What is God?

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;115310 wrote:

What about the inscrutable infinite

That's more like it Alan, beyond our comprehension, imagination or description. Even considering IT, is a step too far. Can you describe the urge of nature? our unnerving desire to understand? Look for its footprints as they may be our only clues.

0 Replies

@no1author,

It isn't anything but infinite...If it is not finite we cannot judge it... Our knowledge is limitied to the finite... Can you define a cloud of smoke... That is all we have in God; only larger...Be in-finite, it defies de-finit-ion...So; what is the point...

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@no1author,

I am not a theist, but I have thought how an ideal god for me would be.
God would be the incarnation of goodness.

1 Reply

@no1author,

If I knew what God is I would have to be God, not so?

More!

1) Is there a god?
2) If the assumption is that there is a god, how can this ever be proved beyond doubt?
3) Is the god principal an unknowable, enigmatic paradox, beyond humanities ability to ever comprehend?
4) Is god a being confined to some sort of form?
5) Or is god just omnipresent formless intelligent light energy? "I like this idea"
6) The universe cannot be god as it is finite, having a beginning and will definitely have an end. All matter and energy are subject to the relentless second law of thermodynamics, namely; entropy and everything in the universe will eventually get colder and colder decay and dissipate into nothingness.
7) If, however, the above is not true and the universe is god, "he/it/she is not immortal" and will eventually ease to exist (although to us humans in an almost infinitely long time).
8) The universe is not infinite is size and is expanding faster and faster all the time into another dimension beyond our comprehension. The universe has an edge and is expanding something like a balloon being blown up. If the universe were infinite it simply could not expand as it would have nothing to expand into, and we would have the paradox of an infinite universe somehow trying to expand into itself.

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@Thunder phil,

Thunder;115491 wrote:

I am not a theist, but I have thought how an ideal god for me would be.
God would be the incarnation of goodness.

You are absolutly right to put the focus of goodness in some other being... No one wants to be the stadium where good and evil slug it out over moral issues...

---------- Post added 12-30-2009 at 07:31 AM ----------

Alan McDougall;115498 wrote:

If I knew what God is I would have to be God, not so?

More!

1) Is there a god?
2) If the assumption is that there is a god, how can this ever be proved beyond doubt?
3) Is the god principal an unknowable, enigmatic paradox, beyond humanities ability to ever comprehend?
4) Is god a being confined to some sort of form?
5) Or is god just omnipresent formless intelligent light energy? "I like this idea"
6) The universe cannot be god as it is finite, having a beginning and will definitely have an end. All matter and energy are subject to the relentless second law of thermodynamics, namely; entropy and everything in the universe will eventually get colder and colder decay and dissipate into nothingness.
7) If, however, the above is not true and the universe is god, "he/it/she is not immortal" and will eventually ease to exist (although to us humans in an almost infinitely long time).
8) The universe is not infinite is size and is expanding faster and faster all the time into another dimension beyond our comprehension. The universe has an edge and is expanding something like a balloon being blown up. If the universe were infinite it simply could not expand as it would have nothing to expand into, and we would have the paradox of an infinite universe somehow trying to expand into itself.

Without getting carried away, God could be one of those infinites of mind that no one can conceive of...Okay; we live in the moral world and have a spiritual conception of self, and everything else...But no one is building churches to worship peace, or truth, or humanity, or love; all of which have a spiritual conception, which is not really a conception at all... When churches are built it is to the Gods of this earth, spiritual conceptions for sure: Wealth and Power...That is the true dynamic duo...

2 Replies

@Fido,

If we could start to imaging it as an entity then we must judge its value. The biggest obstacle is this idea of benevolence. A conscious god capable of seeing our anguish would not be benevolent in our concept of benevolence. Natures urge to bring new life while accepting its inevitable end is not malevolent but a manifestation of the circle of life and death.

