Zadok wrote:Gray Ghost wrote:Whenever we try to think of God as a person who judges and compares and blesses and damns and creates and destroys, we're really making a God of ourselves. Humans do those things. God is bigger.
This is helping me refine and define my ideas of God. Please don't stop!
I'm glad you find it helpful.
I think we get into trouble in thinking that God is like a person, and that God speaks to us in human language, with a human-like brain. I don’t see God as a man in the clouds who answers the tough question. I see God as more of a verb, less of a thing, but at the same time, everything everywhere is God. So no matter what you are doing or where you are, you are experiencing God in some way. God is "everything" in the most expansive possible definition of the word.
I think there are true principles that arise out of our spiritual quest, principles of inclusiveness and compassion and love. It's not that God broadcasts these principles into our brains. Again, I don't see God as existing at the ego/personality level. Everything in nature seems to work from the bottom up - complexity arises from basic elements. Morality comes about as an evolutionary process as well.
And of course, under this paradigm, scripture is not to be taken as some kind of literal recitation of facts and events or the "words of God". Scripture is a collection of sacred narratives. There are universal principles that arise out of all scriptures (unconditional love for one). Other parts of scriptures contain particular teachings that just don't work anymore. In those cases the function of scripture can be to teach us what NOT to do. But universal principles come before dogma or literalism. Scripture is record of fallible people reaching out for divinity, and often failing in the attempt.
If you're interested in this kind of approach, I'd highly recommend the following series of interviews:
http://mormonstories.org/rabbi-ted-falc ... e-judaism/http://mormonstories.org/three-interfai ... -religion/http://mormonstories.org/imam-jamal-rah ... ive-islam/http://mormonstories.org/pastor-don-mac ... istianity/