this post goes a bit beyond the precise title of the thread, but it is all connected and explains a bit of why I write so much about it.

I have a cartoon:

Two goldfish in a bowl...One says, "Ok, smarty, if there's no God, who changes the water?"

must be a matter of perspective, I guess.

For me, "God" would have mean something other than flowery metaphors about universality and Little Hawk's fascinating attempt to turn it all into a rhetorical, holistic definition where "god" becomes such an all-encompassing concept that it has nothing to focus on.
   wow....I just re-read this..."...universal process that you are part of. You are within it. It's a field of consciousness and intention, manifesting as energy, matter, waveforms, thought, and so on. Since it's not separate from you, you can't get away from it (except you can, in the isolated consciousness of your mind, which says, "there is no God", after having invented a spurious, really silly definition of God in the first place.) Very clever!"

Very clever indeed...if all it means is "everything", then why do we need a separate term? I can be awed by the universe (and am, every day) without positing ANY specific causality, or fretting about eternity. It is fascinating to explore and question....but not all questioning requires final answers. I can find meaning, happiness, relevance, peace, joy,...and all other emotions we humans recognize, without "naming" a source. We ARE complex...it makes no difference how we got that way, and NO ONE has shown me any evidence that there is anything beyond the sensory realm I see. And I include the internal working of my own and other minds *AS** part of the sensory realm! Not easy to examine, but still just neurons firing in highly complex physio-chemical patterns.

Nothing changes if I do NOT accept metaphysical notions of causality..poetry is still poetry, beauty is still beauty, hate is still hate, ...etc... I can care, hope, love, wonder,...without recourse to any particular religion or philosophic principles...(yes, I am aware this very attitude IS a philosophic principle...but...)

My friends...I am beset by those who tell me I am either "going to Hell, if I don't change my ways" or, if I don't accept certain postulated 'truths'"....

I am also told be some that "... it is how you behave, rather than what you believe" that matters. Well...which is it? Who is right? They **CANNOT** all be right. I am sometimes given explanations of Heaven by serious practitioners of various faiths who are truly worried about me....and they just cannot comprehend it when I say that I do not want to go to a heaven such as they describe, with the entrance requirements they list.

I am told seriously that the Earth CANNOT be millions or billions of years old because their religious texts say otherwise. Nothing in the Bible about dinosaurs...maybe Satan planted them bones to test us! (You have never heard this? I have.) And if your denomination is not 'quite' so extreme, why is it better, or right, just because it is less rigid?...or why is Islam, or Hinduism, or Jainism...or Grasshopper worship, any more correct? And if I can't choose between all those, why do I need a generalized Pantheistic metaphor?

It is, I am convinced, simply a matter of varying degress of emotional need to express one's self, and to find solace from the pains and sadness of life and to deal with the loss of loved ones and with the knowlege that we are mortal. The lower animals do not seem to have a concept of mortality...perhaps they are better off...*wry smile*.....


...** I have deleted more musings I had typed, as I find I was becoming argumentative and grumpy as I tried to explain the point of all this. There is no easy place to stop when you have been thinking about a situation for 50 years....*grin*....I am sure I change no one's mind with my ramblings, but just maybe I shed a tiny bit of light on some of the issues...