could god be contingent?

Don't get out much in Wales at this time of year?

I guess it's one's perspective.

In Indian mythology, it is said that God derives power from the people who believes in Him. And I think that's fair enough because if people doesn't believe in Him, there is no existence of God.

Ah OK, so you're not taking the piss, boyoh?

well the best weather in summer here tends to be rain and wind, so you can imagine what our winters are like.

had to stay in one building at school yesterday because the winds reached speeds that condemned them as ''serious hazards''.

back to the thread, i think it is an interesting view, similar to the saying an army is only as strong as its troops, a god is only as strong as the faith in him/her/it.

Yeah, it is interesting.

Personally I don't believe in God. But it's good if you have someone to whom you can always look forward to. And, interestingly, God can be that ONE. Smile

God doesn't need anyone or anything to exist. He always has been and always will be.

arella, you say that as if it is a fact, but it is not.

you may be right, i cannot claim that you are definitely incorrect.

however, i find it hard to believe that god can be an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient being who has always been.

and if he is, then where has he been? auschwitz? roman invasion of jerusalem? hurricanes? volcanoes?

as i said, he may be there and it could all be part of some wonderful plan, but i can't see it.

and even if god were still there if all faith was lost, he would have no purpose any more.

Exactly, this whole universal setup is based on the faith of people. If there is no faith, there is no God. God is like a moral support for us. There is nothing more powerful than faith.

Be careful how you use the omni words, lest you place a necessity upon the God of free will.

If you were to carefully read the bible, you would know that, since the rebellion in Eden, the entire world has been given over to Satan for him to have time to prove (or be disproved) vis a vis his allegations against God and his creatures.

If you wish a long explanation, I can give it. But, if a single citation will suffice, here is one:

"I shall not speak much with YOU anymore, for the ruler of the world is coming. And he has no hold on me. . ." (John 14:30)

After all, how could Satan offer Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if they were not his to give? (Matthew 4:9)

God is the absolute, we are the relative, the rest is the abstract.

God is the sum, we are the parts. I believe that it doesn't require faith to make god. God didn't make earth and humans and ants, we are part of him. Everything is.

Picture it like this. I'll propose a super-simplified theory using colloquial if not comical references and then you can discuss if you want.

In the beginning, god was all that there was; the absolute. Being all that there is, means (philosophically) that you cannot experience the state of being all that is unless there is all that isn't. So god fragmented himself. Now he was the absolute (the whole), the relative (the parts) and the abstract (that which is neither the whole or the parts; i.e. the space between) If you choose, you can picture that phenomenon much like the big bang theory. God was the sum total of all the matter in the universe, but before he could experience him self as self, he had to have not-self. Its like playing king of the hill with no challengers. Are you king because you're the best, or just because you're the only? The game isn't fun without anyone to play with. So, he set the wheels in motion billions of years ago and the rest falls under the perview of science.

So in a nutshell, we are some of those fragments; connected souls from the same energy in bodies of borrowed matter. Pieces of god. God requires nothing of us except experience. As we have experience we grow in the soul. Experiences which are good for the soul further god's experience. Experiences which are bad for the soul do damage to the energy plane of the universal interconnected soul.

God is kinda like a big pot of vegatable soup. There are carrots and peas and tomatoes; he doesn't care what happens, just that things are happening. If a carrot gets overcooked and disintegrates, who cares? The molecules that made it are still in the pot, and the fact that it changed gives god a new experience from that event. The pot of soup doesn't care if a string bean stabs a potato, but it might change the soup for the worse. I think life is much like that. It doesn't matter to god if someone kills another, but it does change OUR world for the worse. The motivation for me to not kill comes from my knowledge of the universal energy, not obedience to god. If you have a white blood cell in your body that eats a bacteria and kills it, you don't condemn the white blood cell to an eternity in torturous hell. Its all part of the balance of your body.

That is not to say that god doesn't WANT us to do good things. It sure would be better for the universe if we did, but its a slow process, and we as humans are super-young.

So, god (I believe) exists regardless of faith, or even knowledge of him. Even if he plopped us here and never told us he existed, he would still exist... of course, all it takes is one enlightened personality to discover his existence and the rest is a journey to knowing him... which is where we are now.

I loved this example

I was actually eating vegetable soup when I was writing that analogy

You seriously were?

You got good brain. :wink: