Zero equals infinity. This means there is no Creator or it means the creator is nothing. Therefore there is no God. If there is no God there is no Satan either. Many say there is a Creator that creates everything that is. They say something had to create the earth with its mountains, rivers, clouds and me and you. They point to the miracle of life and birth. They point to our love. They say there must be a Good God that made all this. Well, what about the hate, the abuse, and the life that feeds on life? What about greed and murder? They say there must be counter part to God called Satan. Some say the creator creates both good and evil.
Well, scientifically speaking all of this is actually empty space with energy vibrations. That is all it is. This energy is balanced into opposites that cancel each other out and add up to nothing at all. The view of Buddhism is like this also. The form is the void and the void is the form. There is also the God Brahmin who dreams the universe and sleeps on a bed. The bed is Ananta the cosmic unending serpent with no form. The form is based on the formless.
This is what I understand to be reality. This is what I understand to be the creator. Therefore I do not belive any one to be God or Satan. You and I and everyone else will never be God or Satan, never. We are separate individual egos. We are not all that is.
I like Buddhism because it does not mention God for its bases. It is about the ego submitting to a way of being to eliminate suffering. It is about becoming happy. Intersetingly Anton Levey, the author of the Satanic Bible agreed with the idea to not have a master. Guess who that would be, Satan of course? For the most part his book is about being true to yourself and not being hypocritical. It is about self mastery too. We learn from all our choices. I have realized we need each others love and acceptance to heal our pain. We are all in the same boat whatever that boat is.
I like we get to have our own concept of God, and my God is none of your business, and your God is none of mine, and we get to share how we make conscious contact with that God but don't get told what our God has to be, and I agree with The Buddha when he says use my teachings as a raft to cross the stream, but after you have crossed the stream there is no reason or need to carry the raft on your head.
Whatever route you take (whatever concept of God you choose) is your raft, and a highly personal decision that we must needs respect, and conversely, we must needs respect others choices in whatever concept of a higher power they choose. No one in AA gets to shove their concept of God down anothers throats, and that is the freedom that saved my life, the fact that no one could tell me what to believe, not only that, the freedom to choose my own concept of God.
I also prefer eastern teachings, Taoism with Buddhism with no mention of a deity to be specific, but when I talk to HARDCORE Christians at meetings we are saying the same things just using different language, we are on exactly the same page and same wavelength, it's beautiful. I know what they mean when they are talking about "my father" and "the father of light" etc, I get to plug my own "value" in when they use terms like that or the word God, and we are LITERALLY saying the same thing using different language.
-- Edited by AGO on Wednesday 24th of March 2010 01:44:21 PM
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Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a night, light a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
My sponsor always told me I could use what ever or who ever I wanted as a Higher Power but that it should be something or someone that realistically could get me sober and keep me sober.
I came to the conclusion that I would call my HP God.
AGO is right what works for me may get you drunk, we all have to find a Higher Power of our own understanding that can get and keep us sober. The big book tells us that at times we have no defense over taking the first drink. Thats when you have to have a Higher Power that works for you.
Larry, -------------------------------------- "Without God I can't. Without me, He won't. "
I believe MY God created man and woman, they ate the apple and gained free will, the ability to see and do evil. Since then man has a choice. GOD= GOOD EVIL=DEVIL Take away the D from devil and the O from good and you have DO... you can do good or evil.... but then again that is just my belief!
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God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Oh my. Discussions of our personal beliefs in God (or no God, or whatever). All I have to say is not only am I glad that AA allows me freedom of definition for myself, but the possibility of that definition/belief/whatnot to change over time. What I believed in when I was 3 days sober is different than what I believe now. Not that what I believe now is better, in some ways I miss that 3-day-belief. I am allowed to think in the program, to pontificate, to wonder, or to just be.
After I decided to abandon myself to God as I understood God I let God create God's own picture of God's self. There is no frame around it and I get to accept it all. I like the keep it simple suggestion. In support
