God the Father?
Jesus?
The Holy Ghost/Spirit?
I promise I have no agenda here; I am simply curious. I apologize in advance if another atheist starts something.
Poll in a moment.
Hmm, I haven’t voted yet. I think instinctively I think of God the Father, but if I give it any thought I would more correctly attribute it to the Holy Spirit. I don’t know if I’m completely on board with the “guiding and protecting” language either. Guiding, sure, in the sense of inspiring me. Protecting me – well, in some ways I guess. But I don’t believe that God keeps me out of the path of moving vehicles while he lets pagans get flattened.
I don’t necessarily mean obvious, Superman-to-Jimmy-Olsen-type protection. You can as leave change it to “God being an active, beneficient force in my life.”
I’m a Christian, but I don’t believe in the Trinity nor do I believe in an interventionist God, so I just think of God. I guess the closest in the poll is the first choice as everything is more or less a direct result of either his creation or my spiritual connection with him.
Gotcha. Okay, when I think of God’s active influence in my life, I ascribe that to the HS (if I bother to be more specific than just “God.”)
I voted for God the Father. However I ascribe active communication to the Holy Spirit.
Since there’s no option for The Holy Trinity I didn’t vote. I usually pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
I think mostly of the Holy Spirit because that’s what I think of as my conscience.
:smack:
Sorry for leaving you out. That wasn’t intentional. I blame whoever I’m scapegoating this week. Probably the Spartans.
Jesus is a nice boy, but I don’t imagine him having anywhere near as much bearing on my life and well-being as his dad.
I wonder if there had been options for “The Virgin Mary” or “One or More of the Saints,” anyone would have voted for them? I know a Catholic who told me she felt unworthy of asking God’s help when she was in trouble, and asked for Mary’s help instead.
You used the word “guide” and that makes it a bit more complicated…
I voted “Jesus”, as he is my intervener, being both man and god, and our gateway to salvation and union with God. When I pray, I mostly pray to Him, and I see him as acting and intervening in my life and the world around me. But when I ask for guidance, for wisdom, for direction, then I ask the Holy Spirit. The Lord acts, the Spirit guides…
The one major exception where I feel the spirit really acted in power in my life was after my son was diagnosed with autism, and wasn’t really verbal (3 words, at 3 years). I figured the Spirit gave the apostles the gift of multiple languages at pentecost, so he could give my son the ability to speak a single one, English, and started asking him to give my son the gift of speech. Starting in holy week that year, a few days before Easter, trusquirt experienced what the speech pathologists called a “major word explosion” During a period of 5 to 6 weeks, he acquired about 400 words, and continued to make (much slower but regular ) progress. afterwards. Today he functions quite well in a regular school, with a bit of extra coaching on social skills on the side.