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

[muhammad_isa]

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

Of course it isn't.
One shouldn't confuse mankind's hypocrisy with what the Bible teaches.
Mankind are far from perfect, and a Christian who reads the Bible often with sincerity is most fortunate. It all flows from the love of G-d.

 

[Psalm23]

Of course it isn't.
One shouldn't confuse mankind's hypocrisy with what the Bible teaches.
Mankind are far from perfect, and a Christian who reads the Bible often with sincerity is most fortunate. It all flows from the love of G-d.

Thank you for your kind words.

 

[Viker]

It's taken 50+ years of hard work, suffering and discovery to get this close...to gaze into the light at the left hand of the gods. Cornitcher has blessed me over.

 

[Neuropteron]

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?

Hi,

The best way I find is to observe His commandments.
As it says in the psalm "Make me understand, that I may observe your law. And that I may keep it with my whole hearth".(Ps 119:34)

One example is keeping the fourth of the ten commandmenst, the Sabbath.
There is some controversy regarding this command. Some think that it was done away with, whilst others believe the day was changed from Saturday to Sunday.

Understanding this law is important since Jehovah wrote it himself on stone, understanding and obeying it and other requirements of God are important factors in drawing close to God.

 

[CrochetOverCoffee]

When I sing, when I pray, when I read from His word, especially the Psalms.

I won't say that these things don't take practice. Learning how to pray is something I wasn't taught as a child, so I'm playing catch-up. I do have plenty of experience singing, but I was a choir nerd in high school. And learning how to properly study the Bible, to get the most out of each time you read it, definitely takes time and practice. But I wouldn't say there is any kind of set amount of time. It's likely different for everyone.

 

[firedragon]

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?

It is innate.

 

[Clara Tea]

Oddly enough I have a God, but I don't believe that a God exists, lol. Selflessness makes me feel closer to that which is divine. Not that self interest is a bad thing or that there isn't a divine way of it. But selflessness is when I think of others more than myself. I feel closer to divinity when I'm that way.

You are a prime example of someone who is so good that they should go to heaven, though, according to most Christians, you won't because you don't believe as they do. They (that is, most of the Christians), on the other hand, are not as selfless, yet they believe that they will go to heaven because they believe that a person named Jesus existed and he was/is the Messiah.

I believe that one has to do the things that Jesus would have done (things that you would do) in order to get into heaven. I can't imagine why someone would go to hell for all eternity and sear in the flames of the lake of fire, for merely not believing in Jesus.

If heaven is a place for bad people, heaven would be a hellish place. If there is a separate place for nice people who don't believe that Jesus was the Messiah, that would be a good place.

 

[Clara Tea]

When I sing, when I pray, when I read from His word, especially the Psalms.

I won't say that these things don't take practice. Learning how to pray is something I wasn't taught as a child, so I'm playing catch-up. I do have plenty of experience singing, but I was a choir nerd in high school. And learning how to properly study the Bible, to get the most out of each time you read it, definitely takes time and practice. But I wouldn't say there is any kind of set amount of time. It's likely different for everyone.

"Catch up.".....I mustered my courage to pray, now relish conversing with Him. (I could use some diced onions).

 

[Clara Tea]

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.

We could paint a three dimensional scene using a two dimensional canvas. Made in God's image, I wonder if we are God's representation of a more complex heaven?

 

[Clara Tea]

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.

Medieval Inquisition Trials, Torture, and Sermons

If God's essence is love, why is it that websites (like the one above) are so common? They show that the Christian religion tortured a lot of people, and still pretended to be pious in doing God's work.

If God is all-powerful, why would pious Christians have to do anything or torture anyone? God could do everything for himself. If God wanted to torture someone, God could do it himself.

Torturing for Jesus, or lying for Jesus doesn't make sense, but it is done all the time. In modern times, we face Global Warming, yet, there are those who lie for their church and deny Global Warming, while a host of scientists insist that it is real.

The modern Catholic church hid child rapist priests, enabled them to rape in other parishes, and now declares bankruptcy to keep their mammon from compensating their victims. The evil of churches persists in modern times.

