What About God?

In God's hands we trust...and hope. ...lots of love glynis

 

Not saying there is no God or no savior, just never fully accepted the "word" written by man and exploited by man!Been my views my entire life and nothing change pre or post tinnitus!

 

How about the 'word' extolled by heads of the Catholic church who exploit their position of power and have sexually abused many young boys and then shuffle them through their system with impunity?
God should really keep his eye on the heads of church that teach his word.

And of course the Muslim faith. Their God has dropped the ball on their aberrant subset that maraud across the Middle East cutting the heads off young Christians and other 'infidels.'

God sure works in mysterious ways.

 

I agree a billion percent on how all this has been exploited. The Catholic church is the most powerful business in the world! They just keep getting more powerful and greedy. The argument is God gave us this life, planet, days and nights etc and let us make our own decisions about our lives without His interference. I suppose he just sits back and watches the show?? Dunno..........

Still a nice thought that possibly there is more to life than just a long cold death afterwards. I have my doubts but some things do take place on a supernatural realm that gives me some hope...............

 

According to the religious, this is God these days.....>>>> Snacking on popcorn and slurping back a cold beverage while watching the show.........

 

Hilarious. Shouldn't he be passing it to small boys dotting the landscape?

 

Betchyea he gets only the best available. AND he Bogart's it. Sinner!!

 

Agree, boge-ing the ganja is antithetical to the good word. Can I get an Amen?
Remember, he moves in mysterious ways...especially when high. Great sense of humor tho.

 

I don't believe in god, but Tinnitus made me wish I did...because knowing that I am truly truly alone...with nothing but this ringing in my ear...and the whole universe around me...made me feel severely claustrophobic.

But no matter, because even by myself I can take on anything, I do not need to lean on an invisible persona to carry me through. I am my own hero, only I can determine my fate and even if I have to scratch and claw my way through...I will do it with eternal vigilance.

One can't wait for permission to live happily, you need to do it despite the desperation eating itself from within...if there is a god this is the strength that he would want you to feel...because you can do it.

'Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.' - Marie Curie

 

I dont believe in god, but I do believe that we're not alone. Life goes on even after the 'passing'. There's an energy within us, and energy can neither be created nor destroyed; it just is and will be, forever.

By the way, here's another interesting article just released about our cosmic brothers:
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/lat...covery-spaceships-mars-ufo-sightings-martians

 

They see the aspect/s of God they have a relationship with. In Sanskrit it's called ishta-devata.
Buddha Amitayus as an aspect of Adi Buddha Amitabha is analogical to Jesus as an aspect of the Father.
And re negative NDEs, there is a medical term "terminal restlessness", a pretty crosscultural phenomena.

 

I sometimes think that when many of us say we don't believe in God, we are really saying we don't accept/believe in the formal Christian narrative.

 

One can't say there is no god as well as one can't say there is. If one stands by either if these statements, he lacks some rationality and capacity of critical thinking ( then again one may not give a damn about being rational and he may be fine with no intelectual digging whatsover - right.) However, if you want to be perceived as a reasonable, intelligent being you can only admit that you cannot proove neither the existence nor the non-existance of god. Therefore , both are the questions of belief. Science doesn't contradict existance of some higher power cause it's not like we know all about everything already, however..gods, as created by monoteist religions and so many other politesist ones , are very different and their appearance can be traced back to moments of human history . Thus, from the point of view of social sciences it's definitely a human creation that coresponds to satisfying certain human needs ( like the wish to explain what we can't know such as what happens when our body dies and many other justified by the fate of those who created it and their social position . ) It's a tendency for humans to look for support elsewhere if on eart they suffer and they cannot know why. Usually they look for a father figure, the protecting one. Believing in god(s) gives answers which makes life easier. So this is the background . After that, if you already chose to bieleve sth like a god exists and you even believe it is a HE ( why ?? maybe it's a she ? - assuming god is a human like creature is another symptom of arrogance of our species .) , then a system created by humans = a religion gives answers. Jewish god would be punishing, christian god would be forgiving etc. Een if you believe there is a god , you don't have to assume he necessarily intervenes in your life and sends you tinnitus. That really depends on which god you talk about. All that to say that asking '' where is god '' in case of illness is not very pertinent.. As a social scientist I do not believe in god ( yet I don't exclude the option of a higher power that humans tried to define in so many different ways .) I don't blame a god and I don't expect any relief from a deity cause in XXI centrury we really know enough about our bodies to undestand how come they get sick. Then again, you can say sb . sth decides that we suffer or not ..and that it may be a god..then even more I don't see an interest in believing in a deity if you see that you suffer even though you've been good. And that no god comes with help, cause maybe it's not a divine role.

 

I don't believe in God in the classical sense. However I believe in a spiritual superhighway that explains so many things tangibly reported by those living or have experienced NDE's. Reincarnation...and there is copious proof, suggests that our spirit inhabits our physical bodies and when the flesh dies, at least probable our spirit doesn't die.
Dr. Alexander talks about our brain as basically a reducing valve to this spirit which some could call God. He maintains that our conscious mind, is not singular but rather shared. This explains people who predict major events...even intuition which may transcend time...ESP, precocity like Mozart composing music when he was 4 and other types of genius like Einstein, but mostly previous lives where even names and burial sites are recalled with specificity that is unknowable. This by contrast to the 'construct' of God...as discussed in a man contrived allegorical book of stories like the bible...is quite different and agree with Gosia that belief in God is to ease the pain of the suffering and also give meaning to our lives...why are we here. Where I do disagree with Gosia is what he wrote earlier:
"However, if you want to be perceived as a reasonable, intelligent being you can only admit that you cannot prove neither the existence nor the non-existance of god."

