How can you know who God is?

You havent offended me. I'm not even sure what you are referring too, but I am very thankful for your posts. in fact, every post here helps me in different ways. I hope this thread has been beneficial to others also. Let's continue to keep the positive energy of it going.

ev

yeah. and how do you read the bible when it's so hard to understand or swallow?

You can get a modern English translation if the King James is difficult for you to understand.

I'm not sure what you mean that it's difficult to swallow, though.

How would you know God isn't?

Yes, the versions that are written in plain or more modern English are a little bit easier for me. Thee and Thou of the King James version is just too much for me to handle. Still the parables and symbolism are challenging. I've never sure if I am getting the point correct or not. I believe my "non-literal reading comprehension" skills are somewhat limited. I can remember when taking a English Lit course in college and having to read Whitman. I was totally lost with the Blades of Grass poem. Dickinson, totally lost.

I guess this is why going to church or Bible study would be helpful. Provided you respect the opinion of the person running the group.

There is a nation wide organization called Bible Study Fellowship. The women meet in the mornings and the men meet at night. It's been a while since I attended so some things may have changed.

It was AMAZING at how indepth the teaching is! You know the passage where Jesus calls his mother "woman"? I thought it was so cold and disrespectful. In this Bible Study I found out that this was the highest praise Jesus could have given her! Not too many people know this. I heard a discussion on TV about it and the men speaking were going on about how disrespectful Jesus had been to his mother. Nope! Wrong!

Esthersvirtue, I answered your question very simply. It's true that I've never questioned God's existance. Like I said, He's proven Himself over and over to me even when I had moved away from Him.

I'm sorry that the strength of my faith is off putting to you. If you want to question my strength, go ahead. I'm up for answering any of your questions. Just don't prejudge me before you know the whole story, ok?

dogma: a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof

I have proof.

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kebsfroggy said:
How would you know God isn't?

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i believe without God there might be a lot more chaos? good question Kebs...

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SeptemberMorn said:
Esthersvirtue, I answered your question very simply. It's true that I've never questioned God's existance. Like I said, He's proven Himself over and over to me even when I had moved away from Him.

I'm sorry that the strength of my faith is off putting to you. If you want to question my strength, go ahead. I'm up for answering any of your questions. Just don't prejudge me before you know the whole story, ok?

dogma: a religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof

I have proof.

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SeptemberMorn,
I am not offended by your faith or the strength of your belief. Where we all find strength to live good lives and treat others well is wonderful no matter the source. I have surveyed my few posts to see if I could figure out if there was anything in them that conveyed that. I did not, and I altered the last to remove the sentence that you thought was directed towards that although as I assured you before it was not. I was referring to incidents in the past in which I shared my faith and/or search. Like you and others, my goal is to lead a life without wars - both big and small -- because I believe they all leave tragedies of hurts behind. So I assure you, as I had hoped had come across in the last post, there is no judgement sent to you.

I do want to say that I am sorry if you feel hurt or judged. No one is against you here. We are for you! My goal of this thread is a peaceful discussion. I'd like to feel goodness and peace from things I read here too.

Last time in my post, I said that I would not comment negatively on one individual post as I believe it unfairly singles people out. Given you post again, I am taking that there is still some hurt or anger. That is okay. Yet, I still would like to keep the peace and positivity of this thread, so I will reach out to you individually by pm to see if there is anything that I can do that would make you feel that same peace.

I would also invite other members of this thread and forum to show SeptemberMorn that she is appreciated and her faith is respected. We all can be a source of healing for someone else. In fact, I'm not sure if we can truely know God anyway without befriending another.

Thank you SeptMorn and all others in the forum

EV

SeptemberMorn,

I haven't read anything on this thread that, at least to me, implies anyone is put off by the strength of anyones faith. I will admit that EV's choice of the word dogmatic confused me a bit and I even looked it up when initially reading the post. In reality it doesn't matter. It was simply one adjective in several posts. She apologized, edited it, and repeated stated that she appreciates everyones comments on this thread.

This thread poses the question: Who God is? Septembermorn, you are in a great position to share with us Who God is to you. The fact that your faith is strong and you don't question His existence, suggests that you have spent time reflecting on God, reading, worshiping, talking to others in order to reach this level of assurance. Share with us what you found.

You mentioned in your latest post that </font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
It's true that I've never questioned God's existance

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I personally want to know if this is really true. You've never questioned this, even when a child, teenager, adult? You never once asked, "What if all that I believe in turns out not to be true?" To me it is when I question my beliefs, analyze them, search for evidence I reach a higher level of understanding about who I am and what I believe.

I can remember once when I was in college and questioning God. I remember thinking all this religious stuff was just more ******** MEN invented to control and manipulate each other. I wrote this to my grandmother once. My grandmother a very bright Christian women, instead of criticizing me for questioning her beliefs and becoming offended by my insolence, she sent me a book that pragmatically analyzed the existence of God. I don't remember the name of the book, I think it was a C.S.Lewis book. I remember reading the book and finding out I wasn't as smart as I thought and that most of my arguments could be countered. I wrote her back thanking her for helping me see things from another perspective. In her response she began with a statement like, 'if you give a calf enough rope it will hang itself.' She cautioned me about trying to judge the world just based on what science could presently provide. It was her belief that there were things in this world that will always be beyond our understanding. She said when she faced a challenge she places her faith in God and trust that whatever happens is His will and that He will see to it that she is able to handle it.

She would have had some excellent insight to share on this thread.

SeptemberMorn... ,this calf welcomes your insight on untangling my faith restraints.

EV and McKell... I have to admit to the two of you that I listened to someone that hasn't even posted on this thread and felt a bit defensive.

Your wonderful posts to me have humbled me. All I can do at this point is apologize deeply to the two of you.

By way of explanation, I do have to admit that I've been angry at God, there was a time I wondered if He really loved me, but through experience and perseverance, His presence in my life became more and more real to me.

If you would read my thread in this forum, "Couldn't sleep...", it would be a good starter. Another way to know who God is, is to read the book of John in the New Testament. It describes Christ's love and attitude towards those who believe in Him. He states that "The Father and I are one." If you know Christ, you know God the Father.

I would suggest a Bible translated into modern English; perhaps a study Bible. That will give you cross-references. If you have questions, you can ask me and I will answer to the best of my ability.

If you don't have a Bible at your disposal, here is a link where you can read any translation, references and commentaries, just for starters. Bible Gateway

The Old Testament is really hard to get through so I would save that for later. Just MHO. Someone else might disagree with me.

I hope that I have redeemed myself in your eyes, Ladies. One of these days I'll learn to not listen to cryptic messages.

OK, John it is. I'll check it out. I have my mother's Bible on my bookcase. Knowing my mom, she likely has pages marked for me hoping I would look in it once in a while.

Septembermorn, thanks for giving me the reason I was looking for to dust it off. I think my mom (or God) just used you to biff me from the great beyond. :-)

TY

Also thank EV for starting this post.

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SeptemberMorn said:
I hope that I have redeemed myself in your eyes, Ladies.

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NO worries. There is nothing to redeem yourself from. Thanks for the suggestions and so glad things are good.

Best,

Ev