What did you do to feel closer to the God (deity) you believe in

[Psalm23]

@Conscious thoughts , I seen one art you made of nature. Would be interested in seeing you paint a picture on heaven if that is something you would like to do.

 

[Clara Tea]

In the religious practice you do, what was it that made you feel closeness to the God (deity) ?

Did it take much practice to gain the experience?

Belief in UFOs....extraterrestrial alien visitors to earth.

To strengthen this belief, we should present proof, or at least circumstantial evidence.

There is no proof that God exists.

But there are many accounts of people seeing UFOs. The United States government commissioned (and paid for out of tax money) Project Bluebook, to analyze UFO sightings.

Most scientists, especially astronomers, astrophysicists, and cosmologists (not experts in women's makeup) believe that life exists in places other than earth. Even as I write this, NASA is trying to analyze both Mars and Venus for signs of life. It is thought that life could have developed separately on Mars or Venus, or perhaps a meteor impact on one of the planets could have transported primative life from one planet to the other where it could have evolved. Both Mars and Venus, at one time, were habitable, and the atmosphere of Venus, today, possibly sustains life. The building blocks of life (nucleic acids) do exist on Mars and Venus. So, the DNA of life on other planets might be the same as ours. It is obvious from the tilt of the axis of Venus and the tilt of the axis of Earth that earlier in their histories, massive objects collided with them. The pock marked moons and planets bear tacit witness to past impacts.

Astronomers may have found a signature of life on Venus

The website, above, is from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and it is about finding signs of life in the atmosphere of Venus (published Sept. 14, 2020).

Also, it is thought that the moons of the Jovian planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) might be warm enough due to friction to support life. The friction is due to the tidal force of being so close to the planets. There are geysers on a moon of Jupiter.

Scientists believe in extraterrestrial life because there are a huge number of stars and the stars apparently have planets and moons (some have been detected by the perturbations of the planets that they orbit).

Many sightings of Project Blue Book were left unexplained. Now the government is paying for a new program, very similar to Project Blue Book.

SETI is a project of the US government to search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

Could it be that life on other planets are made in God's image, as well? Would that be Black aliens? Indian aliens? Mexican aliens (I thought Trump built a wall?)? Tall aliens? Short aliens? Tentacled aliens? Face eating aliens? Just exactly what is God's image?

There have been countless stories (called Sci Fis) written about aliens from other worlds. Some are benign (like ET), and some are bloodthirsty (like pod people, or the Twilight Zone aliens....maybe the book "To Serve Man" is really a cookbook, not a book about helping mankind)?

Would aliens come all this way from a distant galaxy (which would take tens of thousands of years at the speed of light) in order to get a meal of human flesh, or brains of our leaders (light snack), or to steal our smoggy air? They may have thought that smog meant "small hog."

I suspect that if aliens are sufficiently advanced to travel across the universe, we'd better not try to out-tech them with our weaponry. One death ray blast, and the earth would be vaporized.

But, maybe we have scared the aliens into not contacting us? After all, if they look at Star Wars (and see death rays that could vaporize Princess Leia's planet), and note that Darth Vader could kill with a thought, maybe they should not attack?

Maybe, if we are contacted by aliens, we should give them what they want, at least for a while, while we build up our technology by reverse engineering their technology, so that we would have a fighting chance against their high tech weaponry?

Maybe we have already captured alien devices? This would certainly explain the rapid tech advances over the last century. Fitting all of those transistors in a tiny space is quite a feet.

All this, about brain eating aliens, is likely true. After all, all those people who talk about being abducted seem to have no brains at all.....proof that they were abducted.

And, what about those strange small metallic implants that some people claim to have? They say that scientists analyzed them, and could not identify the material. Do they control us?

Maybe all of the theists are implanted by alien chips, and that is why atheists don't understand why they believe as they do?

It has been long speculated that new aliens would order "take me to your leader." If we did suggest they they go to our leader they might say "no, seriously, take me to your leader" and we could tell them that the president really is our leader. And they will insist that a leader has to be the most intelligent person on the planet (we might get zapped if we persist).

