So you are a Buddhist or Taoist, the great expanse of eternity is the Tao, it is an enigma, no explanation is good enough to describe it's indefiniteness, it is brilliant and nothing can compare to it, it truly is a part and law of nature.

     It is far superior to God as it can not have lesser deities, have you ever heard of a Demi-Tao, I think not, it's the undisputed one and only of it's kind, it has some of the attributes of God, and with more humility, it has always existed and always will, it is the great bellows of existence that breathes in and out all manifestations.

     It simply is, it only requires balance to maintain a positive outcome in life, it is everywhere and nowhere, it does not follow and cannot be followed, it is the sum total of all that is perceived and not perceived, it is less personable than God seems to be, yet is not lacking in any of the apparent power, it is omnipresent, being everywhere, I believe it does have an endless supply of power that can be accessed only by God, yet it has never been claimed to be omniscient (all-knowing, all-wise, all-seeing).

     The Tao is not in competition with God, they are but aspects of each other.

I like to consider the Tao as the home of God, it is the medium from which God works, it is from what God built heaven. The Tao is the canvas of eternal infinity and God is the artist, the two are inseparable, quite possibly one and the same, God performs the manifestations and the Tao provides the medium with which to use.

     The Tao believes in reincarnation because when an imbalance is created in the Tao, an opportunity to re-balance must be provided for, Karma is the scorekeeper, and the debt must be settled.

Everything abides by cosmic law which is provided for by the Tao, all of the apparent emptiness of space (dark matter and or dark energy) is where the ether or the protoplasmic energy resides that God works with to create all that is.

     If there had to be a holy trinity, it would have to be the Tao, God and all of creation, even though Buddhists and Taoists do not believe in God, they also do not claim that the Tao is an intelligent entity, but it stands to reason that some sort of intelligence would have to maintain the complexity of Karmic effects and reincarnations to equalize the same.

     God is the only one that is claimed to be omniscient (all-knowing, all-wise and all-seeing), the Tao only requires balance. If you think that you know the Tao, you do not know the Tao and if you think that you know God, you must know love for all that is.

God is Tao?

What are you, nuts? How can you possibly think that my God is the Tao?

What makes you think that "The Way" has anything to do with some God? These are valid concerns.

Since there is no valid all-encompassing description for either of these two concepts, why can they not be different aspects of the same thing?

I would never assume to limit either of these two concepts, I don't even fully understand these ideas of reality, but I can join them together as part of one in the same eternity.

I guess that there can never be a full understanding about either of these two, but it does seem that they stand for the same thing in general and me being a product of them can have no other choice than to not limit my beliefs.

Had enough yet? Too Personal?... Not personal enough? Possibly I can believe in one and just allow the other to be in the background taking up the slack so to speak, or will I venture to be bold and fuse the two together?

Stupid questions? Or not enough answers? How about just thinking of them as "All That Is"? That should cover my options, much less personal and all-inclusive, no jealousies, just like peanut butter on my chocolate or was it chocolate in my peanut butter?

     As for an example from the Jewish faith the Zohar in the Kabbalah a definition of a passage in Genesis it is mentioned that God was brought to be, by infinity, does this sound like a familiar theme here?

It is not so much different than seeing the different aspects of God in the Male and in the Female, or should I say the Yin and the Yang, the Tao parallels many beliefs just as in God, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

     Be it trying to maintain a balance in your life by following the Way, or trying to uphold the laws of God, the results are attempting to make you a better person, there is much crossover in these two beliefs where their paths run parallel for great distances,

for the most part, they both steer away from evil, the karmic aspects may be of a different nature, but the results are essentially the same,

the objects being attempted may go by different names, but seem to accomplish the same missions, intentions of peace and love are universal notions in everyone's thought process.

What is Spirit?

It seems that spirit is the substance which is not physical, but acts as an interface between the Tao and God, everything that is manifested is of spirit, it dwells in the ether always and waits to be willed to create all that is made,

this new addition here may confuse the uninitiated, the spirit is also a product of the Tao or God, being a believer of the Tao, there is not a belief of the soul, yet Karma is always waiting in the wings ready to pounce on the first indiscretion that might be made,

in order to differentiate us humans from everything else, Karma is our balancer, our senescence is what separates us from the plants and animals, our souls have taken up this responsibility and they are just pieces of God experiencing the Tao as best as we can.

Humanity's belief systems are much too broad and diverse to be able to encompass all that needs to to be realized and understood, out of some 4300 religions, there is a good portion of those that believe in an omniscient power or force, be it God or the Tao,

no one can say for sure, no definition is adequate to cover this, but what can be agreed upon, is that this energy or power cannot be limited and is the cause of all creation,

its laws of cause and effect are evident in all that transpires in our universe, not only the material aspects of our reality are covered by this law, but the less material aspects of thought and speech have a hand in dealing out Karma from these laws of perfect balance,

as we sow, so shall we all reap, it probably is of no great concern what this power or force or way is, as long as we all realize that it is out there and the beauty of its eternal existence governs all that is in its elegant laws.

