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How can God explain himself in terms humans would understand?

zenzero

zenzero

Its only a Label
Friend cardero,

the relationship and the understanding that one is seeking will probably be severly biased.
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True, and so Lao Tzu's first stanza in Tao Te Ching stated that Truth once spoken is falsified. It is because of the listener's mind which creates *dualities*.

Love & rgds
 
Caladan

Caladan

Agnostic Pantheist
YmirGF said:
The only danger with this Duney is that we know we exist, we can never really be sure that "god" exists.
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Also, there are quite a few religious groups out there who claim that it is exclusively them who hold the wisdom of God. why? because the book says it is, the prophet said it is, the church leaders said it is. the only missing piece of the jigsaw here, is that the book was written by flawed humans, the 'prophet' is a flawed human, and the church leaders were probably chauvinistic old men who thought the female orgasm is a myth.
 
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MSizer

MSizer

MSizer
I'm sure Letterman and O'Brien would jump at the chance to interview god. Even one single appearance, with a display of a few tricks like parting water or raising a dead person to show his omnipotence would be a start.
 
YmirGF

YmirGF

Bodhisattva in Recovery
MSizer said:
I'm sure Letterman and O'Brien would jump at the chance to interview god. Even one single appearance, with a display of a few tricks like parting water or raising a dead person to show his omnipotence would be a start.
Click to expand...
Exactly. In my view, with realization, theoretically one know what they are talking about, whereas with revelation, anything goes - no proof-text needed.

Over the years, I have often thought that if I were to change my thinking slightly and claim revelation I would likely be a very rich man by now, as it would be child's play to shine on a group that eagerly wanted answers that conformed to their preexisting thinking.
 
Storm

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
itwillend said:
Assuming the following about God:
  • God is eternal
  • God is perfect
  • Good is good
  • God created everything we will ever know
I bring this up, because I was thinking how would a God convince us that God was perfect, eternal, and good, if we don't have a reference to judge what each of those things means.

In other words, God creates all of us, but as creations we are not capable of knowing who it is that created us, why we were created, or anything about the creator that created us.

Some say, God could have just willed us all to know all of that without going through life, but I still thought the subject was worthy of posting on here.

Any thoughts?
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Your premises, while alienating to some, are too vague. They could just as easily describe the deistic God (who simply doesn't care whether we know Him or not) as the Christian.

That said, I don't think ANY God worthy of the name is capable of fitting its totality into our puny brains.
 
theosopher

theosopher

Member
itwillend said:
Assuming the following about God:
  • God is eternal
  • God is perfect
  • Good is good
  • God created everything we will ever know
I bring this up, because I was thinking how would a God convince us that God was perfect, eternal, and good, if we don't have a reference to judge what each of those things means.

In other words, God creates all of us, but as creations we are not capable of knowing who it is that created us, why we were created, or anything about the creator that created us.

Some say, God could have just willed us all to know all of that without going through life, but I still thought the subject was worthy of posting on here.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

God is not a who. Asking who is god, begs for idolatry. God set Moses straight on that. God is what.
 
N

Nepenthe

Tu Stultus Es
itwillend said:
Assuming the following about God:
Click to expand...
itwillend said:
God is eternal
God is perfect
Good is good
God created everything we will ever know
I bring this up, because I was thinking how would a God convince us that God was perfect, eternal, and good, if we don't have a reference to judge what each of those things means.
In other words, God creates all of us, but as creations we are not capable of knowing who it is that created us, why we were created, or anything about the creator that created us.
Some say, God could have just willed us all to know all of that without going through life, but I still thought the subject was worthy of posting on here.
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
This raises the problem of attributing any sense of morality to God(s) rather than human invention; if the Creator is so inscrutable any communicated revelation, particularly that which was spread by oral tradition and recorded by scribes, would be distorted at best. If the only reference for why we should moral is because an eternal, perfect, incomprehensible Creator willed it, then we have no actual basis for differentiating immoral from moral. This God's pronouncement that torturing newborns is moral couldn't be separated from a pronouncement that caring for the needy is immoral.
Storm said:
Your premises, while alienating to some, are too vague. They could just as easily describe the deistic God (who simply doesn't care whether we know Him or not) as the Christian.
Click to expand...
Storm said:
That said, I don't think ANY God worthy of the name is capable of fitting its totality into our puny brains.
Click to expand...
I agree with Storm here in that the God of the OP is too vague, but I'll have to assume it's an interventionist God because (I'm guessing) the point of the OP is how a God would communicate its presence to us. But if we're assuming an omnimax God I'd have to say that an all powerful deity should have plenty of tricks up its sleeve to allow humanity to unquestionably detect its existence. Even if our finite brains could never fully comprehend even an atom of this God, an omnipotent God should have no problem in offering unquestionable evidence of its presence, it's goodness, its perfection, etc.
 
Storm

Storm

ThrUU the Looking Glass
Nepenthe said:
But if we're assuming an omnimax God I'd have to say that an all powerful deity should have plenty of tricks up its sleeve to allow humanity to unquestionably detect its existence. Even if our finite brains could never fully comprehend even an atom of this God, an omnipotent God should have no problem in offering unquestionable evidence of its presence, it's goodness, its perfection, etc.
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1) Omnimax was not in the premises. :p

2) Evidence, granted, but that's not what I was talking about.
 
zenzero

zenzero

Its only a Label
Friends,

YmirGF said:
The only danger with this Duney is that we know we exist, we can never really be sure that "god" exists.
Click to expand...

True, it is only so that Gautama avoided using the concepts which one cannot experience or be sure off! and that is being in the middle. Agree with him.

Love & rgds
 
A

andys

Andys
Who cares? If he does exist, as the Babble, er Bible describes, he's a murdering "smoting" maniac, worse than all the psychopaths who ever existed (take the Great Flood for instance).
His idea of a good person is one who would kill their own son, just because he asked them to (Abraham and Isaac).

If he doesn't exist, "right" and "wrong" still apply (murdering your son is wrong). So I ask...who cares if there is a god?
 
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