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@Fido,

Fido;115529 wrote:

You are absolutly right to put the focus of goodness in some other being... No one wants to be the stadium where good and evil slug it out over moral issues...

---------- Post added 12-30-2009 at 07:31 AM ----------

Without getting carried away, God could be one of those infinites of mind that no one can conceive of...Okay; we live in the moral world and have a spiritual conception of self, and everything else...But no one is building churches to worship peace, or truth, or humanity, or love; all of which have a spiritual conception, which is not really a conception at all... When churches are built it is to the Gods of this earth, spiritual conceptions for sure: Wealth and Power...That is the true dynamic duo...

I think you are being a little harsh on the churches maybe some of them are really altruistic in nature

1 Reply

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;115536 wrote:

I think you are being a little harsh on the churches maybe some of them are really altruistic in nature

Not at all true...No one has to organize to do good, or to demand good...One must organize for power, but the promised power is disipated by politics...Think of all the good the churches could do if they did not engage in partisan politics, leaving aside the internal politics of all organizations...They ain't about doing good; or they would just do it...

---------- Post added 12-30-2009 at 09:54 AM ----------

xris;115535 wrote:

If we could start to imaging it as an entity then we must judge its value. The biggest obstacle is this idea of benevolence. A conscious god capable of seeing our anguish would not be benevolent in our concept of benevolence. Natures urge to bring new life while accepting its inevitable end is not malevolent but a manifestation of the circle of life and death.

We cannot judge the value of infinites...I think what you are aiming at is that we can asign a meaning in our imagining; but that won't stop people like me from asigning a whole different meaning to them...I am certain that if there were a God capable of all creation, and not totally given to creation, would be capable of resolving all contradictions within its being...

0 Replies

@no1author,

"God is a spirit." "God is love." From the New Test. Sounds to me like God is just a feeling, and a good feeling at that. But then I also like "God" used as the name of the Totality. To imagine the world as a limited whole. That is the mystical. So say Witty.

God as a Santa Clause with a Lake of Fire for the bad kids is a terrible notion, but one that flatters our masochism and sadism. Do masochism and sadism both boil down to malice, cruelty, a radical "evil"?

Different speaking apes will put this "God" word on different feelings/thoughts.

I was thinking of the word "spirit" lately. Is spirit just a thought-feeling complex? Is spirit just myth and its emotional counterpart? Is this a twist on Schopenhauer's Will and Representation?

I suppose I agree with Blake that the Human Form is Divine, that humans are God -- some more so than others. Art and religion when living are the same. It's dead art and dead religion that causes so much confusion.

I suspect that 99.9 percent of humans are religious in my idiosyncratic sense of the word. We associate our self-esteem and purpose with narratives/value. We are all immersed in myth. Including the myth of mythlessness?

Food for thought....

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;115813 wrote:

"God is a spirit." "God is love." From the New Test. Sounds to me like God is just a feeling, and a good feeling at that. But then I also like "God" used as the name of the Totality. To imagine the world as a limited whole. That is the mystical. So say Witty.

God as a Santa Clause with a Lake of Fire for the bad kids is a terrible notion, but one that flatters our masochism and sadism. Do masochism and sadism both boil down to malice, cruelty, a radical "evil"?

Different speaking apes will put this "God" word on different feelings/thoughts.

I was thinking of the word "spirit" lately. Is spirit just a thought-feeling complex? Is spirit just myth and its emotional counterpart? Is this a twist on Schopenhauer's Will and Representation?

I suppose I agree with Blake that the Human Form is Divine, that humans are God -- some more so than others. Art and religion when living are the same. It's dead art and dead religion that causes so much confusion.

I suspect that 99.9 percent of humans are religious in my idiosyncratic sense of the word. We associate our self-esteem and purpose with narratives/value. We are all immersed in myth. Including the myth of mythlessness?

Food for thought....

Provided they do good, is the Christian's excuse for doing good any worse than your own???I think it is great if people are rational, but some very rational people have turned out to be stinkers...

