This is always the biggie. When theists, deists, atheists, agnostics and others argue about the existence of God, somebody will always point out that unless we have an understanding of what that word "God" actually means, we can't have a real discussion at all. We all know (exhaustively, I'm sure) how frustrating and inconclusive those discussions are!
So, let's try something else; let's see if we can lay out some simple ways to think about God that might help us understand how you see It or Him (or Her, Them, Etc.). Feel free to add to my simple overview.
Questions about your God:
1. Creation of the Universe
2. Existence of God
3. Life
4. Involvement
5. Death
6. Communication
7. Relation to Us
So, let's try something else; let's see if we can lay out some simple ways to think about God that might help us understand how you see It or Him (or Her, Them, Etc.). Feel free to add to my simple overview.
Questions about your God:
1. Creation of the Universe
- Did your God create everything, individually, or
- Did your God just start everything (Big Bang-like) and then just watch as it unfolded?
- Does your God "exist" as a part of "the universe" (taken to mean "all that is," thus including God), or
- Is your God not part of the space/time continuum that we understand to be "the universe?"
- Did your God create all of the species we know of, or
- Did your God just “start life,” and let evolution work in essentially the way the Theory of Evolution says?
- Does your God listen to prayer, does He know what you are thinking, and
- If He does, does He get involved in the world, and sometimes change things because you (or someone else, wished it, through what might seem like miracles to us?
- Does your God get involved in what happens to you after you die (reward and punishment), or
- Does your God offer you other physical lives (reincarnation), or
- Does your God allow you to simply cease to exist in any way at all?
- Did your God inspire scripture so that you could know what you need to know, or
- Does your God occasionally send messengers to tell you what His next plans are, as we mature, or
- Does your God make Him/Her/It/Their Self known directly to you?
- Does your God have anything like a "chosen people," favourites that He prefers, (and are there other Gods for other "chosen people") or
- Is your God the God of everyone equally, without bias, or
- Is your God especially devoted to you alone?