God

God Moves in a Mysterious Way
by William Cowper

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'

'But,' says Man, 'The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'

'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer.

Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He’ll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.

Blessed Savior, Thou hast promised Thou wilt all our burdens bear
May we ever, Lord, be bringing all to Thee in earnest prayer.
Soon in glory bright unclouded there will be no need for prayer
Rapture, praise and endless worship will be our sweet portion there.

An agnostic dyslexic insomniac is someone who stays awake all night wondering if there really is a dog.

Once or twice--well, no, not a god, actually, but a responsive spider. 1. sitting on the ground with her (then)lover, Ted, in some afternoon-filtered sunshine. Late late autumn in a part of the world where winter barely arrives --the sun is still strong on on skin and clothes are still light weight. Ted is leaving soon and they are uncertain of when they will see each other again. Ted sees a tiny spider walking on the leg of his jeans. He says to the spider, »Tie me to Belle--c'mon, I'll give you a quarter.«
Immediately, like a close up slo-motion sequence from a PBS science special: the spider launches a gossamer web thread into the air, with a kind of shower of crystal almost-sparks, the thread sails across the gap between the lovers and connects at Belle's knee. The spider walks across.

Ummm...no, I don't believe God is out there to perform miracles or cure the sick and needy. I used to think he did when I was a little girl because everyone always said he did. But then I grew up and started thinking for myself and learning things people tend to just not tell you. Like the fact that there have been dozens more religions before Christianity or Catholisism and whatnot. I believe there is a supreme entity out there but for the most part »God« is just someone made up by government for control or by the people to feel better just like in all the other religions. Not that people don't need God, even if he is fake, though. If people all knew that there was no God then complete chaos would probably take control. People would panic. But if there was a God I would want to sent a big »Fuck You« out there for creating a planet and then just giving up on it or never even caring. For all I know we could just be some science experiment gone bad. God must be a sadistic fuck if he is really true. To create such a place of pain, agony, torture, misery, sadness, a place with so many wars and starving children. God isn't there, if he is he sure as hell isn't going to help anyone. When little kids are raped and murdered, that's when you know there is no God out there to help you.

Is it significant that a back-to-front dog becomes God, while a slightly more contorted cat becomes act (probably with a small 'a')?? Must have a word with Sirius (which reminds me, on behalf of all cats, why is there no cat-star?)

SIVA AS THE ABSOLUTE PERSON. There is a logical connection between self-conscious and being a person, as the very meaning of personality is self-consciosness. "One is aperson2 does not necessarily mean that one has a physical forn, for one can be a person even without a bodyy. God in many religions- Judaism, Christianity, Islam and some denomitiaions of Hinduism, for example- is conceived of as aperson, formless-God is seensa pure Spirit with no body or matter. The Divine Person can be without form(nirakara) as well as with form(sakara; form is not necessary qualification pf being aperson. What is it, then, that makes one a person? The answer is self-consciousness. A person is a self-consciousness being. This implies that only a sentient being can be aperson; insentient things such as material objects cannot be persons. There are systems of philosophy that conceive of Ultimate Reality or god as a person, but generally they also accept realities other than God – theit position is that of dualism or qualified monism. On the other hand, there are phiosophies that conceive of Reality as the al-pervading non-dual Absolute, and therefore Reality, according to them, is impersonal.

You're talking about creation, but didn't evolution disprove that?
Let's leave evolution for later, if you don't mind. We're not talking about how all things got to their present form; we're only talking about how the material universe came into existence in the first place. In that sense, yes, we're talking about creation.

This isn't contrary to the idea of evolution, and it isn't contrary to science. One of the leading astronomers of our age, for instance, Robert Jastrow, says that scientific research about the universe has led to one extremely important conclusion: "... I am an agnostic in religious matters. However, I am fascinated by some strange developments going on in astronomy‑partly because of their religious implications and partly because of the peculiar reactions of my colleagues.


"The essence of the strange developments is that the Universe had, in some sense, a beginning—that it began at a certain moment in time ... for the astronomical evidence proves that the Universe was created ... in a fiery explosion...


»Theologians generally are delighted with the proof that the Universe had a beginning, but astronomers are curiously upset. Their reactions provide an interesting demonstration of the response of the scientific mind—supposedly, a very objective mind-when evidence uncovered by science itself leads to a conflict with the articles of faith in our profession. It turns out that the scientist behaves the way the rest of us do when our beliefs are in conflict with the evidence. We become irritated, we pretend the conflict does not exist or we paper it over with meaningless phrases. « (Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, New York: Warner Books, 1984, pp. 11-16.)

What was this thing, the »Trinity?« Does this mean you believe in three Gods?


No. The Bible tells us in many places that there is only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 43:10; 1 Timothy 2:5; 1 Corinthians 8:6). But it also tells us that three Persons are this same God‑the Father (John 17:3, 1 Corinthians 8:6; 1 Peter 1:2), the Son Jesus Christ ( John 1:20:28; Philippians 2:6,7, compared with John 5:18, Titus 2: 13; 2 Peter 1:1), and the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3,4, Hebrews 9:14).


But that sounds crazy! How can three Persons be one God?

I'll admit it sounds unusual. We aren't used to seeing any humans who are more than one person, but that doesn't make it impossible. The key is for us to remember that being and personhood are different kinds of things.

What do you mean?

Look around you. You see lots of different beings‑a rock here, a tree there, a building over there, a cow out in the field. All of these are beings, but they aren't persons at all‑they don't have the three attributes of personhood, intellect, emotions, and moral free will. On the other hand, you see some beings that are persons‑every man, woman, and child you see is both a being and a person.

So we know that some beings are not persons at all. and some are one person. But there's nothing that tells us no being could be more than one person.


So long as you remember the difference between being and person, while it may be strange to think of a single being being three persons, it isn't illogical and should not be impossible to believe.


This is why Jesus instructed His followers about initiating people into Christianity and told them to baptize »in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit« (Matthew 28:19).

Maybe it's not illogical, but it's pretty hard to understand.

Shouldn't we expect many things about God to be hard to understand? After all, God has more power and more intelligence than all the universe, and we are only beginning to understand our tiny corner of the universe.