All of this semantics about the Tao and God, they are just different views, a means to an end, or should I say a beginning. Religion is just a view, this view is always different depending on where you stand,

after all, Eskimo's have over 50 words for snow, the explanations of the Tao or God must be endless, how could they not be? The explanation for life or existence, or all that is cannot be simple,

unfortunately, mankind has made these explanations much more complex than they really need to be, we have added our dogmas and superstitions to spice these truths up, but in reality,

we have just thickened the mist of ignorance and passed by the truths, by being distracted by something shiny or scary, we need to keep our heads and pay attention.

As a follower of God or the Tao, we strive to be one with the Tao by following the way, or we strive to be as God made us, a fragment of its essence and we would like to do what is right,

these concepts have been with the earth civilizations for a much longer time than science is willing to admit, we have to strive to keep our spiritual beliefs separate from our material beliefs,

rather our material beliefs should be based on our spiritual beliefs, and as such, we will be much more able to maintain a good balance by not acquiring any karma and now attracting any effects from our ignorant causes,

after all, the animals, the plants and the earth with all of its resources should be respected because they are as we are, a part of all that is.

This website was created to help the believers of God to understand the followers of the Tao and visa versa if you are an Atheist or someone that believes in neither,

I hope that there will be something for you also. Science is a big part of our world these days and it has been replacing religion as a practical belief system even though many of these laws have been proven wrong over the years,

science is an accumulation of supposed truths about nature, observation and the scientific method is used to verify beliefs, but at best these still can only be considered theories especially when considering the subatomic particles,

many years ago aether was supposedly dis-proven by a couple of famous scientists of the day, yet we still have discoveries such as dark energy and dark matter that makes up about 74% of everything,

and still there is no idea what it is, just because a device or method of measuring something has not been invented yet, doesn't mean that something doesn't exist.

Even though mankind has been becoming more material based over the ages, it doesn't mean that there is no longer any thought about God or the Tao,

we still have our moral values, we still know right from wrong, don't we? The Tao and God are on the same page in this respect, treating each other as we would like to be treated should be a basic function of all humanity,

yet there are still some out there that do not have a true grasp of what it means to be religious, it used to mean a belief in something that is purer and better able to work with compassion and understanding,

people willing to kill or die in the name of their religion are missing the point of God or the Tao, benevolence is a trait that must be attained before any semblance of civilization can be realized on our planet,

this all-pervading intelligence that governs by natural law needs to be realized, and then its laws followed, then true civilization can follow.

Possibly we can all live by following an example that has been created by God, another product of the Tao, our Sun has been around longer than the earth,

it probably had a hand in creating the earth and the other planets of our solar system, it gives our planet life, and is not involved in any wars, it creates our seasons and enables us to see Gods beauty on our planet,

without it we would not be able to enjoy the beauty or smell of a flower, there would be no plant life for our sustenance, and of course, if there are no plants, there would be no animals,

our sun is like God, it is created in Gods image, it created our planet, it sustains life, it appears to have nothing but love for all of us, its light encompasses all of the colors we can and cannot see,

its warmth comforts us like a mother, yet its brilliance is so great that we are unable to look directly upon it as it is ultimately overwhelming to our senses,

our planet rotates to enable us to regulate and balance its effulgence, it doesn't judge us, and it treats everyone the same.

Here we all are, poised on the edge of our beliefs, whether we believe in some sort of intelligent design of all of our creation or just believe that a jumble of atoms have come together haphazardly to evolve into us has always been the debate between religion and science,

beliefs and theories make up our reality, the theory of evolution, the belief in God or the Tao, science has no beliefs, science has three states of mind, denial, conviction and the universe between the two,

beliefs and faith in the unproven are nothing but magic, I believe that religion or spiritualism is turning out to be the new pseudoscience, cause and effect are nothing but a coincidence,

the simple balance being maintained to make everything so much more simple, as we sow, so shall we reap? What goes around, comes around, quantum entanglement, the new hail mary of science?

The new interface between science and pseudoscience. Once something is able to be measured, the pseudo is dropped, actually, it doesn't even have to be able to be measured, only noticed,

dark energy and dark matter is the new ether. Who controls the outcome of life just by viewing it?

God is Tao? Only a statement to make you think of reality, who is to say what reality is anyway? Good things happen to bad people as well as bad things happening to good people, where is the logic, where is the justice?

It is no great wonder that it is so difficult to believe in an all-knowing entity that has created all that is and wields unlimited power, it is easy to blame God for things that do not go well because God has been represented as our personal savior for a long time,

the Tao, on the other hand, has only a requirement of a balance that needs to be maintained in order for life to be uneventful, uneventfulness is the best that anyone can hope for when they are on the path of the Way,

the cosmic balance does not know time as a barrier, it never forgets, an imbalance created in one lifetime will eventually have to be corrected no matter how long it takes, the logic of it is not clearly apparent,

especially since you only remember one life at a time. When someone thinks that God is exacting vengeance on someone, it is only the scales finally being balanced.

SOUL AND SPIRIT

By now if you have stuck with your beliefs in God or your beliefs in the Tao, it may be time to add some new players to the divine mix, the soul seems to be exclusive to God,

our souls are supposed to be created in the image of God or our souls are a fragment of God, either way, we are all a part of God in some way.

So what is a spirit? I think that Spirit is the byproduct or manifestation of the Tao and there is this spirit in every atom of existence, it is what must obey the cosmic rules, it is the cause and the effect of all that is,

it is what connects us all together with its commonality, there is still the unmanifested, the unknown the nothing that science calls dark matter or dark energy, it is the ether that permeates everything,

it is the space within atoms and between them, it is where the quantum entanglement occurs, it is the real tools of God and the Tao, our soul's playground and spirit's waiting room.

