How Do You Define a "God"?

saint_frankenstein said:

To me, a god is an intelligent entity that is capable of shifting paradigms, creating, destroying, transforming and reforming.

Going by that definition, all humans are gods.

Click to expand...

To expand on that, Gods may be intelligent beings from other dimensions who have reached the apex of sentient evolution and have taken to interfering with the affairs of less evolved intelligent beings for some reason or other. Some like us, some don't and some don't care much either way.

I think "God"s are just natural phenomenon.

Like Poseidon. He's not actually a man, he is just the fact that your family can die at sea, and the tides change, and fish feed you, and sharks eat you.

It's just personified nature.

HexBomb said:

This is something I've struggled with for awhile. In my experience, I've come across so many different definitions of what makes a deity, that I'm just not sure if there is a single working definition that can be agreed on.

So, what traits, to you, are required for something to be a god or goddess? What criteria must be met? Please explain why, and what something would be if they met some but not all of those traits.

Click to expand...

anyone/thing/being that knows/understands good and evil and has the ability to act upon it.

Would define the God as a CPU that manifests reality.

wizanda said:

Would define the God as a CPU that manifests reality.

Click to expand...

I presume you mean this as a metaphor. If so, could you elaborate on it? For those of us who are not computer engineers?

Quintessence said:

I presume you mean this as a metaphor. If so, could you elaborate on it? For those of us who are not computer engineers?

Click to expand...

The processor (CPU) is the center of the computer, it calculates all the data and creates what we see around us.

wizanda said:

The processor (CPU) is the center of the computer, it calculates all the data and creates what we see around us.

Click to expand...

So you might you say that god(s) is/are math, or the laws of reality as expressed through mathematical equations? It sounds similar in a way, to me, but I could be wrong.

Quintessence said:

So you might you say that god(s) is/are math, or the laws of reality as expressed through mathematical equations? It sounds similar in a way, to me, but I could be wrong.

Click to expand...

Yes precisely, God doesn't deal with things in a human way, the way some religions have implicated; instead what i found in my NDE, is God knew everything to a mathematical precision. So with records of many generations; God explained the cause and affects of my whole family tree, knew the reasons everything had happened and more. God's logic is beyond unconditional love and wisdom as dimensions, thus everything is calculated.
The way some religions describe God, they're clearly implying their own emotions on to God; possibly due to influencing the masses or possibly that as our own thinking has evolved over time, to now see science and maths as the building blocks, we used to see war and control over nature as key to survival, so our concepts of God followed suit. Which when we examine the many ancient ideas of God, they do to tend to get more horrific, the more we look back.

HexBomb said:

This is something I've struggled with for awhile. In my experience, I've come across so many different definitions of what makes a deity, that I'm just not sure if there is a single working definition that can be agreed on.

So, what traits, to you, are required for something to be a god or goddess? What criteria must be met? Please explain why, and what something would be if they met some but not all of those traits.

Click to expand...

Atheist here.

God is a projection of man. When 'man' is defined as a abstract or collective entity, a monotheistic god is usually the state in terms of representing a given moral order. But generally, the concept of God is defined by infinity as an expression of consciousness where as man's power is a finite product of the physical world. Hence God is infinite. Infinity is the definition of divinity.

The scriptures of the Bible state, Satan is the god of this world. Satan could be defined as a magnified projection of own self. Man is a god in his own mind therefore he makes gods of material things. Stumbling blocks are idols, false gods, and are seen in opinions and stubbornness.
An experience of God can not be rationalized there are no boundaries no movement but a pattern is laid down and everything seen is made to appear. The word or spokesman that lays the foundation came to earth as a man, Jesus.

Let me start with my definition of God. I was reading this book Native Wisdom for White Minds by Anne Wilson Schaef (White as in western culture) and she quotes Albert Wednt a Samoan writer who says:

God...was in the food they ate, in the water they drank, in the air they breathed, in the earth they trod and died on, in the words they spoke, in the sleep they slept, and in the dreams they dreampt in the everywhere and everything. ~Albert Wendt

She comments that:

Some Pacific cultures don't even have a name for God. It's not because God does not exist. God is self-existent. He is assumed. God is so present that there does not need to be a term for Him because God is life itself.

HexBomb said:

So, what traits, to you, are required for something to be a god or goddess? What criteria must be met? Please explain why, and what something would be if they met some but not all of those traits.

Click to expand...

I was fumbling around for a word that would define life. When "God" is in the food you eat and the water you drink, you really don't see anything outside of how you relate to the world on a daily basis.

So traits that would define life would be

1. Birth. Seeing a baby born and just the baby coming from a sperm and egg by itself is a miraculous event. You are seeing a human coming from, practically nothing. We are part of our parents; so, life is an interconnection with our family and roots.

2. A parent. When we eat what the earth provides rather than artificial foods, we know the earth takes care of us in the sense of nourishment. The earth is more water than land; and the Smythsonian as well as I was taught that we came from the water. We can't live without it, so our survival what we need for our bodies.

The earth takes care of us--it takes on the trait of a parent.

3. I hate to bring some new age into this, but at its basic, you have the four elements--earth, air, fire, and water.

• Earth--the parent that is the source of the rest of the elements below; as well as our nourishment.
• Air--our life (without air, no life)
• Fire--our energy (without the Sun we wouldn't be here)
• Water--which is also our nourishment. I could add purity given we use water to cleans ourselves as well.

4. What drives the earth and moon to circle around each other and the sun, what keeps our heart pumping, baby's born, etc... is what many call the Spirit (or God).

The characteristics of the spirit is described above.

5. Many of us feel a calling or purpose in life to do something for the good of oneself and/or for others. That is a trait from life as well.

6. Also, you have human interaction. The love we bring to all living not just people. We have relationships and such.

---

If one of these traits were not met, say there is no air, there'd be no life. If we didn't have our callings/purpose we would find no reason to want to survive. Without physics, the universe wouldn't be in line for us to exist. Without water we would be dead; without the earth, nothing on earth would exist.

So life IS the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe.. etc.

As such, because a deity denotes the source of all things (whether Creator or not), that deity would be life.

That's how I define God/deity. Without life, there is nothing.

A definition from a dictionary:

1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.
   synonyms: the Lord, the Almighty, the Creator, the Maker, the Godhead; deity, goddess, divine being, celestial being, divinity; More
2. an adored, admired, or influential person.

A God is something or someone that has been deified. The status of Godhood is, therefore, subjective, not objective.

HexBomb said:

This is something I've struggled with for awhile. In my experience, I've come across so many different definitions of what makes a deity, that I'm just not sure if there is a single working definition that can be agreed on.

So, what traits, to you, are required for something to be a god or goddess? What criteria must be met? Please explain why, and what something would be if they met some but not all of those traits.

Click to expand...

God is you, with many other members who are hugging each other all the time; this is why He is Love. God is refereed to as Him, not because there are no females in His light. There are also no males in His light. There are aggressive and receptive elements of His light. We refer to God as Him because even in our lives the aggressive ones always stands out from the crowd. If we are God's children, then isn't it logical to conclude that we have some of His attributes. What makes a deity is it's power. if' 'two heads are better than one'' than a million heads can only magnify that power. I hope I've made some sense.