Many of the people who say that they know What God Wants are killing us. It is not lack of knowing What God Wants that is hurting us, it is thinking that we know without a doubt. Therein lies real...
"The Problem," is that people have been listening to what someone else says God wants, instead of listening to their own hearts.
God did not trick Abraham into terrifying his son to 'see how much he loved God'. (God doesn't think, God KNOWS).
God did not drown everything except Noah and a few close friends. (He didn't drown the Egyptian army either.)
God did not punish Eve with the pain of childbirth.
God did not condone slavery.
God did not call people names, or compare one to another, or love one race more than another.
God did not tell men, "You're the boss over the women-folk".
God loves us, and wants us to love God. God wants us to love ourselves, and to love our neighbor.
It's not complicated. So why aren't we close to getting it right yet? Ask yourself that the next time someone cuts you off in traffic, or gives you too much change at the check-out. Wonder why we have war when jealousy strikes you after your sister parks her new car next to your clunker. WWWHW when you mention to your out of work brother that you got another raise, and you're going to Maui...again.
Love is kind and happy, and if you get it right most of the time, there's no room for jealousy or silly competition. If all of us tried to do unto others, the world would be war-free in no time. And it wouldn't hurt to pray for Satan.
Thanks.
pgiggle
June 29, 2008 10:46 AM
Neil,
I have asked myself those very same questions all my life. From childhood, I simply couldn't accept that the God I knew would instruct humans to behave in such a way. It's for this reason that I turned from organized religion early in my life. I was raised catholic but found that as I entered my teens many of the messages from God that Priests would communicate felt more like messages from Men than from a divine spirit. How could I believe anything from an organization that buried sexual abuse by its Priests, supported the Nazis, embarked on 'holy' crusades, torturing and killing those that did not comply with its beliefs.
I feel grateful that I followed my instincts and turned from Catholicism. I admit that in turning from Catholicism I turned from God because I could not understand how God could allow an organization such as this, and many others, to exist.
The more I read, including your book CwG Book 1, the more I have gotten closer to God...closer to myself. In doing so, every day I feel like I'm becoming a better person, performing my many roles in life, wife, mother, friend, sister, etc more conciously.
I appreciate your courage in coming forward to talk about these things and to present this information. It's important, and as you've experienced, you're not alone in this.
As a little kid, my father told me I had to be a good girl because I was one of the chosen people. My answer was if we (the Jewish people) have a CHOSEN God, why is it non Jewish people have a nose, eyes, mouth, etc. in the same place we have. "Which God," I wanted to know, "was copying off the other God."
Passover was always a problem for me. As "my" Egyptians got zapped from this horrible God, I was under the table getting drunk on the Manishevitz wine I had snuck into a glass, wondering why I was the only one getting upset. (Years later I realized what I meant by MY Egyptians when I got into past life regression.)
Years later, during my "hippie bumming around the country days", I was crossing the street late one night in Los Angeles. Cars were supposed to stop for pedistrians.
A cab stopped as I crossed, but the car behind it didn't. As the cab was about to come careening into me, someone crabbed my arm from behind and pulled me back away from the run away cab.
When I turned around to throw myself into the arms of this wonderful man (it was a strong male hand I felt on my arm), there was no one there. I couldn't deal with
this. I had not been brought up to believe in anything like it.
I could not talk to anyone about this, thinking the men in white coats would come get me, until years later. The rabbi who officiated at my brother's wedding looked so warm and wonderful, I made an appointment to see him and tell him about my experience. I guess I had frightened him so He began screaming at me, "It never happened. It never happened." Hysterically crying, I screamed back "it did happen" and stormed out, leaving organized religion behind me.
At my father's funeral the officiating rabbi overheard me telling someone that my father did see something wonderful (crossed over loved ones, etc.) as I had told him he would. My father's body had the most wonderful smile on it's face, he had seen something fantastic as he left. The rabbi then said I was wrong for we're all going back to the ONE. I called him an idiot and further put a block between me and organized religion.
I have read the CwG books plus your other books, In reading the books I began to fell like God is a Mench instead of this nasty entity sitting on a mountain top zapping people whenever HE felt like it. BUT I'm more than ever confused about what God wants. Didn't you say God doesn't want anything from us.
This is a transition time for me and I feel like I'm on a tight rope trying to decide whether to cross over to the other side or fall back...yet something isn't letting me fall back.
I envy (yes, envy) all the people who comment on your blog who feel on the path.
Sheilah
Deb
June 29, 2008 12:41 PM
Sheilah, I believe you. Reading your post, you sound like someone who IS on the path.
My mother died six weeks after she was diagnosed with cancer.
She was immobile in the hospital bed for two days, her eyes clouded over, unseeing. She didn't speak, eat, or give any indication that she was conscious. On my way back to the hospital on the night she died, I could smell her in the car. I freaked, thinking I'd missed my chance to say good-bye. I raced up to the room. She was alive. The elastic on the oxygen mask was tight on her face, so I ran my finger underneath, loosening it. I kissed her, and told her I was there.
My brother and his wife sat at the other side of the bed. My brother gasped. I looked up from my mother's face. She had raised her arm to wave good-bye. She lowered it, and left her body behind.
Sheilah, your father certainly did see something wonderful as he died. I don't know if our family and friends are with us when we die. I do know that God with us, as God has been all of our lives, and there is nothing more wonderful than that.
Keep praying, God is listening.
Love,
Deb
Ree
June 29, 2008 2:20 PM
I know who is whith us when we die, because I have done it twice. Both times I told the ones who came to get me, that I was not finished here to Please allow me to go back. They did. The first time I had a twelve year old son who would have been left an orphan. The second time I was and am caring for my eighty plus year old mother, and there is no one else who can.
Both times they allowed me to return. On my bad days I wish I had stayed, because it is beautiful and peaceful there. There is no pain or suffering. There is only God's Love surrounding all.
I try to live my life here with the knowledge that the same Love that is there is here surrounding me.
The leaders of religion (all religion) have no clue what God wants. He only wants us to Love Him and each other. We are so far from that as a planet that it is frightening.
He created us for Love and companionship. We do not give Him that. We are selfish, little creatures falling short in every way of what God wants.
In the Love of God
Ree
Ronni
June 29, 2008 3:37 PM
Perfect Neale, Very Perfect!
With Much Love,
Ronni :)
Regan
June 30, 2008 1:23 AM
I have had thousands of real God and me experiences that continue to excite me, Sometimes as the course of life proceeds we tend to forget to talk to God and ask for a clearer experience with him, Well when I feel like I need some special one on one time with my father I just ask,Lord open my eyes to see things more vivid, talk to me so i can hear you better etc. The key is then looking for the answer right around you in maybe the next song thats plays on the radio or a random comment from someone or the headline on the newspaper right in front of you or the voice within. As far as the condition of the world, can we call it evolution ? Or God just experiencing god in all our many forms ,How can any of it be "wrong" if we are God? Dont we have to be subjected to the ills of the world in order to frolic in the peace and beauty of it to fully appreciate gods hand of creation. I believe the winds of change which are constantly blowly are about to blow a most exciting ,beautiful,breeze our way very soon! Peace and love to all of you.
betty brooks
June 30, 2008 3:24 AM
There are two things I consider in thinking on what God wants. First does God want anything, and second to what extent do we project our wants as what God wants. In answer to the first question, biblically we are told we were made in God's image and that gives us the direction to explore that image. Secondly we cannot keep from projecting our self image on the God image we are pursuing and see our wants as what God wants. Maturity comes in seeing our wants in the context of the image of God which is creativity, tough love and brotherhood.