It could be that aliens already noted our first astronauts. Russia sent up a dog named Lika, and the US sent up a chimp. They might have captured and interrogated these animals, trying to understand the technology that they used to build their spacecrafts?

It is possible that the alien lifeforms that came to earth might have been tourists who crash landed. They might know how to press the gas peddle for "go" and the brake to "stop" and turn the wheel to "steer." But, beyond that, they might not know the technology required to make or fix their spaceship?

 

[Clara Tea]

@Conscious thoughts , I seen one art you made of nature. Would be interested in seeing you paint a picture on heaven if that is something you would like to do.

I don't know if they can show a picture of Farrah Fawcett here.

 

[Clara Tea]

I don't find practices bring me unerringly to feel closer although no doubt they prepare the ground.

Feeling comes apparently spontaneously. I'll hear some music, read a special story or something else will happen and the dark clouds of the lower self will part for a few blessed moments and the feeling of nearness then emerges.

I wonder if heaven ever gets fogged in?

 

[Clara Tea]

I don't find practices bring me unerringly to feel closer although no doubt they prepare the ground.

Feeling comes apparently spontaneously. I'll hear some music, read a special story or something else will happen and the dark clouds of the lower self will part for a few blessed moments and the feeling of nearness then emerges.

Some of the best musicians in the world were tortured to make religious music, so naturally it is Godlike.

 

[Clara Tea]

For me, prayer , Bible reading, and worship music. Practices that encourage you to trust in God. At times I have liked to visualize as well. Examples could be visualizing something in Scripture, God or imaginating what heaven would be like.

Prayer helps us drown out the screams. We can read the bible (who is related to whom in Genesis), while the homeless freeze, the starving die, and our war crimes become a distant memory after being scrubbed from history. As Kunta Kinte's master said....I can't talk to Kunta (who was being tortured to accept the name Toby) now, because I am learning to be pious by reading the bible.

I wonder....is the purification of our soul about us, or about how we treat others?

When we get into heaven, do we think of only ourselves, or do we do what Jesus taught us?

 

[Clara Tea]

Taking responsibility for my actions, and reading scriptures and pondering on their meanings.

Can we spend time taking responsibility for actions while not acting to prevent disasters? Dying man, asking for food....."not now....I'm contemplating my past actions". Maybe we can do both? Two goals are hard to complete together.

When one contemplates seeking a goal harder, one forgets to look at the path. Falling off the path makes it still harder to reach the goal. One must have one eye on the goal and the other on the path.

 

[Clara Tea]

Prayer helps.

Mostly just trying to consciously exist every moment knowing God is there.

Existence is easy, even if one exists as an angel in heaven. Is it necessary to be conscious? Should one pray while ignoring responsibilities to others? Is it possible to reach heaven while only being concerned with ourselves? Or, should we, instead, follow the example of Jesus and help others?

 

[Clara Tea]

I had that experience, too!

How can I be any closer to God/dess? Where is there a place he/she isn't?

It would spread us thin to be where God is--if at all possible. Perhaps, though, we could do the things that God wants us to do, and that would serve God, wherever he is?

 

[Clara Tea]

I learned how to beseech Their presence. They informed me in various ways that my calling Them was successful. Hard not to feel close when They're right there beside you, and inside you, simultaneously.

Imagine how disappointing it is to reach out to communicate with the spirits of God, hoping for divine insight, only to be told that I am an idiot. I already knew that, so why should they tell me? I can try, to the best of my ability, but that is not good enough for those who are perfect. We will always fall short of the perfection that we seek.

 

[Clara Tea]

The more aware I am of the gift of being; of how amazing and magnificent it is, the more 'divine' (of God) that gift feels to me. So I like to try to cultivate that awareness.

God doesn't just want us to feel good, he wants us to make others feel good (following the example of Jesus). Jesus healed the sick and fed the hungry. Jesus railed against churches that had expensive bobbles and didn't cater to the poor.

The good feeling grows when we help others.

 

[Clara Tea]

I saw a statue of him and bought it.

I still don’t believe in him, though.

