Where Is God?

Where is God?

I look under my bed

Nope, not here

I looked in the mirror and my face wasn't red

So, he wasn't up there.

I finally found Him, now that's odd

He's in my head.

All you have to do is sincerely invite Him in.

"Among the billion or so Christians, who presumably have let god into their hearts and received a response, how long, on average, did that take?"

Scripture has more authority than ronjs.

Not to negate what he is saying.

But this is an absurd question...

"Among the billion or so Christians, who presumably have let god into their hearts and received a response, how long, on average, did that take?"

I say that not to be disrespectful, but because it is an impossible question to answer.

Ronjs gave the right answer when he said "His timing"

But I am giving you a better answer. Not better because it is more true, but better because it gives you direction. 

No one here is able to know whether you sincerely seek God. That is something only you can know. What I will tell you is that the faith is revealed in practice.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God"

Orthodox Christian praxis purifies the heart. So as Jesus Himself said, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Without orthopraxis, one cannot truly be orthodox.

I don't doubt that, through rote repetition, I can slowly alter my own system of beliefs to be consistent with Christianity. A form of self-hypnosis if you will. It's certainly the tactic proposed by Pascal.

I'm disclined to use this method since it can be used for any belief, regardless of veracity and I'd like my belief system to be as closed to reality as is possible. Unfortunately this requires some method of validation of the truth of a statement before accepting it as true, which is not being offered here.

Whatever God does is generally considered imminent meaning it could happen at any time, seconds from now, hours, days, years or decades.

I don't doubt that, through rote repetition, I can slowly alter my own system of beliefs to be consistent with Christianity. A form of self-hypnosis if you will. It's certainly the tactic proposed by Pascal.

Prison.

I think we should start this search for God in jails / prisons.

I've been leed to believe that god goes around from jail to jail revealing himself to prisoners.  

I don't know.  it's just a hunch.

Oh heavens no, that has nothing to do with our practice.

First of all, you have to understand that when we say heart, we are talking about The Nous.

Then you have yo understand that The Truth is God.

The discipline has nothing to do with hypnosis or implanting ideas in the head at all for that manner, it is about SEEING CLEARLY. It is moreso about looking at the influences and passions that enslave us, and being freed from these things so that we can better live as an Icon of The Truth.

I am not using the word "truth" arbitrarily. If you don't accept that I mean exactly that, it will only be confusing as you will be asking yourself, "What truth?". I mean, The Truth itself.

And directing oneself towards The Truth creates a very real "gravity" you could say. It creates movement. But more importantly, it opens you up, as Ron was saying to God so that the cleansing power of The Holy Spirt, which is The Spirit of Truth, works in you.

If it sounds mysterious, it really is. It is something to be experienced. It is known through the experience. Just as a scientist who performs no scientific experiments is hardly a real scientist, someone whose faith is absent of works is dead. Functionally, no faith.

That is really the faith that you have to have. That God exists. That if there is a way to see God, there has to be a right way.

There is nothing unreasonable about Orthodox Christianity, there is just a lot there, and even the things we do that look strange or illogical to the uninformed observer have very real and good reasons behind them. Point being, much of what the faith is about is presented in such a way as to give the opposite impression.

Why is this? It is to protect the faith. One can not come to the faith without charity and humility. The door is shut. All you will see is a bunch of weirdos wearing funny clothes burning incense with the thought creeping in your head "I know better than this".

But if what I am saying is true, and I can only insist that it is, there is a great deal more to it than meets the eye.

Then I guess that just sucks for people with even the modest amount of skepticism or critical thinking. A shame that things would be designed in such a way. Seems like if I wanted people to avoid eternal torment and that outcome depended simply on them believing I existed, I wouldn't act mysteriously. I'd act openly and obviously. I wouldn't leave any question or doubt as to my existence.

Not likely

Why not...? What if god specifically created atheists, agnostics, spiritual people, and other faiths away from him bc simply he finds that more interesting? I mean, god knows exactly what its doing... past, present and future. Don't you think the urge to convert say an atheist to your views is more of a human phenomena and/or desire than a gods? 

If you don't believe that The Truth is God, then you don't know what God is. I don't believe in whatever superstitious conception you have of God either.

You can't please God without faith. That is just how it is. Extreme skepticism is not a virtue, quite the contrary, it keeps you from accepting what we mean by what we teach. You have to come to God like a child, ready to be taught. If you have pride, God will humble you. If you come with humility, there is grace.

The reason the faith takes the form it does is demonstrated by my work here. I speak very plainly about the faith, and it is still not believed. 

And so, all you get are parables because you won't accept the plainly spoken and lucid truth.

The plain and lucid truth is that Christianity at the core is about loving The Truth, and living it.

Because you can't accept this, all you get is parables.

There is no legitimate question or doubt about God's existence.

The question is really, "Who is God?"

The Ultimate Reality is God, and there is no reasonable doubt.

And the thing is, if you love The Truth, you don't look at the world and think, "Oh, Things are this way, but it would've been better if it was different."

This type of thinking leads to delusion. Making peace with the way things are in a great way is making peace with God.