I disagree. Substitute god with flying human...like Superman. Anybody ever seen such a creature? I haven't. I don't believe he exists and I like to think of myself as rational. There is no tangible proof of god therefore not a leap to say because nobody has proof, that he/it doesn't exist. Some of the greatest minds don't believe in God. I you believe in God, who created God? I have never seen a jet liner that can made into a dog either. I don't think that exists either FWIW.

 

My Tinnitus started from a fire alarm at work. I was going to lunch and happened to be right under it when the siren started. If it would have started 10 seconds before I would have been in my office. It it would have started 10 seconds after I would have been out of the building and not even known about it.

I went to a christian school. We were thought that God has a plan for everyone. Why would he plan this for me?

 

I hope you are kidding. Do you really think God times fire alarms or your whereabouts relative to particular events?
How about the thousands maimed or killed on American highways due to your 10 second timing...a subset of whom who went to a Christian school that you may believe gives you better access to God's oversight?
How about all the Christian kids beheaded by ISIS?
How about 1/4 of the world's population that is starving?
Do you really believe a benevolent God is at the controls?..or only for you because you are special..or you believe you are because of your parent's belief system that put you in that school?

 

Which god? There are thousands.

 

Just find the one who agrees with you. There's bound to be one somewhere. If not, make your own. God seems very open-source these days (and tax free too).

 

Stay

 

Since this is a tinnitus support forum and not a religion debate platform, instead of turning this thread into a God bashing or teasing one, perhaps we can in a support forum talk more positively how faith can help an individual take on seemingly impossible sufferings. If you prefer not to believe in God or that faith is meaningless in the face of immense suffering, perhaps this thread is not the right place to debate the existence of God or not. After all this is tinnitus support forum. Why talk about something which takes away the supporting nature of this forum. If faith and God is not your cup of tea, try something else to find strength, like what LadyDi has put it above.

Faith is up to the individual and if you find strength in faith while having severe T, good for you. Faith is a sacred individual thing that others may not understand and so there is no need to bash others' attempt to find strength in faith. To these people, God is a source of strength and not a source of blame. They understand that in life, even with a loving God, there will be sufferings and tragedies, some small, some severe, and that even during biblical time, followers of Christ, the apostles, prophets etc. all had to endure persecutions and sufferings.

Perhaps the analogy is similar to the devil's temptation of the Savior, in which he said to Christ if you are the Son of God, jump off the cliff and God will save you. What the devil is saying is that if there is a God, you won't suffer and you will be saved from tragedy. But that was never the case, even during Christ's time on earth. So those of us who try to find faith in our sufferings, we don't expect the suffering will be lifted every time we pray, but that we pray for more strength to accept and endure the sufferings of life.

So for those who try to find strength in a loving God during life's toughest trial, may you find comfort and strength in your prayer and in reading the scriptures, one I particularly like in Romans 5:3-5. Wishing you all well. God bless.

 

This is also my experience. Many Western people gave up on the Abrahamic religions since they have no answers to tons of important questions, the existence of evil being just one of them. Otoh, these questions have been answered in Eastern traditions.
'Making one's own god' is not very helpful since it'd be just a mental creation, not a divine being by any measure.

And few short comments to others:

Gosia: That's the conventional academic knowledge. There's a long way to spirituality from there.

stophiss: I guess you mean this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake#Origin_and_philosophy_of_morphic_resonance
This akashic field is part of the Eastern description of the material universe, a sort of cosmic supercomputer which we can plug into when we know how or in some cases involuntarily. It's not God, just a part of His creation, but it gives an idea of a higher organized structure.

Litani: There's a plan but the planners and creators are mostly us. God can come into the picture when we're really serious about knowing Him. (When I write 'Him', that's just out of convention since He has both male and female aspects at the same time.)

Ecip: You can find a sort of cosmic hierarchy of gods in many traditions. They're like a government officers but they recognize their boss.

billie48: Exactly. God nowhere says we won't suffer when we believe in Him. That's a human idea.

 

Hardly disheartening. It's definitely a good thing

 

@erniej , very good question. I have been suffering from T from long time and I believe I have this condition because of my own karma and I am responsible for it and I also believe what ever happens it happens for good and " god" has better plan for me .
I have been through so much ups and down Igor and when I look back every bad thing that happened to me , it was really blessing in disguise .
There is no way for me to explain suffering in this world except principle of karma . God can't be cruel like this to punish us .
Again , most of you will not agree but this is my belief .

 

What about it being caused by our own actions (with these actions sometimes randomly producing horrific outcomes)?

 

the person you're replying to was talking about Karma.... our own actions are our karma. In that belief system, you were born into this world with a pile of crap to work through, based on transgressions of past selves.

When you strip the more religious, mumbo-jumbo aspects from it, Karma can pretty well be viewed as "cause and effect".

 

Well not quite. Karma is a bit different. Even if you remove the superstition from it then you're still left with a different idea. Karma without the spooks is more like "what comes around goes around" then it is just cause and effect. I come from a Buddhist family so I have experience with this.

 

Sometimes one can do bad things (cause) and end up with something good (effect). For example - stealing and then not being caught.