Rodrigo
June 30, 2008 5:54 AM
Hi friends. I dont know any easy way to say this so here goes.
I think we are all making a mess, constantly, about what god wants.
Remenber. God wants for us what WE want. If we want to be unhappy, ops, there you go. If you want to be happy, hey, have it all. The great problem here is being able to release ourselves from those thoughts wich keep us stuck in a reality where our triple being cannot develop itself to the point where our sublime reference (GOD, OUR FATHER, US) stands (CHANGING OUR SPONSORING THOUGHT). The only way we can reach our maximum sublime state of being ( being this the total union with our father, or our sublime self) is making the best out of all our experiences. Only then, when you have lived your life to the fullest, when you have seen how beatifull life is, how perfect, shall we turn to question ourselfs and question: "Where to now?". And as always, the answer will come.
PS: (strange how an already answered question "Want god wants" keeps coming to the surface all the time. This is a very basic one, and we dont believe the answer, you know why? Because we got God all wrong)
Love to you all
unklnik
June 30, 2008 7:40 AM
Dear Mr. Walsch,
I can't help but thank you for sharing the insight you received from the mentor of all of us, God.
As to what he wants, I personally think that it is what all of us want. To walk down the street any where in the world and truly feel that that when we smile at a stranger it is because we are happy they are there. I catch myself in my own small home town feeling uncomfortable walking down the sidewalk when I see someone else walking toward me. This is not a natural feeling, to be afraid (in a social sense) of confronting another one of Gods' children. Yet I think everyone in our society does exactly that.
I am not referring to a 3:00 am encounter in a major city, I am referring to a town of 5000 and that can't feel complete faith in what God truly wants.
To tell you the truth I don' think there is a soul alive that doesn' know what God wants. He can't make it any simpler because it is not complicated to begin with.
I think that if we took what we truly understand about love and earnestly tried to work around modern social issues and taught that you don't need to take time out of your day to help someone such as volunteering or giving things to street people. All you need to do is look every person you see wherever you are and smile, whether it's comfortable or not. Because even a forced smile will help people understand that they had to force a smile , which I think is probably pretty self explanatory. I think that are problem is the guilt of not doning what God gave us the heart to do, that would be to care and love every one of his children., and I don' think tyherwe is any hbetter way of doing that than to just look at everyone and SMILE! If we all did that you wouldn' be considered crazy, or arrogant it would be normal to feel good and smile about it.
Thank you for your time,
A simpleton that has to smile whethere I like it or not, because it's not for ME!!!!!!
Seeker
June 30, 2008 10:25 AM
First of all, we were givin a set of commandments in which to live life in the way god "wants" us. Written in his own words by his own hand.
Second of all, the moment any human being trys to even fathom what God wants or desires or thinks will FAIL. Trying to comprehend the thoughts of God is like a new born baby trying to understand a parent.
Not to mention our thoughts are already corrupt thanks to orig sin.
Never under any circumstances should a person act under the pretense of Gods will. Our actions ARE of OUR will. How dare anyone use the name of God to achive their will! We achive for God!
amilius
June 30, 2008 11:07 AM
Neale,
Might it be that in calling attention to "What God Wants", which is nothing, of course, that you unintentionally distract your readers from what God DESIRES? As you have observed in your Conversations, but too infrequently point out, 'Want' and 'Desire' are very different things. Want is an expression of 'lack', expressing it reinforces and holds in place the undesired condition. Desire is the acknowledgment of a preferred experience. Desire can be savored with or without the preferred experience. That is the key to allowing an experience to be realized: appreciation before, during, and after the experience sets in place the attractive vibration that invites the realization of the desired preferred experience.
So what does God desire? Nothing and everything. The design of Graciously Organized Design is so complete and perfect that reunification is guaranteed. All one has to do is recognize what Grace is and how it functions as the Law of the Universe because We are all One.
So why is our world in the state it is in? Mankind thinks the design is flawed. It plays at length with the 10 Illusions. It does not understand how Grace accords the illusions purpose.
Choose for others only as one would choose for one's self.
This simple guideline guarantees gracious choices when honored. The wonder of life it that it might always be honored. One would have only designed the realization of experience for One's selves in this way. It is natural that we play with ungracious choices, those that we would not choose for ourselves, and invite instructive consequences until such time as we remember to set ungracious choices aside for the benefit of One and All.
We live in a time where we, those of us living in the United States, have princes who lie to us for their own ungracious ends. Revenge and retribution are ungracious ends. Justification does not wash away the instructive consequences such ungracious choices invite. Like the tides, such instructive consequences have cleansed continents in the past. They may do so again in the very near future if we do not address the true challenges that face humanity as a whole.
"Choose Misery, I WILL share Misery. Choose Joy, I WILL share Joy. Whatsoever You Choose I WILL SHARE because I AM YOU and WE SHARE WHAT YOU CHOOSE."
I heard these words on the breeze in response to the earnest question, "How do I tell them revenge and retribution serve no one ?" I was walking a dog on Mount Olympus in Los Angeles the afternoon of 9.11.01.
Neale, Regard carefully the words of Sy Hersh this past weekend has his article in the Observer is regarded by some and dismissed by many with lies to hide. Another man, Paul Solomon, who spoke on behalf of the same source as Edgar Cayce, warned about '76 that in an October of the first decade of the new millenium, the president of the United States would attack a country in the Middle East that fully 88% of the US population would disapprove. He said that it would be regarded as the war of 'Armagedon'. Mr. Solomon died in '94. When I first read his words in '98, I remember thinking "How would anyone know that '88%' of the nation would be opposed to the actions of the president and how could such a man get away with it?" Now we know. In this summer, we can alter the way the course of history unfolds but first it serves us to acknowledge where we are in this moment. We are empowered to realize and appreciate the benefits of our choices. We might choose carefully and keep the princes of lies from making the choices that invite more instructive consequences. It starts with realizing that we have empowered liars and assuring them that they will be called upon to account for their deceptions. We would do well to encourage our representatives to heed the information Mr. Hersh and others have shared with us all. Everything happens for a purpose. There is no such thing as random chance or coincidence.
Rather than entertaining others with notions of what God wants or doesn't want, might it be time to focus on what it might serve humanity for us to choose?
Let's choose as One, 'Care fully'. Namaste.
R
June 30, 2008 11:44 AM
Everybody in the pool, water's a littlej turbulent but it'll calm down.
I believe that all paths lead to the same spiritual/universal pool.
One -- We come from the same WHOLE that we return to.
Share what you have, get simple and basic about this.
Want does come from a position of 'lack' and desire is a cultivation stage of manifestation.
Cause no harm
Participate in life, experience your moments more fully (I love that, 'care fully')
Read 'Commuion with GOD'
I have lost the connection for now, and need to begin to move through the day. Love the comments, food for the S.O.U.L. ;)
amilius
June 30, 2008 12:37 PM
Correction to my earlier post: Sy Hersh's article is in the New Yorker, not the Observer. He is interviewed on CNN, Crooksandliars.com has the clip up on line.
