What God Truly Is?

Two posts back, I meant to write:

We have requested only evidence - not proof.

Brandon9000, I think we have to make a conscious and physical effort to understand God. Most people don't bother. Wonder why some find all kinds of time to deny there is any such thing, at times vehemently, as if there is actually something to hate, there.

No one is really denying it. We're only saying that there is no reason to affirmatively believe in a God without evidence that there is one - not proof, just some evidence to suggest it.

Aiden, you say that you believe in God because you see goodness in your children and elsewhere. Does this mean that you believe in Satan because you sometimes see "evil" in your children and elsewhere?
By the way, I like your signature line ("I've learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that I have room for paradoxes." [Maxine Hong Kingston]). This is one reason zen buddhist live so comfortably with contradiction. It takes a smaller mind to insist always on logical consistency.
Too often we try to shrink the universe to the size of our brains. You know what I mean.

JL - I said I know that I choose to believe in the goodness of my children because I want to just as I choose to believe in God because I want to. I was acknowledging Brandon't point that a certain amount of belief in something is a conscious choice.

By the same token, as Brandon asked for evidence, I do view the existence of my children as evidence of the existence of God, as I view all of creation as evidence of the existence of God. To me, it's all a miracle and too intricate in detail and perfect in design to have been happenstance. That's just my own personal view of what I see in the world. (And by the way, I'm happy I'm able to view it that way - it's kind of nice to view what others might take for granted as a gift and a miracle and evidence of love from something greater than what is readily apparent to me).

I don't believe in Satan as a being - but I do acknowledge the presence of Evil in the world. You can call it whatever you want - I don't really have a name for it myself- I just think of it as the total absence of god, or goodness or love.

Aidan, nice response, but I do not believe that evil is actually anything more than our construction. The universe or Reality is beyond good and evil. I do resonate to some extent with your perception of the divinity of life. I see no reason not to put the VALUE of good or godliness( that is our poetic privilege) on nature. But I also see no reason why we must do so. Either way is a creative act of the individual. But I do feel that to see divineness in nature is to see it even in the random, or accidental, mutations and the way they interact (eufunctionally or dysfunctionally) with environmental forces (e.g., natural selection) characterized by Evolution. Indeed, the latter is far more wonderful to me than is the model of Intelligent Design because it is consistent with careful and honest observation--i.e., Science.

JL - I entirely agree with you. In my perfect world, everyone would be free to believe in whatever it is they feel comfortable believing in, including nothing at all if that's the direction they feel led - because in fact, that's the way it's gonna be whether anyone likes it or not. I don't believe that you can convince anyone to believe something they don't - and I don't believe they should feel coerced or compelled to. It's a very personal issue and needs to be respected as such, without having assumptions and judgements and stereotypical generalizations applied. I'm just stating here what I believe - and even that is always in flux- constantly changing and being adjusted as I live more and read more and learn more. I certainly don't have all the answers, not even for my own life, much less for anyone else's, so I would never feel comfortable telling anyone else what they either should or should not believe.

I'm curious though - I'm with you when you say that "evil is nothing more than our construction." But what do you mean when you say "The universe or Reality is beyond good and evil"?

We certainly should be free to believe as we wish. That is the beauty of free will, is it not?

But are we prepared to accept the consequences if what we believe is inconsistent with truth?

Aidan, I don't directly SEE goodness or badness, like I see animals or rain. I see only evidence of evaulations of good or bad in the expressions made by people regarding things like animals (pets vs. predators) and rain (irrigation vs. floods).
As far as I can see Nature is inherently indifferent. The wonderful thing about humans is that we create values. We are cultural animals, making language, logic, values, ideologies, etc. They do not exist in nature except as we humans put them there. (of course we are part of nature)

Yes - that's the sticky part - but I think that in life in general, people should be prepared to take responsibility for and be prepared to accept the consequences for any action or lack of action they might take. Unfortunately, humans (in general) seem to have evolved into a species that wreaks havoc and then doesn't want to answer to anyone for it (or even admit it to ourselves).
People (including me) want to view the truth as subjective- different for each individual- and maybe it is, but there's always the chance that it's not.

I get what you mean JL - there is no evil (intent) present in nature- except in humans. Interesting, huh? Why do you think that is - if we're just another aspect of nature - albeit at the head of the food chain? Why did we, apart from all other aspects of creation, (especially if one believes human beings are just a different configuration of the same atoms, miraculously thrown together without thought or even a recipe ) evolve in such a drastically different and destructive direction?

(Because I do think the world of nature that was handed to us was inherently good because the laws of nature seem to me to be full of benevolent intent. But I allow that might just be my own optimistic nature and belief in a creator speaking).

What god truly is.......is truth.

Amigo, you want to apply the value-laden name of "God" to truth. Fine. I would do the same except that I would prefer to apply it to my notion of Reality: that which is, whatever it may be, and even if it's unimaginable to my puny little mind. Regarding this last statement, I like to "hypothesize" that an ant could never begin to grasp what you and I are doing right now, even if he were the smartest any of his species. He could not do so because of the structure (the reality) of his nervous system; he's inherently incapable of grasping what is not part of ant-reality--just as we are encased within our human-reality. As such, I see a difference between Truth and Reality. Truth to me consists of the propositions I make about the nature of Reality (i.e., that which is the case), just like an ant might propose an interpretation of our behavior right now. Ideally, our "truths" would be identical to our reality. And super-ideally that reality would be absolute and objective (not our human, as opposed to an ant's, relative reality); it would be what some of us call God's Truth. But I see only human truths: human-based and oriented propositions about the nature of Reality. Knowledge for us is always human reality, propositions that meet the criteria of our idea and ideal of truth. Knowledge is a function of the knower (one of my favorite principles).

I don't follow your reasoning. The existence of your children is the result of well known physical processes, and most certainly doesn't show that there is a God. The existence of the cosmos doesn't either, since one could also explain it as a natural phenomenon not coming from an intelligence. Your deduction is invalid.

Brandon, I also could not accept Aidan's assertion that the very existence of her children is evidence for the existence of God, given our (yours and mine) materialistic world-view. But what if she means that the wonder of her children, even the wonder of physical processes (just we feel wonder at the findings of the New Physics) that produced them, is itself evidence for the wonderous character of Nature. In this sense, I refer to God as a term for the value humans can place on their sense and experience of Reality (even the dualistic sense that I ultimately reject). I do not feel that way, but sometimes I appreciate it.

By the way, Aidan refers to Nature's perfection in design as evidence for God A.K.A. intelligent design. As I see it, nature is full of imperfections (at least from my perspective when in a dualistic mode: good-bad, beautiful-ugly, strong-weak, healthy-sick, etc.), just as indicative of stupidity as it may be of intelligence. But I do, nevertheless, consider our "imperfect" nature to be wonderous. Nature is wonderful in itself, not because it is the creation of an intelligent creator.

What god really is.

Oh, then I'm wrong; He's really something great.