• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

God, What is it?

Thief

Rogue Theologian
It's not my "native" language. Unless it's direct rather than abstract, poetic, I won't understand it. I'm not sure why God needs to have mystic language especially eastern mysticism.
God did not give Moses a name......per se

God made a statement.....I AM!

THAT statement is synonymous to.....
I am the First in mind and heart
I am the Creator
I am your God
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
What does this mean? Is God out there or is God coming from within when we are are peaceful with our thoughts?
It's only when our habitual thoughts and feelings are quiet that we can truly perceive God's presence in everything. The silence that is written about is much more than stopping the wagging of the tongue but instead is ceasing to be captured by the "monkey mind".
 

EtuMalku

Abn Iblis ابن إبليس
God is the anthropomorphic ideal attributed to the objective universe which is a non-conscious, memetic, mechanism of Entropy and Negentropy
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Here is the OP:
"Fool said:
What is god? how is it observed? realized? is it necessarily a who? is it limited to space? time?"


It doesn't appear limited to anthropomorphic gods.
The term itself: "God," refers to an anthropomorphic god.
God as love, or universe, or natural law is not what "God" commonly refers to in common parlance.
Let me illustrate one of the paths that led me to this concept of God.

In college, my belief in God was seriously upset by a philosophy professor who was very good at breaking down religious assumptions. I spent a good portion of a semester in an existential malaise. But, I managed to use my new ways of thinking and expanding interest in mysticism to redefine God. As follows:

-"God" can be defined as omnipotent, omnipresent, and a creating and destroying being with consciousness.
Exactly, a discrete, conscious being -- AKA person, an entity, a thing.
-To be omnipotent and omnipresent, a being would have to be the Universe itself.
Perhaps, or perhaps interpenetrating the universe. However, in common parlance, people aren't that analytical or philosophical.
Moses, discrete from God, goes to the mountain -- a thing other than God. He -- a discrete entity, -- meets God, not as as a universal "stuff" but as a tangible, visible symbol.

He -- a discrete individual -- returns with stone tablets; things inscribed by, and other than, god -- to the people -- also individuals other than god.

God as Brahman is impracticable, he can't even be talked about as a conscious being without being conceived as a non-entity separate from self, earth, and the visible things in it.
-Since life forms are conscious, and are inextricably a part of this Universe, this makes the Universe conscious. Looked at as a whole, the Universe may as well be God.
I'm not sure the first conclusion follows. Universe as God? OK, but this is using God more in the Brahmanic sense; a god that can't be a being, much less creating or destroying what, in essence, would be self.
-People interpret God differently, even in the same religion. Some see God as all good and wondrous, others see a mix of good and evil and both beautiful and terrible. Or forgiving. Or vengeful.
Yes. The term is fitted to the situation, as are the qualities ascribed to it.
 

Guitar's Cry

Disciple of Pan
The term itself: "God," refers to an anthropomorphic god.
God as love, or universe, or natural law is not what "God" commonly refers to in common parlance.

Does it need to be? The OP doesn't require this.

Exactly, a discrete, conscious being -- AKA person, an entity, a thing.

Sure! In relation to the rest of Itself.

Perhaps, or perhaps interpenetrating the universe. However, in common parlance, people aren't that analytical or philosophical.

They don't need to be for it to be true.

Moses, discrete from God, goes to the mountain -- a thing other than God. He -- a discrete entity, -- meets God, not as as a universal "stuff" but as a tangible, visible symbol.

He -- a discrete individual -- returns with stone tablets; things inscribed by, and other than, god -- to the people -- also individuals other than god.

That is a specific Abrahamic myth. I am not working from that theological standpoint.

God as Brahman is impracticable, he can't even be talked about as a conscious being without being conceived as a non-entity separate from self, earth, and the visible things in it.
I'm not sure the first conclusion follows. Universe as God? OK, but this is using God more in the Brahmanic sense; a god that can't be a being, much less creating or destroying what, in essence, would be self.
Yes. The term is fitted to the situation, as are the qualities ascribed to it.

Impractical, only if you require a personal God for meaning. I find great meaning in understanding my existence as part of the greater whole, that I am a part of God as a leaf is a part of the Tree.
 

Unveiled Artist

Veteran Member
God did not give Moses a name......per se

God made a statement.....I AM!

THAT statement is synonymous to.....
I am the First in mind and heart
I am the Creator
I am your God

Anyone can me "I Am". The first. If it's just a discripter, what is the difference between one I Am and another?
 

Ayjaydee

Active Member
God is not a thing. Why do atheists insist on defining God in a particular way. Things have boundaries. Every major religion defines God as not having boundaries or limitations. God is both immanence and transcendence at the same time. God is both knowable and unknowable at the same time. God is NOT a thing.

Just because you use a toilet everyday does not make you a master plumber. God is a word that does not have a simple definition. It is not a word you can understand after a few days of Sunday school as a child. God is more than just your simple way of thinking about God. People spend their whole lives studying divinity and mythology. There's actually quite a lot written on the subject.

Consider the following idea for God:

"Dionysius describes the kataphatic or affirmative way to the divine as the "way of speech": that we can come to some understanding of the Transcendent by attributing all the perfections of the created order to God as its source. In this sense, we can say "God is Love", "God is Beauty", "God is Good". The apophatic or negative way stresses God's absolute transcendence and unknowability in such a way that we cannot say anything about the divine essence because God is so totally beyond being. The dual concept of the immanence and transcendence of God can help us to understand the simultaneous truth of both "ways" to God: at the same time as God is immanent, God is also transcendent. At the same time as God is knowable, God is also unknowable. God cannot be thought of as one or the other only."

