Welcome home
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@Chiron in response to your question: I don’t believe there is any intelligent design or higher power that is guiding what happens in the universe. I lean toward @Astro Colin’s views and @Mno Menno’s also. I appreciate science and scientific endeavors, with the understanding that through this “discovery” we continue to learn and change based on advancements in our tools and also through the creativity of the human mind to see how things work. It’s an ever evolving process where we gain knowledge and awareness little by little.
I also would say that I have a spiritual bent and appreciate that we are all connected by being part of something larger than ourselves. My perspective on that can be pretty wildly differing based on the context, it can mean part of a family, a community, a country, the planet, the solar system, the universe, and beyond. I think this is selfish for me because it serves to get me outside of my own head and ego, but it also is just part of how I have always felt. We are nothing without the impact and influence of those around us. I was just reading about the “overview effect,” where astronauts who had the opportunity to see our planet from space were filled with not just a sense of how small and vulnerable we are on this fragile planet but more importantly how the boundaries we put up between us, whether it be countries or races or whatever, are eliminated from their perspective when you see how were are all in it together on this planet. Many astronauts who have gone into space have come back after retirement to create organizations seeking to better the world and help people see beyond the typical human conflicts. I don’t need to go to space to have been influenced by this overview effect.
One other aspect of my thoughts about god and religion is very similar to what Menno described as being fascinated by folklore, belief systems, and how humans have created stories to explain the unexplainable over our history on this planet. In particular, I find it fascinating to learn about people across the world with similar themes running through their stories/religion/beliefs, without having any contact in their development. Super interesting! Pyramids and other sculptures like the Olmec colossal heads and other huge head sculptures across the world, etc., is one example, but I also love learning about the Aztec gods and mythologies, other Native American stories, the norse gods, and on and on. I also enjoy learning about Astrology and I love love love ghost stories. There is a lot of belief in my family related to spirits and connection to spirits - I believe I honor my Mexican family and culture by taking an interest, having a curiosity to hear and learn, suspend my disbelief and trust that people believe what they believe based on their own experiences. I had a woman I worked with tell me that my grandmother was in the room with us one time, she described her so well, and told me she had a message for me. I took some comfort in that, because it helped me to remember my abuelita and feel close to her. For me, it was simply being reconnected to her memory and the love in my heart for her.
Hope this is a good snapshot of my perspective. I could probably ramble on quite a bit more.
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It’s a great read!
And, thanks. I had fun writing it, really thinking about what I think. Still wondering about it now…
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It’s another gem that I read about in that book I suggested!
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The section of the book is called Transcendence. Here is the post about the book.
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I’ve been a lurker on this thread since it’s inception but was never as brave in my beliefs as some others (I’m looking at you @anon59754122). 
It’s a sunny Sunday where I live so I feel a ramble coming on.
I was raised Catholic and we were the church every Sunday plus holy days kind. I went to Catholic School from grade school through high school and I was active in our church’s youth group. What I took from those years: a sense of reverence for what is holy, a longing for a supportive community and the ability to sit still like a good little girl for long stretches.
Now in sobriety I do long for community again. Bars were social and communal for me and while I could not do this without this community sometimes you need a hug from a sober person.
I don’t believe in a higher power in the sense that my sense of that power doesn’t feel elevated like I was taught in Catholic school. My power reminds me how small I am (just like in Catholic school) but also reminds me of my power to help, to change, to love. My power is definitely not called God.
I’m three months and change (punny!) sober and I do feel a desire to acknowledge my powerlessness and give it to someone. In my head I’m trying out the names Love and Gawd (all of my old nun teachers rulers just slapped me simultaneously for that one) or Awl (because it sounds like All and it is a tool to punch holes in things). None of those sound right to me yet so today ya’ll will have to be my higher power. A community of people who say “I can’t do this by myself, will you help?” That seems pretty dang powerful to me.
Now you’ve got my eyes leaking.
Happy Sober Sunday all and thanks for speaking all your truths.
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Thanks for sharing. I see a lot of my Mami’s experience in what you’ve described. I grew up hearing her stories of being in a Mexican Catholic school with the mean nuns and all that. She was beaten because of her left handed proclivity, among other horrible treatment. No doubt hearing these stories is part of how I got to my belief system.
You’ll figure out what works for you. Maybe lean on the idea of “Us” as opposed to something based on god to start with and adapt from there.
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Thanks. I think at this point of my sobriety I am re-discovering people and life outside of alcohol. I’ll get to the universe and the cosmos in due time. 
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You’ve got plenty of time! And it’s a great start.
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Holy moly I fell very behind on this thread the past few days. Yall have some beautiful minds and that was some wonderful reading to catch up on.
@anon59754122 Im so so so so freakin happy to see you back!! 
Sending you all the love and support friend.
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Thank you @Pat_m , @Mno , and @RosaCanDo for sharing your thoughts and how you define your views and beliefs. I really live for introspectic conversation and the inspection of how our ways of seeing the world define us, and I really enjoyed reading.
