Re: Who is God?

Has no particular belief in a 'god' or supreme being. But I respect others right to their 'gods', as long as they don't try to force that 'god' on me.

Re: Who is God?

Nice to see you Lyn, I am sorry if I upset you the other day on that other thread.

Couldn't agree more Lyn with your posting, but I tell people what I believe and perhaps it makes them think more deeply.

Re: Who is God?

My thoughts for what they are worth:-

If there is such a thing as God then I do not see that God can possibly be referred to as "Who" It has got to be an all encompassing phenomenon which does not exclusively exist for humanbeings.

I have thought quite deeply on this over the years and have not reached any conclusive answer that I am happy to accept without reservation, so I suppose I could be called an agnostic - bordering on atheist and I will probably still be thinking about it up to the end. I don't see an afterlife as heaven and angels or hell and the devil. I think these conditions are here on earth and in our conscience and actual existence, not anywhere else, although I have no proof.

I believe humans to be largely irrelevant in any "grand scheme" if there is a "grand scheme". I think that many would agree that we are so inconsequential that we could disappear from the world and universe tomorrow and it would not matter one iota. The world and universe would get along quite well without us (probably better considering the damage and mess we have made so far).

I cannot believe that any God, if there is such a thing as God, created man in his own image. That vain and self important idea was thought up by man himself for his own needs. I said in another thread that I believe Man created God/s out of his own brain. How could it be any different? The laws which come from all religions and Gods, I believe, are motivated by man's need for order and the desire to understand the understandable and a desire to keep control of himself and the things he fears - (attempted checks, controls and an insurance policy to help cope in a precarious world and to give some re-assurance that there is a grand purpose and reason to exist and be superior creatures - special and more valid than all other living things).

Infinity is difficult to imagine, when we ourselves are finite and disposable. Infinity and the knowledge that we are finite are, I think, probably the only certain things to believe in. Humans seem to need to believe in an afterlife of some sort, or the hope or promise of one and think that a God or Gods can provide it if we live in an accepted way or do what we are told is right. We just don't seem able to be content to accept what we don't know or that things "just are". We only exist because the world and universe (at this point in time) is a favourable place for us to have developed into what we are today. It is obvious to me that if time and events make the world a less benign place and we cannot adapt to survive here then we will disappear. Nothing can prevent that from happening and sometimes I think we don't see or imagine a bigger picture without us.

I do believe that most things are recyclable and things do come full circle given time, so maybe our chemical elements will go on and will eventually re-combine into something else that can survive in another favourable environment, but the time-scale necessary for that to happen must be so vast and so way beyond our comprehension as to be almost a fantasy.

Re: Who is God?

Religion is certainly a strange thing, with many followers and devotees I think just hedging their bets just in case, but then again it is quite harmless until it becomes fanatical.

Religion down the ages has been mainly about power of the few over the many. Look back as far as you like into history and you will find High Priest type figures holding their sway over the masses by having "the ear" of the "Almighty Being", whatever it is called. The hocus pocus and ceremonies dreamt up by the clergy only served to reinforce their power by promising pain, hell and damnation etc if they failed to carry out "His" will through them. And some things never change, look around you at some of the more fanatical religions of today and it's just the same, but all religions still work on this premise and rely on fear.

Re: Who is God?

I went to a church school until I was eleven so I am happy about the God bit they taught me. i dont want to know what every-one else thinks. I believe in God, I dont go to church now, havent for a long time but I know he is there and thats how I like it.

Re: Who is God?

There is no doubt that man, over the centuries have believed in a God, some of them very primitive people have always had a thought that there was an almighty one.
Anthropologists will tell you that every being or race that has ever been discovered worshipped a god/religion.
Cave men by leaving drawings on cave walls.
Native tribes out of the jungle with no contact with civilisation have found a god to worship, a lot worship the sun.
The native American Indian believe in a god, Eskimos believe that animals have a soul, I think it is called aleunt.
Shamanism has been around in Northern Asia for many many years, and is spreading through the world.
So it is not as someone suggested a way of keeping the masses in order, it appears to be a natural phenomena.
So why should we be different, it does explain why we have so many religions out there.
Plenty of food for thought.