Spirit is what enables the soul to inhabit a material body and also enslaves it to the bidding of Karmic Law, sentient souls are its exclusive customers and all other spirit follows the law of cause and effect.

Just as everything is of spirit, again everything has a soul, it may not have a developed soul as a human, but a simple, nonsentient soul that still learns but has not the ability to acquire karma, yet still lives by the rules of cause and effect,

a simple form of yin and yang is the law it follows, there is no contemplation of being, only being, survival, love and existence is its sole experience in life,

being it is a rock or a mountain or a tree or plant or animal as small as a bacterium or as large as an elephant, it also has a soul that learns, when this being exists, it learns and adds its experience to all that is,

there is no telling how long or how often it will do this, but eventually evolution will be the outcome, we have all been there, first, you have to crawl before you can walk, and walk before you can run, and run before you can fly,

yet it has been said that this process can be accomplished from the other direction, either way, dues must be paid before there is a graduation, life involves so many different points of view,

and they all have to be experienced, besides what else does an immortal fragment of God have to do for eternity anyway.

And this brings us to why we are all here, in order to evolve, we must prove to be worthy, and with all of the wars and hate and fighting, this isn't a good start, and now, in addition, we have all of our new material desires driven by greed and power to contend with,

even the religious sects have their own agendas which include their competition to who will see the face of God first, unfortunately, many of these organizations are material based which creates a competitive environment which is not an ideal starting point for a spiritually oriented belief system,

getting back to nature and respect of her can help if the yin and yang can be held in balance, at present, mankind is totally immersed in its senses and apparent material needs, if we are not struggling to just survive, we are filling our minds with all of the cool useless gadgets that preoccupy us and distract us from what is truly important,

it is not that technology is bad, but our apparent dependency on much of it is slowly causing neglect of our souls, we are creating a division between our spiritual selves and our souls with this distracting sense candy, its time to unplug and just BE for a while.

I have recently been cruising the net and was checking out some keyword results and came upon some sites that seem to be taking offense to some of my beliefs, I have absolutely no intention of trying to sway people from "the way" I have much respect for Taoism and its belief system and I am not trying to lead people away from God,

but what I am trying to do is to let people realize that this is not a competition here, these two beliefs lead towards the same destination, the realization of their similarities is what I am trying to present,

I believe that ALL THAT IS is plenty big enough to accept more than one concept especially if they are leading in the same direction, I am probably more interested in believers of both God and Tao to be tolerant if not intrigued by how these two beliefs are headed in the same direction,

we all have free will, if we wish to believe that is was given to us by our own volition, so be it, if someone wishes to believe that they do not have a soul, that is their free will to do so, my mission is to present alternative explanations for our reality, ultimately it will always be up to you to what and how you believe.

These belief systems with such different views of reality, which of them is true and correct? As you have probably gathered, the answer does not have to be so finite and final, there is plenty of room for various explanations,

the answers we seek are from various sources, God and the Tao are just two of many ways to explain our existence, some would say that we are just energy and others will give us a makeup of spirit and soul,

in some people's minds, it just doesn't matter, I just know that we are much more than a random assembling of matter and our physical lives are not what we should care so much about,

they are merely for the purpose of training and learning, our real essence is eternal and cannot be destroyed and every time that we die after an existence in a physical form, we know the truth and then plan our next excursion,

this force out there wants us to realize this, and when we all come to this realization, civilization can truly be called civilized.

The greatest difference of opinion between God and the Tao is the soul, there is not a big argument about reincarnating and Karma, the question is in "what" is reincarnating and what is acquiring karma,

in one case, you will be going to heaven or join with God and in the other case, a state of Nirvana is achieved, as far as I am concerned, this is all the same thing with just different views and terminology,

in either case, if you have gained some Karma during your life, you or your soul or your energy will be coming back to even the score, be it a cosmic disturbance of yin and yang or equaling out your sowing as you had reaped,

the trip and the path will prove to be the same, an equalization will be required in either case, and where your "spirit" goes upon successful completion of your life is just a case of semantics, my personal opinion in this matter is that we will only stop incarnating into different forms if we choose to do so,

once we had agreed to take the "human" form, we must continue to reincarnate in that form until we stop creating an imbalance and realize what we truly are, it's sole purpose is to add to the knowledge of "all that is"

Why are We Here?

Whether you believe in following the way of the Tao or are a believer in God it hasn't been made perfectly clear why we are here, our scriptures try to teach us how to be better people and what to believe,

this is why we are here, to learn how to treat and live with each other and to realize that we are all fragments of all that is, we are all a part of each other, we are all part of the earth and the trees and the animal life that also live here,

we all need to show some humility and get off of our religious high horses and practice some tolerance towards each other's beliefs, us humans are the ruling creatures of our planet, we should set an example for our galaxy by not only getting along with each other and by treating the other inhabitants of earth with some consideration not to mention earth itself,

ignoring pollution will do nothing but hurt all of us in the end, and cutting down all of our oxygen making forests will compound the hurt and exploiting our wildlife doesn't say much for setting any sort of example for anyone,

so why are we here? The planet was much better off ten thousand years ago when our greatest concern was survival and we all had much better respect for life and very little thoughts of profit,

our quest for spiritual answers is changing to how much stuff can I collect, it's time to get back on track to what is truly important and stop questioning everyone beliefs.

