Nobody is going to drop the whole "God" part.

So just know that God IS LOVE and problem solved. You can drop the God part if you want, but people will not stop using that term.

The only reason you feel a negative connotation is because of listening to people who insist that you accept their concepts of what God is and make the claim that God is a personality or a deity.

I just tell them God is Love. It says so in the Bible, and that is how I understand what God is.

I don't blame you in the slightest.

The Christians have turned the the word "God" into such an ugly despicable word that I can fully understand your sentiments.

I'm quite sure that I use the term "God" in a far more abstract and mystical way than the Christian do. To them, God is like Zeus. It's a male being who has wants, desires, and lusts to be worshiped, and becomes angry and violent when he doesn't get his way.

It's basically a picture of a totally spoiled immature brat actually.

So I don't blame you for dismissing the term "God" if people are going to use that term to conjure up jealous egotistical Zeus-like Godheads that are even used to support derogatory things like male-chauvinism.

I don't blame you at all. Not one iota.

In fact, you're probably doing the best thing by just renouncing the word altogether actually.

According to my personal experience, I feel that God is Love.

Good = God
Good = Love

Evil = Devil
Evil = fear, hate, bad stuff

There you have it, my entire religion in a nutshell.

Very easy to understand.

I'm on board with what you're saying here Jeannie.

But I do understand EquusDancers view. My own sister feels precisely the same way. She doesn't even want to hear the word "God". She just rolls her eyes when people speak the word. You may as well be talking about the Boogieman as far as she's concerned.

It is the the typical stance of Christianity to lay claim to the ownership of God. They claim (and I'm actually speaking about the authors of the scriptures, NOT the followers of the religion), that their picture of "God" is the only true and correct picture and all other pictures are false.

So the arrogance of Christianity when it comes to the concept of God is basically infinite and totally unbearable.

I totally understand why so many people are willing to just toss in the towel and let the Christians own the concept. Who cares? Just don't support that hateful bigoted view is all.

Dismissing the term altogether is one of the best ways to reject the hate.

This is probably why so many people are turning to atheism anymore.

Anything to get away from the overbearing arrogance of those who act like they OWN "God".

Well I will not let them own it.

I will talk about LOVE until they bring up "GOD" then I will tell them that "God IS LOVE"

They will usually follow that statement with ..."BUT.....blah blah blah..." and claim ownership of a deity they call "God."

Then the old "your god" "my god" subject starts.

Then I remind them that it is their claim that there is only one God right? Well if this is true, then there can be no "your god, my god" conversations. There are no "false gods."

God is love, you either love or you don't.

There is no love in jealousy you say? hmmm, interesting. Then why are spouses jealous of other people in association to their spouse? Where does the feeling of jealousy derive from? If they do not love the person, why then would they be jealous? If God truly loves us, why wouldn't he not be jealous if you were loving other false gods? Why would he not be jealous if you're giving more love to something other then him? When all he wishes is for you to love him cause he loves you.

Why do you wish to twist people's words and alter their meanings to make that someone look bad in a discussion? I never once excluded anyone, only merely stated the fact that no one could know what love truly is if they do not know God. Love is forever, it's not a choice, it's not something one can pick up, lay down, pick up, then set it aside for a while. If the love is there, it will always be there.

this verse you chose actually says exactly what I'm saying.



Everyone that loves is born of God and knows God. So in the same instance, it would be safe to say everyone that does not know God does not know love.

I don't support your view that jealous is a healthy part of a relationship.

I very seriously doubt that Jesus would support that view either.

Your point is moot.

We're talking about love. Not about people who are devoid of love.

We're not attempting to exclude people from love using a religion as a weapon. We're just recognizing that everyone who loves, knows God.

That's all.

So if and when you love a woman with all your heart and soul you wouldn't feel any bit uncormtable with her giving more attention to another man? You wouldn't feel any bit jealous if she remembered another's birthday more often and more regularly then yours when it came around? You wouldn't feel jealous if this women spent more time over at another man's house and not yours? Not saying she's cheating on your or any factual sexual insinuations. But you wouldn't feel jealous that you would feel like she was giving more care and love to another man before you?

And I agree with your last statement 100%. Without God there is no love, it is void of all love. And with God, it is full of love. Love is never ending. Love will walk through fire without blinking. Love isn't something you can pick up and then place in the closet for safe keeping. Once the love is there, the love will always be there no matter what happens.

This is only saying that without love, there is no love, it is void of all love.

That is like saying that without water, there is no water.