Namaste.
Tracy
June 30, 2008 5:27 PM
I don't know what God wants from me. I'm supposing he would make it obvious but I just don't know for sure. I've been told I complicate things.
I DO know what I want and believe it or not, its taken me four years to figure this one out - I WANT TO BE HAPPY. What a revelation! What if that's all that God wants for us or FROM us is to be happy. Man that would be cool.
Thanks Neale for your words of encouragement and hope. We all need them right now.
Elinor Dandrea
June 30, 2008 7:58 PM
The liars we have empowered are those who will use political rationale for their own ideological reasons..
I unfortuanely see no difference in your analogy only you think its on the side of what is right.
If we truly dont know what God desires than the first thing we all should abandon is political power!
stas
June 30, 2008 9:45 PM
I think that all the comments here are devided to people that agree with neale and those who doesnt.
Elinor have mentioned that neale thinks that his opinion about life or about god is "Right",
but as in the book 'conversations with god' that I belive all the comenters have read, there is no right nor wrong in the lexicon of god.
Right is a word that actually means "things that getting me to a
desired place" and Wrong means "things that prevent me to get to the desired place".
There is nothing Wrong in politics, but people use it wrongly, to get to a place that profit themselves only.
There for if we use politics not in the means of profit, but in the means of love and care for each other, then we will be getting to some point from wich we can grow only better for the humanty for ourselves and for better god living.
Lisa
June 30, 2008 10:31 PM
As long as you bring it up can you even BELIEVE what has been done under the name of God? It is horrible and its destruction is still going on. I think about how god must feel and I could cry. Individually all I know to do is to continue to ask for the spirit give the spirit a good home in which it can grow and especially shine, this is important because people see the light and they ask "what are you on, I want some."
Collectively, we have to somehow reach like minded people who believe changes should be made and are willing to do the work to get those changes made. Neale, I am pessimistic I will read your book though and see if I still think it can't be done.
I don't even know how long our economic system is going to hold, if our infrastructure collapses we'll be back to Maslow stage one. Politically we are the terrorists. This does not mean I don't love our soldiers , oh God knows how much I do, its their boss who in all realms of logical thought, at a minimum, should have been arrested for war crimes. How do they get away with it? Other countries think we are evil they might be right, Oh well its not bush's problem he can go to the ranch pour some drinks, kick his feet up and get his army toys out.
Teja
July 1, 2008 6:20 PM
What God truly wants...that's deep question. It touches our love, our soul, something beautiful, that can make us cry. That's our truth.
We cannot see the truth, not even from words of peace, if our brains are in mess - in peaces, not in peace. If we hold on into this earth reality or our collective mind. Maybee becouse we don't even know, what is truth or we are too afraid of it. We are too afraid, that God will not answer our dreams, that this can't be true, that we are just dreamers. And to dream is nothing - to believe in our dreams is nothing. That's not what we are living...we are on earth and earth is hell, that we have to get through, that we can live our dreams. We must pay God for our sins, right? What about mercy and so unconditonal love?
How can we create this truth? We cannot create it, but our love can - we and our love are actually doing it together. We in truth, we as love, are just like flowers, we grow from day to day and than plant our dreams into the others, who listen. We choose, what flower we want to be. We can believe in our truth, it will come true...God knows all of our dreams. Everthing is possible.
God wants us all together, not separated..all together, all one!
Love and peace,
Teja
bobcat
July 1, 2008 6:36 PM
Neale, I have been remaining on the perimeter of
the discussions which are posted and discussed on
these and other locations..I have been dealt a similar
awareness from childhood that something was out of balance. There was something missing and throughout my life experiences I felt a sense or purpose for my being.My life has been full of variences allowing me to participate in a good portion of what appeared to be offered.Good and Bad-
I won't go into details now; only to mention I have experienced much of what is being discussed and am beginning to have faith evolution is beginning to be realized. :):)
Jim
July 2, 2008 12:18 PM
This life is all about the soul, not about the body. When we can live from our highest self, there is justice,equality,peace, abundance and wisdom. Isn't that what God really wants? What serves our higher purpose and our world, not what serves a few or our egoes.We must abandon our old ways,they are wrong ways,foolish ways.
This is a new time, a new time to recreate who we are and how we live.
My friends,look at the world around us now. There are those who say that there is no global warming,fools. That is like a man standing in a burning house and claiming no, my house is not on fire.
This is the MOST exciting time to be alive on our planet. What an incredible opportunity we have before us! Embrace it! The energy is very strong, tap into it,use it! It's transforming!
renee
July 4, 2008 3:28 PM
neale, i love your books, but they are the problem, as well as all the other books that divinely bring us the word of god, or tell us what god wants, or how to follow god's divine, find god's path, etc. etc. it is all filtered through man's biases and experiences. then it is filtered through the reader's biases and experiences, until in our personal relationship with god we feel 'led' to what god wants.
as divine as the information 'may' (and i use that loosely) have been originally intended i can objectively look at each religions' holy books and find some of the information to be so f'ed up, which explains its misuse.
i truly wish it all would be thrown into a big fire and burned.
so it won't make much money but i could write your new book very simply.
- title: what god wants
- page 1: love, respect, and forgive yourself and each other unconditionally, despite differences in religion, culture, race, nationality, gender, and sexuality and i love you unconditional
- pages 2 through 298: blank
- page 299: The End
- page 300: Neale Donald Walsch
Pam W.
July 6, 2008 3:32 AM
Dear Neale,
With reference to your conversation with your insurance man, it seems that fundamentalist Christians so often quote the saying of Jesus that "No man shall come to the Father except through me," (as I remember it - I was brought up an Anglican, in England, but was querying this sort of thing by the age of 16.) From what I now understand about karma and reincarnation, not to mention the mis-interpretations of Jesus' original words through Latin and Greek, etc., I feel that He may have been telling people that they needed to heed His teaching, and follow it, as it was the way to prevent the need for reincarnations repeatedly , and possibly indefinately. He did not mean that people must follow him as the one and only spiritual teacher, as great a teacher as he may have been. I have now made it to the age of 75, and along the way your books have been a a great inspiration, and reflect so much that I felt instinctively, but had no way of verifying. My favourite is Friendship with God, which had me in tears. I have also studied Hindu thought to some degree, and was happy to realise that what you have written bears out much of what is taught in the ancient Vedas and Upanishads, but expressed in simple modern terms which are easy for us all to understand. You have been doing a great job, and i'm sure that when you pass on, God (or whatever) will say "Well done. thou good and faithful servant."
Jayc
July 8, 2008 11:51 AM
Hello Neale, Your book was on the hall table of my Boss, I asked if I could borrow it, curious to know what the answer would be to your very intriguing question. What does God Want?