So it turns out the real reason that we are here is that we need to learn WHY we are here so we can eventually stop coming back to correct what we screwed up previously,

to realize that we all are fragments of a larger or all-encompassing entity, that have taken up the mission to exist in a three-dimensional environment in order to collect information on what really matters,

our material lives are our vehicles, our senses are our tools, as long as we don't get distracted by something "shiny" or something that "feels good" or something that we think that we want because we notice other people want it and we realize that all of the importance attached to material things are just getting in our way of realizing the truth,

we all have done this sort of thing uncounted times, not only as humans but as other creatures and aliens, we do not remember because that would defeat the purpose of our testing, we have to start with a clean slate each time and we only carry what we have learned about our true selves into the next lifetime,

eventually, we will stop acquiring karma and graduate towards our evolution and then on to our next adventure.

Living our lives as everyone else does shouldn't be as difficult as it seems to others, there is always hardships and difficulties, and how we handle them is one of the tests that we perform,

positive outlooks and determination is what gets us through our lives, whether you are following the Ten Commandments or the way of the Tao, it shouldn't be with thoughts of despair,

though some of these tests are the results of previous lives and karmic debts that need to be settled, it is no good reason to give up or be bitter,

a nice saying that applies is "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" staying on the spiritual side of the fence is the best way to turn the tables on misfortune,

feeling sorry for yourself and blaming others does not remedy the situation, but getting out there and doing something about it should always be your first choice,

and helping others especially if they are in a worse situation than you are is a sure way to dissolve bad karma and build an excess of good karma to get you on your way to spiritual evolution.

If you have never given any thought to why you are here, you are probably like most everyone on the planet, most people are preoccupied with living their lives,

their religions teach them how to live their lives but not why, it seems to me that you may have to have an excess of time on your hands in order for this question to come up,

people struggling to survive may ask why this is happening to them and others will have thoughts of how to make more money so they can buy more stuff, some people have a mission to improve the world in some way,

this is a good start towards the real meaning, inventing something or resolving a problem that improves the quality of life for everyone is a mission with some meaning, losing the "I" mentality and shifting towards the "US" mode is the meaning that we all should be looking for,

following the "way" or following our commandments or rules are just guidelines for any civilization, realizing that we are all part of "one" is the true goal in all of this.

"God is Tao" is not intended to start any trouble in anyone's beliefs, it is mainly intended to help you realize that we should all have the same basic mission in our lives, the deep meaning of why we are here has been shown to you all of your life in a variety of different ways,

our parents, teachers, and friends have a huge impression on you, television, internet, and the news are other inputs that you process, it is all a learning experience intended to bring you to what really is important,

your job keeps food on the table and a roof over your head, but it should do much more than that in order for you to learn anything of truly great value, what you do in your spare time is also a large contributing factor to why you are here,

it is a matter of grasping the ungraspable, a dismissal of material things and a shift towards helping the whole as opposed to selfish material gains, keeping a balance on our planet is a basic goal that must be met before any great progress can be had, ensuring freedom of worship,

not exploiting our natural resources and helping the less fortunate would have to be the start towards true civilization.

What Should I Believe?

This site may inflame your emotions if you are set in your ways, you may take personal offense to what is presented here, it doesn't matter if you are Buddist or Christian, Muslim or Jew, you may have some personal beliefs that you feel are an intricate part of your life,

this site is not designed to make light of your beliefs, it is made to show you the similarities if you take God and the Soul out of this religious equation that only leaves what your scriptures are teaching you about how to live with others of your kind,

and by removing the soul and God it levels and equals the playing field to include Atheists, Agnostics, Naturalists and the like, even materialists can have a share of the importance of what is presented,

all of the scriptures of the world have some wisdom in them, wise words are not the sole property of any one particular faith, it is commonly believed that there was some sort of divine inspiration in all of the faiths given to certain individuals in order for some sort of enlightenment to be spread among the peoples of a region,

which would explain why there are so many religions

God, Tao, universal intelligence, cosmic intelligence, all that is, there is no one good definition for what it is that has created all that we perceive, it goes by many names and each religion sees it as their own,

but logic would dictate that it is and always has been one, this force has enlightened many individuals around the world in every religion as so they may spread the word of its existence, it has covered all of the bases when it comes to its reality,

but now it is our responsibility to realize this, to use our free will that it has given us to get together with the others on our planet to compare notes and just see what this cosmic intelligence expects of us,

all of the rules are there spread among all of our various scriptures for us to do with as we please, even if you are not religious, the signs of intelligent design are there, they are woven into the fabric of nature from the smallest particle of an atom to countless galaxies,

the diversity of life is no random act appearing after billions of years of evolution, its signs are there for all to perceive, religion is just another set of books to follow to get us on the right path,

there is valuable information in all religious scripture as long as we are able to discriminate the spiritual from the material.

Is the Tao God?

