Do you believe in God?

Question

Yes or no. Explain why or why not. If you do, what religion are you? And can you explain the religion- i want to understand the differences between religions.

Answer 1

I believe in A God but not the God from the bible.
I am a Wiccan, I believe in A Goddess and her consort The God.
Wiccans believe in one supreme life force, or intelligence - sometimes called the Initiator or The One. This force then manifests as Goddess and God in perfect balance. This is polarity and all life is polarity. Neither Goddess nor God are stronger or more important than the other, they complement each other and together form the perfect All. However, pagans, and of course Wicca, believe that the Goddess and God are in all their creations in the Universe. The Earth is seen as the living body of the Goddess and is to be revered, honoured, loved and protected. Hence Wiccans are environmentalists. Wiccans see Deity as the birth and the death - full cycle. They also believe in reincarnation, death being but the end of the cycle which leads again to life. Wiccans accept responsibility for all their actions and their life. They do not believe in a devil, namely Satan, to blame their faults or mistakes on (such as the devil made me do it!). They seek to know themselves, overcoming weaknesses and building strengths. Wicca also does not seek to convert others to their belief. They believe that when a person is ready or seeking the path of Wicca they will be led to it. In fact until recently Wicca has been kept secret. This has been also to avoid persecution.
In the past all training and initiation has been through an existing coven. However in present times, as a coven contains no more than thirteen members, and more and more people are seeking the path, it has become obvious that coven training is not always possible. However even though there are covens, many witches choose to be solitary. This also can be very advantageous. Due to the rapid increase in people wanting to know about the craft many books have been written and witches make their information available to anyone who is genuinely interested in understanding. Also if the religion is widely known for what it really is then eventually the time will come when people who have been misled for so long, will cease to be afraid of witchcraft and see it as an asset.
The Goddess
The Goddess, the universal mother, is the source of fertility, endless wisdom and loving caresses. Wicca know Her as of three aspects: the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone. These three aspects are symbolised by the waxing, full and waning moon cycle.
The Maiden signifies youth, the excitement of the chase, and the newness of life and magick. She is the unploughed field. In human age between puberty and her twenties. She does not have a mate. Her colours are soft and light, white, soft pink, or light yellow.
The Mother stands for nurturing, caring, fertility. She represents the full harvest. She is in the prime of life and at the peak of her power. She protects her own and ensures that justice is done and done well. She is usually mated. In human age she would be a woman in her thirties and forties. Her colours are warmer than those of the maiden, being green, copper, red, light purple or royal blue.
The Crone is a being of age-old wisdom. She is shrewd and counsels well. She looks after the Maiden and Mother and their off-spring. She is logical and can be terrible in her vengeance. She stands at the door to the dimension of death. In human years she is very late forties and over. Her traditional colours are black, grey, purple, brown or midnight blue.
Life is the Gift of the Goddess but she lends it with the promise of death. This is not darkness and oblivion, but rest from the toils of physical existence. It is human existence between incarnations. Since the Goddess is nature, all nature, She is both the Temptress and the Crone, the tornado and the fresh spring rain, the cradle and the grave. She is possessed of both natures, but the Wiccan revere Her as the giver of fertility, love and abundance, though they acknowledge Her darker side as well. We see her in the Moon, the soundless, ever-moving sea, and in the green growth of the first spring. She is the embodiment of fertility and love. Many symbols are used in Wicca to honour Her, such as the cauldron, cup, five-petalled flowers, the mirror, necklace, seashell, pearl, silver, emerald...... to name a few. As She has dominion over the Earth, sea and Moon Her "sacred" creatures are many and varied. A few are the rabbit, bear, owl, cat, dog, bat, goose, cow, dolphin, lion, horse, wren, scorpion, spider and bee. The Goddess is depicted in many forms: a huntress running with Her hounds; a celestial deity striding across the sky with stardust falling from Her heels. the eternal Mother heavy with child; the weaver of our lives and deaths; a Crone walking by waning moonlight seeking out the weak and forlorn, to name a few. But no matter how we envision Her, She is omnipresent, changeless, eternal.

The God
The God has been revered for eons, but not as the stern, all-powerful deity of Christian and Judaism. We see the God in the Sun. Without the Sun we would not exist; therefore it has been revered as the source of all life. With the warmth of the Sun the dormant seeds burst into life and there begins the greening of the Earth after the cold winter. The God is also the tender of wild animals. He is sometimes seen wearing horns on His head, symbolising His connection with these beasts. In earlier times hunting was one of the activities thought to be ruled by the God, while domestication of animals was seen to be Goddess oriented. The God's domains are forests untouched by human hands, towering mountains and burning deserts. Some consider the stars as under His domain because they are distant suns. The annual cycle of greening, maturation and harvest has long been associated with the Sun, from whence come the Solar festivals of Europe, which are still observed in Wicca. The God is the fully ripened harvest, intoxicating wine pressed from grapes, golden grain waving in the field, luscious apples hanging from verdant boughs.
With the Goddess He also celebrates and rules sex. Wiccans do not speak of sex in hushed words, nor consider a celibate life as better than a sexually active one. Sex is part of nature, brings pleasure, shifts our awareness away from the every day world and perpetuates our species. It is seen as sacred. Although the God lustily imbues us with the urge that ensures our species' biological future, we are not tied to a genetically set pattern of fertility and sexual activity as are other species. We are privileged to be granted the use of sexual activity as an expression of deep love and tenderness as well as the necessity of reproduction. The gift of the freedom of choice with sex is accepted with great joy and pleasure and treated with great respect.
Symbols often used to depict, or in worship of the God include the sword, horns, spear, candle, gold, brass, diamond, the sickle, arrow, magical wand, trident, knife and others.
Sacred creatures include the bull, dog, snake, fish, stag, dragon, wolf, boar, eagle, falcon, shark, lizard and many others.
Blessed Be
Ariel

