Preaching is absolutely about charisma and propoganda.
To teach is to humbly embrace-while to preach is to speak with entitlement
God is a combo of what we’ve learned about god as children- what we see friends,family,peers,celebrities claim to believe-and our own imaginations limitless range of possibility when we turn inward toward personal truth.
I found this below difference between preaching and teaching - it speaks and appeals to me. They are not only two sides of the same coin but they flow in the same waters.
[i]Preaching – Is trying to affect a person’s thinking by appealing to a person’s heart.
Teaching – Is trying to affect a person’s heart by appealing to their thinking.[/i]
I find nothing negative about that definition for preaching…and it need not be about a sense of entitlment…only a passion for what one senses is their truth - and the desire to speak it - as long as it does no harm to others nor manipulates. Even the birds need to express their own inner truth through their singing.
Teaching may also come from a sense of entitlement and to manipulate, control and hold sway over. It all comes down to one’s inner intentions and motivation. But i do agree with you that there has to be humility in teaching - who are we that we feel we might possibly teach anything and yet we do because we feel called to by something greater than ourselves that is within but a true teacher will do it with an awareness of responsibility and respect - can be like walking on hot coals. 
Hi Turtle,
A definition of loving? I ask as it is part of your definition: “loving god inside”. I personally don’t believe in love: love is cruel. Love demands others change for my needs to be satisfied.
Regards M.M.
Or,
preaching is open about believing it is right and makes this clear in the communication. The attempt to convince is clear and open. The intended beliefs to be taken on by listeners are also openly presented.
Whereas,
teaching hides this under a facade of humility and flexibility while the exact same process is going on underneath.
Are you teaching here or preaching?
I was thinking out loud…and all I hear from you is an argument for the sake of argument. Let’s not make this a debate
Coming from the midwest preaching is like selling salvation. teaching can be robotic. Taking these verbs out of the context of a paycheck; teacher would only teach for the sake of truth or movement toward truth. Preacher will preach using judgement as ammo preaching guilt into its congregation.
Who is to say ‘good’ and ‘evil’ isn’t cultivated from the church more than any other place?
Preaching of societies transgressions keeping focus on seperating and finding ‘good’ and ‘evil’ all the time.
Let us live, that is the hardest thing to do with each other.
The mind which thinks with info from the informational background ~ as like we are the mind that thinks with info derived from objects [the informational sandwich I call it].
as with anything one can only envelop the idea in meaning, rather than directly ascribe language [labels] to it.
Well, you are wrong about my motives. I was making points that I think are important. I think the negative connotations of preaching are not particularly fair - note I am not a preacher or even a member of a religion where this takes place. I do, however, think that there is something to be said for someone coming right out and saying ‘this is the truth’ with the implication that they are sure. Everything is out in the open - as far as beliefs. Just because they are sure does not mean that I must accept their beliefs, and this clear open approach lets me know the motivations clearly of the other person. They want me to also believe X and Y. What gets called teaching often has agendas, but these are more subtly approached. Often the teaching mode is used with the same exact goal, but they want the person to arrive at belief X ‘on their own’. And so a kind of guidance and even manipulation is going on.
I am not saying that teaching is bad and preaching is good, in fact I think they are neutral terms, but I highlighted the opposite of what you were asserting to make a point. A point that in fact matters to me, despite your assumption.
Sure, I would utterly dislike a sermon aimed at making me feel ashamed of my sexual urges, guilty for what Jesus has supposedly done for me, etc. On the other hand, there is all is, out in the open for me to reject, mull over, potentially, though not in my case, accept. One can also preach things that I like, that I can find inspiring, though it is unlikely I will experience this in some fundamentalist church.
It’s the same in college. I have definitely appreciated teaching, especially where the teachers do not have beliefs they want me to have, but rather a set of experiences where I will learn something relevent to the subject of the course, but it is not clear what. I have also, however, deeply appreciate lectures, which are often a form of preaching. This is what the book is about. This is the nature of good and evil. These are the causes of WW1. A professor saying how it is, without qualification, quite sure of him or herself. This is the truth.
Again, this doesn’t mean I just swallow that whole or even in part. But it is very inspiring and challenging, even or perhaps especially when I disagree. I get to see their mind in action, confident. The way they organize their thoughts, their reasons for having the beliefs they have, their being someone who has been learning, hopefully, longer than me and with much more focus on the subject…that all make it powerful or it can.
Likewise people who preach about spiritual, philosophical or religious issues.
Tentative, exploratory, non-committed communication can also be useful in these contexts, but there is nothing wrong, to me, with preaching per se. And I think often it is much more honest, since what is being presented as teaching is often really preaching is a clever indirect form.
