What is God?

Is it a meaningful concept?

which is to say God doesn't exist which is not to say that God isn't real.

God is a social construct. It is one of the many possible answers to human's quest for understanding.

Is it meaningful? On a spiritual level I have no problem with it. I think it is good for many people. On a religious level, it scares me a little bit. I think it is more often used for bad than good, especially on the large scale.

I'd have to agree with that.

I'm a relativist as far as whether it is a meaningful concept or not. Depends upon personal experience.

God is the only substance and everything else is a mode of God.

I'm a notorious cherry picker when it comes to my personal theology. I like the concepts of natural theology, process theology, etc. I struggle with Spinoza's determinism. I think there is a medium between the extremist free will and determinist positions.

Basically I consider divinity to be immanent within existence not transcendant from it.

Compare and contrast Aristotle's concept of God as unmoved mover with Spinoza's concept of God as substance and Kant's concept of God as a transcendental

From an MSU exam :-)

:spank:

proposition that God is a bag of M & M's.

:-)

But chocolate is proof god wants us to enjoy life!

PS: I hate beer so the original doesn't play with me.

Primates have evolved a hierarchic social structure. Having others who are lower in the social order gives a primate the opportunity to express dominance and provides an outlet for social stress. Having others who are higher in the social order gives a primate a sense of security.

Homo sapiens is a primate, and God is our conception of the ultimate "alpha male" who will provide us with direction, rules and security.

My dog's God would be much better than my own.

A bookmark that said "God, help me to be as good as my dog thinks I am."

But the story of the elephant being described by several blind people rings truest to me.each person described a different part of the elephant.One a tail,another an ear,etc.They were all right.The elephant was all of those things......

As for our relation to god,we are the waves on the ocean.We are the rays of light from the sun.We are the song of the bird.Not one,not two.Something else.

Human understanding is incomplete, but the complete thing is out there. That complete thing is God.

for some people isn't just a way of explaining things they don't understand or fail to control in a vain sort of way.

When something bad happens people don't say "I had no plan and I wasn't paying attention" they say "It was God's will". It's a way of absolving themselves of responsibility. After all, if you say you believe in God, can anyone call you a credulous idiot?

This of course is a misuse of God. But one sees it all the time.

Seriously, we have the brain capacity but people are too lazy to fill it with knowledge. Instead, some people prefer to use their imagination to fill the gaps.

I suppose Vince Welnick has some idea now.


(Sorry. Forums! Those people who hit the reply button while walking by their computer while listening to What Do You Want From Life, and not even giving the subject it's deserved thought. Although had they done so, could not have addressed the issue due to it's unknowable nature.)

God is that which is the light in our eyes which goes out when we die. The meaning of love. The thing that cause evolution to happen.

And recieve my personal "you rock" award.
:yourock:
This is because I was researching Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a jesuit preist who suggested that that evolution was a divine process leading to a divine endpoint.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin
Called the "Omega Point", basically shared human consciousness. This came long before the birth of the Internet, which showed a very real manifestation of his ideas. He gave birth to the idea of the noosphere, or human idea withing the realm of intellect. Very cool stuff! :)

"Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe."

The totality of these connections, perhaps, is God.

and I am an agnostic leaning heavily toward atheism - I do not believe in a sentient, creator type of being at all, but I do think that (a) strange things happen which can't always be explained with current science/knowledge and that (b) the thing we call "God" is merely the sum of everything, including the empty space between the things.

To many, God can be a guide or path to a better life, and I can respect that - however for anyone to assume that their definition of God (which is usually coincidentally inherited from their parents and culture) is the only viable one, to the point of murdering the people who don't believe, is an evil of ignorance and hubris.

that is a real factor in what we can understand. Knowledge and technology are forever changing. Yesterday's truth is today's fallacy, and conversely, perhaps today's fallacy will become tommorrow's truth. Science is neither infallible nor omniscient; it's task is to look at what is here and try to make sense of it.

If I had told you 800 years ago that there were tiny creatures, invisible to the naked eye, swimming around in a glass of warm milk, you'd likely think I was either crazy or communing with demons. But with the advent of the microscope, such creatures were made visible. Microscopic technnologies have expanded ever since allowing observation and study of things smaller and ever smaller, and with those technologies, our understanding of the world has changed. Science has yet to invent a macroscope.