Re: Who is God?

Something is certainly in control of events, this seems not to be a free for all, but then again, order is probably very fragile.

Re: Who is God?

Who is God? Good question, AB!

"Who" is a relative pronoun used to refer to humans. That many people assume "God" thinks and acts in ways that just happen to coincide with the emotional and social states of human beings in their currently evolved state (judging, punishing, loving, requiring subservience, etc) is the first indication that maybe the question isn't phrased in quite as independent a way as it might otherwise be.

The second indication of course is the habit of spelling God with a capital G. Yes I know that's just a convention that we've all come to understand and possibly nothing too much should be read into it... but there's no denying it brings with it certain baggage - of a supreme being akin to a monarch or leader who needs to be worshipped. Again, it's a tellingly anthropomorphic way of referring to something we've never even witnessed. After all, are we discussing an "it" that was responsible for the emergence of our universe? Or a "who" (who) watches over us and loves us and judges us?

Notwithstanding the assumptions in that apparently simple three-word question (none of which I'm sure were lost on you, AB! ) I think it's a vital question because if a discussion is going to take place between believers and non-believers on the existence of "God", both sides need to at least agree a common frame of reference, so that it can proceed without crossed wires. And the most important pre-condition of all is the one of definition: how shall we define this word 'God'? - even if only for the duration of the debate on "His" existence.

If we assume the word God means the kind of loving, judging God of the Bible and other holy books, then I have almost no hesitation in seeing Him as fiction. Created by man. As David Attenborough once remarked, every human society that ever developed, in every part of the world, has had its own creation myth at one stage or other. To me, they're so obviously man-made stories that it still shocks me that people believe that the dominant religion of the country/family they just happened to be born into is the correct one, and all the others false. But we know that people don't reason themselves into religions using logic and probability - they fall under their spell for other reasons - family loyalty, emotional support, social activity, and so on.

If, on the other hand, we take the word God to be a synonym for "whatever created the Universe" then the discussion on its potential existence will likely be more nuanced and interesting. After all, "God" in this sense may be a fundamental force more akin to gravity than personhood. Or it may be "Personhood ++" an intelligence so infinitely higher than our own, that to speak of it giving two hoots about the intricacies of a bunch of evolved apes - whether we eat pork, whether we wear a silly robe and hat, whether we sleep with men or women - is as laughable as the idea that we humans give two hoots about the sleeping and eating and worshipping arrangements of two ants.

And then there's the question of why positing a God is needed in the first place. Why not attribute some type of divinity to the universe itself, rather than evoke another Being that created it? Doesn't that just shift the question of "Who created X" back up one level? Who created God? If God always existed, why can't the universe have always existed (perhaps an infinitely exploding/contracting one)? Claiming that the universe can't "just exist" but its creator CAN "just exist" is one of many logical inconsistencies of theism.

In short, I don't have any one particular definition of the word God. God could mean 'everything we don't currently know'. God could mean the Universe. God could mean the Multiverse. if we go broader still, God could mean 'existence'. God could be an alien civilisation (or super-advanced human civilisation) that caused a Big Bang. God could be a nasty, vengeful fictional character invented by simple-minded shepherds - or by an American pulp fiction writer (scientology). It truly depends on the context - ie. what's being discussed by the people I'm talking to. One thing I do know: none of us really knows what created existence, and it's possible that our brains may be too small to ever know, just as we could never expect an ant to take part in a discussion on quantum mechanics.

Re: Who is God?

Religion is not susceptible to logic, socratic dialogue is pointless as one either has faith or one does not.

Discussion only tends to cause arguments and social alienation because a true believer will not change his or her mind whatever the proffered evidence, ditto the unbeliever.

Would it not make for a far better world to live and let live, respect and accept another person's way in life than attempt to inflict one's own opinions on them.

Re: Who is God?

I find it strange that folk who don't believe in God do all the talking about the whys and wherefores of it ......


I'll just keep my faith and carry on as always going to see my Lord and Master in his own house.....church to the non believers.