About God

To think about God is a distortion.
All of us have a distorted view of God.
Even any thought that comes from God
   becomes distorted once it enters our minds.
So maybe distortion isn't such a frightening thought after all.
Applied thought is knowledge, applied knowledge is truth.
Applied truth is wisdom
   which is a reflection of the unsolved mazes
    of our own distortions of God.
For instance. . .

God created everything. . .

This is ultimate truth, but from our perspective
   to say "God created everything" would include evil;
    a fundamental distortion of God.

God created everything that is good.
God did not create evil.
Evil is never done by, allowed by, or even thought of by God.
God does not perceive evil in any part of creation.

Evil comes from choice
   which means that God does not choose.
God does not need to operate in this way
   since all that God is and does is good.
You could even dare to say that God does not "do".

On the other hand, choice is the way
   the truth, and the life that the gospel spoke of.
It is only by choice that you can find God.
For you can only decide to do good, you cannot be forced.
To choose is to be conscious of your choices.
And consciousness begins with instinct
   and grows from moral awareness of,
    to absolute conscious unity with, God.
And all along lies the potential for error, for evil.
But as we grow nearer to God, our necessity for choice and evil
   fades.

God loves you. . .

True, but by nature the basic distortion would be:
Does God love me more than you?
   or:
Does God value His son Jesus more than that other son, Lucifer?
To say that God loves us equally is a difficult truth to apply.
Could God value every particle of creation
   infinitely more than perhaps Himself?
Apply that.

The atheist. . .

Atheism is the most ironic distortion of God I can think of.
An atheist is a perfectionist that rejects all distorted views of God
   in favor of the one pure perception
    that he knows could never possibly be found.
So the conclusion is, God will never be found
   and therefore God must not exist.

Nothing validates the existence of God more than the atheist.
For there must first be a God
   in order to conclude that God must not exist.
Just the fact that the atheist is capable of reasoning this way
   proves the existence of God.
For God is The One Pure Perception the atheist believes in
   yet shall surely never find
  (not in this life anyway).

God, a He or a She. . .

In the midst of all this nit-pickiness lies an amusing distortion.
"God as both He and She" is truest.
But God as Father, although a distortion
   may be a healthier perspective.
Part of human progress relies on the coordinated mechanism
   of the masculine and the feminine;
assertion with submission, the without and the within.
Father is a well-suited view of God because it describes Him as
   a projector, a giver or provider.
The Feminine God feels like feedback.
God is the path She's on.
The creation She moves in is Her.
Those less traditional ideas may be truer distortions
   than "The Lord is my shepherd", but perhaps too true.

Put it another way.
The mother-and-child is at birth a unity.
Little initial relational effort is required;
   the child came from the mother's womb.
They are of one blood, nearly of one thought.
Mother is a child's original environment.
The father of that child however
   welcomes himself into their environment.
It is difficult for the father to be as intimate with his infant
   as the mother initially can.
But later, the father will find that child
   even as the child grows and seeks intimacy with him.
God as Father seems to be a model of our earthly relationship.
God as Mother seems to be a model further in our future.
God as Both is the Ultimate.

God as Neither seems to miss the whole point.

Purpose of Life

The purpose of life is growth.

The way that you grow
   is through the decisions that you and others make.
Choices are a configuration of thoughts.
Thoughts come from two places (at least)
   your own mind and the divine Mind within you.

Inneraction with the divine Mind is called "spirituality".
Communion with the divine Mind is called "worship".
Unity with the divine Mind is unexpressible
   in our current sphere of reality.

Reguarding spirituality:
It seems that popular thinking today says that spirituality
   needs to broaden its meaning to gain greater acceptance.
Nothing could be further from the Truth or closer to the Truth.
Spirituality; God-thinking
   evolves from personality; Self-thinking.
God gives personality, among other things.
So all personal expression of spirituality is exclusively your own
    (when you choose to believe it).
And that is the paradox.
Spirituality is infinitely broad and absolutely exclusive.

But, somewhere in the middle of exclusivity and broadness is
   the practical desire for human-to-human confirmation.
A need to share your growth
   to have your growth observed by another and measured.
To make your life and its purpose real.
This is where religion comes in.
Any agreed-upon, group-perception of spirituality is religion.
The purpose of religion is clear;
   to care for the personal growth of each individual in your group.

However, whenever the imperfect gather to seek the Perfect
   much trouble can brew. . .

Many things can be said about the troublesomes of religion
   but the questions that come to me at this instant are:

Who said a religion had to last a long time?
Why are only centuries-old religions regarded as "legitimate"?
Why can't you and I just get together and grow?
Isn't that true religion?
On the other hand:
Can something more than a spontaneous, temporary
   religious gathering be defined as institutionalized?
In other words, if I talk to God the same way twice, is that dogma?

What is an established religion?

more later. . .