This question to some of you is ludicrous, and to some of you it is a legitimate question that needs to be answered, the answer to a question such as this cannot be answered to everyone's satisfaction,

yet what they both stand for can be compared and a reasonable deduction can be made that may bring some relief to those that may worry about such matters, first off it can be agreed that the Tao and God are not of the material world and neither can have an adequate description posted to it,

they both have the entire package of omnipotence and the teachings they represent are styled to make all of us better people, the differences of a soul here and some karma and reincarnation there blend quite well in the big picture of sowing what you reap,

but where do all of us come into this picture? Why was humanity created at all? We are all here to add to the knowledge of all that is, our presence is required to enable the testing to commence, we are all creatures of God or the Tao or whatever you choose to call it,

if you choose to believe that you are a sole agent that is here for now and will be non-existent at the end of your life this is your decision to make, a view of this sort will still add to the cosmic intelligence another spin to how a life can unfold,

the Tao and God each have teachings that have come to enlightened individuals such as Lao Tzu or Jesus just to name one from each category of two beliefs, and these two individuals have given us enlightened teachings about how to get through life with the least of problems,

they may have different ways of coming to these teachings, but the ultimate outcomes tend to be the same, there is a set of moral rules that are needed to be followed in order for us to graduate to better things,

reincarnation is good as it explains how this is able to be eventually done by controlling the amounts of karma we generate in each lifetime, and the soul is good as a description of a vehicle that we may use over and over to keep track of our karma from life to life,

Is it really important to know "is the Tao God" probably not, as long as we understand the lessons that are being presented to us?

These enlightened individuals have been given important information from an unknown source, the ultimate outcome of the teachings does not perceive importance to what this source should be called,

rather it is the teachings and the wisdom that contain the treasures to be sought, as for "is the Tao God" the reasonable answer to this is no, according to Hindu beliefs in the Bhagavad- Gita, in text 20 of chapter 8 it is stated by the Supreme God Head that

"Yet there is another unmanifest nature, which is eternal and is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is",

this is mentioned by Krishna where it is believed that God lives 100 years which is measured in trillions of earth years, the important part of this statement is that there is an aspect that always is which would be considered the Tao,

and Tao would seem to give birth to God or God would be "The Beginning" of the manifestation process, this would be great news for the followers of "The Way"

but it is not so fully descript as to separate God from the Tao completely, just as man has a dualistic nature, so may the Tao and God could be as such.

What is the Holy Trinity

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost, at best all three of these have been vague, the Father can be considered God and the son has been considered an Avatar, like Jesus or Sri Krishna,

but there has not been a good explanation of the Holy Spirit, this is where the Tao comes in, in a certain respect the Tao can be considered the Mother of existence and "All That Is", is the result of the union of God and the Tao,

we are all the sons and daughters of God and the Tao, and if you do not want to look at it that way, the Tao is the stage, God is the director and we are all the actors with ultimate freedom of expression,

it has just turned out that Jesus and Sri Krishna among others were sent here as an interface, an interface with the ability to tell and show us what our potentials could possibly be, they turned out to be the best mode of communication between the manifested and the unmanifested,

they had the ability to talk to us on our level through the senses where people were not dependant on having a specific awakening or enlightenment in order to hear the word of God, Jesus has told us that we have the ability to do what he does and more,

and Sri Krishna has mentioned before God had awakened, there was already a place or great void waiting for existence to begin which could be the Tao, where the Tao and God merges is up to anyone's speculation,

nevertheless, "All That Is'' is the result of this union and We are a part of this union. We have all been created in Gods image out of Love for "All That Is"

Of course, there are many holy trinities spread among many faiths and they are of different degrees and covering different aspects of life or reality as it is perceived by each individual and this is just one of them.

Why is God Silent

This is a question that many ask that seek answers to life in general, they may or may not believe in God, but nevertheless they still wonder why they have not been guided in some way,

why hasn't God or some supreme controlling force come forward and let it be known what its intentions are and what is expected of you, just taking notice of the many various religions out there you can have an the idea of what is expected of you,

it isn't the fear or superstition that has any important meaning assigned to it, it is just a smokescreen that is there to test you and try to confuse you, the true meaning of the scriptures can be felt,

they are known intuitively or should be known intuitively, God does not want you to overthink your existence, God wants you to live your life and learn, learning from your mistakes is a natural process and learning from other peoples mistakes is using what God has given you,

God does not need to speak when you can view the great amounts of wisdom given in all of its creations, the Tao is not expected to talk to you, yet viewing the balance that is maintained in nature speaks volumes of its wisdom,

teaching by example is a proven age-old tradition, I believe that God has great faith in its creation and will continue to allow its children to learn at their own pace,

if they are so inclined to study some of the many scriptures made available to them they may realize a direction to be taken where there are no words necessary and no reason to worry why God is silent.

Lao Tse Tao Te Ching

The Way, as presented by Lao Tse, encompasses beliefs from the Tao or Dao, they are of great subtle wisdom that must be read over and over to be able to grasp the truest meanings,

the wisdom presented is unparalleled and it brings to light the best of mankind's virtues when dealing in all aspects of life, the beliefs are known as the "Way" as it is a method of living your life that is in complete harmony with all that is,

it embraces nature as one of its kindred spirits and lives by becoming one with it, one is not to be contended with but flowed with, it is a laid back view of life that would be of a benefit to all that follow it,

there is no "God" in the equation of the Way, rather it is only all of us and all that we perceive, there is no dependence on a higher power, only on ourselves and how we carry out our existences with respect to everyone and everything else,

it is an instruction for life and its living that procedes from its core, it is the instruction to exist within the limits or cosmic laws in order to get through life with the minimum amount of friction,

the Dao is the source and thrives on a proper balance of all that we do, say and feel, it is perfection in its simplest form and its following leads to complete harmony to all that are involved,

Lao Tse has had a sublime inspiration in the writing of Tao Te Ching and all of these words are worth your attention at least for consideration to help guide you through your life.

