Dear May,

No definition can be accurate - language is limited and pales to describe reality.

The only way to know yourself, thus God, is to experience yourself directly - including not via your mind/brain including the verbal paths therein.

In order to allow this direct experience, one must remove what's in the way, including their attachment to their body and mind. This is extremely hard, which is the reason that various religions were developed to teach different methods which gradually help one to surrender their attachments.

Yuyutsu, you wrote, "no definition can be accurate". Are you admitting with this that you may be either partially wrong, or totally wrong, regarding your definition of what you call "god"? If your answer is "no", how do you KNOW that you are not partially wrong, or totally wrong?

After you wrote, "no definition is accurate" you immediately wrote, "the only way to know yourself, thus god, is to - - - - - - -". From this statement it seems to me you are adopting a stance that you positively KNOW how to know god, and that this is the ONLY way to know god. Is this the case?

Dear May,

<<Are you admitting with this that you may be either partially wrong, or totally wrong, regarding your definition of what you call "god"?>>

Of course! God is not a definition!

Define a strawberry as accurately detailed as you like, it will never be equal to the experience of its taste.

<<you are adopting a stance that you positively KNOW how to know god, and that this is the ONLY way to know god. Is this the case?>>

Given that God is not an object, it logically follows that there is no way to know God. This is what is meant by a DIRECT experience - it's not through anything, there is no via, there is no way.

Normally, "knowing" is between two, a subject and an object, but here you ARE God, so there are no two, hence the word "know" is only used due to the limitations of language. If we want to be more pedantic, a closer wording (though still inaccurate due to the limitations of language) could be "to know that I am not anything".

The religious process is not of addition, but of subtraction, of removing the false knowledge, those "glasses" through which we mistakenly see ourselves as limited beings, thus as other than God.

I am not an atheist - to label myself as such would be to confirm that these 'imagined' friends that so many cling to has potentially an independent reality.

May May,

You asked "....what is your definition of the word "god"?"

It is a three letter English word (from Old Saxon), having one vowel and beginning with "g" and ending with "d".
It is also a semi-palindrome as "dog".

See: http://godisimaginary.com/ for some helpful information

I a bit miffed at the moment. I have only just now received todays OLO email. Note it is the 6th. at 9.08 am, & there have already been 5 pages of posts. The first post on this Forum was on Saturday at 3.58pm. Why is that Graham?

CM first post. Finally, something we agree on.

I am an Atheist as well. Well, more your Calathumpian really.

Religion I don't have a problem with at all. If people want to believe in some Deity then that is their thing. It's the "Dogma" in Religion I have a problem with. I have seen a lot of changes in Christian Dogma in the last 60 years. Being Catholic we were to cross the road & say a prayer if we were to walk past a protestant church. If you were Methodist or Presbyterian you couldn't dance or listen to music. 7DA's or JH's couldn't mix with anyone outside their group, have a blood transplant etc.

Most of this has gone by the wayside, but there is a long way to go. Other Dogma on how people live their life is still dominated by the churches. Some Religious people want to get into Parliament & dictate what people can & can't do. E.g; Abortion, Stem Cell therapy. Pushing their Churches particular Dogma onto other people.

The churches see any opposition to their Dogma as being violent. Yes there are a few Politically Correct fools on both sides of the fence.

I just don't want their particular Churches Dogma pushes onto me or anybody else. Fortunately Christians, Hindu's Buddhist won't try to kill you if you don't abide by their Dogma, unlike Islam. I think, in this day & age, it's the only one left doing that.