Since I don't ever talk to you, and I've got an entire day off to myself to hang out here and leisurely talk, may I ask what enlightenment is to you? I am curious about what you think. I see you talk about it often (but not often enough to piece together the whole idea that you use), and since I don't know the basic premise of the definition of it for you, I don't really pursue conversation with you, but I'd like to know now. Thanks.

Alrite, to start it off ill use christianity as my example. Before Jesus came along and told evry1 that God loves them christinity was still around. This makes me wonder just who exactly told evry1 before Jesus that God exists. In which case God could be confused with many different characters of wanting there to be something "More." For example the Egyptians and the Vikings had their own set of Gods aswell as evry1 else. There are many religions and most, if not all of them, state that if you worship any other than the God represented in the specific religion you will burn in hell for the rest of eternity. This sounds promising for a good compassionate God, eternity of burning... Neways, because we have more than 1 of these religions and followers believing that who/what they worship is true for experiences in their lives and will save them from death might it not be possible to assume that evry1 goes to hell? Who is to say just waht exactly is correct?

Others have suggested that all people are doing is looking at different versions of the same God. Many reflections of the same thing. This is probably credable, but then if its different versions of the same God doesn't it mean that people have manipulated each religion to fit their own desires? To be honest, i think this is all what mosts religions are, desires of what people want them to be, simliarly with God. Why do we, for example, lable God as Male? Its always He. Isn't this a direct implication that the once dominant sex of the human race, the male, fitted God to his liking? I believe the "modern" God to be a representation of what human beings want him to be. Some old man existing in the hearts of evry1 who loves and cherishes all. A natural human need is to be loved and wanted. God provides this. A natural human need is to be saved from peril. God provides this. A natural human need is to not burn for an eternity in hell. God provides a safe haven, heaven, from this. Doesn't it start to look that what we view God as is simply desires of our own deepest needs and wants?

I believe that how God is represented by religions and such of today is far far from the truth. Does God even exist? I think its safe to assume that God is a being with human emotions and thoughts and is represented through human form. How can God be any of these? A very primitive view of God is spending his time on cloud observing the workings of man. We have visited and revisisted just exactly what God is and what he does/has done again and again to compensate for current discovery. Assume God is real and there is a heaven and hell. If you went to EITHER heaven or hell its safe to assume, according to current religions, that u will spend an eternity in either. ... Does ne1 here realise just how unbelievably big eternity is? Lets lable time in the number of years. Average human being lives for lets say 80 years. Earth has been around for, correct me if im wrong, about 6 billion years. That is a BIG number. Now imagine googelplex (a googel to the power of a googel, a google having 100 zeros that follows it, so a googel plex is a 1 followed by a googel number of 0s) years. 1 googleplex years is not anywhere near nething how big infinity is, if a googleplex represented the electron in an atom, then that 1 electron compared to the entire universe is nothing compared to how big infinity is. Imagine infinity spent in either heaven or hell... That sounds like infinite torture to me... Either way.

I think its safe to assume that God is an entity which exists above us, assuming He/She/It/some other undefinable term is real. Now if God is an entity above us as human beings it would kind of be like comparing us to a less complex being in existance, like a dog for example. A dog cannot begin to understand how human beings think, operate or do what we do. If God is above us as human beings in complexity then how can we ever hope to understand him? If God supposedly talks to some of us in our dreams wouldn't it be a lot like us trying to communicate directly with a dog? "Here boy, FETCH!" Ffs? Similiarly, we treat dogs like our pets, best friends and in some cases we mistreat them. What is to stop God from mistreating us as human beings? Who is to say that he is "compassionate" and who is to say there arent more of God as an entity? Seriously tho, we cant even understand eachother (world wars and all this crap) so how do we have any hope in hell, ironic?, of understanding God?

I feel that the image created of God in today's society is very far off the mark. Do i believe there is a "God"? Yes, but not in the way represented. Please feel free to leave posts of cricism w.e, im willing to read other opinions or people that wish to challenge my views. Evry1 has to stay open minded, it pisses me off how closed minded some people are.

PLEASE I IMPLORE YOU Don't leave me comments like "Yes God exists" or "No definately not" can u please elaborate as to why? Yes and No answers dont achieve ANYTHING, infact all it creates is arguments. Express an opinion please, WITHOUT flaming ne1 else please. Keep it strictly as a debate.

"enlightenment". Perhaps I have used the term a bit much as of late. I usually shy away from it because of the preconecptions many people have.

Hey Hyper. Have you ever noticed that the knowledge of "enlightenment" comes from the unenlightened? How funny is that?

