The Omnipresence of God: The evolution of my thought
By Lorena
I spent the first 22 years of my life believing in the God of the Old Testament and the next 18 years believing that I had been wrong for 22 because I hadn’t accepted the Grace of God introduced by Jesus.
So basically, for 40 years, I believed that God was watching me, recording my thoughts, and following me around. How creepy!
At the beginning of the second phase of my life — when I accepted Jesus — I believed, by faith, that God was omnipresent. I had questions about omnipresence, but no real answers. “Who cares how he does it,” I'd have to tell myself, “He’s God; he can do anything He wants.”
I was a computer science student at the time, and when I graduated, I became a programmer. At that time mainframes were "in," as compared to today, when personal computers are popular. After a couple of years of life in Christianity, the idea of omnipresence still puzzled me. I started thinking that God couldn’t possibly be literally everywhere. He was probably more like a mainframe, watching everybody through some sort of computer connection. I still felt, however, that He was personally observing my every move.
After awhile, I imagined that God couldn’t possibly be less efficient than the computer systems I was working with. Therefore, He wouldn't need to follow me around, observing my every move. He could have a video camera of sorts, recording my every move. And somehow he could figure out when I was in trouble and rush to help me. I supposed prayers had something to do with it all.
Then I moved into studying databases and got the idea that God had a database about me where all my actions were recorded. And just like computer databases, there were triggers and stored procedures (pardon my French) to alert God of my dangerous sins and my troubles.
Later, I concluded that God probably didn’t need any “hardware” to keep up his surveillance of me. I had a built-in computer program which ran 24/7. The program was the Holy Spirit, which communicated to God anything He needed to know.
About five years ago, I decided that humans were born with built-in spiritual microchips which connected us directly to God. That’s how we could all have an instant connection with Him. It was almost like a live satellite link, but more advanced, since God knew all.
Two years ago, I finally resolved that God really didn’t give a damn about me — He couldn’t possibly be so freaky as to want to know everything I do all the time. Human laws call that kind of behavior stalking. Stalkers are considered freaks, mentally ill, misfits. Why would the creator of everything behave that way?
I also concluded that if God is loving and mentally balanced, He’s got to have a healthy and non-controlling relationship with His kids. He'd have to be far better than even the good, loving, successful parents I know. If I wouldn't want a freaky, overbearing, controlling parent, why would I want a God like that? No thanks.
Nowadays, I don’t believe there is "a God." I am a pantheist. We are all god. God is all. God is not a person. There is no "One Who Cares." I am no different from a tree. The energy which sustains the universe is the force behind all. There is not a human-like Being behind everything.
But, who knows what I will believe tomorrow. I am not willing to commit to only one pattern of thinking ever again. I retain the freedom to change my mind at will.
I spent the first 22 years of my life believing in the God of the Old Testament and the next 18 years believing that I had been wrong for 22 because I hadn’t accepted the Grace of God introduced by Jesus.
So basically, for 40 years, I believed that God was watching me, recording my thoughts, and following me around. How creepy!
At the beginning of the second phase of my life — when I accepted Jesus — I believed, by faith, that God was omnipresent. I had questions about omnipresence, but no real answers. “Who cares how he does it,” I'd have to tell myself, “He’s God; he can do anything He wants.”
I was a computer science student at the time, and when I graduated, I became a programmer. At that time mainframes were "in," as compared to today, when personal computers are popular. After a couple of years of life in Christianity, the idea of omnipresence still puzzled me. I started thinking that God couldn’t possibly be literally everywhere. He was probably more like a mainframe, watching everybody through some sort of computer connection. I still felt, however, that He was personally observing my every move.
After awhile, I imagined that God couldn’t possibly be less efficient than the computer systems I was working with. Therefore, He wouldn't need to follow me around, observing my every move. He could have a video camera of sorts, recording my every move. And somehow he could figure out when I was in trouble and rush to help me. I supposed prayers had something to do with it all.
Then I moved into studying databases and got the idea that God had a database about me where all my actions were recorded. And just like computer databases, there were triggers and stored procedures (pardon my French) to alert God of my dangerous sins and my troubles.