Christians are supposed to shun worship of statues (called graven images), so that they may worship God.

When Moses got the ten commandment rocks, his people made a statue of a golden lamb. Moses asked them not to worship it. Worship of the lamb would detract from the worship of God.

 

[Spirit of Light]

@Conscious thoughts , I seen one art you made of nature. Would be interested in seeing you paint a picture on heaven if that is something you would like to do.

I can not paint heaven, because I do not know what it look like. And I do not want to missrepresent heaven by painting a false picture.

 

[JustGeorge]

Christians are supposed to shun worship of statues (called graven images), so that they may worship God.

When Moses got the ten commandment rocks, his people made a statue of a golden lamb. Moses asked them not to worship it. Worship of the lamb would detract from the worship of God.

I am pretty sure he's not a Christian.

Also, Hindus do not directly worship statues(or, murtis as we call them). They use it as an aid to their worship. It may be viewed as a visual aid to help one feel a connection, or some believe a deity may temporarily lend part of their energy to a murti, in order to be available for his/her devotees.

 

[EtuMalku]

In the religious practice you do, what was it that made you feel closeness to the God (deity) ?

Did it take much practice to gain the experience?

Yes, a lot of Inner work. It took approximately 18 months of ritual and ceremonial work to gain communication.

 

[Clara Tea]

Okay, my God is the world we live and the humans in it.
Since I am in part trained as a realist (soldier), but also do other things than being a realist, I have found God by learning to balance realism, positivism and how to handle the negative.
As my Christian wife says: God gives us the nuts, but he doesn't crack then for us, I have learned through much practice to be positive using different Western secular mental wellbeing techniques and combining them with scientific knowledge and/or religious techniques.

I see God in being positive and/or realistic. I see God in the kindness of other humans, in the society I live in and in my love to my wife. There are other examples of God around. But to me God is in the world if you learn to look. But to some atheists that is nature and yes, I get them. But there is more to nature than it being physical and that is to me a natural pandeism God.

In the United States, soldiers are trained first in boot camp. They are told that they are worthless worms, and they feel that they are. They are then trained for a couple more weeks, and told that the military has built them into men, and taught them useful things. Eventually, during boot camp, they feel that they are super-men, capable of charging into enemy guns. All this is brainwashing.

Is brainwashing the same as realism?

God said "thou shalt not kill," but soldiers kill. Is defying God the same as realism?

When the president/king/commander orders a soldier to kill, they don't ask questions, they obey. Is killing blindly the same as realism?

Realism, positivism, and negativism is all about how you feel. What about following the teaching of Jesus and helping others?

Very few Christians follow the teachings of Christ (which is necessary to be a Christian, of course).

 

[SalixIncendium]

Christians are supposed to shun worship of statues (called graven images), so that they may worship God.

When Moses got the ten commandment rocks, his people made a statue of a golden lamb. Moses asked them not to worship it. Worship of the lamb would detract from the worship of God.

Who said anything about worship?

 

[sun rise]

Some of the best musicians in the world were tortured to make religious music, so naturally it is Godlike.

That makes no sense to me. Who was tortured by whom and when?

And to me there's nothing Godlike about the product of tortured since God's essence is love.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Can we spend time taking responsibility for actions while not acting to prevent disasters?

You can't force people to listen. All you can do is warn them and share what you have learned.
Armageddon must happen. It will be.

When one contemplates seeking a goal harder, one forgets to look at the path. Falling off the path makes it still harder to reach the goal..

It's not getting any easier as time goes on, that's for sure.
G-d loves a trier.

 

[Psalm23]

Prayer helps us drown out the screams. We can read the bible (who is related to whom in Genesis), while the homeless freeze, the starving die, and our war crimes become a distant memory after being scrubbed from history. As Kunta Kinte's master said....I can't talk to Kunta (who was being tortured to accept the name Toby) now, because I am learning to be pious by reading the bible.

I wonder....is the purification of our soul about us, or about how we treat others?

When we get into heaven, do we think of only ourselves, or do we do what Jesus taught us?

Reading the Bible isn't about ignoring the needs and suffering of others. It isn't about being pious.