Religion - Part 1

People turns to religion in seeking the answers to many questions in life, such as why do innocent people suffer? and is the death the end?. The trouble is that different religions give different answers to these questions, and some people are not satisfied with any of the answers that are on the offer.

There are three broad views about religion:

Theism: A theist believes that the universe is governed by an eternal, all-powerfull, all-knowing creator, God.

Pantheism: A pantheist believes that god is everything and everything is part of God, and that reality is spiritual in nature and the everyday world is an illusion.

Atheism: An atheist denies the existence of a creator god and believes the universe is material in nature and has no spiritual dimension.

They all have different beliefs about the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Beliefs are metaphysical, in nature and because of that we cannot determine wether they are true or false on the basis of experience alone. Some people have adopted a fourth position, "agnosticism", which neither it asserts nor denies the existence of God or some higher reality, but keeps an open mind about these things.

From theory of knowledge, Richard van de Lagemaat

Do you think of God as a 'he' or a 'she' or an 'it'?

I think of God as a 'something', not a he, nor a she neither an it. I think there is no proper word to describe God.

What difference do these different words make to the way you think about god?

I think that when we call God 'he' or 'she' we make God be in the same position as us (as a person) and, perhaps it is because of my religious formation since I was born, but I don't find it correct. I know I sometimes do it daily speaking, but is because I don't find other way to describe God's position. If we were to talk about him as an 'it', we will be treating God as less than us.

Do you think that God exists - or is supposed to exist - as a thing, or a force, or in an entirely different way?

I think that knowing it is out of our limits, God probably exists in an entirely different way. Even then, I always imagine him as a huge person with white hair.