Without air, there is no air.

Without food, there is no food.

Its redundant.

God is love.
God is God.
Love is love.

They are the same thing.

No I wouldn't.

But this is all a moot point anyway.

Your constant comparison of God with human frailties and immaturity is irrelevant anyway.

Even if I was the jealous type, there would still be no reason for me to expect an infinite God to have my personal human failings.

Just because you can find human frailties and failings in mortal men doesn't automatically imply that God should have those same flaws.

In fact, if you use those kinds of arguments for a "God" then you can basically justify any type of behavior for the "God" at all, including anger, lust, cruelty, loss of temper, etc.

All you'd end up with is a human-like God who has just as many failings as mortal men.

There's two differences here.

1. As has been said, if there's only ONE God, then that would mean there are no other Gods that can be worshiped, because there is but the one. So God would have no one to be jealous of because there is only Him and no one else that exists.

2. Jealously is a human emotion, and if God is of the spirit, than He is not human and as such could not have human emotions in the way we do. If He could, God is no better than we are, and a divine being would have to be better than we by default, otherwise He would not be divine.

If God were a deity, and had human emotions, including all the negative ones, and if this deity were all powerful, well all I can say is you really don't want to piss him off.

But "God" represents the ultimate good, and that is love.

Jealousy is insecurity and fear. Anger, fear, jealousy are not attributes of Love or God. At least I would hope they are not.

But lets say that the consciousness "God" as a deity, has both positive and negative traits.

This would mean that the God deity is also evil and the Devil also represents this deity.

You can't have both.

Or maybe you can.

Exactly. This is one reason why we can know that these Mediterranean mythologies of human-like jealous Godheads are indeed nothing more than man-made fables.

No genuine solitary God would have ever proclaimed a jealousy toward something that doesn't even exist. Men obviously wrote this into their religious folklore in an effort to renounce the Gods of their neighboring cultures. This is just further evidence that these religious stories are just as mythological as all the others.

A genuinely all-wise all-knowing supreme being simply would have never said, or done most of the things that these stories claim.



Well, not only that, but even if a God did have our emotions and failings then he would be totally unrealistic to expect us to keep them under control when he can't even do it himself.

A God who becomes angry and displays wrath and vengeance?

Clearly there's nothing divine or perfect about any such human-like God. It's just an image created by men. It's just Zeus, with a little extra jealousy and male-chauvinism sprinkled in. Even the blood sacrifices remained a part of this God.

I seriously don't understand why anyone in today's enlightened age even bothers considering these ancient superstitious stories.

And what makes it far worse, is that they not only believe it for themselves but they try to use these ancient stories as a means of excluding everyone who doesn't believe in them from being in harmony with "God". They only way they will accept and acknowledge anyone's spirituality is if that person climbs on board to support these ancient myths to the hilt.

And the worst part about it is, that this religion has already become extreme divisive in on it's own. We have the Jews, the Muslims, the Catholics, and a myriad of disagreeing Protestants, all proclaiming that only their beliefs are TRUE!

It's a religious nightmare.

And they call that "Love"?

i cannot know that i live a life without god, jeannie. but that doesn't make his comment any less absurd. HE made the claim that a life without god would be very dark, not me. if he cannot know god, and i don't think any human mind can, then it's absurd to say whateve a life WOULD BE WITHOUT GOD. define god as love as you wish. i see the notion of god as a delusion.

Well the Bible clearly supports God's role in evil.

Like shown in the thread started by 2SmileLoudly

Isaiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Exodus 32:14
And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

Joshua 23:15
Therefore it shall come to pass, that as all good things are come upon you, which the LORD your God promised you; so shall the LORD bring upon you all evil things.

Judges 9:23
Then God sent an evil spirit

And the list goes on and on.

The very book of Job has God giving Satan his permission to do evil things to Job and even murder Job's entire family.

So the Biblical God is indeed responsible for evil and it's absurd to claim otherwise.

If these same religious fables claim that God is "all-perfect" or "all-loving" in other places, then clearly it's just a story that is riddled with contradictions. That's all that can be taken from that.

It's an inconsistent collection of fables. That's all.

I personally feel that for me, a life without spirituality and love would be very drab and maybe could be described as "dark."

For me spirituality can be a very beautiful thing.

It's quite unfortunate that there exist powerful religions that have given spirituality a bad rap over the centuries with their jealous gods and exclusionary bigotries.

That's truly sad.

They actually make atheism look beautiful in contrast.