What I Think About God...Then and Now

As I child I pictured God as a friendly looking Grandfather type man with a big staff sitting on a cloud. As I grew older and learned more about the vengful side of him the images became less pleasant. All of these images are so different from what I know the divine to be today.

I don't believe that the pictures and statues we use are actualy what the dieties look like. I think they are more of a representation of traits that they carry and the images that we create help us understand them better.

When I was younger I thought that I had to believe in God because my elders said so, and I never thought to question why. For a long time that made me question the existing of any higher power. There was a time that I believed in Science as the only explanation for how the universe works, but eventualy I started questioning why science works. The answer to it all, at least for me, was that a higher power is working "behind the scenes" to create and perfect this world we live in.

I feel like I was cheated as a child by only being taught about one god. The one they said was the only true god. Of course every parent has a right and responsiblilty to teach their children about their believes, but I feel like I was forced to believe what they do, which to me is unfair.

I hope to give my children a more open-minded belief system. Right now I have one child who is a Christian, and one who is a pagan, and one who is too young to understand. I try to avoid letting them see pictures of any particular gods or goddesses because I want them to come to know the divine on their own before they are exposed to other peoples representations.