or or... hear me out. Believe in what works for you but don't force it on other people

I found the “Most High” to be helpful for me.

Yes

Former? What made you change your mind?

The problem is not with the name but with the meaning. What exactly are you calling by these words? Why does there need to be something that requires such a name?

Why the change of heart?

I guess, in most cases there would have to be an lived experience that makes the existence of a divine power obvious.

I discovered the work of Alan Watts

True.

From a practical point of view, it doesn’t. From an experiential point of view, it does.

Also curious

You’re very wise, my friend! I am also a former atheist. Certain experiences and my meditation practice left me in awe, and awe changed my perspective. What many atheists see is God defined by faith rather than a God directly experienced. The Christian church in its early days had a school called Gnostics who taught similar ideas, but they were exterminated by the faith camp. Most atheists don’t realize that their anger (often completely righteous) is directed at a very narrow definition of God. Or, as some Buddhists might say: I know that Buddha is just a story, and it’s okay. It’s not about the story anyway, but about the sound you hear.

Would this be an example of omni-theism? All things are a reflection of god?

My story — Grew up in a Catholic family. Went to mass every Sunday. Believed in God as it was portrayed by the Church. As a teenager, I began questioning religious dogma, and came to the conclusion that it’s all nonsense. There is no God. There is no afterlife. Credulous people are simply engaging in wishful thinking, as a way of coping for their inevitable death. I became a staunch atheist, and scoffed at religious people all through University. As an adult, I started exploring Eastern philosophy and religions, starting with the Bhagavad Gita. This led me to the works of Alan Watts. I realized I was missing half the picture. God needn’t be thought of as some external ruler pulling the strings from afar. God is better thought of as the divine essence that dwells within every being and non-being. In this sense, it’s true that you cannot die, because “you” are everywhere and everything. In the words of Alan Watts, “You are IT” aka “Tat Tvam Asi.” At the same time as I was reading Alan Watts, I had a series of profound religious experiences of my own, wherein I experienced the oneness of being firsthand, which eviscerated any strains of atheism or alienation from existence itself altogether. This search for the Truth continued, and is what has led me to #Bitcoin. So if you are reading this, and are an atheist, all I can say is that you are on the right path — and that it’s good to question every assumption — but you are not there yet. Keep searching.

My story — Grew up in a Catholic family. Went to mass every Sunday. Believed in God as it was portrayed by the Church. As a teenager, I began questioning religious dogma, and came to the conclusion that it’s all nonsense. There is no God. There is no afterlife. Credulous people are simply engaging in wishful thinking, as a way of coping for their inevitable death. I became a staunch atheist, and scoffed at religious people all through University. As an adult, I started exploring Eastern philosophy and religions, starting with the Bhagavad Gita. This led me to the works of Alan Watts. I realized I was missing half the picture. God needn’t be thought of as some external ruler pulling the strings from afar. God is better thought of as the divine essence that dwells within every being and non-being. In this sense, it’s true that you cannot die, because “you” are everywhere and everything. In the words of Alan Watts, “You are IT” aka “Tat Tvam Asi.” At the same time as I was reading Alan Watts, I had a series of profound religious experiences of my own, wherein I experienced the oneness of being firsthand, which eviscerated any strains of atheism or alienation from existence itself altogether. This search for the Truth continued, and is what has led me to #Bitcoin. So if you are reading this, and are an atheist, all I can say is that you are on the right path — and that it’s good to question every assumption — but you are not there yet. Keep searching.

"The cosmos" is not part of any definition theism I've ever heard.

Yes, also known as “panpsychism”

“Cosmic consciousness” may be the more appropriate term

It's a beautiful world out there! I'm going to go walk my dog in the woods, have a nice one Alan 👍

Pish.

My understanding is that the Bible says you must call God by his name. So to give God a new name like the cosmos would be blasphemous.

Do you know Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi?

