Who created the universe?

Originally Posted by sirrius2

you created the universe because you are a part of god, the source of all energy. all that is. you then created many lives so that you could experience life through consciousness using all your physical senses.

100% agree with you. We are here so that God may experience him/her/itself. How can one know who one is without the opposite being present. How can you know cold if you've never felt heat? How can you know pain if you've never felt comfort? How can you feel love if you've never experienced hate? As a Creative Energy, how can you know how great you are, if you don't experience the smallness of an amoeba? We are the instruments by which the creative power of the universe may experience all that is. Jesus said, I and my Father are One and he said that we are gods (John 10:34).

He also said in Matthew 25:45 "Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.", the point being that God is All. I for one choose not to argue with the Source of All.

Originally Posted by Chrystalline22

Hi,
...........
I think God had a plan when he created the universe, and HAS a plan for mankind - but not only mankind. He is the ultimate creator, so we with our small minds can’t understand all that this entails. Yes, he made us in his own image with the ability to create and to love, but on a much, much smaller scale. We can create and discover amazing things, all to develop our understanding of God’s plan for us, but we will never fully understand what that is. We are tiny, tiny specs in his huge universe, but very precious all the same, and we were given a soul for a reason.

I asked the original question ‘WHO created the universe?’ As Mattie says, why does it have to be an entity. I am using the personal pronoun ‘He’ when I’m writing this, but I don’t believe it’s a He, She or It. I feel it’s a power or energy of some sort that brought everything into existence. We just have to give it a name when we are trying to express what we are feeling or describing. And as Elyse also mentions, yes, it is very exhausting to try and figure out why we are here etc., but its part of our nature I think to question and ask why we are here and where we came from. I feel this is where we are made in God’s image - to continually search for a way to find our sense of belonging and connection with God or Universal Energy or Love.

How do you actually KNOW you were given a soul other than because you read it in a book? Maybe there is one soul/spirit that 'we' are all in. It surrounds every molecule, every atom of our bodies, the bodies of all other life, every 'thing' that is in the world (trees, rocks, water....) We are 'swimming' in the soul of God and it is in us, it is part of us. Maybe native peoples had it more correct than any philosophy dreamed up by other cultures.

Consider the disconnect that attends the belief between the Jews, Muslims and Christians. Or one army against another. Or even one football team against another as they indulge in their ritual of prayer for victory before a game. "My God" will help me prevail against you.

As if a single creative source who is responsible for all of this magnificence really cares about football games, or whether your skin is brown or white, or which side of town you live on or which building you go and offer up prayers in, or do you cover your hair in church (ladies) or any of the multitude of silly, pointless rules we have heaped on top of 'our' ideas about who or what God is.

What matters is how you treat others who are simply extensions of God and therefore, extensions of yourself. This understanding is why I work hard at not losing my temper these days. The realization that when I talk to you, I am talking to my Creator, my Source brings me to my knees in humility. Would God treat himself rudely? I think not, therefore I may not treat you rudely even when your (a general 'your', folks) actions are making ME crazy with frustration.

Your actions, my actions, everyone's actions, however annoying or frustrating, are simply the human part of us, experiencing all and doing whatever it is we came here to do. We are here for a purpose, and that is to allow the Source of All to know Itself.

I was just going to add that thats only my best guess so far and isn't that really what we're all doing? Until each one of us makes the move, and crosses over, steps through the door, passes, dies....however you want to speak of that transitional moment, not one of us can really know with 100% certainty, what comes after.

So all you can do really is decide based on whatever hearsay evidence is at hand, decide if it makes sense to you and then just run with the ball. What else can you do?

I suppose we will all know one day. But for now it is still a mystery.
I personally believe in a higher power but I don't know what it is.

Originally Posted by hootie

I suppose we will all know one day. But for now it is still a mystery.
I personally believe in a higher power but I don't know what it is.

The Higher power is God. God is spirit. :)


(God) was the name given to this 'spirit'.

Originally Posted by DebbyM

How do you actually KNOW you were given a soul other than because you read it in a book? Maybe there is one soul/spirit that 'we' are all in. It surrounds every molecule, every atom of our bodies, the bodies of all other life, every 'thing' that is in the world (trees, rocks, water....) We are 'swimming' in the soul of God and it is in us, it is part of us. Maybe native peoples had it more correct than any philosophy dreamed up by other cultures.

Consider the disconnect that attends the belief between the Jews, Muslims and Christians. Or one army against another. Or even one football team against another as they indulge in their ritual of prayer for victory before a game. "My God" will help me prevail against you.

As if a single creative source who is responsible for all of this magnificence really cares about football games, or whether your skin is brown or white, or which side of town you live on or which building you go and offer up prayers in, or do you cover your hair in church (ladies) or any of the multitude of silly, pointless rules we have heaped on top of 'our' ideas about who or what God is.

