What is "God" to you?

Cicerone states that "God is whatever the human mind wishes 'him' to be"
and r2d2O provides an example with his wish that "...God for me is Unlimited Primordial Spirit..."

0 Replies

Why is it always those who don't believe that have the strongest arguments and the most will to debate? Just what is it that is not believed in? Not god, I can see that much.

0 Replies

Cryacuz, good observation. Let me suggest an answer, from my little corner of the world. People, like us, do not hold specific beliefs, that is to say formulations that reduce "ultimate" reality to the size of our brains. That does not mean that we have no great (perhaps religious) respect for that reality; it means we accept no sacriligious formulations of it. I, for one, am willing to use the word, God, to denote that most mysterious yet wonderous of all realities--that which is the case ultimately and which I cannot possibly imagine. That's why I cannot formulate any belief about its specific nature. We CAN, however, enjoy, without understanding, our human-refracted version (i.e., experience) of its flowing manifestation.

0 Replies

Quote:

We CAN, however, enjoy, without understanding, our human-refracted version (i.e., experience) of its flowing manifestation.

Yes, it is not neccesary to understand the world to trust in it. But trust without understanding is something very few have the nerves for, never realizing that the answers are there, they just cannot see them because they're too busy asking questions.

I meet this kind of people all the time. They are always incapable of understanding my point, and equally incapable of understanding why that is. It is because they are trying to understand the world on their own terms. Learning, to these people, has become a methodical confirmation of what they already know, resulting in the conclusion that everything that does not compute must be false.

To seek true understanding is to try to understand the world on it's own terms, by remembering that learning is both the gaining and forsaking of knowledge. It is an unsteady pile, the sum of our knowledge. Every so often, when we throw on a new piece of fact, something else may tumble off, like sand piled too high. We must accept this if we are to turn our knowledge into wisdom.

0 Replies

Cyracuz, good points. I trust Reality because it is what I am, not because I understand it. But I would say that accepting the world on its terms is more like what Science tries to do than what Religion (false religion) does. Organized, dogmatic religions accept only their version of the world, not the world itself. In meditation, one of the major goals is to give oneself over (or up) to Reality; to experience it on its own terms, not, as you say, only to seek answers to our own ignorant questions.

0 Replies

Ah,Ah.Ah...Not so fast JL.
....Let's not be so hard on seeking answers. That's how I lost religion, and found God.

0 Replies

The only guy in a sheet that can scare the **** out of me

0 Replies

my god, hes of course a higher power. hes the creator of all, everything. hes the one in control of everything, and looks after everything the one i can go to for everthing the only one who i can fully trust and the only one who can keep a promise and a secret. he always comes through, always. hed never anyone down.

0 Replies

Religion separates good men from eachother

0 Replies

Didn't I just say Amen to that?....Oh well, it still seems profound to me.

0 Replies

Quote:

Let's not be so hard on seeking answers. That's how I lost religion, and found God.

hehe.. booman, keep in mind that to ask a question is one thing. To listen to the answer is quite another. We sometimes forget.

0 Replies

A bad reason to stay up till 4 a.m. arguing with strangers and learning nothing.But I keep coming back????

0 Replies

Currently, the topic "Is Evangelisation equal to cultural genocide?" has turned into a "What is God to you?" topic.

So I decided to move the argument into this topic. The arguments prior to this one can be found on the following links:
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=54303&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=90
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=54303&start=100

Now, real life, as I was saying:

real life wrote:

Yes we are. Because the question of Does God exist would require you to have knowledge of the entire universe to answer it in the negative.

I was not answering it in the negative. I was saying, we can never be sure of the answer to the question, beause it would require knowledge of the entire universe to answer it in both positive and negative.

Quote:

However even if we were only talking about the earth, or your country or your city, or your street: The answer is still the same. You do not have all knowledge of everything on your street. How could you possibly state that you can eliminate logically the possibility of God anywhere at any time?

Why must one rule apply to me but not to you?

If I have to be omniscient to say that we cannot be sure if God exists or not because there isn't enough decent proof, therefore you must be omniscient to say that he does exist because there is enough decent proof.

Because what we currently have in our hands is not decent proof, so therefore you must know that there is decent proof elsewhere, in places you haven't been.

Let me argue it another way.

What proof do you actually have and is it good empirical proof? If not, then you cannot say that the statement, "God does exist" is anymore true than the statement "God does not exist". Therefore, if you cannot say one or the other, the statement, "We cannot be sure of the true existence of God" must be more true.

real life wrote:

When I say, God is a non-corporeal Being that I know. To respond "you haven't seen God" seems as if you don't understand or don't want to understand the issue. To insist that the only way something can be known must be empirical is a circular argument.

If that is so, then all science must be a circular argument and therefore all science is useless.

It clearly isn't. I'm using the thinking behind scientific methodology to make my statement, so therefore if you are arguing the methodology is a circular argument, you are hence arguing that all science is a circular argument.

0 Replies

Wolf_ODonnell wrote:

real life wrote:
When I say, God is a non-corporeal Being that I know. To respond "you haven't seen God" seems as if you don't understand or don't want to understand the issue. To insist that the only way something can be known must be empirical is a circular argument.

If that is so, then all science must be a circular argument and therefore all science is useless.

It clearly isn't. I'm using the thinking behind scientific methodology to make my statement, so therefore if you are arguing the methodology is a circular argument, you are hence arguing that all science is a circular argument.

Not at all. Science is not by it's nature bound to a circular argument as you are suggesting I am saying. I am not saying that. However, science is not all encompassing and empiricism can be used to make a circular argument. "It's not real, because I can't see it. Anything I can't see cannot be real."

Not all knowledge comes from the senses. Have you never had an idea, a completely new idea that did not come from something you had seen or heard? Most likely you have.