Later, I concluded that God probably didn’t need any “hardware” to keep up his surveillance of me. I had a built-in computer program which ran 24/7. The program was the Holy Spirit, which communicated to God anything He needed to know.
About five years ago, I decided that humans were born with built-in spiritual microchips which connected us directly to God. That’s how we could all have an instant connection with Him. It was almost like a live satellite link, but more advanced, since God knew all.
Two years ago, I finally resolved that God really didn’t give a damn about me — He couldn’t possibly be so freaky as to want to know everything I do all the time. Human laws call that kind of behavior stalking. Stalkers are considered freaks, mentally ill, misfits. Why would the creator of everything behave that way?
I also concluded that if God is loving and mentally balanced, He’s got to have a healthy and non-controlling relationship with His kids. He'd have to be far better than even the good, loving, successful parents I know. If I wouldn't want a freaky, overbearing, controlling parent, why would I want a God like that? No thanks.
Nowadays, I don’t believe there is "a God." I am a pantheist. We are all god. God is all. God is not a person. There is no "One Who Cares." I am no different from a tree. The energy which sustains the universe is the force behind all. There is not a human-like Being behind everything.
But, who knows what I will believe tomorrow. I am not willing to commit to only one pattern of thinking ever again. I retain the freedom to change my mind at will.
Comments
If there is a creative principle it's not caring, and has no more choice in creating than a wasp does in building a nest. Think sort of a more benign version of the vision of H.P. Lovecraft.
Thank goodness, I no longer have to defend such a pathetic, bloodthirsty, incompetent, lazy, fickle, arbitrary, hypocritical, useless-as-tits-on-a-bull kind of God! If The Judeo-Christian-Muslim God were real, he would be an OMNIASSHOLE!!!
It's the commitment to one pattern way of thinking that religions are based on using fear and threats to control people's thinking and their minds.
A man's concept of a God is the highest order of being that they could possibly imagine at that time, whatever is in control, out there we are a part of it, although we may never know what it is, it too may someday perish, just as we, and we were mimicking it, the best we can and not knowing it.
We ourselves, are the God's of this planet, we can protect it or we can destroy it, and ourselves.
The all powerful Bible God lives only in a book, it cannot escape from it's paper prison, it has no power except to deceive and to control and destroy people's minds.
The God of the Bible and Koran, envisioned by men from their minds transferred to script, that was the best and only God they could imagine. He lives among the pages.
These kind of questions make for very interesting thinking and ideas for discussion. Again, thank you for posting that.
What i would like to know is why this god would give a crap about our tiny little speck of a planet in a vast universe in the first place? I find religion irrational.
One religious person told me recently that God was 'experimenting' when he made pre-historic man. A sort of "proto type" for modern man. This person also thinks that Genesis's account of creation is true and the authors of the Bible's 'knowledge' of astronomy 'amazing'....
Don't ask me to explain these People!
What bugs me to no end is when 'creationists' call whatever they do "creation science", as if they hope to give their fairytales a little more respectability by tagging on the word 'science'. Sometimes they try and call Evolution a 'Religion', tryin again to force religion and science together probobly to give religion some credance. It doesn't work!
Stop calling creationism science.
It's nuts!
Anyways, to make a long story short...i can not stand it when super religious people take the Bible literally pr they it's infallible. They obviously haven't read enough of it.
We... can not be GOD. You said yourself that you think a stalkerish God would be weird. so.. there's other things that we have.. like sin that would keep us being anything BUT God. God is everywhere. He's a spirit. Truth be known... if you were really that interested in finding out then you would have done some research. God knows everything... to know everything u have to be everywhere. To have all power over everything... you have to be everywhere. He's everywhere in space and he's not confined by time. He is not confined to ur forms of technologies. Why would the Creator of the Universe who created out of nothing... why would he use our form of technology? That makes no sense.
I want to let you know. God cares about you. Yes, you may go through heartache, but doesn't everyone? What doesn't kill you makes you stronger... what kind of life would you be living if everything came so easily?