Thank you.

A favorite quote of mine.

The Dalai Lama was asked to explain the difference between Sufis and Buddhists. He said, "In Sufism, everything is. In Buddhism, nothing is. Same thing, no difference."

I think it might be more useful to ask "What isn't God"?

And I don't know the answer to THAT either!

the only answer I can propose is "a lie". And in a sense, I know even that is incomplete. :)

Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

that appeared randomly on my playlist. It is by Bjork, called Who is it. Here are the lyrics.

His embrace a fortress
It fuels me and places
A skeleton of trust
Right beneath us
Bone by bone
Stone by stone

If you ask yourself patiently and carefully
Who is it , who is it , who is it ?

Who is it
That never lets you down?
Who is it
That gave you back your crown?
And the ornaments are
They're goin around
Now I'm handin' it over, handin' it over

Who is it
That never lets you down?
Who is it
That gave you back your crown?
And the ornaments are
They're goin around
Now I'm handin' it over, handin' it over

He demands a closeness
We all have earned a lightness
Carry my joy on the left
Carry my pain on the right

If you ask yourself now patiently and carefully
Who is it?

Who is it
That never lets you down?
Who is it
That gave you back your crown?
The ornaments are
They're goin around
And I'm handin' it over, handin' it over

Who is it
That never lets you down?
Who is it
That gave you back your crown?
The ornaments are
They're goin around
And I'm handin' it over, handin' it over, handin' it over

Maybe I'll download it from itunes. I just got an Ipod nano and am now realizing that I will need a lot more than 1 Gig. 240 songs just ain't enough.

My favorite spiritual lyrics are Wayfaring Stranger, a traditional song performed by Emmylou Harris, among others:

I am a poor wayfaring stranger
While traveling through this world of woe
Yet there's no sickness, toil or danger
In that bright world to which I go

I'm going there to see my father
I'm going there no more to roam
I'm only going over Jordan
I'm only going over home

I know dark clouds will gather 'round me
I know my way is rough and steep
Yet beauteous fields lie just before me
Where God's redeemed their vigils keep

I'm going there to see my mother
She said she'd meet me when I come
I'm only going over Jordan
I'm only going over home

If our reason makes belief in a personal God too incredible, then the definition of what is God retreats to the crevices not yet explored by reason and enlightenment. Eventually we find that God is nothing but a product of our inner selves, no matter how abstract we make God.

to bolster your arguments?

As Freud says, it's a projection of our desires.

I liked the Peter O'Toole quote because it says in a humorous way that God is not something that exists outside of us. At least that's what it said to me. Maybe other interpretations. Atheists learn to "talk" their inner selves without the creation of a God.

made it up as he went along.

He could never prove the existence of the id, ego, superego; or even of the unconscious mind.

Yet he maintained that God was a projection of our desires.

And he maintained that dreams were wish fulfillment.

A lot has been learned since Freud.

I wouldn't hold him out to be the authority on modern psychology, or even modern psychoanalytic theory.

Don't get me wrong, I like Freud to some extent. I like Bruno Bettleheim's "Freud and Man's Soul" in which Bettleheim argues that a lot of Freud's writings were inproperly translated and that Freud was wrongly criticized for his Oedipus/Electra theories. That he originally started from the supposition that women (Since that was who he was working with) who described sexual memories from childhood were actually describing sexual abuse. He puts forth the idea that Freud later recanted from these stories being real memories, to their being "fantasies and developed the Oedipus/Electra theories to cover for this. If this happened this way then he did it because of political pressures to keep sexual abuse hidden. (In Victorian times this is not unimaginable due to the repressive nature of that era)

of physics, interpreting the laws of physics, and enforcing the laws of physics. Hence the holy trinity is simply a matter of the proper separation of powers into legislative, judicial, and executive branches.

From the song "Democracy":

From the church where the outcasts hide
Or the mosque where the blood is dignified.
Like the fingers on your hand,
Lake the hourglass of sand,
We can separate but not divide.
From the eye above the pyramid
And the dollar's cruel display,
From the law behind the law
Behind the law we still obey
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Everything. Every particle of matter down to every vibrating strand of energy that makes up the whole universe equals god. That means every molecule, every atom, every subatomic particle, every vibrating strand of energy that makes up YOUR body is also god. Every time you drink or eat you are consuming god, every time you take a breath you are breathing in god. God is not some uber entity with a personality, rather, "IT" is everything.

