What is God?
 

in almost every topic here, it seems almost every other person mentions "God", but yet there is no discussion of what "God" could be. I don't want this turn into flames, or arguments... I just want to hear other people's ideas of what they think "God" is. So, to you, reader, what is "God"? (note: By "God" i mean any higher power [if any] that you believe in, not just the usual religious view)

to me, I don't buy what the bible says. which is why I've spent most of my life trying to figure out what my answer myself. In the bible "God" always seems to be a singular entity with its own opinion and view point, which I don't agree with. If this is true it would really be no different then one of us ruling all of existance, no matter how wise He is. He still has an opinion which is based on his current state in time, which could be wrong from someone elses view point. and who is to say wether one opinion is better then another?

To me, "God" has to be a collective and can not be singular in nature. If it can have an opinion/emotions then it can failable and is no better then it's subjects (us) if they themselves have freewill and can formulate opinions (as all ideas and opinions are just that, and are equal in value in terms of one vs the other).

at the core, everything is made of energy. Everything from the chair your sitting in to your conciousness, every bit of it the most basic fundumental level is exactly the same. I think that all of that is "God", we as a whole make up "our creator". In essence, we are the cells of "God". Just as our actions as a society and how we work together effect the outcome of this world, so do our actions as a whole effect the state of god and existince.

I think what we believe as an individual becomes our own reality, and each person has their own subjective reality (basicly reality, IMO, can be defined as "an individuals perceptions limited by their beliefs"). So if someone truly believes and has faith in something, then it is true and is no better or worse then someone elses ideas. this is kind of what I meant by "so do our actions as a whole effect the state of god and existince".

ok, yeah, it's kinda late for me, have a headache, and not sure I'm making any sense anymore...

i vividly remember, when i was 11 or 12 yrs old, sitting in the swings beside my best friend in her back yard. that was the first time i really thought of & discussed infinity.

there's some connection betwixt infinity & faith, so i think...
it's caused me much doubt, conflict, confusion, ... as i've grown up, outgrown & left behind my plaid catholic school girl uniforms.

so, no. i do not believe in some lofty fella sitting on a throan up in heaven. that's a fairy tale to me.

i learned to pray as child. i quit praying as an adult as my doubts rolled in.
but... i have always found myself still talking talking to God when i am in needy times... it's a weird perplexion i've yet to come to peace with.

i don't know what or who God is? i'm not sure i (or any of us) ever will / can know.
i think the bible is a bunch of proganda written by many men. ok, there may be some good advice within the bible (i don't really know, being that i haven't actually read it ever fully). i just know that so many people misconstrue the words to fit their needs & that's what bugs me most about people quoting the bible. i should bother to read the book fully someday i suppose.

anyway... as far as God existing... i continue back to the infinity thing. it warps my head.

I feel this "God" entity is simply the energy found everywhere. The essence of life we can touch in this world, and the deep basic understanding that there is good in our reality. I can see the reasoning for the "Face" we humans put on the "Gods" that are worshipped, and even accept the need (it allows people to SEE what they pray to) but, dont feel the need to label my vision of these energies in such a way.

God is the imaginary friend adults have to prevent the despair over the pointlessness of life.

God is a person's highest aspiration of themselves.

He is what we strive to become, either personally or as a society. In ages gone by God, or Gods have had very different personalities, manifestations and numbers. These often reflect somewhat the prevailing civil organisation of the time. The Judao/Christian God (assuming it's the same one) appears to have gone through at least one major personality revision himself. Who knows what paths other Gods have taken?

If we create Gods in our own image, it might be interesting to look in this divine mirror, and learn a lot more about ourselves, and our ancestors in the process.

I like this explaination on many levels...

Why is that?

It seems a bit glib to me. It's also ironic, since it implies that one must assume one's life to be pointless unless you believe in God.

nods to zen tom...i guess i don't see much utility in such reasoning.

God to me, is the reason why i can say that i believe love is stronger than death.

Utility is what I think it is all about. The belief in god serves a function, and gives meaning to answerable and distrubing questions. It is very much the imaginary friend who makes someone feel better when they are really alone. The fact that god would have 'utility' makes it into a tool, to be used for a purpose.

Interesting that I should happen upon this thread now. I have been trying to figure out what my beliefs are and where they fit in. I find it hard to put my beliefs into words. I am going to keep an eye on this thread.