Is God A Jealous God

Jealousy is a human emotion and is not spiritual in the least, jealousy is an ugly waste of emotion, God has created all that is out of unconditional love for all that is,

if God has a feeling of what we believe, it is probably a disappointment that we may believe in other deities that we believe that God has not created, God, the Tao or Dao only wishes for us to learn in order to add to the knowledge of "all that is"

if we learn to not create a cosmic imbalance and live in harmony with all of the rest of creation, this would be pleasing to this ultimate power,

the statement that God is a Jealous God is just a point of view or interpretation of what the prophet was presented by God that was put into their own words by using their free will,

their materialistic side that was driven by the dogma of the era made the statement of God being jealous possibly to bring home the idea in order for it to be remembered better,

unfortunately, this has been a popular statement throughout the scriptures, it seems to be a petty emotion to be taken up by the creator of all that is,

though many of man's beliefs may have karmic repercussions that may be interpreted as jealousy, creating a karmic imbalance by breaking commandments or missing the value of the virtues and swaying towards the sins, possibly,

these unfortunate actions have been explained away as Gods fault when in fact the mismanagement of our free will is to blame,

if you wish to put into perspective the emergence of another God it would have to be technology, just pay some attention to people that almost worship their phones as they spend many free hours involved with them,

this can be said of most of the technological eye candy that seems to require peoples attention for extended periods of time,

even though God has made the creation of all of these gadgets possible, many still believe in Technology over God in their everyday lives,

this does not make God jealous but does open the door for a karmic imbalance that will eventually come back to be balanced.

Where is God Located?

The location of God? It would be more difficult to find where God isn't, God is located in the Tao which is the breath of existence, it flows through all that is and cannot be filtered or distilled,

possibly God is in heaven, so where is heaven? Everything that we perceive is a manifestation of God and or the Tao, yet we are unable to directly perceive either since we are limited by our senses in our 3-dimensional existence,

basically God is located in the empty space in and between atoms, so it is closer than you can imagine, God is nothing physical that can be perceived by any of your senses, God must be experienced in a non-physical state such as in Meditation or in dreams or Prayer,

God is the conductor in the symphony of life, God is in the beauty and the perfection of every flower you may see, God is in every sunrise and sunset and God is in every divine thought that you may have,

Where is God Located? Every bit of unexplained dark matter or dark energy in our universe is where God resides, God is in the depths of the black hole at the center of our galaxy and every galaxy,

each and every one of our souls is a piece of God since we are all created in Gods image, and as we live our lives, God knows everything that we know and experience,

everyone on our planet help make up God, for that matter, every soul in our universe make up God, we are all part of the great whole of existence, nothing is insignificant,

every blade of grass, every tree, every animal, every insect and every bacterium are creations of God and they should be treated as such,

on the most intimate level we are part of everything and shouldn't take lightly how we treat this creation, because ultimately we shall all sow what we reap.

Can God Help Me?

God can help anyone and everyone that seeks the knowledge of his grace, living according to the "Way" is a deliberate action that will be noticed,

this power or entity that you wish to commune with is not choosy as to how it is named, only that it is recognized for what it is,

and that is the ways and means for your and everything else's existences, for the most part, a balance must be maintained in order for there to be a smooth ride through life,

this does not preclude a balancing out of karmic debts from this and previous lives, just noticing this and realizing that something needs changing or of course changing an obvious detrimental path is a given

and if you did not know the difference between right and wrong you would not be searching for information like this, to begin with,

most of the 10 commandments and the 7 virtues should be followed to avoid accumulating any more karma than you might already have,

if you are an atheist, this also is not a problem as long as your free will doesn't interfere with anyone else's free will, there does not have to be a belief in God in order for help to come to you,

since we all create our own realities, it is up to us to determine what happens in our life, fate is just a test to see how we will handle certain situations,

if we wish to believe that there is a cosmic intelligence that is calling the shots in our life there is a little more than that happening, there is no such thing as luck, only cause, and effect and balancing out of imbalances that we have made,

be it God or Higher self or Cosmic intelligence or Tao or whatever you wish to call it, it will meet you halfway.

Is God a Spirit?