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-...hurch-torture-devices-used-in-the-Middle-Ages

Sideshow Bob, in the hypertext link above, said "Throughout history, they have burned, raped, murdered, mutilated, brutalized, and oppressed people they dont agree with or feel sexually attracted to."

The Horrors of the Church and Its Holy Inquisition

The link above says: "Anyone who attempts to construe a personal view of God which conflicts with Church dogma must be burned without pity."--Pope Innocent III

(If that is innocent, I'd hate to see guilty).

The link above also says: "The Inquisitions function was principally assembled to repress all heretics of rights, depriving them of their estate and assets which became subject to the ownership of the Catholic treasury, with each relentlessly sought to destroy anyone who spoke, or even thought differently to the Catholic Church."

Knowing this, the actions of King Henry VIII to create the Anglican church to facilitate divorcing his queen, doesn't seem so very bad. Henry was battling a lot of money, political power, religious power, and evil (torture).

The link says "contained in this one word Inquisition. Murder, robbery, arson, outrage, torture, treachery, deceit, hypocrisy, cupidity, holiness."

Castrato - Wikipedia

According to Wikipedia's article on castrato, castrati are castrated (testicles cut off) little boys, who will retain their high pitched "angelic" voices as they age.

How The Medieval Church Frightened Parishioners Into Obedience

According to the link above, the Catholic church scared their members with scenes of violence or threats of torture.

 

[Clara Tea]

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

I worry that some get bogged down in the rhetoric of the bible without living the life that Jesus meant.

 

[Clara Tea]

Of course it isn't.
One shouldn't confuse mankind's hypocrisy with what the Bible teaches.
Mankind are far from perfect, and a Christian who reads the Bible often with sincerity is most fortunate. It all flows from the love of G-d.

Yes, the religion is usually good, but the practice of the religion falls short. This is why one doesn't want to mix religion and politics.

In modern times, President W. Bush said that he was fighting evil, while he was slaughtering 1,000,000 Iraqis innocent of terrorism, in the name of Jesus. The bible says "thou shalt not kill" but the Religious Right killed anyway.

 

[Bree]

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?

for me it was meditating on how Jehovah feels about things. Learning how God feels can help you understand why his laws have merit and how they are trully beneficial to us and this helps you to feel the same way about things. In that way you can begin to relate to God on a personal level, he becomes more real and you see the individual that he is.

When you can relate to God, he draws you close to him and becomes part of your life.

 

[loverofhumanity]

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?

Im still trying to figure out why I was given such a precious gift of knowing God but cannot think of anything I did or said which gave me such a great blessing.

 

[Link]

I feel more distant to it now than ever in my life. I feel on the verge of perishing. I remember when I was close at a certain point, been falling away since then.

 

[muhammad_isa]

I feel more distant to it now than ever in my life. I feel on the verge of perishing. I remember when I was close at a certain point, been falling away since then.

Iman is up and down.
As the time comes closer to the time the Mahdi will appear, it is getting increasingly difficult to live a devoted life to G-d.
Our deeds affect our iman.

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try, and try again".

 

[Link]

Iman is up and down.
As the time comes closer to the time the Mahdi will appear, it is getting increasingly difficult to live a devoted life to G-d.
Our deeds affect our iman.

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try, and try again".

I better stop sinning or I will burn out my light, I never felt so inclined to left handed spirituality but never have had so much knowledge of the truth of Islam. It's a contradiction, but it's because of my sins are making all my knowledge almost useless.

 

[Link]

Knowledge without action doesn't benefit, I'm learning this the hard way.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

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?

I wasted thirty-one years of life as a Christian, to be honest. I regularly attended to church, attended Sunday School, participated in bible studies, and read the bible. While I was a child and teenager, I prayed to God pleading with him to save me from the abuse that was being inflicted upon me. And for the majority of my adult life, I prayed to God for help dealing with the pain and trauma I was suffering because I had endured abuse throughout my childhood. But all of my desperate prayers fell on God's deaf ears.

Long story short, I'm not a Christian anymore. It took me thirty-one years to finally accept that either God doesn't exist or God is, in fact, a sadistic tyrant, who takes pleasure in causing total chaos, and then sits back and watches his creation tear itself apart.

 

[viole]

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?

I heard there are special helmets that stimulate the brain to achieve something close to it.

ciao- viole