Finally I have found someone who speaks sense! A person willing to stand up and say that organised religion has got it wrong, and bring forward unquestionable proof to uphold that statement. I am in the process of reading and am finding myself nodding in total agreement to every single thing you say, things I have voiced myself over the years. I could never accept the Loving God torturing his people, The Just God who sees millions slaughtered because they don't follow the right path, the Loving God who threatens his people with hellfire and eternal damnation if they choose not to behave and do what he says! Oh I understood totally that it was Man who had twisted things to their purpose, yet we have the Holy books, Scripture which plainly say, thou shalt not.....,so who is one to believe? Not being a person who reads ancient languages, I, and thousands of others like me, are at the mercy of those who can, those who tell us the translation is correct! I have been plagued by these very questions myself, and never have I found an answer. Always people say to me, "Be good, love God and you will be saved" or "Follow the BIble teaching and you'll get through the Great Tribulation" etc., etc. But in my heart I knew this can't be right, especially so when you see their lifestyle!!! I questioned the authenticity of those words, even questioning God himself, only to be told I was faithless and divisive to be asking what RIGHT God has if he wants to destroy people, seeing as he is the Creator, then they are his to with as he pleases!! That very sentence fills me with absolute horror!
I was brought up Church of England, my parents both decided we should "Find" our own path to faith. My Mother believed in life after death, spiritualism and she was open minded enough to ask questions and seek answers where-ever she looked.
I asked the Vicar who took Religious Education in school and was told to be quiet and not question God's infinite wisdom! I read books when I was old enough to understand the basic tenets of their religious beliefs to see which was the "Right Religion" I even contemplated going to speak with the Catholic Nuns who lived nearby, thankfully I was too scared to go!
Four years later, when I was 20, I was contacted by Jehovah's Witnesses and for the first time in my life I was having my numerous questions answered. They made sense to me, so much so after two years of Bible study I joined them. 20 years down the line, I'm no longer with them having found them to be just as narrow minded, blinkered, confined in a belief system I found myself stagnating in. My whole life has been one of seeking answers, and finding a resonance that feels right, because sooner or later I always find the problem. Whatever religion, faith belief system, at first sounds good, but, there is always a BUT!
Now I read your words, and think, is it possible to change people's minds? Is it really possible to cast away generations of brain washing? I find myself saying BUT again! I look forward to your reply!
Marie
July 8, 2008 6:57 PM
final inner peace
Anonymous
July 13, 2008 9:41 AM
I do not think that God wants anything. He is merely an observer who is experiencing itself through us. God is not vengeful, angry, judgemental, etc., and has no preferences. God knows that physical existence is merey a mass illusion, that there really is no time and space and that we exist in many "places and times" at once. Therefore, what to us seems a major injustice or tragedy in the here and now, is in God's perception an illusory and ultimately unimportant event. We are at our core immortal creations and despite appearances to the contrary, nothing can really hurt or damage us.
Chief1989
July 16, 2008 1:27 PM
Interesting comment. On what revelation(s) are you basing your opinion? What happens if you die and found out you were wrong? As for myself, I like to have a faith that is not based on supposition and hoping like heck I'm right. My faith is based on evidence that is supportable and real, and I have assurances that I will be taken care of when I leave this world. I like that kind of security! I don't have to hope I'm right, or hope that whatever being is sitting there accepts what I've done with my life and that he/she/it deems it "good enough."
God does want things from us. In His Word He lets us know that He wants us to be holy as He is holy, and that He wants our lives to be marked by righteousness, which means right living. Right living according to His standards, not our own. He wants us to love, worship, and praise Him, and to love others and put their needs above our own. James puts it this way in his epistle, "Religion that God accepts as faultless and pure is this; that you take care of widows and orphans in their distress, and keep yourself from being polluted by the world."
That is what God wants from us.
God bless, and have a great day!
Chief1989
Tax Joven
July 17, 2008 9:45 PM
What God wants... This issue contradicts itself. A perfect God, in want? God wants nothing. Or He isn't perfect. Our varying ideas on what God is and what he wants is often the source of conflict among us. It also gives rise to Atheism. Come to think of it. All our post here assume that there's a God. I would like to hear one who says there isn't any. For all we know, he might negate only the God who we generally recognize! In that sense, many of us here may be considered Atheists.
Chief1989 is comfortable with his Bible. That's what he wants. Some of us are Lutherans, Catholics, Sunnis, Buddhists, LDS, etc. We are comfortable with it. That's what we want. Some of us are searching. Search. That's what we want. Now here's the killer question: What does God want? The Catholics will say, He wants us to be Catholics. The Muslims will say, He wants us to be Muslims. Etc. Etc. With whom will God side?
I think the more logical question would be, What does man want? Sorry. I used the word because man embraces woman! Or should it be the other way around? What do we want? We better be clear with what we want because what we want for ourselves is what God wants for us! I think.
Turk182
July 20, 2008 12:47 AM
So God creates man, but the critical question in your mind is what does the created want, because the creator will want that for him? That is an absurd assumption, an illogical statement.
What if I want to rule the world with absolute power and authority, and I am willing to step on anyone who gets in my way, and I will ruthlessly purge anyone who doesn't like it. Is that what God would really want from me?
A perfect God would want perfection, not nothing. When God created the heavens and the earth, he proclaimed it to be good. When he created man, he said be fruitful and multiply, and you will tend the garden and have dominion over the plants and beasts. That seems to be wanting something, does it not? Here, I put you in this beautiful place, now take care of it, have babies, and spread out. That does not seem like wanting nothing.
What does God want, you ask? He told Abraham to walk before him and be blameless. That's something. He told Moses to go to the base of the holy mountain and worship him there. He told Jonah to go evangelize the Ninevhites. He was, and is, always telling people to go, baptize, make disciples, spread the gospel, live in unity and peace with one another, etc etc etc. He doesn't say to become a Catholic, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or an Atheist. He tells us to repent and call on his name, and to believe in the name of the son he sent to save us.
Robert
Tax Joven
July 22, 2008 12:58 AM
Robert or Turk 182,
Here's more "absurdities" and "illogical statements" which I hope will help make my point a bit clearer. Creation is nothing but man's creation. There never was any creation. There's only one Universe as we know it, including the ones we're not even aware of. Bible folklore tells as of a God who created earth and and lighted it with a big and some smaller lamps. When Galileo and Copernicus told us it isn't so they ran into trouble with guardians of the Bible. Now we know better. No matter how our telescopes advance, we see no end to the billions of galaxies that add up to the ones we already know.
There's hardly a group of people or tribe that didn't create a god of one form or the other. The people then, as now, were in a dark on so many things so they came up with gods whom they attributes such powers that will, basically, protect them from the fearful unknown. In the same manner, the Hebrews created a god in the OT that serve them well in their fight for survival against numerous enemies that surround them. It was eventually "adopted" by many nations, each adding their own ingredient or embellishments that soon made itself unrecognizable even by the original creators. One of these additions is Jesus of the NT, perhaps to make the god of the OT more palatable. Soon however, this Jesus appeared differently in as many forms to the various sects that compose Christianity.
Martin Luther thought at first that the Bible being the word of God would be understood and interpreted the way he did by anyone who has read it. So he translated the Books in German and distributed as much copies of it as he could. He was in for a disappointment. No 2 persons interpreted it alike, much less as he did. This gave rise to evangelists who had to prove first that they were chosen messengers of God before being able to present their ideas based of the Book. Yet no sensible evangelist would dare venture into passages that run counter with what they say. And the Bible is full of such contradictions! Bloody inter-sect conflicts were modern day occurrences.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the world other set of ideas are catching fire. Islam is one. Such were the followers of this religion that it's clash with Christianity were often bloody and mortal. Some people who posts here claim that Islam is tolerant of other religions. Maybe he is. But it is a reality that in some Muslim countries people get into serious trouble for being caught in possession of a Bible. Inter-sect rivalry is no less deadly.