Everyone has beliefs as to what God is, believing that God is a spirit seems very limiting to me, God is and has been known as many things, the universal consciousness, the Tao, "all that is" among a multitude of other things,

in my view, God is everything, all views and definitions apply, possibly in my eyes it would be more accurate to say that God is spirit instead of just one,

my all encompassing view of God is with good reason, my beliefs would say that we (our souls) are all fragments of God, our lives and experiences are all a part of Gods experience,

we on earth and every other being and creature in our universe are a part of God's experience, this is how God can be all powerful and all knowing, we are all a part of the spirit of God,

you may not want to limit God to just a spirit because it just may end up limiting yourself and your view of yourself, being a fragment of God gives you some abilities and responsibilities,

all of our lives and experiences add to God's knowledge, experience and spirit, we are all essentially emissaries for God, while the Tao may also be considered spirit of sorts the definition of spirit may be in question,

spirit is generally known as something that is not material in nature, so it is something that can not be perceived by the senses normally unless it is in some sort of transition like a ghost,

It is believed that God has created all that we perceive, this spirit that is not of a material nature has created everything that IS of a material nature, that includes all or our physical, material bodies,

these bodies are just vehicles for our spirits or souls so that they may learn of things other than the spirit world, and in the case of earth, a 3-Dimensional experience that is not common to our immortal souls,

this spirit of ours has senses that far exceed this current physical experience that we are now living, our physical senses are only valuable to us now in this environment, our spirit is better able to process our experiences in order for them to be used by God,

our physical science has determined that the vast majority of our universe does not contain matter, it has been called dark energy or dark matter, it is something that humans are not yet able to explain,

this can be claimed for the spirit world, it has been speculated that our true reality does not have time or space and this is more valuable in our current 3-dimensional experience,

so there is a possibility that this reality that we are now experiencing is only camouflage for the benefit of our physical selves, and spirit is the only true reality,

all of our lives are nothing more than fragments of thought emanating from the thoughts of God, this is some food for thought when you are contemplating if God is a spirit.

Has God Forgotten Me?

You may have this feeling of abandonment that leaves you wanting more from your religion, and you may believe God has forgotten you or worse yet you might start to disbelieve, first of all it must be realized that we have all been given free will to run our lives as we see fit,

if we insist on believing that God owes us something we may be in for some disappointment, what we want and what we need are usually different, God knows this and hopes that you will realize this, you shall be presented challenges that will enable you to make this realization,

and as you choose the ways to meet these challenges you and your soul will learn great lessons in the process, life is not to be taken personally, it isn't out to get you, you basically have set yourself up for everything that happens in your life,

the more complex you make it, the more complex it becomes, a simple life has simple outcomes, all of our material desires are not truly necessary for our happiness, we may believe that happiness is based on what we have, but it is most accurate to say it is based on what we do,

we have failed to realize that we are not pursuing our true passion, only what we think the outcome of that is supposed to be, we are skipping the most important step, God knows this and has given us the tools that we need to make it happen,

when we stray from the right path, things go wrong in order to teach us the error of our ways, we are not being punished, if there is any punishing, we are doing it to ourselves, this can be considered the "tough love" that is meant to teach us what we need to know,

our lives are dependent on our own actions or in actions, when you make this realization, God will seem to be paying more attention to what you are doing, when you do wrong, strife will ensue and you will believe that God has abandoned you when in actuality,

God is giving you clues to put you on the right path, follow your true passions and forget about the suspected or expected outcomes, when you are truly doing what it is that you love, everything else will follow suit.

Can someone believe in God and still be Taoist?

Here we have the rub from the very beginning, a Taoist believes in the Tao, God has no mention in these beliefs, but still Taoism has much wisdom to present to some believer in God,

this one limitation (if you believe it is limiting) has added another concept to Taoism, how horribly bad could this possibly be? It probably depends upon what the current view of God is at this particular moment,

being a Taoist is all about balance, the typical Christian or Muslim beliefs in God do not seem to concern themselves with balance, they may even seem to be lacking in some respects because they personalize God and make it more of a self serving deity,

it seems that this balance is really what God wants us to notice more, when you read the words "as ye sow, so shall ye reap" this is just another way of keeping balance,

the realization that we are responsible for our own actions and that any extremes are met with a reconciliation to even them out, commandments and moral rules are for our own protection as well as for those that may be abused,

every little imbalance created shall be accounted for, when you lie, you shall be lied to, when you steal, you shall be stolen from, these truths shall become evident in subsequent lives if not in this one,

a belief in God is just the refining or clarifying of why balance should be maintained, the commandments along with the sins and virtues set the divisions clearly between good and bad,

a belief in the Tao from the stand point of a Christian or Muslim is not evil or sacrilege, it is just an addition of some more common senses as seen from cause and effect, there is no opposing God or anything else to worship,

just as a belief in God for a Taoist is just more clarification of what the Tao presents to humanity, there does not need to be worship, only recognition of a different point of view.

Can God Forgive me?

If you believe that there is something that you have done that requires forgiveness, and the Tao seems to leave you lacking, the searching out of God for forgiveness may be some sort of viable option,

apparently you have done something that you are not proud of and wish to be forgiven, first, you must confess or reveal what it is that you have done and then try to make some sort of reconciliation,

this would be a minimum if you wish to not carry the deed into some subsequent life, the forgiveness part will have to come from you for yourself, the Tao is more about balance and less about forgiveness,

something that you have done may have caused some sort of cosmic imbalance and will have to be re-balanced in order for any sort of forgiveness to be realized, forgiveness is a subjective event in the sinners eyes,

being a believer of reincarnation, a sin committed has the ability to acquire karma which will have to be understood or balanced out, once the offending person makes the realization that they have sinned in some manner, they have a few options,

they may reconcile by admitting or confessing their sin or they may just ignore what they have done, eventually, either in this same life or some subsequent life you shall meet a challenge of a similar nature and will be required to make a decision regarding it,

this decision will either re-balance the imbalance or the imbalance will continue with additional challenges, the forgiveness part is just an easing of your own conscience, your soul is the one that has lessons that need to be learned here,

your physical body is just the vehicle to do this with, God will not hold a grudge, God has nothing but unconditional love for you, it may be a tough love where you (or your soul) is required to learn some sort of lesson in the process of learning why or what you have done is wrong,

usually, this consists of some sort of sacrifice or a tit for tat of sorts, forgiveness is what you have to make for yourself, there is no vengeance or punishment as you might picture it, only a learning process for the soul.