Answer 2

Yes. I grew up in an abusive, frightening home. By the time I was 18 I planned out my suicide. I also called a crisis line hoping to find a reason to live and help for my pain. I was refererred to a group of Christians. After I hung around with them for a while I decided I wanted the peace/joy they had. They showed me how to pray(which is just talking to God) and I asked God to rescue me and help me live in this life. That happened on October 21, 1971. It is my personal most important day of the year. My life has been so different since that day. I've developed a relationship to God through Jesus. I've learned to trust Him. He's healed so much of my hurts. He has helped me make the choices in my life and helped me deal with the difficulties and losses of my life.

I don't think of myself as religious. I do go to a local Christian church regularly. But I'm not one to say, "I'm a xx and we're the best, we know it all and everybody else is missing it"! When people ask me, I say, I am a Christian, Jesus is everything to me.

Religion, to me is ways men think up how to please God and gain his favor. I don't have a religion, I have a relationship with God, through Jesus.

I hope this helps a little; this is a good question. If you gave me a choice of $1 billion dollars or my relationship with Jesus, I will take Jesus. The money would be nice, until it got boring, but a relationship with Jesus Christ will last until forever and will never rust or break. All the best to YOU! :)

Answer 3

"The great creative power is everything. If you leave out one whole chunk of it, by making God only masculine, you have to redress the balance" -Martha Boesing

Yes, i do believe that God is all inclusive: both sexes, all races,all ages and conditions.

I am an Eclectic Solitaire Pagan Witch with a strong emphasis on Intuitive Healing.
I follow my own path of spirituality and try to stay close the the Creator Source...I use the gifts i am given to promote healing both physically and spiritually in a natural earth based way.

Blessed Be
)o(
Trinity

Answer 4

I am a Henotheistic Eclectic Pagan. I believe in a single deity and in infinite deities. The way I see it is like this. The single deity, who I refer to as Godd (both to refer to GODs and GODDesses, the masculine and feminine) I see as like a diamond with infinite facets. Each face/personality is a god or goddess. This way, I can talk to Godd and cover every base, or if I need assistance in a certain area, I can talk to Isis or Zeus or Freya or Neptune or Bridgit.

Answer 5

No...religion does nothing but cause problems between people. I believe its all fake. People have religion to give them a false sense of security so death isn't as frightening. Personally I agree more with the Big Bang theory.

Answer 6

yes, I'm Christian. I'm not like really really Christian though, so I don't know everything. I know some differences between Christianity and Catholic. Catholic believes in purgatory which is like a waiting room to go to heaven or not. Most Christians will say that that is just something the Catholic Priests made up. Catholics have confessionals and stuff, because they think they can just confess to the priests their way out of sin/hell. Catholics pray to Mary and Jesus. I don't think anyone should be praying to Mary. Sure she birthed Jesus, but she wasn't the messiah she was just a girl. Most Christians believe that too.

Answer 7

I do, I believe that God is a woman. She is our mother and our creator. If God was a man then men would be the ones giving birth and toing everything else in the world while women sat back and scratched themselves.

I am wiccan. I have always been and was born this way. I have always known things and flet things and I knew what was the truth.

Wiccans are pagan. Wicca is an earth religion. we practice magic and divination and comune with the earth and nature.

Answer 8

Yes,

because as a child I could see "The other side" spirits taught me to know God and Jesus would appear to me and talk with me about questions I had. I also was visite dby other religious teachers of different cultures-which is why I'm a spiritualist-I believe in God and an afterlife, but I don't follow any one religious path as I know God influenced them all.
I have a respect for Jesus and gurus, and I have talked to god, who gave me a parrable while I was in a dream. I have seen angels appear to me, and I don't feel-that my gift is a curse or that it's demon related, considering it brought me to God, not away from him. Corinthian speaks of gifts, and I have two from there-If only Christians knew taht some things were from God, even though they fear.
I will get a "bad answer" for saying that.
However, you asked my beliefs, and i bring them to you with honesty.




BECKY: Catholics are also Christians, being Catholic is a sect of Christianity, just as protestant is. Catholics vary in their beliefs with other sects, but not with Christianity as a whole, as the first Christian church I believe was Catholic.

Answer 9

YES. And read the bible and it will tell you god name. Isaiah 42:8 and Psalms 83:18...tells you about god and what his name is...but alot of the bibles nowadays have taken god name outta the bible so you have to look at the clearest and most accuratley translated version. On Jeopardy a few months ago they asked which bible translation was most accurate and the answer was the "New World Translation" as well as the original King James Bible has gods name in it as well. Theres too much to tell you about differences to religion on here....just think though..if there is only ONE god (which is what the bible says)) then why are there 3457863 different religions, some compleat opposite to the other. Its the one that follows the bible that is the one that makes sense....look in those scriptures and it willl also tell you what religion I am in as well....its the one that has no holes in it...and makes compleate sense and is not hypocritical and holds out a wonderful purpose for the future.

Answer 10

I'm Pagan and believe in many gods but I don't think any one god is right for everyone and for some people no god is right for them. I do not follow the bible at all even though I have read it twice, too many contradictions for my taste.

Answer 11

I believe and I have no religion, not official at least.

I make up my own

But I believe and I believe for personal reason that you, nor others, can understand, so I won't even try to explain.