The rock is God. The air is God. The beat of a single heart is God. The silencing of that same heart with an act of rage is God. The polluting of the air we breathe is God. The destruction of the rock with a bomb is God. God is perfection. He is not the perfect good nor is he the perfect evil. He is the perfect.

Every breath I take is a prayer to the mighty power that is God. God is the equations of existence. I am God and so are you.

At least this is the way I feel about it. (I have also thought about it too.)

I don't see God as an entity and have distanced myself from the worship of a single Entity. I worship all the aspects individually and my worship is to simply live and die as I find my path through this world.

God is whatever people want him to be. Most often though, God is there to mask the unknown, the incomplete or the unfathomable.

For me God is something of which I hold no knowledge.

I like the way you've stated this Axiom..
This also tecoyah..

ARTelevision's view that intelligence as an integral aspect of the universe, an active agent, also adds to my views on this subject.

To me, it is the inherant force within everything. Every thought, action, being or material aspect in the universe, and as real as any property currently known.

In fiction, Stranger in a Strange Land, the thread "thou art god' runs through. You, I, the grasshopper on the grass as John Smith lay dieing, all are God.

Works for me.

I think of god as being the crux of the universe. The greater the refinement of philosophy, the greater the science, the great the intellect, the greater the will, the better our ability to define god will be. As it stands, I can say that god is the crux of the universe in an assertive voice as apparent conviction gives the illusion I'm equipped to also give an explanation whilst simultaneously dissuading the inquisitive from doing what they do.

All I've got is disconnected theory and conjecture, whose constituent bits make perfect sense in them of themselves, but are sufficiently insubstantiall you'd have better luck piecing together a theory from torn sugar packets while partaking in the contents of one packet of hallucinagens.

Axiom_e and kramus, what does God give to the universal concept that wasn't there in the first place?

My take is that God is an underlying coherence which allowed everything to make sense. We are part of it. Being alive is terribly important for some reason, like a filter or catalyst, but we really are just along for the ride and creating our own possibilities and purposes as a subset of that coherence. When it comes to making sense of God, or Why, or all the rest of that stuff, well, those are human needs being expressed within the subset. We create our importances and requirements and so on. Sort of like a stained glass artist working with the light of the sun, which is so much more than a source of light through glass. But the artist is important, and the light that is transfigured is important, and in the end there is more to all of it. When I "die" whatever I am part of will be reconstituted in some manner which has been transfigured by my life. And my life will have effect on the form of that transfiguration.

Works for me :)


Works for me.

The way i see it, God is an excuse to act like you're better than everyone else and that you can tell them what to do and how to live.

wow, this turned out better then I hoped.

I see this a lot in society, and it's really what worries me. if something goes wrong, we blame God and question His workings and in some cases even curse him for that act. If something goes right, however, they usually say it's just good luck. No one ever really ever bothers to question "Why?" anything happens... they just [eventually] accept it and move on and never learn from it.

Yeah, i don't put much stalk into the bible either. it was fully written/compiled over 200 years after the fact, and at a time when people were looking for a something to believe in and being ruled by a paganoistic society that detested belief in anything as well as even went as far as killing people because of their beliefs. also this wasn't too long after man casted off the belief in Zeus and other Greek gods. Kind of reminds of the game you played in kindergarten where everyone would stand a line and tell the next person in line something, then they'd tell the next person, etc. By it reached the end of the line there wasn't a single word beeing passed on that you said. 200+ years is a lot of time to doctor the facts, as well as add your own spin on things.
Granted, there is many good things to be learned from it, but it just seems to me like people believing in Santa Claus their whole lives... instead of trying to figure out the truth, they take other's words for it and take that as the truth. And not many of these people ever try to learn the lessons that it tells either. It just seems as philosophy and actually thinking is something society doesn't want to deal with anymore and there more content with falling into line with other's ideas and thoughts and leave the work to other people. And wether they believe it is true or not is only based on what they themselves believe in the first place. I mean, if some scientists came out and gave proof of intellegent extraterristial life, how many of the ppl would believe it and how many would pass it off as a joke?

I don't want to bring this thread too much off topic, though in my questing for answers (God, life, etc.) I seemed to have approached it backwards.

I actually started with a belief in the psychic and paranormal, my family heritage is English on my mothers side, so all this I thought was pretty normal as I was brought up with these beliefs.

I didn't read the Bible, nor did I have any interest in wanting to know it. As I continued I researched many other religions and beliefs. Then about four or five years ago, I finally studied the Bible.

