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That's my sentiments exactly. I love Christmas. It's a break from work. It's time with family. It's time with friends. It's feasting. It's gift exchanging. It's travelling. It ought to be a time when we can all wish each other well and celebrate and renew our optimism for the new year, regardless of our beliefs.

   

I thought you said you were a mason?

   

Yes. I interpret that "superior being" my own way: nature.

   

A creative force with an intelligence behind it is the general interpretation

   

That's interesting. What is nature. Or more accurately, what isn't nature? Does nature have consciousness?

   

If you believe in the whole Gaia thing it does, which would validate Lemmy's interpretation and allow him to remain a true lodge member.

   

You'd have to make Gaia larger than she used to be, ie include the whole universe, at least. In that case, his and your definition sound very much the same. It's one that any scientist would have to agree with, seems to me. We can see the creative force at work in the universe, and the universe appears to be coherent, ie intelligent.

From an intellectual level, I like A. Hameed Ali's conception of God - where ultimately God is the Ground of Being, ie, there is no Being there, but at lower level a personality starts to appear, ie a God. Also doesn't conflict with my own experience. The Ground of Being would be the source of everything, it just is, neither created nor destroyed. God, I don't know, maybe as in Buddhism, Gods also are born only to experience old age, sickness and death.

   

That may be the most common interpretation, but it doesn't need to be. We don't define it in lodge and it's completely open to each mason to interpret it as he chooses. There's no requirement of "creativity" nor "intelligence".


A true lodge member? We don't need to explain our beliefs as masons. In fact, the topic of religion is strictly forbidden in lodge. I'm perfectly free to interpret the notion of a supreme being in whatever way makes sense to me. I don't become any less "a true mason" even if my interpretation is completely unlike anyone else's.

   

Really couldn't have said it better myself. God gave us the greatest gift of all (life and free will). Asking for anything more is just being greedy. Besides, would you like it if your parents controlled every aspect of your life into your 20's, your 30's, your 40's etc? Of course not. Remember that scene in the 1st Matirx movie when Neo is speaking with Agent Smith (I think it was Smith) and Smith told him that the first version of the Matrix was a utopia where none suffered or had want, and it was a failure because the people in the Matrix couldn't accept that reality because people define themselves by their suffering. While I'm not saying we should go out and purposefully make each other suffer, let's not kid ourselves into thinking that a perfect world scenario would be anything other than boring and without meaning.

   

So God created us, only to get old and die, knowing full well that many of us would cause great misery to others, and that many children would be killed or die of various diseases? And he did this so we wouldn't be bored? Why create us at all then? Seems to me he created us so He wouldn't be bored, and he's a bit of an uncaring sob. Who cares if people suffer as long as he's not bored.

   

If we are part of nature and we have consciousness, then you could argue that nature has consciousness.

On the other hand maybe we're just "howling little back eddies in the tide of entropy clinging to the surface an infintessimal mote in the grandaddy of all explosions."

   

The human brain is limited. Why do you think God thinks like human beings? should he eat like us? God created us to praise him, to pray on this earth. This life is temporary and we will be judged on our actions. Prayer is the spiritual solution in this materialistic world running after money and sex. I'm sure God has created us to do prayer every day, but God does not think like us.
[Say: He is God, the One and Only God, the Eternal, Absolute. He begets not, nor is He begotten. And there is none like unto Him.] The Holy Quran

   

   

You need to believe

   

Fail. To give infinite punishment or reward for a finite lifetime can never be accurate justice.

   

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