A wise guy summed it all up. Religions does not make people better. It's people who make religions better, or at least keep them in check.
I hope this blog serves the purpose. You see Robert or Turk, we aren't brothers and sisters under the fatherhood of God. We are one. This is why he wants for us what we want for ourselves. Only a culture of separation would want to subdue and dominate others.
Robert
July 22, 2008 3:27 PM
Ah, Tax, you use the age old defense of the uninformed - "The Bible is full of contradictions!"
Could you point some of those out to me, please?
Thanks!
Robert
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"The Problem," is that people have been listening to what someone else says God wants, instead of listening to their own hearts.
God did not trick Abraham into terrifying his son to 'see how much he loved God'. (God doesn't think, God KNOWS).
God did not drown everything except Noah and a few close friends. (He didn't drown the Egyptian army either.)
God did not punish Eve with the pain of childbirth.
God did not condone slavery.
God did not call people names, or compare one to another, or love one race more than another.
God did not tell men, "You're the boss over the women-folk".
God loves us, and wants us to love God. God wants us to love ourselves, and to love our neighbor.
It's not complicated. So why aren't we close to getting it right yet? Ask yourself that the next time someone cuts you off in traffic, or gives you too much change at the check-out. Wonder why we have war when jealousy strikes you after your sister parks her new car next to your clunker. WWWHW when you mention to your out of work brother that you got another raise, and you're going to Maui...again.
Love is kind and happy, and if you get it right most of the time, there's no room for jealousy or silly competition. If all of us tried to do unto others, the world would be war-free in no time. And it wouldn't hurt to pray for Satan.
Thanks.
Neil,
I have asked myself those very same questions all my life. From childhood, I simply couldn't accept that the God I knew would instruct humans to behave in such a way. It's for this reason that I turned from organized religion early in my life. I was raised catholic but found that as I entered my teens many of the messages from God that Priests would communicate felt more like messages from Men than from a divine spirit. How could I believe anything from an organization that buried sexual abuse by its Priests, supported the Nazis, embarked on 'holy' crusades, torturing and killing those that did not comply with its beliefs.
I feel grateful that I followed my instincts and turned from Catholicism. I admit that in turning from Catholicism I turned from God because I could not understand how God could allow an organization such as this, and many others, to exist.
The more I read, including your book CwG Book 1, the more I have gotten closer to God...closer to myself. In doing so, every day I feel like I'm becoming a better person, performing my many roles in life, wife, mother, friend, sister, etc more conciously.
I appreciate your courage in coming forward to talk about these things and to present this information. It's important, and as you've experienced, you're not alone in this.
P.
Journey With God
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npIEAuwVolE
MSJ
As a little kid, my father told me I had to be a good girl because I was one of the chosen people. My answer was if we (the Jewish people) have a CHOSEN God, why is it non Jewish people have a nose, eyes, mouth, etc. in the same place we have. "Which God," I wanted to know, "was copying off the other God."
Passover was always a problem for me. As "my" Egyptians got zapped from this horrible God, I was under the table getting drunk on the Manishevitz wine I had snuck into a glass, wondering why I was the only one getting upset. (Years later I realized what I meant by MY Egyptians when I got into past life regression.)
Years later, during my "hippie bumming around the country days", I was crossing the street late one night in Los Angeles. Cars were supposed to stop for pedistrians.
A cab stopped as I crossed, but the car behind it didn't. As the cab was about to come careening into me, someone crabbed my arm from behind and pulled me back away from the run away cab.
When I turned around to throw myself into the arms of this wonderful man (it was a strong male hand I felt on my arm), there was no one there. I couldn't deal with
this. I had not been brought up to believe in anything like it.
I could not talk to anyone about this, thinking the men in white coats would come get me, until years later. The rabbi who officiated at my brother's wedding looked so warm and wonderful, I made an appointment to see him and tell him about my experience. I guess I had frightened him so He began screaming at me, "It never happened. It never happened." Hysterically crying, I screamed back "it did happen" and stormed out, leaving organized religion behind me.
At my father's funeral the officiating rabbi overheard me telling someone that my father did see something wonderful (crossed over loved ones, etc.) as I had told him he would. My father's body had the most wonderful smile on it's face, he had seen something fantastic as he left. The rabbi then said I was wrong for we're all going back to the ONE. I called him an idiot and further put a block between me and organized religion.
I have read the CwG books plus your other books, In reading the books I began to fell like God is a Mench instead of this nasty entity sitting on a mountain top zapping people whenever HE felt like it. BUT I'm more than ever confused about what God wants. Didn't you say God doesn't want anything from us.
This is a transition time for me and I feel like I'm on a tight rope trying to decide whether to cross over to the other side or fall back...yet something isn't letting me fall back.
I envy (yes, envy) all the people who comment on your blog who feel on the path.
Sheilah
Sheilah, I believe you. Reading your post, you sound like someone who IS on the path.
My mother died six weeks after she was diagnosed with cancer.
She was immobile in the hospital bed for two days, her eyes clouded over, unseeing. She didn't speak, eat, or give any indication that she was conscious. On my way back to the hospital on the night she died, I could smell her in the car. I freaked, thinking I'd missed my chance to say good-bye. I raced up to the room. She was alive. The elastic on the oxygen mask was tight on her face, so I ran my finger underneath, loosening it. I kissed her, and told her I was there.
My brother and his wife sat at the other side of the bed. My brother gasped. I looked up from my mother's face. She had raised her arm to wave good-bye. She lowered it, and left her body behind.
Sheilah, your father certainly did see something wonderful as he died. I don't know if our family and friends are with us when we die. I do know that God with us, as God has been all of our lives, and there is nothing more wonderful than that.
Keep praying, God is listening.
Love,
Deb
I know who is whith us when we die, because I have done it twice. Both times I told the ones who came to get me, that I was not finished here to Please allow me to go back. They did. The first time I had a twelve year old son who would have been left an orphan. The second time I was and am caring for my eighty plus year old mother, and there is no one else who can.
Both times they allowed me to return. On my bad days I wish I had stayed, because it is beautiful and peaceful there. There is no pain or suffering. There is only God's Love surrounding all.
I try to live my life here with the knowledge that the same Love that is there is here surrounding me.
The leaders of religion (all religion) have no clue what God wants. He only wants us to Love Him and each other. We are so far from that as a planet that it is frightening.
He created us for Love and companionship. We do not give Him that. We are selfish, little creatures falling short in every way of what God wants.
In the Love of God
Ree
Perfect Neale, Very Perfect!
With Much Love,
Ronni :)
I have had thousands of real God and me experiences that continue to excite me, Sometimes as the course of life proceeds we tend to forget to talk to God and ask for a clearer experience with him, Well when I feel like I need some special one on one time with my father I just ask,Lord open my eyes to see things more vivid, talk to me so i can hear you better etc. The key is then looking for the answer right around you in maybe the next song thats plays on the radio or a random comment from someone or the headline on the newspaper right in front of you or the voice within. As far as the condition of the world, can we call it evolution ? Or God just experiencing god in all our many forms ,How can any of it be "wrong" if we are God? Dont we have to be subjected to the ills of the world in order to frolic in the peace and beauty of it to fully appreciate gods hand of creation. I believe the winds of change which are constantly blowly are about to blow a most exciting ,beautiful,breeze our way very soon! Peace and love to all of you.