It amazed me, the amount of information it contained. I think it has a great 'blue-print' for living. There are a lot of issues about human behaviours, the shoulds and shouldn'ts. I could also relate much of my other learnings and ideals with what was being said in the Bible. I was surprised at the amount of 'good' information. It is all this that keeps any spark of a God like aspect in my thoughts.

I think I just wanted to differentiate between the information contained within the Bible as opposed to the circumstances or conflicts that surround it.

Kramus,

So God completes the universe. How does this happen? What values does God add to the universe to make it seem complete to you?

I agree... but I also think it's more of a guide book then strict rules of living ones life. People hold on to it like a shield and quote it without ever trying to understand it or learn the lessons from it. To them, it's the be-all/end-all answer book. when in doubt, just flip to a random page and they'll find a quote to suit their needs. same thing happens everyday w/ Nostradums' Centuries.

if your going to try to find an answer to a question like "what is god?", I think you have to look at many different theories and texts and look at them all with an open mind, rather then one small section with a closed mind.

Like you, I started out on the more paranormal side of thing when a friend of mind said he could Astral Projection and learned what I could on that, and moved on to more mysticism/spirtual subjects, then on to buddhism, and now mainly just other's philosophies. so a lot of my view points tend to take the side of those and have more of an anti-god aproach...

God completes the universe? I thought the universe was an expression of God - an expression in so far as our current senses and accumulation of consideration agree that it is what ever it is. Probably a lot more to things than that. (Which I figure makes death so important. We get to experience that expression in ways that aren't filtered throught the evolved biochemical exhuberence that is life.)

I'll take the second question as a general "What do I get out of the 'God' idea". There is something underlying all the energies and interactions and what not that we are slowly becoming more aware of. Some basic common whatever that ties it all together. I see it in writings and in art and in all the ways life works with life. I see it in the sky and in the Hubble pictures and in the speculations that popular science writers render comprehensible for folks like me :thumbsup: I feel it in my gut and I've held it with my children and I kissed it's cheek a couple of days ago at a visitation in a funeral home. You want me to pull a simple answer out . . .no can do. But when you die you will be reintegrated more directly with the answer yourself.

I figure no worries. Life can suck, death sucks, and there is heaps of cold uncaring shit for billions of light years all around us. So what. It makes sense even if we don't understand it. It makes sense even if we never will be able to while alive.

Works for me :)

Yes, I agree - there are people that do this. I however have moved through this and just looked at the information presented and applied that with and to all my other learnings. There are only a few things that cause me some conflict, but overall I have found many correlations with other expressions of belief.

I find this interesting as I have found the opposite. I see the information I have compiled as an interpretation of an ultimate intelligence or energy that I assume is given the lable 'God'.

Another reason I do not discount the idea of God is that throughout the ages, man has always appeared to aspire to something 'higher'... it is something I see as inherent within us, something that seems to nag at people, the reason we question and philosophise.

I really like the simplicity of this too. Whether this is God, or something on a consciousness level I do not know. I just find with either expression and the variations in between, it is interesting in that it produces thoughts of evolution or aspiration.

see... i'm still stuck on this infinity thing.

i mean... there's got to be something behind the scenes running the show.
how did this all begin? will it ever end? how could it all just cease to exist?

and maybe this is straying off topic...? but i can't help but to believe there's 2 forces in the universe. one is good. one is not. maybe that thinking stems from my catholic upbringing, learning about god & satan. but god & satan are just names afterall, right? and maybe they're simply names for two opposing universal forces? like magnetics...

Order and Chaos.

Good and Evil.

Light and Darkness.

Yin and Yang

A dicotomy of energy is a pretty common human theme, not just Catholic.

I feel that too but why do you need this concept of God to complete the picture? Why not just leave it at a question mark? It's more honest to your experience because you are a being with a limited capacity for knowledge. The soul, afterlife, karma, the mysterious forces underlying everything around us, they all seem a part of this world to me. Until we get to God, and I really don't know what to do with God, shall I use him as a synonym for the universe? Shall I use him to tie up the loose ends of my knowledge?


Bringing God into the picture won't help you unless you choose to stop asking question. If you don't, you will be stuck with the same questions and many more.

If people can say "God just is and always will be" why do people have trouble saying the same for the world around us?

I don't need the concept of God except as a convenient language tag. Yes, the freight of that word means that the definition will be nibbled to death by ducks. I am not overly concerned with "defining", and I do find the God word much more succinct and suited to my personal aesthetic than "question mark". I could call it the Great Chord, the Sussurus of Completion, many things. God is good enough.