1 Reply

@Fido,

What is your perception of God? Imagine being raised your whole life in a windowless room. You were never allowed to go or even look outside. Your mother, who has previously lived on the outside, tries to explain what the outside world is like. She draws pictures of trees, birds, flowers, sky, etc. Although she is trying to be as open with you as possible, you would still have a much-distorted view of the outside world.

Probably, your perceptions of flowers and birds would be more two-dimensional than three-dimensional. In your mind's eye, probably many things are hard to understand or even seem contradictory. This is part of the reason we have difficulty understanding God. We are trying to look at an infinite being through finite eyes.

Do we really think we can comprehend the magnitude of a being that has created a universe with more than a million billion galaxies; where each galaxy has hundred of billions of stars and unimaginable countless zillion, zillion planets just like earth? Are we naive enough to think we can understand the complexity of a being that created a universe where every ounce has more an infinite number of highly organized fundamental particles?

This complexity of God is part of the reason we find so difficult to understand God. The universe is almost infinitely complex and this complexity requires an infinitely complex intelligent creator.

Think about this for a moment: a single cell bacterium has no capacity to comprehend or understand human beings. Likewise, even the simplest aspects of God are way beyond our comprehension. Of course, the difference between God and us could be far greater than the difference between the bacterium and humanity.

Alan

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@no1author,

Imagine how the world must look to the blind...

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@no1author,

no1author;112626 wrote:

I (Atheist) was wondering what God is for the Theists, what is their Definition of God?

The following is not a simple definition, but a quote from a passage addressed to God which presents one view of what God is. The last sentence of the passage suggests to me that all of the attributes which are ascribed to God in the superlative, are also potential attributes of each of us:

"Lauded and glorified art Thou, O Lord, my God! How can I make mention of Thee, assured as I am that no tongue, however deep its wisdom, can befittingly magnify Thy name, nor can the bird of the human heart, however great its longing, ever hope to ascend into the heaven of Thy majesty and knowledge.

If I describe Thee, O my God, as Him Who is the All-Perceiving, I find myself compelled to admit that They Who are the highest Embodiments of perception have been created by virtue of Thy behest. And if I extol Thee as Him Who is the All-Wise, I, likewise, am forced to recognize that the Well Springs of wisdom have themselves been generated through the operation of Thy Will. And if I proclaim Thee as the Incomparable One, I soon discover that they Who are the inmost essence of oneness have been sent down by Thee and are but the evidences of Thine handiwork. And if I acclaim Thee as the Knower of all things, I must confess that they Who are the Quintessence of knowledge are but the creation and instruments of Thy Purpose.

Exalted, immeasurably exalted, art Thou above the strivings of mortal man to unravel Thy mystery, to describe Thy glory, or even to hint at the nature of Thine Essence. For whatever such strivings may accomplish, they never can hope to transcend the limitations imposed upon Thy creatures, inasmuch as these efforts are actuated by Thy decree, and are begotten of Thine invention. The loftiest sentiments which the holiest of saints can express in praise of Thee, and the deepest wisdom which the most learned of men can utter in their attempts to comprehend Thy nature, all revolve around that Center Which is wholly subjected to Thy sovereignty, Which adoreth Thy Beauty, and is propelled through the movement of Thy Pen.

Far, far from Thy glory be what mortal man can affirm of Thee, or attribute unto Thee, or the praise with which he can glorify Thee! Whatever duty Thou hast prescribed unto Thy servants of extolling to the utmost Thy majesty and glory is but a token of Thy grace unto them, that they may be enabled to ascend unto the station conferred upon their own inmost being, the station of the knowledge of their own selves."

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@no1author,

The mind of the universe; cosmic DNA.

Samm

---------- Post added 02-02-2010 at 10:16 PM ----------

Reconstructo;113636 wrote:

Well, let's just drop the word "God" for this next question. What I mean,I suppose, is this: where does it all come from? Why the universe in the firt place? I'm not saying that this is valid question but that it is a strange and fascinating question. Why something rather than nothing?

