Define God

echi wrote:

Different physical environments, different cultural values promoting different types of intelligence..... All these factors contribute to our conception of "personhood".

And when we take an idea, a universal idea, and dress it in this "personhood", we get God or Allah or Yahew or whatever. Is that what you mean? Either way there's some truth in it I think.
If we strip away the personhood we might have the pure idea.

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JLN wrote:

One would think that if human beings created their gods, there would be diversity in the characteristics attributed to those gods across the world and time.

Maybe not so much if all had the same universal ideas to work with. Ideas like birth, life, death, sky, earth, dualism, force and will. Among others.

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How would a species of apparent entities, simultaneously and universally conceive of the existance of a deity?

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Aldous Huxley wrote in his "Perennial Philosophy" of the profound similarities that the world religions have at their mystical core.
For example:
Hinduism: Vedanta
Judaism: Cabala
Buddhism: Zen
Islam: Sufism
Christianity: Jesus' teachings (as manifested in such mystics as Miester Eckart, Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross)

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JLN wrote:

Aldous Huxley wrote in his "Perennial Philosophy" of the profound similarities that the world religions have at their mystical core.
For example:
Hinduism: Vedanta
Judaism: Cabala
Buddhism: Zen
Islam: Sufism
Christianity: Jesus' teachings (as manifested in such mystics as Miester Eckart, Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross)

And the concept of a personified deity is, in all variations of religion, a misconception.

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I can understand reacting to environmental events ..ie wak head first into a tree would prompt one to evaluate the event and pass the knowledge on to others so they could either cut down the tree or walk around it.
What event would focus the intellect on Ggod. All things are external to the intellect ... could Ggod be an exception?

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Interesting question, Gelisgesti. You seem to hold that all knowledge is of/about OBJECTIVE things--"things that are external to the intellect". That is generally so with our approach to practical scientific and much (Descartian) philosophical thinking. But here where we are temporarily talking about transcendental matters like Ultimate Reality, God, The Living Everything, Brahma, etc., dualism--self-object--becomes dysfunctional. The subject-object split that you consider inevitable is irrelevant. "Good" IS the exception!.

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Cyracuz wrote:

echi wrote:
Different physical environments, different cultural values promoting different types of intelligence..... All these factors contribute to our conception of "personhood".

And when we take an idea, a universal idea, and dress it in this "personhood", we get God or Allah or Yahew or whatever. Is that what you mean? Either way there's some truth in it I think.
If we strip away the personhood we might have the pure idea.

I am referring not only to the personification of God, but also the personification of you and me. Both concepts are misconceptions, it seems (although, I suppose ALL concepts are misconceptions. Confused

)

"God" is supposed to suggest that which is non-conceptual and, thereby, help us to move past these misconceptions (dualities, contrast sets). It seems reasonable to me that Jesus, Gautama, and others, likely expressed this realization, but were largely misunderstood and, consequently, deified by their (unsolicited) followers and persecuted by their (unsolicited) ummm... persecutors.

"Salvation" is the realization of Cyracuz's "singularity".... awakening to an impersonal reality. Contrary to that is the personification of "God", assigning an ego to God/Brahma/LE.... in short, creating "God" in our image. (not good)

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I think you are right echi.

And I also think that Guatama and Jesus were talking about the things you write, and that they were misunderstood by people who take the answer they want then proceed to ask the questions needed to arrive at it.

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Genesis 1:27
God created man in his own image. In God's image he created him; male and female he created them.

How did he create? A snap of the fingers .... the blink of an eye .... a potion? I think that he did it the way you or I would, he 'imagined' us .... utilizing an intellect developed over billions of eons, changing ... growing through time. Think of a baby, arriving with all the homo sapiens equipment but without the ability to put them to use. Enter intellect with the first note of understanding recorded with a smile ,so complex, so simple.

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Echi, very well put. Smile

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I think so too. He's one clever little furry creature that Echi. :wink:

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God
God is all there is. God is the one power and one source of life in the Universe. Since God is everything, then you and I are God. We are to God what DNA is to the human body, we inextricably comprise the whole. Jesus was no more the son of God than are we. What Jesus knew that most of us don't, is that he and God were one. He came here to remind us of the truth of our being, but what he said has been completely bastardized in each of the bible's agenda ridden translations. God is the Universe's greatest creator and so are we. Every thought, word and emotion is something we've placed into the mind of God for manifestation. So for those of you who believe that God is pain, then be prepared for that experience.

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Marlies, with the following I agree completely. Thank you for the reminder:

God is all there is. God is the one power and one source of life in the Universe. Since God is everything, then you and I are God. We are to God what DNA is to the human body, we inextricably comprise the whole. Jesus was no more the son of God than are we. What Jesus knew that most of us don't, is that he and God were one. He came here to remind us of the truth of our being, but what he said has been completely bastardized in each of the bible's agenda ridden translations

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Welcome to A2k, Marlies. Your input will be appreciated.

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Re: God

Marlies wrote:

God is all there is. God is the one power and one source of life in the Universe. Since God is everything, then you and I are God. We are to God what DNA is to the human body, we inextricably comprise the whole. Jesus was no more the son of God than are we. What Jesus knew that most of us don't, is that he and God were one. He came here to remind us of the truth of our being, but what he said has been completely bastardized in each of the bible's agenda ridden translations. God is the Universe's greatest creator and so are we. Every thought, word and emotion is something we've placed into the mind of God for manifestation. So for those of you who believe that God is pain, then be prepared for that experience.

Welcome to a2k Marlies. Now please tell me, do you people make this stuff up as you go along, or do you have some original texts? Before the discovery of DNA how did that particular verse go?

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Oh, BTW, Marlies. You will need to provide some justification for your asseverations.

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Why bother?

Anybody can provide "some justification" for anything they deem fit so that's meaningless. Unless of course you are going to switch horses and propose some rational justification.

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You and I both know how loosely is applied the definition of 'rational'

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Marlies is giving us an intuitively meaningful DEFINITION of "God." Its "justification" is in its meanginfulness. It is a personal truth that you can or cannot share, more like a subjective understanding of a joke than providing an objective cure for the cold or empirical support for an historical interpretation.

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