Quote:
Originally posted by ARTelevision
Yeah. It really seems to me that using the word "god" for this sort of thing is a problem.
The use of "divine" has the same problematic effect. If just about everyone has a different idea of this sort of thing - what can possibly be useful about these words?
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Actually, I agree. Truth is, just as we have all had experiences where, when we try to describe it to someone else, words escape us and all we can say is "you had to be there," the experience of what many refer to as God and the divine is like this. Language is inadequate in describing it in the first place, and the words which we have grown accustomed to using, such as God and divine, have a certain connotation and stigma different from what we are coming to experience God and the divine to be.
In other words, sometimes the greatest barrier to experiencing God to many people is the word "God" itself. It's something that, truthfully, language cannot project and the best way to share it with someone else is to be their experience of it in this life - through deep, profound, and caring relationships - and I don't just mean in the significant other sense. Hence the teaching that people will know you by the life you live, not by the words you say.