Personal Relationship with God (soul, hell, doctrine, atheist, agnostic)

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

Does losing my sense of individuality so that i can reconnect with the omnipresent Bythos count as a personal relationship?

Only you can answer that question.

[Halcyon]

Originally Posted by angellous_evangellous

Only you can answer that question.

Is that 'cause no one else understands what Bythos means?

[athanasius]

Yes salvation is not just a personal relationship. Salvation comes through the body, the Church. It is not independant. I agree with angellous, American evangelicalism ignores the community in the sense of salvation and focuses on Me Me Me. This is a absurd notion as the Fatehrs of the Church would show, we need the Church for salvation.

In other words you cannot haver a head(Jesus) without a Body(the Church). Salvation is in effect a group process. We all share in Christ redemption and salvation through the church, her sacraments, and her Liturgy. This is a how we have a personal relationship to Christ, through his Body and sacred covenants and his heavenly liturgy thaqt make present for us today his saving grace throught the actions of the sacred community(which includes clergy and lay priest).

[PureX]

"God" is being expressed within and through me. So I would say I have an automatic "personal relationship" with God.

[Zephyr]

I believe in a personal relationship with my ancestors, but not my gods.

[Radio Frequency X]

Originally Posted by CDRaider

So this IS NOT a debate thread... this is a just informative thread.

How many of you feel that you can have a personal relationship with God? What does your doctorine say? Do you feel that you personally have a relationship with God?

This is just out of my own curiosity and wanted to learn what the different doctorines say.

I don't have a religion, per se, but I do believe in a personal relationship with god. Outside of that relationship, what is religion beside other people telling you what to do? Outside of a personal relationship with God, what is left beside control? I believe the ancestors and gods are there, watching over us, but I don't believe we can know them the way we know the personal god.

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by CDRaider

How many of you feel that you can have a personal relationship with God?

It depends on whether one's mirror is broken.

[angellous_evangellous]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

Is that 'cause no one else understands what Bythos means?

If so, would it matter?

Definitions of Bythos on the Web:

• the "Void". Its the "primal ground" and the pre-beginning forefather.
  www.kheper.net/topics/Gnosticism/glossary.html

• (Greek) The depth; chaos, the primeval deep, frequently used by the Gnostics. For example, with Valentinus it was the cosmic source whence emanated two by two the series of aeons. Sometimes it was considered as one member of a primordial cosmic mystic square -- sige (silence), bythos (depth), nous (intellect), and aletheia (truth); sometimes bythos was paired by Gnostics with sige as composing a primordial cosmic binary. See also ABYSS
  www.theosociety.org/pasadena/etgloss/br-bz.htm

• Bythos is the name given in certain gnostic writings (and heresiologies) to the monadic source (The Absolute) of the pleroma, the region of light. Bythos is the spiritual source of everything which emanates the pleroma, and could be contrasted to the dark Demiurge (Yaldabaoth) that controls matter.
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bythos