Alrite, to start it off ill use christianity as my example. Before Jesus came along and told evry1 that God loves them christinity was still around. This makes me wonder just who exactly told evry1 before Jesus that God exists. In which case God could be confused with many different characters of wanting there to be something "More." For example the Egyptians and the Vikings had their own set of Gods aswell as evry1 else. There are many religions and most, if not all of them, state that if you worship any other than the God represented in the specific religion you will burn in hell for the rest of eternity. This sounds promising for a good compassionate God, eternity of burning... Neways, because we have more than 1 of these religions and followers believing that who/what they worship is true for experiences in their lives and will save them from death might it not be possible to assume that evry1 goes to hell? Who is to say just waht exactly is correct?

Others have suggested that all people are doing is looking at different versions of the same God. Many reflections of the same thing. This is probably credable, but then if its different versions of the same God doesn't it mean that people have manipulated each religion to fit their own desires? To be honest, i think this is all what mosts religions are, desires of what people want them to be, simliarly with God. Why do we, for example, lable God as Male? Its always He. Isn't this a direct implication that the once dominant sex of the human race, the male, fitted God to his liking? I believe the "modern" God to be a representation of what human beings want him to be. Some old man existing in the hearts of evry1 who loves and cherishes all. A natural human need is to be loved and wanted. God provides this. A natural human need is to be saved from peril. God provides this. A natural human need is to not burn for an eternity in hell. God provides a safe haven, heaven, from this. Doesn't it start to look that what we view God as is simply desires of our own deepest needs and wants?

I believe that how God is represented by religions and such of today is far far from the truth. Does God even exist? I think its safe to assume that God is a being with human emotions and thoughts and is represented through human form. How can God be any of these? A very primitive view of God is spending his time on cloud observing the workings of man. We have visited and revisisted just exactly what God is and what he does/has done again and again to compensate for current discovery. Assume God is real and there is a heaven and hell. If you went to EITHER heaven or hell its safe to assume, according to current religions, that u will spend an eternity in either. ... Does ne1 here realise just how unbelievably big eternity is? Lets lable time in the number of years. Average human being lives for lets say 80 years. Earth has been around for, correct me if im wrong, about 6 billion years. That is a BIG number. Now imagine googelplex (a googel to the power of a googel, a google having 100 zeros that follows it, so a googel plex is a 1 followed by a googel number of 0s) years. 1 googleplex years is not anywhere near nething how big infinity is, if a googleplex represented the electron in an atom, then that 1 electron compared to the entire universe is nothing compared to how big infinity is. Imagine infinity spent in either heaven or hell... That sounds like infinite torture to me... Either way.

I think its safe to assume that God is an entity which exists above us, assuming He/She/It/some other undefinable term is real. Now if God is an entity above us as human beings it would kind of be like comparing us to a less complex being in existance, like a dog for example. A dog cannot begin to understand how human beings think, operate or do what we do. If God is above us as human beings in complexity then how can we ever hope to understand him? If God supposedly talks to some of us in our dreams wouldn't it be a lot like us trying to communicate directly with a dog? "Here boy, FETCH!" Ffs? Similiarly, we treat dogs like our pets, best friends and in some cases we mistreat them. What is to stop God from mistreating us as human beings? Who is to say that he is "compassionate" and who is to say there arent more of God as an entity? Seriously tho, we cant even understand eachother (world wars and all this crap) so how do we have any hope in hell, ironic?, of understanding God?

I feel that the image created of God in today's society is very far off the mark. Do i believe there is a "God"? Yes, but not in the way represented. Please feel free to leave posts of cricism w.e, im willing to read other opinions or people that wish to challenge my views. Evry1 has to stay open minded, it pisses me off how closed minded some people are.

PLEASE I IMPLORE YOU Don't leave me comments like "Yes God exists" or "No definately not" can u please elaborate as to why? Yes and No answers dont achieve ANYTHING, infact all it creates is arguments. Express an opinion please, WITHOUT flaming ne1 else please. Keep it strictly as a debate.

Hey Hyper. Have you ever noticed that the knowledge of "enlightenment" comes from the unenlightened? How funny is that?

If God wasn't "real " , how would YOU be asking this question . God is real , because you are real .
Sama

How does my existance depend on God? This is assuming YOU believe in God and that he created me. Tbh I was created when my mum and my dad did their thing and we all know the story from there. How about I ask you a question, What was I/you/any1 before birth?

i believe that God does exist. I personally have felt the power of the Lord. Alot of people dont really understand God, i too am one of them. That is because

God is mysterious, and yes He has conveyed chacteristics of a human, but think if he created us and we are like him then we should have some of his

characteristics. One of them is Love.Another is that God is a jealous God, it says it in the bible. He gets jealous when we put things before him, and this

makes him angry, angry out of love... Im am sure you would understand how He would feel. It's like when someone loves u a trillion+++ times more than u

love them, and all that person lives for it to make u happy and show u what he can offer and refuse and chose something or perhaps another person before

him.