Reconstructo, we know that the universe exists. You and I are part of its existence, tiny bits of the universe in terms of both space & time. Space & time came into being with the universe, they are the body of the universe, and when the universe ends (if it ever does), space & time will end with it. But existence will not cease. Existence will continue beyond the end of space & time just as it did before space & time (and the universe) came to be.

What is the nature of existence outside of space & time. We can't observe it, but we can assume that those properties belonging to space & time cannot belong to existence beyond space & time. Hence, there can be no size nor shape nor location nor duration; no outside and no inside, no beginning and no end. No change is possible without time. Multiplicity and number are not possible. So what are you left with? Absolute being, unmanifest and infinitely potential (since all that ever may be must come from it). An existence that cannot change, that can never be diminished or increased. An existence without beginning or end.

If this existence had ever not existed, it never could have begun to exist, and no universe could ever have come from it. It either is or is not. Our existence, and the universe whose existence we share, proves that the existence beyond space & time does exist and must always have existed.

This answers the question for me. It shows that existence in its ground state (outside space & time) is what philosophers call "necessary being," having the explanation of its existence within itself. Since the absence of space & time does not permit any manifest existence, the ground state of being has only potential and unmanifest being, but it is vast beyond all imagination and is undiminished by the birth of any universe.

I have been brief here in describing the concept, but I hope it has given you something to consider.

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@no1author,

God is both the Alpha and Omega points, the primordial mind and first thinker he is the only cause that has no cause, the ever existing one both eternal and infinite

1 Reply

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;124599 wrote:

God is both the Alpha and Omega points, the primordial mind and first thinker he is the only cause that has no cause, the ever existing one both eternal and infinite

So faith really is knowledge???

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido;124610 wrote:

So faith really is knowledge???

Faith is never knowledge, how can it be? It implies a logical conclusion.

---------- Post added 02-03-2010 at 06:37 AM ----------

Alan McDougall;124599 wrote:

God is both the Alpha and Omega points, the primordial mind and first thinker he is the only cause that has no cause, the ever existing one both eternal and infinite

Alan you imply that god lives in time and space, you have to prove time and space are internal first. Cause also implies a beginning and it brings you back to time and space. Why is that essential?

1 Reply

@xris,

xris;124613 wrote:

Alan, you imply that god lives in time and space, you have to prove time and space are internal first. Cause also implies a beginning and it brings you back to time and space. Why is that essential?

Hi again, xris! If you read my post #54 above, you'll see that I'm trying to address the issue of an uncaused "cause" beyond time and space with my concept of what I call "the ground state of being."

The universe hasn't always existed, nor have the time and space that incorporate its body. But it could not have arisen out of true nothingness; there must have existed a potential of which the universe is only a realization in space & time. And that potential had to exist outside space & time. The absence of all space & time properties defines the nature of that potential. It appears as nothingness, only it is a nothingness pregnant with potential being. Because it is outside of space & time, it can have no beginning or end. Therefore, if it exists, as it must, then it exists outside of time, eternal and without limit.

When a universe is born from this potential, the potential is unchanged, undiminished, immutable. All the change occurs within the space-time reality of the universe.

We only see a fraction of the universe, a fraction of its vastness in space and a moment of its vastness in time. What if we could see more? What if we could see the entire body of the universe from the moment of its birth to the moment of its end? All at a glance, as it were. This would be a snapshot, a photograph of the universe in totum, and in my opinion it would be a photograph of all the potential realized by the universe. Thus, from outside its space-time context, the universe remains pure potential. It is, as I imagine, perhaps very much like a dream that oblivion dreams. Smile

Samm

1 Reply

@SammDickens,

Very much like my views Sam but I do not conclude anything from that observation. Not that i could put my faith in.

1 Reply

@no1author,

God is total surrender to his will.

2 Replies

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