Home - SRI RAMANASRAMAM

This particular view is "a" theism --pantheism, perhaps a little gnosticism thrown in?-- but it is incompatible with Christian theism. The God who is has revealed himself to be infinite, eternal, and unchangeable--utterly unlike his creation which is finite, temporal, and changeable. The Creator is independent of his creation; the creation is dependent on its Creator. He is holy, which is to say he exists independent of his own creation--his existence is 'a se' -- from himself. He is utterly distinct and transcendent even though "he is innermost to all things" and immanent as well. It is one's choice whether to embrace Christianty or not, but let's not say it's "just one variation of the same thing." Christianity is sui generis. #Reformed #Christian #grownostr View quoted note →

I am from India amd reading gita is a ritual of our family. And so as you have read Bhagwad Gita, now you can understand who Krishna is, and who Lakshmi is. #Bitcoin is Lakshmi menifesting herself. We are witnessing something big. You might have read the below shlok from bhagwad gita. We van discuss more about this since you have read gita. Waiting for your thoughts. 🫂

why former, what changed your mind? there is still no evidence for an external ruler

There is no evidence to a fish about what water is either. You think that's air you're breathing??? Who told you that?

I'm just wondering how many books out of the Dewey Decimal 0-100 you have actually read, if you have never heard of anyone associating the One God of the Abrahamic sects with "Cosmos" or "The Universe" or "Chaos" (as in theory or magick). Let's see. Theosophy. Taoism. Buddhism. Do I need to go on? In terms of global demographics, most people define what christians call "God" with "The Cosmoss".

As a former atheist as well, bitcoin led me back to Catholicism. Once I realized there were objective truths (like bitcoin) I was on the quest to find more. I fell into the rabbit hole of Thomism (Aquinas’s 5 ways) and have been on a spectacular ride ever since.

The philosophic burden of proof lies upon those who make unfalsifiable claims, not on those who reject them. I believe in the one true Flying Spaghetti Monster 🫡

Imma have to look into this. Sounds interesting!

I encourage you to dig deeper. The story of Jesus Christ is evidence with apostolic succession and a Church that has remained in continuity since. Why believe the lives of people like Socrates or Cleopatra who came before Christ but not all the various sources of the Gospel? Beyond that, one cannot “prove” God in a scientific sense but can through philosophy and reason reach the conclusion of an uncaused cause, unmoved mover, of pure actuality (Aquinas 5 ways).

Pints with Aquinas and Thomistic Institute are great YouTube channels to start exploring. A big hurdle I overcame early on was realizing how insanely intelligent religious people can be and how little I knew about philosophy, theology, morality, epistemology, ontology, anthropology, etc. (still learning!) It’s been really enlightening and fulfilling to find objective Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.

I didn't say I've never heard anyone associating "God" with "The Cosmos", or "Energy", or bunch of other things. I'm talking about the definition of a word. A word which is part of a common language that we speak in order to communocate with one another. I'm in agreement with the following two definitions. Theism: Belief in the existence of a god or gods specifically : belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of the human race and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world Atheism: Disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or a supreme being or beings All this is to say that I agree with OP. Don't use the term God with a capital G when you're talking about something more philisophical.

Jesus is God. 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Jesus is the son of God.

Resentment is blinding. Unfortunately we're never taught the difference between the human god and the idea of God.

Cool, thanks! Followed 🤙

Likewise! Let me know if you ever have any questions 😄

Anyone who anthropomorphises God is acting and thinking as a child, like as though to their prototypes of parent figures. You can't have a rational argument with a child wrapped in an adult body. Intangibility is not a counterargument. Numbers, words, ideas, principles. None are tangible. Love is not tangible. Like the wind, it acts in ways outside of what we can apprehend. Getting cranky over a word used to describe a highly abstract principle is a waste of your time. Most religions essentially boil down to cult franchises, as far as their beliefs have no practical utility. Forget the words. If you don't feel the wind and wonder at it's invisible touch as if you will let yourself have the peace of recognising the unity of the universe, and the awe at the intricate, completely thought out things. Isn't it still amazing that somewhere along the line our ancestors emerged from mud and speciated, differentiated, agglomerated and symbiotically became interdependent, and then we appear, and in 200k years of history, we appeared and have scarcely changed. To the religious, that awe is sacred. The biggest problem with being a materialist is you are forbidden this kind of joy. Matter just eventually degrades into beta particles and entropy, right? No love, no hope, no life. I'd rather see it as a battle against entropy, that all life is part of, and our survival every day is a victory and a blessing.