God's there. Waiting for you. You have to do your part and reach out. God doesn't control you... he gives you a choice.
James 4:8 says "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you."
I hope you don't give up easily in your quest in understanding God. We can never really fathom it though. That tells you how big God really is.
o and don't change your mind daily. that just shows that you have NO CLUE and aren't sure of anything. can't decide. can't be faithful to anything. no trust.
God is not a maniac, by the way.
You know why he's jealous? because HE WANTS YOU, but you give urself to the world.
Angry? He's perfect and can't tolerate sin unless there is a payment. That's why he sent Jesus... died... and rose again.
The reason God cares about this earth is because HE MADE us. The real question is he knew we were going to sin and Jesus would have to die... so why did he make us still?
Because HE LOVES YOU!
and about science... evolutionists KNOW that evolution can't be true. LOOK AT SPACE PEOPLE. the atoms and cells... everything... neatly put together... noo way by chance.
the only reason they stick to it is because they don't want GOD and they have no other theory not involving "religion"
truth be known... it doesnt matter what you believe... everything that you believe about our origin is based of faith. you cannot PROOVE it. Creationism and Evolutionsim.
So... ya... that was a summary of what I have to say.
According to the Bible, that over-quoted and horribly translated anthology of Canaanite/Mesopotamian mythology, we are already gods. Live with it.
You said, "God is everywhere. He's a spirit." Yeah, right: Invisible, intangible, undetectable, and not doing much of anything on Earth. This is obviously a strange new definition of "everywhere" that I wasn't previously aware of.
"Why would the Creator of the Universe who created out of nothing... why would he use our form of technology? That makes no sense."
Created out of nothing? Where did your god come from, then, if there really was "nothing"? Do you, like many others, think that your god always existed? I think it much more likely that a chaotic and non-sentient universe was here long, long before any gods showed up.
"I want to let you know. God cares about you. Yes, you may go through heartache, but doesn't everyone? What doesn't kill you makes you stronger... what kind of life would you be living if everything came so easily?"
Wow, what a dog's breakfast of idioms. A god that supposedly loves everyone, but drowned all but a handful of people and animals who managed to make a getaway on a magical boat.
A god that killed itself to punish itself for something that Adam and Eve supposedly did.
Something that Adam and Eve shouldn't have been punished for in the first place, because they lacked knowledge of good and evil and had no way of knowing they were doing anything wrong before they did it.
And who put the blasted tree in that garden, anyway? I call entrapment.
But that's a moot point. This god-thing didn't really, really die but got whooshed up into the sky instead. There was no sacrifice.
And, real soon now (ya right) it's coming back to destroy the world Just Because It Can.
In the context of the above, your quote from Friedrich Nietzsche is positively refreshing. (It's from Twilight of the Idols, ironically).
"God is not a maniac, by the way.
You know why he's jealous? because HE WANTS YOU..."
In my book, that makes your god abusive. And, yes, it's a maniac.
"He's perfect and can't tolerate sin unless there is a payment."
That isn't perfection. It doesn't even come close.
"...and about science... evolutionists KNOW that evolution can't be true. LOOK AT SPACE PEOPLE. the atoms and cells... everything... neatly put together... noo way by chance."
Ah, the logical fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantium. Your apparent inability to understand the science does not make your view true by default.
In order to speak on the finer points of a god, one must have an equal level of knowledge with that god... so many Christians... so many gods...
"Your 'ideal' god is only as complete and mature as your level of knowledge allows...” But, keep creating him/her in your mind, they will become more complete over time, hopefully your god is exactly the one you've always wanted to make...
And, by the way, god is omniferous as well, per many Christians, as you said, god is everywhere... That means, got is both good and evil, and your god is neither a "he" or a "she", because your got houses "all" variants of "everything"...
The second you suggest he is a male, then he is no longer "everywhere"... he is a detached "male" form, somewhere...
And, there are Christian circles that suggest Jesus and Satan were brothers, in pre-existence... Suppose, we should put together a menu of Christianity, so you can pick and choose which pieces you want to believe... Kind of like, build your own religion; just use Jesus, as the starting point, and start adding at will...
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