Works for me :)

I've been trying to figure out what my personal definition of "God" is for years.

All I've pretty much come down to is that I cannot believe or accept the idea of a personified God. Lately I've been growing toward the idea of a pantheistic deity, but even then I'm uncertain.

I used to think that God was electicity. It's in everything living, and even in things that aren't. I don't know though. I'm so uncertain.

Weee... gonna quote myself! =p

I should of clarified that a lot when I wrote it. I didn't mean "anti-god" as in there's nothing out there but us; but "anti-God" as more like the biblicial defination of God. sorry about that, bad terminology I guess.

I do believe in a higher power, but calling it a god, diety, or anything like that is not really correct. I don't think it has a will of it's own, thought, or anything else we as humans expirence such as emotion. To me, it's more of like an underlining current. It's there, it flows through everything, it makes up everything, but it has no (or gives any) direction. I seriously wish I could describe it better...

I actually don't believe in "good" and "evil". right and wrong I do though. and Ustwo mentioned "Ying and Yang" in his response. *sorry if this comes off like I'm an ass, I don't mean it* but Ying and Yang aren't exactly opposing forces. Basicly means "there's a little bit of good and every evil, and a little bit of evil and every good". In the buddhistic (btw, is that even a word?) view of kharma, every action has an oppisite and equal reaction (the value of each effect is equal to that of the cause. i.e., if you do something really bad, you'll get some really bad return on your kharma). In other words, every cause will have two effects (basicly): a good and a bad one. if the cause is good you get an near immediate bad effect, and somewhere down the road you'll get the good effect. if the cause is bad, you'll get a near immediate good effect, and in the future you get a bad effect. as far as the time frame goes of seeing these effects, it's kind of hard to say. Considering sometimes you don't see an effect from your kharma until the next life or even the one after that, but they always go in that order and the first is always soon after.

k, yeah, that was off subject a bit...

hmmm, I thought good v's evil was more a contium along a spectrum or a sliding scale.. taking my perspective of the ultimate energy and it's expression as our free will to make the choice of where we will position ourselves along that scale.

This is to say that I would call it the same force, not two seperate forces... in this light I wouldn't call it off topic, sorry if it perceived as otherwise.

Sometimes I feel like God is the balance of this world - the nature and the essence around us, both good and bad. The beauty of nature is just as strongly rivaled by its intense power - stronger than man in so many ways... We each draw something different from God depending on what our view is, and this wouldn't be possible, I think, unless the essence was available to everyone in form they so needed.

For me God is the universal concept. I just use the term God for others to understand what I am thinking. You know the end all be all.

I agree with this, though I do think that God is an entity. Whether he be some sort of energy or matter of what have you I don't know. But I do know that God is all loving and all compassionate, and in knowing that he exists and striving to be like him we become better persons. So then, the people that say that god is an excuse, I wonder what exactly he is an excuse for. Loving compassion?

As far as God just being some self actualization within ourselves, I think that, while this approach may work in life, it doesn't work as far as the afterlife is concerned. Nobody is perfect, everyone sins. So then, what happens when we die, are we suddenly self actualized and blissful right when we die? I take the approach that God sees those that try to do good and strive to be like him, and he takes those people into heaven after death. He knows no one is perfect, that everyone sins. Those that truly strive to do away with sin, though, are the ones that he embraces.

A figment of our imagination.

Indra

http://img172.echo.cx/img172/3912/indra2dd.gif

From the moment he was born, all the other gods knew their time was up. His parents were the sky god Dyaus Pita and the earth goddess Prthivi; he was born fully grown and fully armed from his mother's side.

First thing on his agenda, kill his own father. He then got his mate to make him a thunderbolt so he could go and kick the arse of some other dude who used to be the hardest god in godland.

He was known as a great drinker of Soma; sometimes he did this to draw strength, and when he did he grew to gigantic proportions to battle his enemies, but more often than not he drank to get drunk.

Hard but fair, he was. During times of drought he would give the people rain but if they failed to pay the appropriate tribute, he'd give them another drought.

That's Indra, the hardest and coolest god in godland.

Oh my god..... that made me laugh so hard I think other people in the library are looking at me.

But hell, if you ARE going to believe in a god you might as well believe in one that has multiple arms with SWORDS and rides an oliphaunt! No one can beat that, ever.

