>All matter is God or a part of God and God is eternal == the
>matter in the universes has always been and there can not be
>something without nothing. Sounds like the old Alpha and Omega
>beginning and end to me. Just minus the part about being held
>accountable to said force.
>
>The two concepts do not have to be at odds. Some people just
>want them that way

The problem is when people take it literally and apply human personality to god. ie. Jesus is God. What Jesus was in fact saying is that the kingdom of god or knowledge of self exists within you. He started at the same point we all do, and he went on a quest to find enlightenment which led him to universal truth's. These universal truth's state that we are all part of "god", and that we are in fact "god" as we are existing in a state of being, or the eternal NOW. Jesus said "I AM" to emphasize this. He was not saying "I AM GOD" as god being separate from us, or him being separate from us. He was saying, "I AM (Present, Being, Existence, and those things are God.)"

Jesus was a philosopher and by all account was sharing a lot of Eastern philosophy. Essentially, if you find knowledge of self in the present reality, you find god. That is what Jesus accomplished, which was exactly what Buddha accomplished.