There are two things I consider in thinking on what God wants. First does God want anything, and second to what extent do we project our wants as what God wants. In answer to the first question, biblically we are told we were made in God's image and that gives us the direction to explore that image. Secondly we cannot keep from projecting our self image on the God image we are pursuing and see our wants as what God wants. Maturity comes in seeing our wants in the context of the image of God which is creativity, tough love and brotherhood.
Hi friends. I dont know any easy way to say this so here goes.
I think we are all making a mess, constantly, about what god wants.
Remenber. God wants for us what WE want. If we want to be unhappy, ops, there you go. If you want to be happy, hey, have it all. The great problem here is being able to release ourselves from those thoughts wich keep us stuck in a reality where our triple being cannot develop itself to the point where our sublime reference (GOD, OUR FATHER, US) stands (CHANGING OUR SPONSORING THOUGHT). The only way we can reach our maximum sublime state of being ( being this the total union with our father, or our sublime self) is making the best out of all our experiences. Only then, when you have lived your life to the fullest, when you have seen how beatifull life is, how perfect, shall we turn to question ourselfs and question: "Where to now?". And as always, the answer will come.
PS: (strange how an already answered question "Want god wants" keeps coming to the surface all the time. This is a very basic one, and we dont believe the answer, you know why? Because we got God all wrong)
Love to you all
Dear Mr. Walsch,
I can't help but thank you for sharing the insight you received from the mentor of all of us, God.
As to what he wants, I personally think that it is what all of us want. To walk down the street any where in the world and truly feel that that when we smile at a stranger it is because we are happy they are there. I catch myself in my own small home town feeling uncomfortable walking down the sidewalk when I see someone else walking toward me. This is not a natural feeling, to be afraid (in a social sense) of confronting another one of Gods' children. Yet I think everyone in our society does exactly that.
I am not referring to a 3:00 am encounter in a major city, I am referring to a town of 5000 and that can't feel complete faith in what God truly wants.
To tell you the truth I don' think there is a soul alive that doesn' know what God wants. He can't make it any simpler because it is not complicated to begin with.
I think that if we took what we truly understand about love and earnestly tried to work around modern social issues and taught that you don't need to take time out of your day to help someone such as volunteering or giving things to street people. All you need to do is look every person you see wherever you are and smile, whether it's comfortable or not. Because even a forced smile will help people understand that they had to force a smile , which I think is probably pretty self explanatory. I think that are problem is the guilt of not doning what God gave us the heart to do, that would be to care and love every one of his children., and I don' think tyherwe is any hbetter way of doing that than to just look at everyone and SMILE! If we all did that you wouldn' be considered crazy, or arrogant it would be normal to feel good and smile about it.
Thank you for your time,
A simpleton that has to smile whethere I like it or not, because it's not for ME!!!!!!
First of all, we were givin a set of commandments in which to live life in the way god "wants" us. Written in his own words by his own hand.
Second of all, the moment any human being trys to even fathom what God wants or desires or thinks will FAIL. Trying to comprehend the thoughts of God is like a new born baby trying to understand a parent.
Not to mention our thoughts are already corrupt thanks to orig sin.
Never under any circumstances should a person act under the pretense of Gods will. Our actions ARE of OUR will. How dare anyone use the name of God to achive their will! We achive for God!
Neale,
Might it be that in calling attention to "What God Wants", which is nothing, of course, that you unintentionally distract your readers from what God DESIRES? As you have observed in your Conversations, but too infrequently point out, 'Want' and 'Desire' are very different things. Want is an expression of 'lack', expressing it reinforces and holds in place the undesired condition. Desire is the acknowledgment of a preferred experience. Desire can be savored with or without the preferred experience. That is the key to allowing an experience to be realized: appreciation before, during, and after the experience sets in place the attractive vibration that invites the realization of the desired preferred experience.
So what does God desire? Nothing and everything. The design of Graciously Organized Design is so complete and perfect that reunification is guaranteed. All one has to do is recognize what Grace is and how it functions as the Law of the Universe because We are all One.
So why is our world in the state it is in? Mankind thinks the design is flawed. It plays at length with the 10 Illusions. It does not understand how Grace accords the illusions purpose.
Choose for others only as one would choose for one's self.
This simple guideline guarantees gracious choices when honored. The wonder of life it that it might always be honored. One would have only designed the realization of experience for One's selves in this way. It is natural that we play with ungracious choices, those that we would not choose for ourselves, and invite instructive consequences until such time as we remember to set ungracious choices aside for the benefit of One and All.
We live in a time where we, those of us living in the United States, have princes who lie to us for their own ungracious ends. Revenge and retribution are ungracious ends. Justification does not wash away the instructive consequences such ungracious choices invite. Like the tides, such instructive consequences have cleansed continents in the past. They may do so again in the very near future if we do not address the true challenges that face humanity as a whole.
"Choose Misery, I WILL share Misery. Choose Joy, I WILL share Joy. Whatsoever You Choose I WILL SHARE because I AM YOU and WE SHARE WHAT YOU CHOOSE."
I heard these words on the breeze in response to the earnest question, "How do I tell them revenge and retribution serve no one ?" I was walking a dog on Mount Olympus in Los Angeles the afternoon of 9.11.01.
Neale, Regard carefully the words of Sy Hersh this past weekend has his article in the Observer is regarded by some and dismissed by many with lies to hide. Another man, Paul Solomon, who spoke on behalf of the same source as Edgar Cayce, warned about '76 that in an October of the first decade of the new millenium, the president of the United States would attack a country in the Middle East that fully 88% of the US population would disapprove. He said that it would be regarded as the war of 'Armagedon'. Mr. Solomon died in '94. When I first read his words in '98, I remember thinking "How would anyone know that '88%' of the nation would be opposed to the actions of the president and how could such a man get away with it?" Now we know. In this summer, we can alter the way the course of history unfolds but first it serves us to acknowledge where we are in this moment. We are empowered to realize and appreciate the benefits of our choices. We might choose carefully and keep the princes of lies from making the choices that invite more instructive consequences. It starts with realizing that we have empowered liars and assuring them that they will be called upon to account for their deceptions. We would do well to encourage our representatives to heed the information Mr. Hersh and others have shared with us all. Everything happens for a purpose. There is no such thing as random chance or coincidence.
Rather than entertaining others with notions of what God wants or doesn't want, might it be time to focus on what it might serve humanity for us to choose?
Let's choose as One, 'Care fully'. Namaste.
Everybody in the pool, water's a littlej turbulent but it'll calm down.
I believe that all paths lead to the same spiritual/universal pool.
One -- We come from the same WHOLE that we return to.
Share what you have, get simple and basic about this.
Want does come from a position of 'lack' and desire is a cultivation stage of manifestation.