Apophatic theology - Wikipedia

In the spirit of Apophatic theology, God is NOT a thing. God is word that is a representation of an idea.
And the word for god is not god
 

SaintUriah

Member
He is person i knows the day he descends to earth in every years He comes to Earth a lot but has a day of the Year He and the angels come that night better than a thousand months
God say it
I will wait for that night To invite him

Its person in jews and islam Even in christian can be eagle with jesus as protection
 

1213

Well-Known Member
Tell that to the thousands, if not millions, of innocent folks who Yahweh killed or commanded to kill in the OT alone.

I don’t believe Yahweh kills innocent people. And if He allows innocent person’s body to die, the person can continue in eternal life with God.

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Mat. 25:46

In Biblical point of view death of a body is not the end and it is not something that we should fear.

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matt. 10:28

"Therefore I tell you, don't be anxious for your life, what you will eat, nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they don't sow, they don't reap, they have no warehouse or barn, and God feeds them. How much more valuable are you than birds! Which of you by being anxious can add a cubit to his height? If then you aren't able to do even the least things, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow. They don't toil, neither do they spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if this is how God clothes the grass in the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith? Don't seek what you will eat or what you will drink; neither be anxious. For the nations of the world seek after all of these things, but your Father knows that you need these things. But seek God's Kingdom, and all these things will be added to you.
Luke 12:22-31

But I understand that in atheists’ godless point of view this life is all and that is why it is no wonder if death is for them terrible thing.
 

Sand Dancer

Crazy Cat Lady
I don’t believe Yahweh kills innocent people. And if He allows innocent person’s body to die, the person can continue in eternal life with God.

He killed many fetuses. He killed Uzzah, who only wanted to keep the Ark of the Covenant from falling over. There are more.

But I understand that in atheists’ godless point of view this life is all and that is why it is no wonder if death is for them terrible thing.

Most atheists/agnostics were Christian at one time, including me. 28 years as a Christian, 22 of it as a fundamentalist/evangelical. We don't fear death.
 

EtuMalku

Abn Iblis ابن إبليس
I don’t believe Yahweh kills innocent people. And if He allows innocent person’s body to die, the person can continue in eternal life with God.

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Mat. 25:46

In Biblical point of view death of a body is not the end and it is not something that we should fear.

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Matt. 10:28

"Therefore I tell you, don't be anxious for your life, what you will eat, nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they don't sow, they don't reap, they have no warehouse or barn, and God feeds them. How much more valuable are you than birds! Which of you by being anxious can add a cubit to his height? If then you aren't able to do even the least things, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow. They don't toil, neither do they spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if this is how God clothes the grass in the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith? Don't seek what you will eat or what you will drink; neither be anxious. For the nations of the world seek after all of these things, but your Father knows that you need these things. But seek God's Kingdom, and all these things will be added to you.
Luke 12:22-31

But I understand that in atheists’ godless point of view this life is all and that is why it is no wonder if death is for them terrible thing.
No huh?

1 Chronicles 21
-God kills 70,000 innocent people because David ordered a census of the people

Deuteronomy 3
-God also orders the destruction of 60 cities so that the Israelites can live there. -He orders the killing of all the men, women, and children of each city, and the looting of all of value

Joshua 6
-He orders another attack and the killing of “all the living creatures of the city: men and women, young, and old, as well as oxen sheep, and asses”
-In (Judges 21) He orders the murder of all the people of Jabesh-gilead

2 Kings 10:18-27
God orders the murder of all the worshipers of a different god in their very own church!

Judges 21:10-24
God has an entire town killed and the virgins repeatedly raped, and then wanted more virgins, so they hid beside the road to kidnap and rape some more.

Numbers 31:7-18
"They attacked Midian just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men . . . Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.

Deuteronomy 20:10-14
"As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you."

Deuteronomy 21:10-14
"When you go out to war against your enemies and the LORD, your God, delivers them into your hand, so that you take captives, if you see a comely woman among the captives and become so enamored of her that you wish to have her as wife, you may take her home to your house . . . After she has mourned her father and mother for a full month, you may have relations with her, and you shall be her husband and she shall be your wife."

That my friend is the MO of a Serial Killer . . .
 

1213

Well-Known Member
...
That my friend is the MO of a Serial Killer . . .

Have the other people from those ages not died? By what I know, everyone’s body die once and God allows it. So, I think it is not meaningful to raise those deaths above all else. And also, what makes you think they were innocent? I have no reason to believe they were innocent. And also, God has given life, so He has right to decide how long life He gives. He has no obligation to give eternal life for all.
 

EtuMalku

Abn Iblis ابن إبليس
Have the other people from those ages not died? By what I know, everyone’s body die once and God allows it. So, I think it is not meaningful to raise those deaths above all else. And also, what makes you think they were innocent? I have no reason to believe they were innocent. And also, God has given life, so He has right to decide how long life He gives. He has no obligation to give eternal life for all.
This god you are talking about started out as a North Arabian Storm God, then was appropriated by the Jews and He became their War God, this is the god of the Old Testament, this is also the god of the New Testament . . . this is the Abrahamic god, this is Yahweh.
 

1213

Well-Known Member
This god you are talking about started out as a North Arabian Storm God, then was appropriated by the Jews and He became their War God, this is the god of the Old Testament, this is also the god of the New Testament . . . this is the Abrahamic god, this is Yahweh.

Sorry, I have no reason to believe you.
 
Top