Is God a personal or public matter?

[_Nephi]

Hi Nephi, I don't really get offended by it.... but I'm not in your situation.

I think it's a private matter unless you're posting on a bulletin board about it. When you put it in the public sphere you're probably going to get feedback about these sort of matters that potentially could be offensive.

Fair enough, but many times (especially at churches) individuals will tell others how to worship, speak to, or think of God. Very restrictive.

if you feel this way then why do you participate in Mormonism or any organized religion for that matter?

Once again your opinions on religion are in conflict with participation in the LDS church.

I kinda look at it like being a US citizen. Just because I don't agree with a lot of its policies, doesn't mean I want to move. There is no religion that I agree 100% with, but that doesn't mean I don't get something from it. :)

[_Sethbag]

In theory, if God actually exists, and created and rules over this world, then it's very much a public matter, because it affects and involves every single one of us.

The trouble is that there's such poor evidence that such a God exists, that we're reduced to opinion, conjecture, and speculation about this God.

Given how unreliable opinion, conjecture, and speculation are, we've come to treat thought about God as though it were a strictly private matter, simply because opinions are like buttholes - everyone has one and they all stink. But this is actually a great sign of weakness in the whole concept; if Nephi's God actually existed, he wouldn't just be the God of Nephi, he would be the God of every one of us. Same with everyone else's "personal" God.

In reality, everyone who believes in a God harbors their own pet conception of who and what this God is, what this God wants from us all, etc. But they don't imagine that this applies only to them, because in theory a God who existed would be the God of everyone. So some folks feel the need to try to force others into compliance with their beliefs about God, and we end up with all this grief because of it.