Cause no harm
Participate in life, experience your moments more fully (I love that, 'care fully')
Read 'Commuion with GOD'
I have lost the connection for now, and need to begin to move through the day. Love the comments, food for the S.O.U.L. ;)
Correction to my earlier post: Sy Hersh's article is in the New Yorker, not the Observer. He is interviewed on CNN, Crooksandliars.com has the clip up on line.
Namaste.
I don't know what God wants from me. I'm supposing he would make it obvious but I just don't know for sure. I've been told I complicate things.
I DO know what I want and believe it or not, its taken me four years to figure this one out - I WANT TO BE HAPPY. What a revelation! What if that's all that God wants for us or FROM us is to be happy. Man that would be cool.
Thanks Neale for your words of encouragement and hope. We all need them right now.
The liars we have empowered are those who will use political rationale for their own ideological reasons..
I unfortuanely see no difference in your analogy only you think its on the side of what is right.
If we truly dont know what God desires than the first thing we all should abandon is political power!
I think that all the comments here are devided to people that agree with neale and those who doesnt.
Elinor have mentioned that neale thinks that his opinion about life or about god is "Right",
but as in the book 'conversations with god' that I belive all the comenters have read, there is no right nor wrong in the lexicon of god.
Right is a word that actually means "things that getting me to a
desired place" and Wrong means "things that prevent me to get to the desired place".
There is nothing Wrong in politics, but people use it wrongly, to get to a place that profit themselves only.
There for if we use politics not in the means of profit, but in the means of love and care for each other, then we will be getting to some point from wich we can grow only better for the humanty for ourselves and for better god living.
As long as you bring it up can you even BELIEVE what has been done under the name of God? It is horrible and its destruction is still going on. I think about how god must feel and I could cry. Individually all I know to do is to continue to ask for the spirit give the spirit a good home in which it can grow and especially shine, this is important because people see the light and they ask "what are you on, I want some."
Collectively, we have to somehow reach like minded people who believe changes should be made and are willing to do the work to get those changes made. Neale, I am pessimistic I will read your book though and see if I still think it can't be done.
I don't even know how long our economic system is going to hold, if our infrastructure collapses we'll be back to Maslow stage one. Politically we are the terrorists. This does not mean I don't love our soldiers , oh God knows how much I do, its their boss who in all realms of logical thought, at a minimum, should have been arrested for war crimes. How do they get away with it? Other countries think we are evil they might be right, Oh well its not bush's problem he can go to the ranch pour some drinks, kick his feet up and get his army toys out.
What God truly wants...that's deep question. It touches our love, our soul, something beautiful, that can make us cry. That's our truth.
We cannot see the truth, not even from words of peace, if our brains are in mess - in peaces, not in peace. If we hold on into this earth reality or our collective mind. Maybee becouse we don't even know, what is truth or we are too afraid of it. We are too afraid, that God will not answer our dreams, that this can't be true, that we are just dreamers. And to dream is nothing - to believe in our dreams is nothing. That's not what we are living...we are on earth and earth is hell, that we have to get through, that we can live our dreams. We must pay God for our sins, right? What about mercy and so unconditonal love?
How can we create this truth? We cannot create it, but our love can - we and our love are actually doing it together. We in truth, we as love, are just like flowers, we grow from day to day and than plant our dreams into the others, who listen. We choose, what flower we want to be. We can believe in our truth, it will come true...God knows all of our dreams. Everthing is possible.
God wants us all together, not separated..all together, all one!
Love and peace,
Teja
Neale, I have been remaining on the perimeter of
the discussions which are posted and discussed on
these and other locations..I have been dealt a similar
awareness from childhood that something was out of balance. There was something missing and throughout my life experiences I felt a sense or purpose for my being.My life has been full of variences allowing me to participate in a good portion of what appeared to be offered.Good and Bad-
I won't go into details now; only to mention I have experienced much of what is being discussed and am beginning to have faith evolution is beginning to be realized. :):)
This life is all about the soul, not about the body. When we can live from our highest self, there is justice,equality,peace, abundance and wisdom. Isn't that what God really wants? What serves our higher purpose and our world, not what serves a few or our egoes.We must abandon our old ways,they are wrong ways,foolish ways.
This is a new time, a new time to recreate who we are and how we live.
My friends,look at the world around us now. There are those who say that there is no global warming,fools. That is like a man standing in a burning house and claiming no, my house is not on fire.
This is the MOST exciting time to be alive on our planet. What an incredible opportunity we have before us! Embrace it! The energy is very strong, tap into it,use it! It's transforming!
neale, i love your books, but they are the problem, as well as all the other books that divinely bring us the word of god, or tell us what god wants, or how to follow god's divine, find god's path, etc. etc. it is all filtered through man's biases and experiences. then it is filtered through the reader's biases and experiences, until in our personal relationship with god we feel 'led' to what god wants.
as divine as the information 'may' (and i use that loosely) have been originally intended i can objectively look at each religions' holy books and find some of the information to be so f'ed up, which explains its misuse.
i truly wish it all would be thrown into a big fire and burned.
so it won't make much money but i could write your new book very simply.
- title: what god wants
- page 1: love, respect, and forgive yourself and each other unconditionally, despite differences in religion, culture, race, nationality, gender, and sexuality and i love you unconditional
- pages 2 through 298: blank
- page 299: The End
- page 300: Neale Donald Walsch
Dear Neale,
With reference to your conversation with your insurance man, it seems that fundamentalist Christians so often quote the saying of Jesus that "No man shall come to the Father except through me," (as I remember it - I was brought up an Anglican, in England, but was querying this sort of thing by the age of 16.) From what I now understand about karma and reincarnation, not to mention the mis-interpretations of Jesus' original words through Latin and Greek, etc., I feel that He may have been telling people that they needed to heed His teaching, and follow it, as it was the way to prevent the need for reincarnations repeatedly , and possibly indefinately. He did not mean that people must follow him as the one and only spiritual teacher, as great a teacher as he may have been. I have now made it to the age of 75, and along the way your books have been a a great inspiration, and reflect so much that I felt instinctively, but had no way of verifying. My favourite is Friendship with God, which had me in tears. I have also studied Hindu thought to some degree, and was happy to realise that what you have written bears out much of what is taught in the ancient Vedas and Upanishads, but expressed in simple modern terms which are easy for us all to understand. You have been doing a great job, and i'm sure that when you pass on, God (or whatever) will say "Well done. thou good and faithful servant."
Hello Neale, Your book was on the hall table of my Boss, I asked if I could borrow it, curious to know what the answer would be to your very intriguing question. What does God Want?
Finally I have found someone who speaks sense! A person willing to stand up and say that organised religion has got it wrong, and bring forward unquestionable proof to uphold that statement. I am in the process of reading and am finding myself nodding in total agreement to every single thing you say, things I have voiced myself over the years. I could never accept the Loving God torturing his people, The Just God who sees millions slaughtered because they don't follow the right path, the Loving God who threatens his people with hellfire and eternal damnation if they choose not to behave and do what he says! Oh I understood totally that it was Man who had twisted things to their purpose, yet we have the Holy books, Scripture which plainly say, thou shalt not.....,so who is one to believe? Not being a person who reads ancient languages, I, and thousands of others like me, are at the mercy of those who can, those who tell us the translation is correct! I have been plagued by these very questions myself, and never have I found an answer. Always people say to me, "Be good, love God and you will be saved" or "Follow the BIble teaching and you'll get through the Great Tribulation" etc., etc. But in my heart I knew this can't be right, especially so when you see their lifestyle!!! I questioned the authenticity of those words, even questioning God himself, only to be told I was faithless and divisive to be asking what RIGHT God has if he wants to destroy people, seeing as he is the Creator, then they are his to with as he pleases!! That very sentence fills me with absolute horror!
