Thanks for the responses! Sorry it's taken me a while to respond, I've had a crazy week and I wanted to ponder this a bit.
shaktinah said:
I believe that God is omnipotent, but that's because I believe that anything that can be done is done thru God, God being the ground (ie- basis) of all being. I do not believe that God is omniscient. In my theology, that would kinda ruin the point of everything.
Hmm, interesting. Can you clarify the statement "anything that can be done is done through God"? Don't the words "
can be done" mean that God is not
omnipotent, but is only as powerful as we are? Maybe I'm reading you wrong. And do you mean only positive actions, or both positive and negative?
Out of curiousity - you don't have to explain if it would take too long
- how would God's omniscience ruin the point of everything?
shaktinah said:
(You might be interested in Charles Hartshorne's book of essays titled "Omnipotence and other theological mistakes." Hartshorne was a process theologian and a UU.)
Thanks for the tip! I'll look into it =D
shaktinah said:
How do I explain Scripture, prophets, visions, miracles, etc.? People experienced God and then tried to make sense of it, talked about it, and wrote it down. Experience of the Divine is rather confusing and we do our best to interpret what we experienced, but interpretations will be influenced by our social context, and then description will distort the original experience even more. By the last couple of sentences, I am NOT saying that these things are not real. In fact, I accept them as real, just distorted. To what degree is it distorted and to what degree is it literally true? I don't know, and for the most part I don't care. The only time objective veracity matters to me in these situations is when an ethical issue is at stake.
I agree.
I guess it just gets confusing for me when people say they have literally heard the voice of God or seen visions; who am I to tell them they didn't actually experience it? I'm sure some are lying but I have more faith in humanity than to call them
all liars. So perhaps it could be explained as their body's response to this experience with the Divine? Or maybe just a case of people believing what they want to believe?
That was part of the confusion that prompted me to start this thread. *shrug*
shaktinah said:
Don't know whether this helped at all or muddied the waters even more. <shrug>
No, it was lots of food for thought, thank you!
shaktinah said:
Addendum:
I guess I should clarify/explicitly state that I don't believe in Divine Intervention per se. That implies that there is a duality between creator and creation and that most of the time creation is left on its own and once in a while the creator intervenes. For me, creation is God manifest, not separate. And we are God manifest, not separate.
(I kinda feel silly always pointing that its true for humans too, since as we are part of creation what is true for creation is true for us. But I find that we tend to forget that we are part of creation.)
The thing is that we live under the illusion that we are separate. What the Hindus and Buddhists call Maya. And what Doppleganger calls self-awareness. Every now and then we get a glimpse beyond that illusion, and that was what I was refering to - the experience of the Divine.
This is really very interesting. I am quite sure I believe this as well, though my thoughts are so scattered nowadays who knows what I really believe.
But you stated it very eloquently. Thanks again!
dbakerman76 said:
I believe that divine intervention is possible. My own take is that God works through us. As for beliefs about God's character, I simply believe that the divine is love.
I agree that the Divine is love, in a sense, but I'm not sure I agree that God works through us. Wouldn't that sort of make us puppets? Or am I reading you too literally? :sorry1:
dbakerman76 said:
As for scripture, I believe it was man written with portions divinely inspired. Unfortunately, it is full of man's own mistakes and prejudices.
Agreed.
dbakerman76 said:
As for the miraculous, I experience with my every breath. Every moment that I am is a gift from God. Just as it is for anyone else who opens themselves up to the spirit of divine love.
This was beautiful, thank you. What a refreshing attitude =D and something I can agree with and need to remember sometimes. :hug:
dbakerman76 said:
My beliefs are simply my own experience and where it has led me. I'm certain I'm a minority voice within UU. But then again aren't we all since we speak for ourselves and no one else.
That's great that you've found what you believe =D I agree with shaktinah though - I think there is a good deal of consensus among us UUs. As a whole religion I think we share many of the same values; and among us theists, while the details may differ, I think we have pretty similar views of the Divine. Maybe a better way to put it is I think there are some things that can safely be said to be universally
rejected among UUs =P
Thanks again, guys. I really appreciate it =D