The issue of aliens and gods (again, lower ‘g’) is kind of interesting to me because they obviously are not gods, but I can entertain the possibility that some more advanced beings could have interacted with humanity at some point in the past, and they were seen as “Gods” (with the big G), and monotheistic religions have narrowed that down even more to present us with this travesty known as “God” by many religious people.
Or, there is a possibility that the idea of “the Gods” was originally meant to teach deeper truths and archetypes through allegorical tales which eventually morphed into real belief of them being actual gods/Gods.
In both cases, the idea that the creator of all that there is still struggles with petty human traits is pretty absurd when really thought about. Yet, I think that we (a generalized “we”) want the all powerful to be like us in such an intimate way because it allows us to identify with this force. It makes us feel good to think that there is some benevolent being “watching over us”. It allows us to take solice, like a child turning to a loved parent.
But then what of all the old biblical stories of “God” acting out like a jealous, self-centered, asshole? This requires a bit of mental gymnastics for the believer. We humans are attached to our beliefs, whether that is about religion, politics, social issues, etc., and we are experts at deluding ourselves into holding on to something that we identify with, even in the light of contradictions or proof that what we hold on to so dearly is actually not what we believed it was.
Yet, if we let go of that, then who are we? What does it say about us? People have to deal with feelings of shame, anger, hurt, abandonment, loss, embarrassment, and all kinds of other emotional unpleasantries. And because humanity hasn’t matured enough, we seek someone or something to turn to, to hold on to, to find solice in. So, I think it’s easy to see why the idea that there isn’t some personally invested being watching over us can be hard on some people.
This doesn’t even account for childhood conditioning to believe in this manner. I think most ideas people have, aren’t originally theirs (as @Mno mentioned ), and really it’s easier to run mechanically off the information we’re given as we go through life without questioning too deeply, which is where original thought springs out.
This is the difficulty I have with religion. The discussion usually devolves into something about belief or having faith, and then that’s the end of the mental line. There is either no ability or no desire to even try to dig deeper than that, to ask the hard questions which could lead to the possibility of being wrong; which is, unfortunately, part of the journey to find Truth (with a capital T), or even bits and pieces of truth that lead to more bits and pieces of Truth–since we will likely never (at this point in our evolution) know the fullness of the Truth.
I think that within the truths of various religions, sects, philosophies, sciences, etc., there are little granuals of Truth that are often misunderstood on the surface level. As I go along, I’m not even sure if the word “God” is a very good one for that force which animates all of creation. The word seems small in contrast with what we are faced with when we look up at a night sky or peer into a microscope.
The All is vast beyond our comprehention, I think. Like a clock, things work as they should, and I think we move along with these forces; bound by cosmic laws that have been buried in nonsense and the real meanings obfuscated from us either by chance or by reasons we don’t know/understand.
I don’t think this is some “parental” force we can call out to in our time of need, or that “watches” down on us. Prayers are answered or not depending on how we align ourselves to these cosmic laws. Not because we are given mercy or help, but because we choose–even in our ignorance–to make changes in ourselves and our own processes that allow for something better to come to us. I do think “prayer” and “meditation” are important because they allow us to energetically align with these universal cosmic forces.
We have our seasons. The Earth has her seasons. The Sun has his season. Our solar system, and all beyond, has seasons. We rise on this physical plane, and we fall on it as well. I do think that spirit and soul is real. We have them, animals and plants have them–the Earth, Sun, and all the planets have them as well and we’re all on our own evolutionary path at a scale that is truly beyond our limited capacity to understand.
So…to wrap up my ramblings, in this sense, I can say that I do not think there is a “God” because the true force of creation is beyond that word, and I reject the definition of “God” given by religion. I do think there is/are “god(s)”, but I say this in that I define the lower case ‘g’ word to mean anything we choose to worship or devote ourselves to OR some thing or being that is beyond oneself on an evolutionary scale (whether that is technical, spiritual, etc.).
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Thanks everyone!! I have had to wait to reply since my account is new :(. It’s been so hard waiting to respond! You all mean so so so much to me and I really just can’t say how happy I am that I have you guys sending huge hugs to you all with a big squeeze!
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I missed you so so much!!
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Since childhood I’ve always been fascinated by “the big picture”, like how insignificant everything here might be, seen from a giant perspective.
Anyway, Carl Sagan captured this feeling like no other, with his Blue dot" speech in response to the famous picture taken by Voyager 1 before it left our solar system in 1989.
"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us.
On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.
The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner.
How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.
In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate.
Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world.
To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known."
Carl Sagan
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That was so deep and so well said. Absolutely accurate
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Good morning everyone
This thread is really the only place I feel comfortable posting rn so I wanted to do a check in. I’m bummed to see that I lost all those days that I had but I’m ready to get them back
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I love Sagan’s pale blue dot, I have posted it a few times. I grew up watching Cosmos and he made a huge impact on my life. I love his voice as well…listening to him always brings me a great sense of peace. He was an amazing human.
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Lost where? 
Those days are not objects you could have lost, they’re in you. Use them as tools for your present and your future 
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