I also do believe in heaven... my cousin used to smoke all the time and one day someone poisoned whatever it was that she was smoking.... and she died

and during the time that she died God revealed to her her funeral and she saw everyone crying for her. etc.etc. then God revealed heaven, the way she

explained heaven brought tears to my eyes because, at times i doubt the fact that there is a heaven.. but to have her tell me what heaven looked like with

vivid detail was appaling... She also explained how hell was and i was scared... its spooky.. Then she said how she

saw the devil and God fighting over her,

and of course God won, and he told her it wasnt her time.... I remember when she was saying that God said it wasnt her time, she said she was begging God

to keep her because she said heaven is so peaceful, everyone was so nice, she said she saw families, lions that where nice , she said there was this huge

mountain flowing with beautiful water, colors she never seen because the green they were so rich in color not like earth and overrall it was so peaceful that

she wanted to stay...So she beg the Lord to keep her but he said no.

She also said when she first met the Lord she feel at his feet, being curious aa to what color He was she lifted up his robe and saw nothing but light...

Another pastor was on television and as God is my witness everything he saw matched exactly what she said... If ur interest in watching the video its

called, "Close Encounters With the God KInd" by jessie duplantis... Watch it and tell me what u think

Actually you created the concept of God and your own self. God and your own self go beyond all concept including the concept of going beyond all concept. Hence you and God are one and therefore God exists because you exist and you exist because God exists.

I created myself? This once again raises question of what exactly time is. Is it possible for me to create myself in the past while I am here? Or is it a mutual kind of thing?

Time is just thought. I have a cool Sufi mystic quote that illustrates what I said before abit more articulately.

I searched for God and found only myself.
I searched for myself and found only God.

-- Sufi quote

So you did create yourself but you also didnt because who you really are is beyond creation and destruction.

That really is a pretty good quote

Okay, if I am beyond destruction and creation, then WHAT am I? What is life? What am I outside of life. Infinite conciousness? What is conciousness? How did I come to be and why? Like, infinite conciousness everything is one etc. why did I come into existance now and not then? Or was I in existance then as another human being? Reincarnation maybe? It seems plausable the way in which you have described conciousness in previous posts and the "outside life" theory. This still brings me back to the question of what exactly time is. Illusion or not, it is still "illusively" (is that word?) effecting me. How do you feel about different dimensions?

As Socrates would say: Know thyself

Only you can know yourself. And the only way you can know yourself is by investigating who you are.

HAHAHAHAHA These were the kind answers that were given to me once. Suck dont they? No intellectually fulfilling answers sorry. You can only have faith and do the best you can in strengthening it because the more you do so the more you will realize who you are..............SOMETHING I HAVENT DONE YET! So dont take my word for it. Try yourself and then see what you make of it.

Yeah man.. Everytime I get a crazy answer about conciousness and them lil quotes I can kinda understand but also feel like picking my keyboard up and snapping it over my forehead (tried it once, I came out second best *sigh*)

Idk, I just want to somehow make logical sense of God, no matter how difficult.. Reason I made this topic is because I've been sitting around for the past fiew years considering the topic when my mind drifted to it. And in those moments when lieing in bed I feel like I'm in a prison that is life and that no matter what I do I will cark it one day. All I want to know is what death is and what is before death and are they interlinked. I've somehow managed to convince myself that death can not be a dead end simply because of the fact that I came into existance once out of NOTHING. This is when I started my search for God. I have asked him to help me out several times, nothing happened that i noticed, infact i moved countries, said goodbye to a lot of good friends, parents argued heaps eventually moved again, said goodbye to some more friends and then they split up. I asked God to punish me to see if I could determine his existance or not, I ended up with a condition a fiew months later that only the elderly get -.-, its only mild so no need to worry (I dont feel like going into it). I still haven't managed to link God to it yet neways. I AM weary of trying it again however... Obliviousness isn't my piece of cake

The doctors tried to determine what it is and one of them told me it might be stressed. Thing is im not THAT stressed, infact I'm quite happy at the moment on how my life is going. Neways I considered the existance of God since i considered myself to be atheist, and eventually wrote this topic up. From the looks of things I will probably wonder who/what God is for the rest of my days. Maybe realistion will hit me like it did others. I don't know.

Deep post.
I cant say much because I dont know you too well. But you are very questioning and if you keep at it and follow your intuition before anything else you will go very far. Knowing God is different from believing in God.

I myself believe in God because I havnt realized god. However I have faith in the mystics like Lao Tzu and Ramana Maharshi who did experince God consciously first hand. A genuine Guru or mystic will say everytime that God must be experienced for yourself before it can be truly known. Hence Socrates : Know thyself.

Jesus a beautiful mystic/Guru said the Kingdom of God is within. If you have faith in this then it is logical to begin looking for God within.

God is beyond logic and illogic. Hence you'll never find a logical explanation on God. You'll only ever be faced with paradox and contradiction.

I myself believe in God because I havnt realized god.