I was brought up Church of England, my parents both decided we should "Find" our own path to faith. My Mother believed in life after death, spiritualism and she was open minded enough to ask questions and seek answers where-ever she looked.
I asked the Vicar who took Religious Education in school and was told to be quiet and not question God's infinite wisdom! I read books when I was old enough to understand the basic tenets of their religious beliefs to see which was the "Right Religion" I even contemplated going to speak with the Catholic Nuns who lived nearby, thankfully I was too scared to go!
Four years later, when I was 20, I was contacted by Jehovah's Witnesses and for the first time in my life I was having my numerous questions answered. They made sense to me, so much so after two years of Bible study I joined them. 20 years down the line, I'm no longer with them having found them to be just as narrow minded, blinkered, confined in a belief system I found myself stagnating in. My whole life has been one of seeking answers, and finding a resonance that feels right, because sooner or later I always find the problem. Whatever religion, faith belief system, at first sounds good, but, there is always a BUT!
Now I read your words, and think, is it possible to change people's minds? Is it really possible to cast away generations of brain washing? I find myself saying BUT again! I look forward to your reply!
final inner peace
I do not think that God wants anything. He is merely an observer who is experiencing itself through us. God is not vengeful, angry, judgemental, etc., and has no preferences. God knows that physical existence is merey a mass illusion, that there really is no time and space and that we exist in many "places and times" at once. Therefore, what to us seems a major injustice or tragedy in the here and now, is in God's perception an illusory and ultimately unimportant event. We are at our core immortal creations and despite appearances to the contrary, nothing can really hurt or damage us.
Interesting comment. On what revelation(s) are you basing your opinion? What happens if you die and found out you were wrong? As for myself, I like to have a faith that is not based on supposition and hoping like heck I'm right. My faith is based on evidence that is supportable and real, and I have assurances that I will be taken care of when I leave this world. I like that kind of security! I don't have to hope I'm right, or hope that whatever being is sitting there accepts what I've done with my life and that he/she/it deems it "good enough."
God does want things from us. In His Word He lets us know that He wants us to be holy as He is holy, and that He wants our lives to be marked by righteousness, which means right living. Right living according to His standards, not our own. He wants us to love, worship, and praise Him, and to love others and put their needs above our own. James puts it this way in his epistle, "Religion that God accepts as faultless and pure is this; that you take care of widows and orphans in their distress, and keep yourself from being polluted by the world."
That is what God wants from us.
God bless, and have a great day!
Chief1989
What God wants... This issue contradicts itself. A perfect God, in want? God wants nothing. Or He isn't perfect. Our varying ideas on what God is and what he wants is often the source of conflict among us. It also gives rise to Atheism. Come to think of it. All our post here assume that there's a God. I would like to hear one who says there isn't any. For all we know, he might negate only the God who we generally recognize! In that sense, many of us here may be considered Atheists.
Chief1989 is comfortable with his Bible. That's what he wants. Some of us are Lutherans, Catholics, Sunnis, Buddhists, LDS, etc. We are comfortable with it. That's what we want. Some of us are searching. Search. That's what we want. Now here's the killer question: What does God want? The Catholics will say, He wants us to be Catholics. The Muslims will say, He wants us to be Muslims. Etc. Etc. With whom will God side?
I think the more logical question would be, What does man want? Sorry. I used the word because man embraces woman! Or should it be the other way around? What do we want? We better be clear with what we want because what we want for ourselves is what God wants for us! I think.
So God creates man, but the critical question in your mind is what does the created want, because the creator will want that for him? That is an absurd assumption, an illogical statement.
What if I want to rule the world with absolute power and authority, and I am willing to step on anyone who gets in my way, and I will ruthlessly purge anyone who doesn't like it. Is that what God would really want from me?
A perfect God would want perfection, not nothing. When God created the heavens and the earth, he proclaimed it to be good. When he created man, he said be fruitful and multiply, and you will tend the garden and have dominion over the plants and beasts. That seems to be wanting something, does it not? Here, I put you in this beautiful place, now take care of it, have babies, and spread out. That does not seem like wanting nothing.
What does God want, you ask? He told Abraham to walk before him and be blameless. That's something. He told Moses to go to the base of the holy mountain and worship him there. He told Jonah to go evangelize the Ninevhites. He was, and is, always telling people to go, baptize, make disciples, spread the gospel, live in unity and peace with one another, etc etc etc. He doesn't say to become a Catholic, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or an Atheist. He tells us to repent and call on his name, and to believe in the name of the son he sent to save us.
Robert
Robert or Turk 182,
Here's more "absurdities" and "illogical statements" which I hope will help make my point a bit clearer. Creation is nothing but man's creation. There never was any creation. There's only one Universe as we know it, including the ones we're not even aware of. Bible folklore tells as of a God who created earth and and lighted it with a big and some smaller lamps. When Galileo and Copernicus told us it isn't so they ran into trouble with guardians of the Bible. Now we know better. No matter how our telescopes advance, we see no end to the billions of galaxies that add up to the ones we already know.
There's hardly a group of people or tribe that didn't create a god of one form or the other. The people then, as now, were in a dark on so many things so they came up with gods whom they attributes such powers that will, basically, protect them from the fearful unknown. In the same manner, the Hebrews created a god in the OT that serve them well in their fight for survival against numerous enemies that surround them. It was eventually "adopted" by many nations, each adding their own ingredient or embellishments that soon made itself unrecognizable even by the original creators. One of these additions is Jesus of the NT, perhaps to make the god of the OT more palatable. Soon however, this Jesus appeared differently in as many forms to the various sects that compose Christianity.
Martin Luther thought at first that the Bible being the word of God would be understood and interpreted the way he did by anyone who has read it. So he translated the Books in German and distributed as much copies of it as he could. He was in for a disappointment. No 2 persons interpreted it alike, much less as he did. This gave rise to evangelists who had to prove first that they were chosen messengers of God before being able to present their ideas based of the Book. Yet no sensible evangelist would dare venture into passages that run counter with what they say. And the Bible is full of such contradictions! Bloody inter-sect conflicts were modern day occurrences.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the world other set of ideas are catching fire. Islam is one. Such were the followers of this religion that it's clash with Christianity were often bloody and mortal. Some people who posts here claim that Islam is tolerant of other religions. Maybe he is. But it is a reality that in some Muslim countries people get into serious trouble for being caught in possession of a Bible. Inter-sect rivalry is no less deadly.
A wise guy summed it all up. Religions does not make people better. It's people who make religions better, or at least keep them in check.
I hope this blog serves the purpose. You see Robert or Turk, we aren't brothers and sisters under the fatherhood of God. We are one. This is why he wants for us what we want for ourselves. Only a culture of separation would want to subdue and dominate others.
Ah, Tax, you use the age old defense of the uninformed - "The Bible is full of contradictions!"
Could you point some of those out to me, please?
Thanks!
Robert
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