Where did it come from?

And where is the idea now? You cannot see it, hear it, feel it, smell it or taste it. Where is it? The idea is still there.

Ideas and thoughts are just two examples of the existence of non empirical experience. Of course many ideas and thoughts ARE reactions to, or derivations of empirical experiences. That is obvious. But all are not. That is the point.

Don't believe that some ideas can have a non empirical basis? Well , the very idea or concept of God does not come from empirical experience does it? Since you yourself would state that no one has seen God, the idea did not come from the senses or the empirical experience of anyone, did it?

Not everything we know or experience is from the senses. Science, because of the way it is defined, is empirical. That means it is limited to the senses.

Therefore some kinds of knowledge and experience will be beyond the reach of science, but still valid.

0 Replies

real life wrote:

Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
real life wrote:
When I say, God is a non-corporeal Being that I know. To respond "you haven't seen God" seems as if you don't understand or don't want to understand the issue. To insist that the only way something can be known must be empirical is a circular argument.

If that is so, then all science must be a circular argument and therefore all science is useless.

It clearly isn't. I'm using the thinking behind scientific methodology to make my statement, so therefore if you are arguing the methodology is a circular argument, you are hence arguing that all science is a circular argument.

Not at all. Science is not by it's nature bound to a circular argument as you are suggesting I am saying. I am not saying that. However, science is not all encompassing and empiricism can be used to make a circular argument. "It's not real, because I can't see it. Anything I can't see cannot be real."

Not all knowledge comes from the senses. Have you never had an idea, a completely new idea that did not come from something you had seen or heard? Most likely you have.

Where did it come from?

Most likely the brain. And here we go. The biggest proof of God are those holy texts. Everything else can be merely attributed to the human mind and wishful thinking.

Quote:

Therefore some kinds of knowledge and experience will be beyond the reach of science, but still valid.

But if it is beyond the reach of science, how can you prove it to be true or real?

0 Replies

God is Love. Man is a God, who has forgotten himself. Man has put mud over his real self, which is Godly. The New Man, that comes to the world will show everybody that "I and My Father are one". The New Man is an old man, purified from the mud that the old culture put on him after he was born. He was born New, but the old minds, captured by lies, try hard to make him old and to kill him, but "He won over the world" and "He won over death" and "He has eternal life". And he, who loves Him, will know Him and by knowing Him, he will love The Father, who sent Him. God is Love.

0 Replies

petarstankov wrote:

God is Love. Man is a God, who has forgotten himself. Man has put mud over his real self, which is Godly. The New Man, that comes to the world will show everybody that "I and My Father are one". The New Man is an old man, purified from the mud that the old culture put on him after he was born. He was born New, but the old minds, captured by lies, try hard to make him old and to kill him, but "He won over the world" and "He won over death" and "He has eternal life". And he, who loves Him, will know Him and by knowing Him, he will love The Father, who sent Him. God is Love.

You'd make a lousy God.

So would I.

Best leave being God to God.

0 Replies

Wolf_ODonnell wrote:

real life wrote:
Wolf_ODonnell wrote:
real life wrote:
When I say, God is a non-corporeal Being that I know. To respond "you haven't seen God" seems as if you don't understand or don't want to understand the issue. To insist that the only way something can be known must be empirical is a circular argument.

If that is so, then all science must be a circular argument and therefore all science is useless.

It clearly isn't. I'm using the thinking behind scientific methodology to make my statement, so therefore if you are arguing the methodology is a circular argument, you are hence arguing that all science is a circular argument.

Not at all. Science is not by it's nature bound to a circular argument as you are suggesting I am saying. I am not saying that. However, science is not all encompassing and empiricism can be used to make a circular argument. "It's not real, because I can't see it. Anything I can't see cannot be real."

Not all knowledge comes from the senses. Have you never had an idea, a completely new idea that did not come from something you had seen or heard? Most likely you have.

Where did it come from?

Most likely the brain. And here we go. The biggest proof of God are those holy texts. Everything else can be merely attributed to the human mind and wishful thinking.

Quote:
Therefore some kinds of knowledge and experience will be beyond the reach of science, but still valid.

But if it is beyond the reach of science, how can you prove it to be true or real?

If by "prove" you mean "empirically demonstrate" , then you can't since it is, by definition, beyond the scope of empirical knowledge.

As I mentioned, the very idea of God couldn't have come from empirical knowledge in your view, could it? From your view, no one has seen, touched, heard etc God have they?

You stated that these ideas came from

Quote:

Most likely the brain.

How could the brain alone produce an idea (the idea of God) with no empirical data as a basis?

So there are ideas, thoughts, kinds of knowledge that are possible to be real and exist, but are not based on data from the senses.

0 Replies

Real life, please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you are saying:

(a) There is no empirical evidence for the existence of God, nor can there ever be.
(b) There is the idea of God, which cannot have an empirical basis.
(c) This must have come from somewhere other than that senses.
(d) God must exist.

If this is your argument, it would prove the existence of anything that could be imagined. Clearly this is not a satisfactory argument.

As a side point, I would suggest that the idea of God, like the idea of unicorn, dragon and fairy, comes from an amalgamation of observed objects. For example, fathers, grandfathers, kings, inventors, wise old men, tyrants, the weather, the sun, etc. etc.

0 Replies

Whether god exists as an objective reality is, as Frank has said ad infinitum, anybody's guess, and, since it is impossible to know, we have to cast this question aside.

God as a subjective experience or feeling is another matter, and it varies as often as there are individual conscious beings, and that experience may vary within each individual throughout his life. In other words, god, just like organisms, evolves throughout one's life.

More later.

0 Replies

What is "God" to you?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know