I also had a religious childhood, Catholic, complete with parochial education. I expected to be a priest but could not reconcile myself with the church’s treatment of women. That eventually dominoed and I lost my faith. I now have faithless confidence and my relationship with God is satisfying. As I see it neither God nor I have much use for faith, it demonstrates a lack of confidence. I do not mean that to be disrespectful it is just how I walk with God, with confidence.

I have never been much of a reader. In matters of mysticism it is about purity of mind. I am less fussy about that today but reading, in particular book reading, is a habit I never developed. I do appreciate your book recommendation as I sometimes do enjoy a good book. I will add it to my list of books I might read.

Thanks Paul,
Michael, The Mystic Tourist

“I think it is futile to define God”

Yes!

Having been reared in a fundamentalist (I would say) Christian home with God the Father being portrayed as a man with a white woolly beard and even perhaps a bit of a pot belly (true!) I have, for the obvious ‘Santa Claus’ reasons broken away from that childish, even absurd way of visualizing God. I am coming more and more to the conclusion that ‘He’ could very likely even be a HeShe, or maybe a ‘She’ although that isn’t my bias (but never an ‘It’ — I don’t think I could ever go that far, at least not at the present time). In fact, I am inclined to agree with you that God may be unknowable in mortal human terms because of our mortal limitations. I still very much believe, though, (I would actually choose to say “know” — I have my personal empirical reasons) there is life after death for all of us, and it is perhaps ‘there’ or when we are in that state, we will be better disposed to understand the true nature of God. At least, that’s my hope.

Having said all of this, I have to admit that it is still difficult to completely distance myself from the anthropomorphic concept of the God of my youth. In fact, I still find comfort in this notion of God being an exalted human being (but not a Santa Claus image!), however this being the real truth of the matter, I’m beginning to question, perhaps even doubt. Could in fact, God who lives outside of space and time; God who is at least 14 billion years old, really be a ‘human being’ although an exalted one? Hard to even begin to image what that ‘human being’ would be like after all of these billions of earth years, even e pre-dating when earth years along with the rest of *this* universe came into existence.

I’m just finishing up a book written by the astrophysics, Bernard Haisch entitled the “The God Theory”. Based upon what you have written, I think you would like it. It’s not a ‘thick’ book and very manageable from a technical point of view. I would give it a solid four out of five stars for a lot of reasons.

- Paul

I believe we all have direct contact and experience of God. Some people are much more aware of this and God is much more present in their experience of life. Certainly such a life is noticed in the time and community in which it is present.

Thanks for reading Paul and thanks for commenting.

You state that God does not write books. God works through His chosen spokespersons to communicate His will and desires for us and these person write the books, which is essentially the same as God doing the writing. However, I can well appreciate that there are myriads of ‘false prophets’ who write ‘scripture’ claiming God as its source, but this doesn’t explain away that there is no valid scriptures written by bona fide people (‘prophets’, for the sake of using some term). So that’s the rub and the sixty-four thousand dollar question: Which, of all the so-called ‘scriptures’ are the true and valid ones? Also, perhaps we can write our own scripture inspired of God, but not to be canonized for the whole of humanity, but communication that benefits us or people we are responsible for according to our individual and unique needs, i.e., personal revelation.

As for the “language of God” and “sound” I have had experiences that aligns with the scripture in 1 Kings 19:11-12:
11 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
 12 And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

I’m not saying I know what or who God is, but I’m am not about to ‘throw the baby out with the bath water’ by not recognizing the many, what I consider to be, valid written works communicated to certain people from God.

Might I also add that I am not too sure about “This blog … did not exist before I wrote it.” However, best to leave that idea alone for another discussion.

P.S. If you don’t feel comfortable or enjoy the aspects of me questioning, disagreeing, etc, what you write about, please let me know. — Paul

How would you harmonize this with the Christ’s declaration (John 6:65):

“And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.”

or as put in another translation (which makes more sense to me, or is made more clear as for the intended meaning, and would tend to harmonize with what you stated):

“And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except he doeth the will of my Father who hath sent me.”

“In a controversy, the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth. Instead, we have begun striving for our false selves — our egos.”

I am inclined to think that this ‘thing’ or whatever IT is, that we call ‘ego’ may only be our subconscious mind (meaning, everything that resides there) posing as another ‘self’ — a false self.

Just my thoughts.