You are not so much a body made from flesh possessed with a soul, rather, YOU are a soul and your flesh is merely a conglomeration of molecules to provide for you consciousness in this physical dimension to develop your higher consciousness. These molecules are constantly dieing and being replaced, so in a purely physical sense the body you currently posses isn't the same body you possessed ten or more years ago. This is your "microcosm" of the death / regeneration cycle you'll go through many times in your development. The death of your entire physical body will only be the "macrocosm" of the death / regeneration cycle. YOU, that is the essence of who you are (your soul) will not die. It will move on to posses another physical body (male or female) until which time your higher consciousness has developed to where it doesn't need the physical dimension any longer for its development.

If in your previous physical body you were a female and were very attached to being a female, but in your current physical body you're a male. You may still subconsciously be attracted to being a female. This is likely the bases of why some people are attracted to their same sex. There are other sometimes carried over traits that happen after regeneration, but I don't have the time at the moment to go through them.

brain power's) understanding of the matter.

As a bieng, preaxiomic infinity. (is the closest I have got to it thus far, and actually a pretty good description)

everything. All things are divine, everything is god.

and God is a personal idea to those who believe in God

to those that don't believe, I suppose they can wonder if God is a meaningful concept?

I mean I see the OP's post and no further responses from s/he since that time (6/5/06)

Surprising.

how different ideas about God/dess seem like they would affect someone's point of view.


For instance. One atheist spoke about how he liked to consider the "Point of view of the universe". It seems to me the "Point of view of the universe" could be a pretty good God/dess concept. To consider that if the universe had a point of view - what would it be? (Of course it doesn't really mean that the universe has a point of view.)

Esp. when you contrast that with thinking that God/dess IS the universe (or all possible universes) Or that what someone means by God/dess is that God/dess is one's understanding of the universe.

Any of those concepts - what one considered to be the "Point of view of the universe", or what one considered to BE the universe - would really just be a reflection of one's self and how one perceived the universe and/or what one perceived to be the best possible outcome of events FOR the universe.

To think about there being a "Point of view of the universe" is to think more that there is an abstract POV - which seems substantially different than thinking that God/dess is what God/dess is - and what it is - is what exists.

While I do not believe that there is actually a God/dess with a Point Of View - I DO think that thinking about what the "Point of view of the universe" would be if the universe had a point of view seems closer to the traditional concept of God/dess in some ways - than to just say that God/dess IS the universe. Because it seems that historically - people think that God/dess had a point of view - and Christians, esp. seem to worry about what God/desses point of view is - a lot.

But the thing about thinking that "God/dess IS the universe" satisfies any need that anyone might have to think of God/dess in a way such that could actually be true. IOW - there actually IS a universe - it does NOT actually have a point of view.

One could consider the consequences to that universe one's own self - without trying to consider a point of view outside one's self. There is the concept of being one with the universe - and to have the sense that what one was doing was the best thing that one could be doing - for one's self AND for the universe.

It seems similar - or the same - as putting things in the context of Transcendence (a view out side of one's self) or Immanence (the view originating from within one's self).

I don't think that it's necessary to put any of this in the terminology of God/dess. But if atheists, esp. are thinking in terms of the "Point of view of the universe" OR what they think of the universe their own self and what they think would be best for it, them and everyone else - it seems like it makes sense to realize that it is all very similar sorts of thinking - as people who put the same considerations in the terminology that includes God/dess.

The same goes for God/dess believers - to realize that people don't have to call something God/dess to be thinking about the same thing - what is best for the world - regardless of your POV or your POV about your POV.

People who don't care what happens to the universe (and their own world) could be seen as being separated from the the point of view of the universe, would not feel "one" with the universe, and for people who believe in God/dess - to be separated from God/dess.

Whatever part of the God/dess concept encourages people to consider life as whole/ a broader sense of what it means to be alive that is connected to others - seems meaningful. Whatever convoluted ideas there are about God/dess that take people in the opposite direction - would not be helpful - whether they are meaningful or not - :shrug: