nobody else's 'Belief' is any more or less valid than yours. If it works for you and gives you serenity why worry about what someone else says?


That was a technical mistake on my part. Since I have no other religious background except for Christianity I grouped both the old and new testaments under the word Christian. Feeling a little nit-picky eh?


Yes, I take my medicine religiously. But since this is a GENERAL RELIGION CHAT I assumed the religion referred to Worshiping Religion with Doctrine.


True. But something that many people think is that God and Us are different. We are part of God. Free will separates us enough to make us unique but we are all within God.

People seem to think that they will be separated from God if they sin. Since God is everywhere, everywhen and everything there is no separation. Your punishment is a management tool to keep you to doctrine. I am not going to Hell or Heaven when I die (I know, I've been dead), I will expand back into the essence of God. After all, I am only in this animal body for a short period.


I think that deep inside all of us we know what God is. Religion is great for controlling the masses and establishing moral code but it hardly ever follows its own code.
My 'Faith' in God is unwavering. God exists - no question in my mind.
Faith is not a prize to brag about it is a state of being. Religions question your Faith and barter your Faith and if you play into the dogma your Faith can be questioned and bartered and you become unsure of yourself which gives you turmoil.

I have Faith not of gifts or wealth, I would never call upon God to act on my behalf or expect any prize for my Faith. It just Is.
Like Life, It just IS. There is no meaning for life. Life is just a state of Being. What you do during life is called Experience and that has meaning to yourself. But Life is just Life.

The delusion of Religion is that the experience you have while you exist is subject to some divine force. The time while you are alive is only a compound experience. From before you were born until you die you are the result of every experience in your lifetime. Good or Bad it is you. But we make mistakes and religion likes to point out those mistakes and try to make you feel less that you. GOD DOES NOT.

Miracles happen. Miracles are things that happen/occur against the odds. Some people call them Luck, others call them Blessings but all it really can be is Chaos in favorable circumstance.
Divine intervention happens every moment of everyday. The fact that the Sun did not explode just now could be considered Divine Intervention or a Miracle. Religion tries to make you believe that God will reward you with a miracle if you pray hard enough. Since God is within me, He hears every thought I have. Good or bad.

Religion makes God difficult - God is simple, He just IS.

Gave that a bit of thought and I realized that the energy of spirit is a scientific fact.

Everything everywhere is made of energy. All matter, light, chemical reaction , basically if it has temperature above absolute zero then it has energy. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can change its phase. The atomic bomb is proof of this in case you are wondering.

All the matter in all the Universe is made of energy in one form or another. Since we are part of the Universe, yes, you are part of the Universe not separate, We too are made of energy. Our energy will migrate elsewhere when it leaves our bodies. I have no idea where but it will not cease to be. My belief is that it will rejoin the energy of God. Some 500 quintillion years from now when all the matter in the Universe has cooled to absolute zero and nothing moves anywhere. God will release all the energy into a new Universe. Just like the last time some 14.7 billion years ago.

I so agree with this. I believe in the Bible. The KJV.

I despise the word religion.
I think for me it was when I visited my mom's church while visiting her. They had so many rituals that I didn't understand I asked why. They answered so honestly and openly.
Because we are religious.

Well here was what I wanted to say back and didn't out of respect for my parents.
Religion to me is nothing more than a ritualistic act because someone said we had to do this. Not because we believe in the Word of God.

As I said I didn't say anything out of respect.
I don't argue with people over what they believe they have that right the same as I have.

So if God is everything.Evil exists (I think).Then is God evil ?

LOL There is no evil and no good either.
That is religion talking.

In religion if You believe in God then you have to believe in the Devil. Black and white.
Well, human beings are complex animals and good and evil exist within us all if you choose to think that way.

Is a gun evil? Is an insane person evil? How can you quantify evil and good - the concept is too suggestive to be a sane disposition.
Is the man who kills a child evil? The father that had a wreck on a snowy night and killed his family - is he evil? Its murder or is it.
When the state killed that girl that was terminal a few years ago as a mercy death - was that evil? It was murder. When you put a murderer to death by lethal injection is that evil? When you eat your hamburger or kill a fly is that evil?

We are all the culmination of our own life experience. I have seen horror movies of people being stabbed to death. Do I go stab people because someone else did it? Well, I don't, not because I am good or evil but because I have moral fortitude that is a result of my life experiences.

Like I already said - GOD IS GOD

If you need something to put your religion to sleep at night - God is Both Good and Evil and Neither Evil nor Good.

Let me continue:
Saddam Hussain? Was he evil? Did his children think he was evil? He did the things he did for reasons he understood from his life experiences.
Hitler - he killed all those Jews. Was he evil? Someone somewhere didn't think so. Was he insane? Perhaps. He did have a reason for doing what he did inside his own world. The life experieces he lived taught him that all other people were inferior. Are they, no. But HE believe that they were.

There are people that have been taught that evil is such and such and then they try to be that way for their own reasons. The kid that shot up all those people recently. He was trying to be evil. He was probably angry about something in his life and knew by public opinion that he can be what is deemed as EVIL to make his statement.

Is going to a homeless shelter and dishing out food on Thanksgiving & Christmas to people Good? How good is that? Can you rate it with a number system? Is it a 5 out of 10? So, I can be good is I feed the homeless and even more good if I take them to my house and give them a bath and new clothes, set them up with a job and find them a home and pay their medical expenses until their insurance at the new job kicks in? What is that a 7 out of 10? Am I evil is I don't go to the homeless shelter and help them? How evil? 2 out of 10?

Good and evil are like the concept of wealth and poverty. Its all manifested by mankind's imagination. Is God rich or poor? what is poor? I say God is Both...And Neither.

One thing I can say about Religion - They like to argue about stupid ****...No offense intended just a general statement.

Disrespect? Respect?

Respect is placing someone else higher than yourself.
Religion asks you to do this very thing constantly.

Well, I gots news for everyone. Its my life and I am the most important thing in my life. Your life is yours. I am not you - I do not nor do I wish to be respected or disrespected more than you. I am not important to you more that you are. That is how it should be.

Do I respect God? Yes,He is me. I live in me. Everything else is NOT me.

I really beat myself up over my X at first. I thought I had lost something very special but time revealed the truth. I lost my own respect. Got worried about it and it drove me to the brink of suicide. My councillor asked me who I was and why don't I like myself? But before I could answer he said who in this world can tell you how to be you besides yourself. Well, it worked.

On facebook I see people always writing or posting about being judged. Oh I don't judge anyone they say. Well, I judge everyone and I am constantly reevaluating those judgements. It is foolish not to judge others. One woman said that is not judging that is discernment. I replied how can you dicern without judging?
Respect is a judgement call. Respect is personal and you should never be ashamed of a judgement you made on your own behalf.
Nobody walks your path but you. I like me.

Not just higher....it's either equal or higher.


Not necessary....that depends on what is written in so called holy books of that particular religion & how it is perceived & followed by it's followers.

Most of the religions are misinterpreted on large volumes out of the feelings of their social insecurity & for other selfish reasons of some elites.

So it's not necessary that each religion will ask you to respect others.