I'm so distracted by Indra that the serious post I was going to make seems pointless now. Still, it's a good day to have a laugh.

what you just did, is create your own God in which you want to believe in. if you create an idol of your own will, that being is not really a God, is it? you are ITS God... in which, IT does not exist.

Every God is a creation. The idea of practicing a religion is having faith in the idea that your concept of God (or whatever your beliefs might be) is the corect one.

Though I am not sure if I agree with xddga's use of the word God. It seem that becomes a synonym for the universe as a whole. Does the universe somehow become more special by calling it God? Saying the universe is God does not give it any new atributes. So why not call things by their proper name?

this is kind of bad terminology. correct, but bad really. I was always told that God w/ a capital G always refers to the biblical form of higher power (capatalized because we substutite that word for His name considering He doesn't have one, same w/ He/His/It/She/Her/etc); while god w/ a lower case g always donotes pretty much every other entity of supreme being. *shrugs* Maybe I'm just an idiot, but that's what I've been told... only reason why I use the word "god" to describe what I feel/believe is there really is no other term or word. in fact I think that term is completely wrong what for what i believe as it represents a completely different idea and image from what I think.

I never said that my defenition of god is just the universe, and if it came off that way I apoligize. I think the universe is more a part of "god" then anything, such as a memory/dream/thought/feeling is a part of you. while i did state that I think god is made up everything (which includes much more then just the physical universe, such as peoples thoughts, feelings, intentions of their actions, dreams, etc), it is much more then the sum of the parts. Much like you are made of a bunch of parts that work together as one. Although, like I said earlier, I do not believe that this "god" has a will of it's own, but works together with all it's parts (us) much like herds of animals work together in order to go through life.
as for the true nature of the "god" i believe in, I can't really say. I guess you'd need to know the meaning of life and what purpose we serve as living creatures to truly understand what a "god" is (no matter what your deffination of one is).

Maybe this is true, maybe it's not. But based on all time searching for an answer to "what is god?" and all my expirences, I feel this is correct for me. I didn't simply wake up one day and "create" this idea, but is the product of a life long search and countless hours of questioning every facet of my life, existince, and expirences, then questioning the answers I get from them. to say it was simply created, and therefore wrong, because it's what I want is rather harsh.

Maybe I am wrong on every fundemental level. maybe everything I believe in is false, like you say, but oh well. At least I'm trying to find the answers for myself and have made me a much better person because of it, and I'm proud of that fact.

whether it was instant or it took time... that is not what i was challenging...

i was simply challenging the fact that... a God cannot be a God if its existence was created by men.


Mantus> the largest religions of this world sprung off of the one and same God...
Jews, Muslims and Catholics all believe inthe same God. but different things of "him"...

Jews deny that this God sent a messiah. And wait for one.

Cathlics believe this God sent a messiah, whom was Jesus Christ, and worship him from there.

Muslims believe this God gave their prophet Muhammed divine inspriation to write their holy doctrines which they call the Qu'Ran.. (Koran)

all the other religions... well... im just gonna say it.. sprung out of nowhere. THESE religions wre in fact created by men, and are of course... false.

Who do you suppose created that God?

Don't judge what you don't know please.

It is through such Hypocracy as this....that many run from the folds of the church.

Tecoyah -- if you're going to use such an inflammatory word as hypocritical, at least use it correctly. Wyckd's statement might be insensitive, but it's certainly not hypocritical.

And, in fact, the RCC and most Christian churches do not teach that non-Christian religions simply sprung out of nowhere, as if they were entirely false. They are all a falling away from true religion, and so are false in some sense, but they all (or almost all) contain some truth. In fact, since we all have a certain approach to God which often biases us, we can often learn a lot about true religion and true spirituality by studying these other religions

while the wording isn't exactly right, I do agree w/ the statement. I've known many religious ppl who hold the view that they are right and everyone else is wrong and can, and will, burn in hell. There's no if's, and's, or but's about it. There is no salvation for those who don't follow the one true and holy path. It's that attitude that I can not stand. It get's so bad that these ppl hate those of an other faith, ideals, or practices. Religion is not about hate, it's about compassion and wisdom, and being open to your fellow man regardless of any circumstances. Their very way of life, to borrow tecoyah's word, is hypocritical to their faith because of this.