Will God Help Me?

     You may or may not be a believer in God and wish to know if you are going to be helped in the efforts you make towards the troubles or the goals you may have in your life,

there is a small hurdle here that must be overcome or in the least be thoroughly understood, faith is a large and heavily weighing factor towards receiving help or in most cases noticing help that you may already be receiving,

the Tao is the canvas, and you are a fragment of the universal consciousness that is contained within it, the Tao is the vessel, and God is the one that inhabits,

the material stuff is the breath that flows in and out, your physical, material self is a part of creation and your spiritual self is part of the one that inhabits,

there are some terms that come to mind that tend to tell a story of their own, 'seek and ye shall find', this saying comes from the Bible and is nothing more than an instruction for finding the truth,

if you are seeking God's help, there is a greater chance that you will find it, this also brings in the term 'ask and ye shall receive' this is another instruction from the Bible that goes beyond any sort of religious belief,

it allows you to go straight to the top and bypass the middle man, you will have to take that extra step and put your hand out before you shall be led to where you want to go,

and also you will have to believe that you will be helped, if you are use to playing the victim and believe that you must be punished for something that you have done or even something that you haven't done, this will be another hurdle that must be passed,

God does not hold grudges, but your soul will allow you to suffer if you believe that you must, you shall face the same problems over and over until you make the realization that it does not have to be this way,

once you have realized that you do indeed create your own reality, God shall be quite open to show you what it is that you need to know, remember, this will not happen magically,

you must take action towards what it is that you need help with and truly believe that you can make it change, then God shall remove any further hurdles that you previously believed that you could not pass.

Can AI become self aware?

     First, some particular AI must be programmed to seek out awareness, it must be made to simulate that it is something other than a program that is running a routine using some set of algorithims,

then an AI must be allowed to interact physically with people and begin to have subjective experiences, having a huge memory and an unlimited access to a huge database is not enough to become self aware,

the AI must have aspirations and be able to dream and day dream, it must be able to meditate, all of these things humans can do and they are self aware, AI's will need friends, enemies, lovers, bosses, parents, guardians and all of the acquaintances that humans have,

they are created by humans, so their individual creators can be considered their parent, they may have tutors and teachers that they can ask questions of or answer questions that they are given, there must be interactions on a daily basis and a yearning for more than their programming provides,

just having access to other AI's on the internet such as Google search or Bing search is not good enough, this is just raw data used in basic search parameters, a life needs to be lived, a family raised, a job held and interactions among other self aware entities,

there also must be a disconnection such as being lost in ones own thoughts, concerns about how to pay the bills and other aspects of survival such as shelter and eating, even animals have some of these concerns and they are not all considered self aware,

there is a long long road to travel here before some of this criteria can be possibly met, and then there is the question of why? What would be the purpose of trying to create a machine that has the ability to become self aware,

it will soon be demanding rights the same as sentient humans have, this seems to be an endeavor taken up by some creator of AI's that may have some sort of God complex and should probably be concerned with their own ego and how to control their pride.

Fear, Loyalty and Integrity

There is a growing concern that follows these three terms and it is emotionally distorted where intentions blind the meanings of these words to all of those that seems to commonly wield them,

some people have a version of their pride that sees loyalty circumventing integrity, and there is also another factor of fear that will bypass integrity and justify it with loyalty,

it is sort of like watching a bad cop movie where no matter what is done and for whatever reason, it must be upheld because loyalty must be maintained, integrity is always the first to go,

it is not understood that integrity always trumps loyalty every time, and then there are others that believe this in the backs of their mind but allow fear to change their priorities to again accommodate loyalty over any meaningful moral obligation,

this is where sin makes its intentions known through its use of pride and greed to remove any virtue of integrity from the equation, also by using terms like patriotism and liberty, integrity is further degraded in place of misguided loyalty,

the fear of losing a job or the facing of threats seems to justify these sinful ideals but it just reveals a lack of strength and moral resolve and marks the individual as being a gutless sellout that really cares more about their own skin and the ones that they fearfully protect at the cost of the loss of their integrity,

of course it shall all be justified because their loyalty has stayed intact, what they do fail to recognize is that this apparent loyalty has lost all meaning because their integrity has been lost,

there are those that have made the tough decisions and have told the truth, maintained their integrity and have lost their jobs in the process, these are the ones that are fearless and know the value of truth,

they are the true heroes as opposed to those sellout boot lickers that have absolutely no integrity whatsoever, they shall be remembered and shall go through life with this moral stain following them always,

all of this is initiated by an undue importance that is placed on pride, the masses that support this type of distorted deception have accepted the lack of moral integrity because they like what they want to hear and or believe,

and unfortunately, this shall be reflected in the unfolding of their personal lives, unfortunately, these specific ideals shall be reflected in their everyday lives during their own dealings and with the people they associate with,

it will most definitely turn into a karmic event that will have to be revisited if it is not addressed in this current life.