This was also not me simply being argumentative. You seemed to have a negative view of preaching, but here you simply state what you consider the truth, no qualification, sure. This is preaching, even if it is a non-theistic version. If preaching is negative it must be because of the form, not the content.
I do agree that it is foolish to insist that God is for certain one thing or another because, by traditional definition, God is above our understanding and to try to accurately describe what we cannot possibly understand is illogical. In my experience, however, I find that God has been, is, and always will be where our knowledge of being fades from certainty.
In short I would define God as a fabrication of the human mind used to make sense of what cannot be explained.
Monkey man do you really believe that? What you are describing is not love but some sort of manipulation. Love is having someone accept your needs as their own because they care about your happiness and well being. I would advise you to reflect on what you have experienced and try to find an instance of this because it most definitely does exist.
Is the last line how you personally feel or is it how you have been treated by others?
Actually, as others have brought up something about not being able to define something, “natural” is one of those things. Natural makes no sense without having some sort of contradiction, which would be non-natural. But ignoring that, we actually do have an idea of the limits of the “natural” world, which is that beyond our experience (which is a hell of a lot) or beyond our thinking/conceptualizing of. And actually, there is nothing about miracles and magic that are incompatible with logic. Empirical evidence, very well could be, but that is also questionable. And just about everything is an intellectual dead end. Let me have two quotes, one from a Wittgenstein and the other from Paul Davies, to help out on that regard.
"“The idea that the laws exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational. After all, the very essence of a scientific explanation of some phenomenon is that the world is ordered logically and that there are reasons things are as they are. If one traces these reasons all the way down to the bedrock of reality — the laws of physics — only to find that reason then deserts us, it makes a mockery of science.” Davies
“Why do you demand explanations? If they are given you, you will once more be facing a terminus. They cannot get you any further than you are at present…A phenomenon is not a symptom of something else: it is the reality.” Wittgenstein
“We have in immediate experience our sole contact with reality…[but then] Reality which lies before us at every moment is replaced by the abstract picture we have ourselves created…Scientific explanation lead us on indefinitely from one inexplicable to another…and we never find a real resting place.” M. O’C Dury
IOW, we are lead to an intellectual dead end in either which way we go.
First, Singularity was, the very basis of the idea, was around before physics. Something that was infinite, and which everything else sprang from, was around before physics used the idea and was actually used for God. For example, God was said to be infinite, and even physics doesn’t like the idea of a singularity because it is infinite as well, or at least “density”. And “singularity” in physics is just an analogy, or a metaphor.
If we can’t define natural, then we certainly can’t define supernatural.
What’s wrong with artificial?
Most galaxies are beyond our experience. Does that make them unnatural?
If we define a miracle or magic as impossible and then claim that someone does a miracle or magic, that’s illogical.
Really ? What’s the question?
Why? Are you having a bad day?
Right. Even Hawking ends up there. But they can’t explain there the physical law or laws came from.
So our ancestors should have accepted the phenomenon of the earth’s flatness as the final word? Wittgenstein was a trip. He wrote the Tractatus to end philosophy then he became a philosopher. Ya gotta love that.
So we should stop thinking?
Sheesh! And I thought thinking was a good thing. What was I thinking?
Is being infinite and having stuff springing from it all there is to a singularity? I thought it also had something to do with being squashed down to a Plank length.
Why is it just a metaphor? Isn’t the theory that the universe was actually literally a singularity?
Then what you have is the taste of honey…what is the definition of green, as a color? They can be described but not defined. One has to taste them or see them.
I advise against defining god because the more explicit the definition the less space will remain to experience god. This does not make the word useless but it should be used as a proper name. Therefore ask yourself to define “omar”. You can be familiar with the name while still unable to define it.
omar----what is that proper name thing???
A noun that applies to an unique object.
My common name would be “man” or human. That which can be defined is common. It has no statement about any transcendent quality. But a name tries to designate something unique. Many have that name but when someone directs themselves to me, for that moment, omar designates something unique in time and space.
“God” has become a class name. Lost is the unique and transcendent. More mystery is accorded to a human individual than to god. So perhaps it would be good to use “god” as a proper name such as your name, which may remind people that just as a person exceeds our experience, transcends it, so much so infinity.
does it seem like every single person here has a different belief about a god…
my next question would be ----is there something that we can call THE god???
is it possible on the religion forum not to use the word god???..i will bet that it is not possible…
I find that every single person has different beliefs about me.
Then you are not a prophet. 
I pray this aids your search for Him. 
It’s possible but not probable or necessary.
Every person has a belief about George bush…doesn’t mean we have to stop using the name.
I use the word in a notational way. Not trying to define it but to signal or point to what is transcendent. Would the “One” please you? Or is “Nada” more to your liking?
But know this: by getting hung up on the extended finger you’re missing what it points toward. What is more important? The names we use or what we address by their invocation?