The meaning of "god/dess" to you.

[Htom Sirveaux]

if you identify as someone who believes in something that you label as "god/dess", what is that something, and why is "god/ess" an appropriate or attractive label for that?

[TexasProgresive]

1. There is no definite answer

If the word God in ones mind expresses masculine attributes of the supreme deity then it is appropriate to also use the word Goddess. The story of the creation of Humanity in the Bible says that we are made in the image and likeness of God- Male and Female.

But believing in God does not mean one has any kind of complete understanding what is believed. The best place to start with what is known is that God is ineffable. There is way more unknown than known. Our ideas about God are merely models that allow us to have some sense. Models generally focus on a part of the whole and if taken to be the whole give an incorrect picture.

So stressing the masculine over the feminine is harmful and vice versa. What I believe about God is perfect harmony. A complete balancing of Justice and Mercy leading to Peace, Masculine and Feminine coming together into a whole (Holy). Perhaps a good image of the divine is the yin/yang, but that is still just a model that gives us some understanding.

[bananas]

2. Those terms have a wide range of meanings.

There is the gesture "namaste", "I bow to the divine in you".

There is the concept of "the Absolute", which cuts across many religious belief systems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_%28philosophy%29

The Quaker concept of god leads directly to their social activism: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1264189

[Still Blue in PDX]

3. To me, the God and Goddess are the two aspects of something else that I call God/dess.

I have a friend who calls It the Divine Whatchamacallit. It's not masculine or feminine; it's both.

[longship]

4. I prefer Albert Einstein's definition.

He always said that he believed in Spinoza's god, a pantheistic god. Although he sometimes said things that leaned towards Deism.

I am neither a Deist nor a pantheist. I identify as an atheist. However, I could live with pantheism, personifying nature as god. That is a reasonable definition of god for me.

Although I have problems with religion, I have no problems with most believers who I find as genuinely nice and honorable people.

That is why I have no qualms about uniting with them as brothers and sisters.

Now fundamentalists are a different story. But I'll set that aside in this forum.

My best to you all.