God and existence

Define "exist"....thats the key.

Why should anyone care? Your use of the term "god," as though it were a single, discrete, unitary thing which is known to exist begs the question; as well, capitalizing the word suggests that, for you at least, the answer is a given. I think you are being less than completely honest or candid with the people here.

Don't know, don't care. I just think that the world would be much, much better if so many people were not so hung up on the concept!

What do you mean by 'God'?

If God = all that is, then yes God exists.
If God = some immaterial being, then no I don't believe God exists.
If God = some loving thing, then no.
If God = a conscious creator, then no.
If God = whatever caused the universe to come into existence, then maybe.
If God = something else, then I dunno... watcha mean when you say 'God'?

Well, I agree that I should have been a little more specific. By "God", I am referring to any form of supernatural being; and by "exist", I mean, does it "exist". I dunno, I thought that one was pretty straightforward.

moogly_bear- Philosophers and scholars have been kicking around the concept of God before the time that things were written down. It is not a straightforward question. It is extremely complex.

moogly-bear,

No, existence is not straight forward. See Google references on "existence"

Arguments about the "existence" of a "supernatural being" are futile if "existence" demands "empirical (nonsupernatural) evidence".

I have been hammering away at this point for some time

For comparison try thinking about the "existence" of "credit". I would argue that "credit" has "existence" because it is a meaningful (commonly held) concept governing social relationships. For me that is ALL any "thing" is including "God".

God exists as a subjective reality, a state of mind perhaps, or even a feeling, not as a concept but as an experience. It's something like a cat hearing music; it hears it, but it doesn't appreciate it.

We can say that all music is spiritual to someone that likes it, but not to a cat. Ironically, in order to appreciate music you must live in the field of time and then transcend it. To be transported by music is to live in eternity. Cats live in eternity, but being unaware of time, they can't appreciate eternity as we can.

Organized religions push God concepts, and concepts being ideas are not gods. To worship an idea is idol worship; however, one can worship an idea as symbolic of the unknowable. It's when churches claim the unknowable to be known through the authority of a religious text that they get in trouble; that's what I call second-hand religion.

Coluber,

If you had prefaced your first paragraph with the words "For me"...I would understand it as a statement of transcendent spirituality. Your deconstruction of "time" constitutes an alternative or complementary modus to my deconstruction of simplistic concepts of "existence".

Thanks, I guess. Could you rephrase that last sentence; it's a bit above my head.

Coluber,

To expand....

Normally "existence" presupposes the dimensions of time and space. My argument is essentially that "existence" IS "relationship between observer and observed". Neither "exists" independently IN time or space because these themselves are relationships. So when you use a phrase like ..." you must live in the field of time and then transcend it"...you are recognizing an aspect of holistic reality beyond "normal existence".

Well, I am still on the verge, of either way. But I am slightly leaning over, like my design was mixed, as if I was the Leaning Tower of Piza. Everytime I think there is no God, my mind always thinks something like You'll go to hell for this, you know that right? But anyways, God seems to have been disproven in a number of ways, including evolution, which destroyed the theory of Adam and Eve. I believe, there is a God, but that God is the unexplained, and the unproven.

Drowned By Darkness

I notice that you have responded to (blitzed) a number of the philosophy threads. I think you will find that words like "proof" are pretty "low level" on these threads and people can't be bothered drawing your attention to well known debates about their usage. For example, in science there is no "proof" only "falsifiability in principle" and even this is compounded by concepts of "non-binary logic" and Godel's "incompleteness theorem" (See Google ).

Your answer above illustrates popularist psychology but no "philosophy" beyond. Please take these comments in the spirit of "advice" rather than "criticism".

Allright fresco, I am sorry about that. I will try to be more advisable. I was being a little out of touch there.

Science may not be able to substantiate Creation and Reality, as it is limited to the physical dimension, but neither can it refute that that is.


God is a Tree

God is a Tree, -
We are Its Roots;
Its Trunk; Its Branches;
Its Buds; and Its Seeds!


"Because the blind man cannot see the moon does not negate the moon's existence or its effects upon the earth."


"Has God been around forever? And please don't use the 'God invented time' or 'God is not confined to the laws of time' excuses. Because I see a few problems with either answer."


eternal
adj.

Being without beginning or end; existing outside of time.


God exists outside of time and the universe.

We, our physical selves, exist within time and the universe and had a beginning and will have an end.

God is the Alpha and Omega of the universe.


The problems aren't with either answer but with foundations upon which the questions are based.

Forever doesn't exist. It is man's concept because man perceives of time as a "forever" existent.

God exists outside of the universe. God caused the creation of the universe with the instant of the big bang. From that moment time came into being.

Time is finite in going backward but may be infinite in going forward.

Man can't perceive of the reality in which God IS. By attempting to confine God to our understanding of reality we create the basis for false assumptions.


We are each entitled to our own belief systems. You are entitled to yours and i respect that. In my belief system i don't accept Jesus and conventional Christian doctrine.

i believe that we are all part of the fabric of God and that we will all eventually gravitate back into the Oneness of God regardless of the errors that may have occurred along our paths back to that Oneness.

We are because God Is. God Is that we are. We all eventually return to God though by varied paths.


What i believe!

i don't believe in Heaven! i do believe in reincarnation! (Rebirth of the soul in another body.)

i believe that everyone is part of the spiritual composition/soul of God. The purpose of everyone is to go forth into the earth plane and other planes to "experience" and to ultimately gravitate back into the Oneness of God.

Along their paths of experience/knowledge acquisition, many entities (the spiritual particles of God) choose to enter (incarnate/reincarnate) the earth plane with various goals as purpose.

When the entity's physical body dies the entity goes back to a state or plane of existence where it considers its immediate past. It judges whether it accomplished those goals that it set out to accomplish and determines in which plane and under what circumstances it may need to incarnate in order to accomplish additional goals on its way back to the Oneness of God.

Essentially, the entity is its own judge as to accomplishments, failures, goals and the circumstances under which it chooses to incarnate.

The above is my opinion and is expounded upon in my treatise A Search For Truth:

Available at the "www" link at the bottom of this reply.


We all have and need our own Beliefs! But, we need to acknowledge and understand the Beliefs of others in order to facilitate a peaceful and pleasant cohabitation in this life.

The information given in "A Search For Truth" is given to you simply as an insight into my philosophy and my understanding of this life.

My giving it to you is not an attempt to sway you from your Beliefs, but is the dissemination of additional information upon the sparkle of which foundations are established.


Blessed Be,


Ted

Any belief I may or may not have about any God of sorts would not require me to worship or praise anyone. A god that exists in my eyes would simply not crave such a human need, he would surely have provided me with all I need to go about my existence, be it pain & struggle or joy & happiness with a sense of learning, simply by looking inwards. So I ask myself, God or no God? No, better yet, given the above, why am I considering such a question? Hmmm...

you define god satifactorily, then I'll tell you whether or not that Entity is real or not..

Should take you just about one lifetime.

God = G.ood O.rderly D.irection

For some souls, God exists. For others, not yet.

Essentially, everything is light. Energy is heat. There is only one thing, really, that 'exists'. One essential truth.

This truth is love. It is the energy. The light is mind, thought. The mind is God. We are the thoughts of that mind.

It's quite simple, really. And right under our noses, so to speak. Maybe we're defining what we seek before we find it. If so, then most seeking is a farce.

well if he does he as a damn funny way of showing it