Maybe it's just me, but of all the people I know like that and try to follow their religion to a T like that, I've never seen one that ever seemed happy. They all seemed depressed and misserable... I don't know, just a passing thought.

oh, and btw, Wyckd, no religion just "sprung out nowhere". Those that do end up more a less a cult or fall by the wayside as mythology. Everyone had to come from somewhere and all took many generations to take root and gain followers. And without followers and people spreading the ideas of the religion, you have nothing.
Most of today's religions and philosophies have also been around just as long, if not longer, then your so called "true religions".

This is what is commonly known as logical thinking. If I believe p, and you believe ~p, one of us must be wrong. Since I believe p, I'm likely to believe that you are wrong.

But religion, or Christianity at least (and I'm pretty sure this applies to all three of the monotheistic religions) is not just about compassion and wisdom, but also about holiness. Depending on what you mean by 'being open to your fellow man', this may or may not preclude that. In any case, we are taught to love even our enemies -- and few non-Christians are really our enemies. Hate is surely not an essential part of Christianity, and I feel bad for you if you've only met hateful Christians.

Zen Tom's comment about becoming a God seems a little Glib... and a little scary.


This is a little more realistic:
God is the imaginary friend adults have to prevent the despair over the pointlessness of life.

Thats not logical thinking. One has no more of a base to believe in p then ~p therefore one's assumption is made on faith not logic.

I don't think that's quite right, Mantus. What I meant was that, given the fact that one believes that p, it's logical to believe ~(~p). (In fact, logic requires it). The question of whether or not one is epistemically justified in believing that p is a separate question.

Actually, there are entire formal religious structures dedicated to the idea of attaining godhood. I think you'd be surprised by how mainstream some of them are... Mormonism comes to mind quickly.

Wow - just realized that I dug this one out of the ground. Sorry 'bout that.

Whoa! I'm sorry I missed this earlier...

These 'other' religions did not just spring out of the ground. A lot of the perceived 'other' religions actually stem from the base religion or worshipping of Gaia, the feminine mother to all of nature, before the times of Christ! It was a 'gold bull' that was being worshiped when Moses came down from the mountain... that was very representative of the "Age of Taurus" in which mankind were mastering agricultural and survival needs, these times were a very matriarchal and feminine age in which fertility cults flourished... coming into the "Age of Aries", we began to move to a more patriarchal age, males took over the ruling and the age of dominating and suppressing the female aspects of worship. It's where our 'instincts' gave way to our 'rational minds'. Development of ego, individuation, philosophical developments by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle gave rise to the "masculine archetypal principle", and after a couple of thousand years... ego was very much the rule, over and above mother nature.

Then enter Jesus and Buddha... their teachings bringing the concept that that ego development wasn’t enough; the ego must be yoked to something greater through sacrifice and non-attachment. So, enter again the rebirth of the oldest religions where the feminine and nature worshipping is reviving old roots in Paganism, Goddess worship etc...

I can't see how you can state that 'other' religions sprung outta nowhere... much of it has roots going back to the beginning of times... :confused:

Interesting, since I have, indeed studied world religions as much as my feeble mind allows. But I certainly agree there is much to be learned from reading as much of them as possible. My post was not meant to be inflamatory, but rather an expression of what reality I see resulting from the type of statement made.

After reading through this thread, instantly the philospher Volitare pop's into my head, and the quote "If God didn't exist it would be necessary to invent him."

God is part of the evolutionary process "man" must go through as intelligent beings that question both existance and death.

If us as intelligent beings can exist, then an "intelligent" universe can exist. A universal conscience if you will

although in a religious sense God was a name given, as man is not supposed to be able to utter his name

I don't get you RCAlyra? Why is it glib? With respect, I think you've missed the point, which, from the way I read it, is that God is an invention of Mankind's. Looking back at the various gods through the ages provides an insight into what was going on at the time the deity in question was created (both in a political and psychological manner). In a way, it mirror's Ustwo's comment, only in a less joky (glib?) manner. Just my humble opinion.

xddga, your comment that everything in the universe comprises the entity we call God is a theme developed in one of Feist's Midkemia novels...good fantasy series, if you like that sort of thing. But I digress.

Attempting to define God is problematic. We're like blind people trying to define an elephant by only touching part of it (why do I always touch the trunk and think I'm being attacked by a giant snake?). That's why everyone's definition is right....kinda. I personally am close to tecoyah's take on God, yet I have to recognize that my subjective sense of things doesn't make it objectively so. Maybe my beliefs spring from the need to reconcile my instinct for survival with my knowledge of our mortality.

Essentially, finite beings such a ourselves simply don't have the capacity to describe or experience the infinite...though there a moments, all too fleeting, when I have the sense that I'm participating in divinity.