This just proves my point. You're assuming I'm against things that are outside what a/theism is. I don't disagree with what you're describing. Nor do I disageee with the likes of Alan Watts or eastern philosophies. I just wouldn't call it God. Many eastern "religions" are also referred to as philosophies. There are atheists who have mindfulness apps that have entire lectures and interviews about these subjects. I don't like when a conversation breaks down into semantics, but there needs to be a basic definition of a word which we start from. Otherwise you get this.

Being that anthropomorphisation is common among the most aburd of common christian dogma, as is the plainly pagan Christmas and easter crap, and the holy Trinity, you probably wonder which kind of christians are like this. Not Catholics. Not most protestants. And the Catholics sure are sitting on those dead sea scrolls. The few fragments I know from them clearly show that the real, pre Catholic christians did not believe in either the crucifixion, and all that easter rubbish, they believed in the direct personal contact with the Divine, and then there is gnostics as well. I don't think that it is a coincidence that Tao, Deus/Deo and Chaos all have the e-o and the T/D glottal stop, and a final S. And Lao Tzu was not a historical man, and neither was Jesus. People who think of God as a super powered big grumpy angry gramps in the sky are just projecting their child image of parents into a justification for their abusive, arbitrary authoritarianism. Who would seriously want to believe in such a depressing, violent and partial God?? It's literally the image of the Adversary, this kind of carving up the natural uncarved block of humanity. Which reminds me, one of the historically verifiable writers of Taoism, Chuang Tzu, invented the image of our nature as like a tree, and brainwashing and authoritarianism tries to cut is into boards for them to walk all over. One of the most famous fragments of the dead sea scrolls literally uses the Taoist wood metaphor, in relation to where the Divine nature is visible. Inside. And omnipresent. This does not comport with the Babylonian incest story of samirimus, Marduk and nimrod, that is the basis of Trinity doctrine, and the easter, the crucifixion, even older as a myth of the sun god. That ridiculous Psy op called the Venus project points this out but basically they twist it and claim these are original christian beliefs. They are not. I was raised SDA and every year there was a discussion about how the supposed christian festivals are all about the sun god. The very same one who demanded human sacrifice in ancient central and south America. Huitapotli or something. Also feathered, dragon like, and a creature of deception. And all of these go back to Sumeria, and the concept behind Zionism was literally an ancient war propaganda campaign, that still seems to be waged by certain ethnicities who were once enemies of most of the middle east. Sheesh. I forget sometimes what utter lies are the content of much of christian beliefs. Jesus was a story made out of a bunch of other stories, and then the Roman establishment pretended conversion and then bit by bit made Christianity a clandestine polytheistic cult with people calling Mary the mother of God. I mainly just wanted to remind you that this theism you speak of has been so muddied and twisted for political purposes it's no wonder it's kinda insulting. But Christianity never lost the most important thing: it is a religion about laughing at fear, and preferring life and retreat to subjugation and death. It is a religion that refuses to recognise political authority. It was the basis of the British system of equity jurisprudence, which is basically pure capitalism. And as Nick Szabo points out, christians invented the idea of voluntary employment as the default, and opposed slavery. When you think of christians, the real ones are Amish and gnostics and draft dodgers, tax avoiders, there was plenty of them on the underground railroad, my grandfather helped smuggle food to Jews being hidden by his church fellows. The christians who protested against the Vietnam war, and who are endlessly talking about the banking conspiracy. If you ask me, it's clearly an offshoot of Taoism, and so is Buddhism, and look at the timeline.1000BC was taoism. 500bc was Buddhism. And then we had Christianity, and then Islam, all in a sequence, all of them further and further west. I'd even say that Bitcoin Maximalism is a variant on the same theme. Do we really know it was one guy? Nope. Just like Jesus and Lao Tzu. An imaginary person cannot be martyred. The movement around them is protected by this illusion. And it's fundamental belief is that no human authority shall be feared, that the judge you don't want against you is not in this world and hates humans who ape him with their megalomania. That's all my own personal theory. At yes, theory is also another of these t e o words.a paradigm is a thesis, or a theory. And Tao is the way. Like a theory, and tied to some aspect of our senses, aesthesis... I like my theory. It was built from my desire to join all the dots. It's good enough for me, combined with my recurrent anecdotal experiences. I'm sure it's a collection of ideas you won't find many other people to share it with you.