What matters is how you treat others who are simply extensions of God and therefore, extensions of yourself. This understanding is why I work hard at not losing my temper these days. The realization that when I talk to you, I am talking to my Creator, my Source brings me to my knees in humility. Would God treat himself rudely? I think not, therefore I may not treat you rudely even when your (a general 'your', folks) actions are making ME crazy with frustration.

Your actions, my actions, everyone's actions, however annoying or frustrating, are simply the human part of us, experiencing all and doing whatever it is we came here to do. We are here for a purpose, and that is to allow the Source of All to know Itself.

There is but one body, and that is the universal body from which elements your body was created, and to which elements it will return, and there is but one soul, and that is the "Logos," the divine animating principle that pervades the entire universe and all therein, is it that same animating princile that moves the electrons around the nuclei of the atoms from which the universal body is created, and it is to the Universal soul that all the information taken in through the senses of every living body is gathered.

When your body, your flesh, hair, nerves, brain matter, etc, has returned to the universal elements from which it was created, a shadow or facimile of you will exist in the universal soul, and you will live again, when the resurrection of the universal body comes around again. Which is like closing your eyes in sleep and awakening to the light of a new day. That is of course, if you in death, can find peace and rest.

Isaiah 57: 1-2; "Good people die and no one understands or even cares. But when they die, no calamity can hurt them. Those who lead good lives, find peace and rest in death."

Which means that there remains a state of unrest and feaful expectation of what lays ahead, for those who do not lead good lives.

Originally Posted by S-word

There is but one body, and that is the universal body from which elements your body was created, and to which elements it will return, and there is but one soul, and that is the "Logos," the divine animating principle that pervades the entire universe and all therein, is it that same animating princile that moves the electrons around the nuclei of the atoms from which the universal body is created, and it is to the Universal soul that all the information taken in through the senses of every living body is gathered.

When your body, your flesh, hair, nerves, brain matter, etc, has returned to the universal elements from which it was created, a shadow or facimile of you will exist in the universal soul, and you will live again, when the resurrection of the universal body comes around again. Which is like closing your eyes in sleep and awakening to the light of a new day. That is of course, if you in death, can find peace and rest.

Isaiah 57: 1-2; "Good people die and no one understands or even cares. But when they die, no calamity can hurt them. Those who lead good lives, find peace and rest in death."

Which means that there remains a state of unrest and feaful expectation of what lays ahead, for those who do not lead good lives.

See, you just read it in a book, just like other versions of spiritual people read things in books. You know as much as anyone else and if you find comfort in that then that's a good thing. But when you use your spiritual beliefs to engender fear and anxiety in others as to where they will wind up when they die, than that's not right.

Wouldn't it be a hoot if you were wrong along with everyone who was willing to kill for their religion (not saying that you are that murderous, just reminding you that many who claimed to be religious Bible believers did just that), and when you've finally made it down the long tunnel with the light at the end, you find yourself standing there besides someone who didn't lead a good life? And it turns out your book is wrong.

And just to point out, how many Christian churches are perfectly happy to point at other Christian churches and judge them wrong and headed for doom. Where does that fit in with your cozy understanding of how YOU are right and I am wrong. Especially as those other Christian churches use the same book you do to justify your eventual very unpleasant end. Now granted, in this day and age of 'coming together' religiously speaking, this attitude might not be as prevalant, but it once was and again, those people are taking their lead from one and the same book.

[Seawolf]

Originally Posted by DebbyM

You know as much as anyone else and if you find comfort in that then that's a good thing.

I think we start to know a little something when know we don't know anything.

I believe that God, the Light, emanated from Darkness which is Absolute Light, the Void as some people have called it. The Void is described as pure awareness devoid of experience but containing all possibilities.

Therefore, the “last vibration of the Seventh Eternity” was “fore-ordained” — by no God in particular, but occurred in virtue of the eternal and changeless Law which causes the great periods of Activity and Rest, called so graphically, and at the same time so poetically, the “Days and Nights of Brahma.”

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd1-1-04.htm

Originally Posted by DebbyM

See, you just read it in a book, just like other versions of spiritual people read things in books. You know as much as anyone else and if you find comfort in that then that's a good thing. But when you use your spiritual beliefs to engender fear and anxiety in others as to where they will wind up when they die, than that's not right.

Wouldn't it be a hoot if you were wrong along with everyone who was willing to kill for their religion (not saying that you are that murderous, just reminding you that many who claimed to be religious Bible believers did just that), and when you've finally made it down the long tunnel with the light at the end, you find yourself standing there besides someone who didn't lead a good life? And it turns out your book is wrong.

And just to point out, how many Christian churches are perfectly happy to point at other Christian churches and judge them wrong and headed for doom. Where does that fit in with your cozy understanding of how YOU are right and I am wrong. Especially as those other Christian churches use the same book you do to justify your eventual very unpleasant end. Now granted, in this day and age of 'coming together' religiously speaking, this attitude might not be as prevalant, but it once was and again, those people are taking their lead from one and the same book.

Go for it DebbyM, don't you ever be believing nothin what you ever bin readin innabook, don't you ever learn from dem mugs what knows nothin.