Well, this was an easy one...what say we go on to describe the sound of one hand clapping?

I believe that Human Conciousness is the (equals) the Conceptual Understanding of Cause and Effect. Therefore the human mind cannot contemplate the meaning of God. The meaning of God is tied up with the idea of infinitity--what came before---what will come after. Because the Universe(or everything, if you will) appears to have niether a cause nor an end, and because this is antithetic to what human conciousness is capable of conceptualizing, God had to be invented. This is not to say God does or does not exist. Just because our conciousness is unable to envision "The Before" of everything, it doesn't mean it did not exist. The same can be said for "Forever"

Now I wish to be proven incorrect.

To begin proving my idea incorrect could someone please inform the class whether Human Conciousness both in its physical and holistic manifestations can "think" in any terms other than "Cause" and "Effect".

"Enduring rational reality"

Are you actually saying that human consciousness IS the conceptual understanding of cause and effect? I perceive a computer screen. Are you saying that somehow this perception is a result of understanding cause an effect, that without this understanding no perception is possible?

yes indeed
 

I'm not sure that perception and conciousness can be classified as the same thing. On the other hand, perception itself is never anything more than the effect of a cause. This might sound like a cop out. But I believe its been established that nothing we see, smell, hear, touch, or feel is experienced first hand. It is all broken down into electrical and chemical signals and then reestablished upon the conciousness. The conciousness for its own point has been proven to ignore or change its view of the world "if that view defies expectations". Therefore I don't believe you can discount cause and effect as a major ingrediant in the sensory systems of our worlds.

Through the interaction of the organs of the eye and the miracle of light we are able to see a computer screen. Because of the physical properties of plastic and metal we can have a computer screen before us. Because of tangled web of affairs stretching back into the pleistoscene our species has learned through the smallest possible steps how to conceive, manufacture and ultimately use a computer screen. I could go on but I have to get to work.

I will point out one other thing. Some pets like to watch t.v. My cat ignors the t.v. like its not there. No matter what kind of birds are flying around on the screen or what kind of small animals are running around, my cat couldn't be bothered with it. Why. I believe its because they are missing crucial components that would make my cat say "hey look a lovely bird, I would like to eat it now". I think its possible that for other animals, ---an object that has no smell or scent does not really exist. So what does this mean. I'm not sure....I will think about it at work and see if I come up with an answer.

Thinking abstractly is thinking in terms other than cause and effect. 1+1=2 is thinking in terms other than cause and effect. Neither 1 is doing anything to one another, and neither is responsible for causing a 2. Likewise, the two exists as a distinctly separate idea to the two 1s. They all simply exist, in an abstract, non causal space.

Another example might by attempting to observe the mind, and contemplating the 'identity' of the mind. Or imagining/remembering the taste of cheese on the tongue.

1+1=2 is as much an example of cause and effect as any and every example one can make. Mathematics itself is defined by cause and effect. Mathematics is controlled by logic and logic is the study of cause and effect.

Further I would disagree that abstract thinking is not defined by cause and effect. The action of Thinking, whether it is an act of observation or one of creativity, is controlled by completely biological factors. At the heart of my original question is really this. Please bear with me again as I unfold my idea.

The body is made up entirely of living cells(individual life forms, mind you) selfishly trying to replicate and survive. These cells take advantage of symbiotic relationships with both like and unlike cells in order to facilitate replication and survival. The Effect of these symbiotic relationships is that over millions of years of evolution layers and webs of these concurrent relationships between cells makes a higher organism. Our bodies are made up of an emalgamation of selfish individual life forms whose personal survival depend upon cooperation with other cells. Going further with this idea; "Thinking" whether it be abstract or observational can be defined as the act of nerve cells, individual life forms themselves, cooperating with each other for survival. We now know this to be the truth, though few of us like to admit it. These are scientific certainties.

Now you may deny, and rightly so, that human conciousness is much more than the sum of its parts. The question is, can it be that conciousness arose through millions of years of evolution, as an holistic adaptation of cooperating nerve cells. What if conciousness itself is only a far reaching bi-product of this cooperation. If so, then I would put forth the proposition that miraculous as this conciousness might be, it still must be controlled by the logical conclusions of cause and effect.

Oh yes - I'm in complete agreement with you here in saying that it emerges from cause and effect (deterministic) processes, (as an accidental but far reaching and fascinating bi-product) but that doesn't mean it can't transcend those things and act in unpredictable and non deterministic ways.

With those qualifications made then, I'd still say that 1+1=2, as a timeless model of the inter-relationships between abstract quantities, must be devoid of cause and effect.

I don't think logic has anything to do with cause and effect. Cause and effect must have time in order to exist. Logic as a system of abstract ideas doesn't have time. 'IF's don't 'happen' before 'THEN's any more than 'AND' s are responsible for 'NOT's. But I suspect that's not the point you were making.

An interesting parallel to this discussion can be found in the relatively new theory of "teemosis". http://www.thesecondevolution.com/paper3origins.pdf

The general idea of Teemosis is this:

First---general scientific knowledge of DNA over the last 50 years has led biologists to the understanding that DNA is made up of four chemicals that occur primarily in base pairs, that accumulate in long chains that constitute to some degree a biological alphabet which tell the cells which proteins are to be made in various amounts for a certain period of time for the purpose of producing any number of biological effects.

Second---what is missing. How can the production of proteins code for inherent behavior, (ie a baby sea turtle breaks out of its shell and runs like hell for the water immediately, without any prior learning experience telling it to do so.)(ie second example, while DNA can tell the cells to create liver cells by directing the production of proteins, it cannot by any means that I understand, code for the actual shape of the liver(or the eye, or the hand, or the brain for that matter.)

Teemosis attempts to alleviate these problems by theorizing that a second evolutionary process is at work behind the scenes. This process uses what scientists have dubbed "junk DNA" to construct high order behavior in organisms by utilizing stresses in the environment as a mechanism of change. This is an intersting subject of study, and may well be the next big biological breakthrough in the study of life.

I still have a problem understanding how a chain of chemicals can define specific behaviors and objective body structures. Rupert Sheldrake is a radical scientist with some very unscientific ideas. He is considered a hack by most "real" scientists. One theory of his that has always interested me is his idea of "morphogenetic fields" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphogenetic_field
The idea that the patterns of biological and physical structure, function and behavior are located both within the genes and without(outside) the body in the form of a energy field if you will, that may also house the concious realm. This enery field connects all life in general, but has even stronger connections with life forms of the same kind.

Scientists in general have no love for this idea because it cannot be proven or disproven(yet). I really like the idea because it represents a higher belief; it represents the idea of why we are here.

this all depends on who you ask, many people god is the big person in the sky, watching everything.

For Tillich, god is your ultimate concern, a concept that trancends the worldly.

For Freud, god is this internalized idea, that was once necessary for society to survive, but is now outdated.

for me, I think of god as somewhat of a watchmaker, not a new idea, but I like it.

Let me say what I know from the Quran:
God has created time

This is perhaps one of the reasons why we do not have the power to see God. You might think God has a 2d picture, 3d picture? What if its 4 or 5 dimensions.

Our brain can imagine:
1 dimensional view
2 dimensional view
3 dimensional view

Time is the Fourth dimension and since he created time, the revelation might be 4th dimensional. So it is not a picture that can fit currently in our brain.

A related topic fromt he hadeeth. One prophet asked to see God.
"God said you cannot see me" The prophet insisted so God revealed himself to the mountain and the mountain broke to peices. My conclusion is that our brain does not have the power to see God.

Therefor since we cannot even see God, how can we know who exaclty is God or where did he come from? Unfortunatly, I don't think that would be possible

infinite goodness

You're arguing like any other religious person, hiding god always where we, at the moment, can't look. In history mountains, the sky and other "unreachable" realms were used to hide god, but we destoryed all of that hideouts, now you're looking for a new one.

BTW: do you know the Invisible Pink Unicorn?

"The point of this silliness is to prod the theist into remembering that their preaching is likely to be viewed by atheists as having all the credibility and seriousness of [the atheists'] preaching about the IPU"

"Like all religions, the Faith of the Invisible Pink Unicorns is based upon both logic and faith. We have faith that they are pink; we logically know that they are invisible because we can't see them."

God is nothing, but a hallucination. And for me it is kind of scary yet fascinating how people are conditioning their brains to believe the absurd and irrational.

I could easily say your statement is irrational and absurd.

Yes, you could. But I think you would need rather good arguments to convince me that the belief in an unprovable, unobservable diety is rational.

I don't believe in this, but I read a book that peddled the idea that God is a highly developed being who was able to survive the last "Big crunch." Thought it was interesting.

It's just as rational as calling an unprovable, unobservable diety a hallucination. :thumbsup: