What is a real God?

[Unveiled Artist]

Not if God is real. If God is real then God is out there in reality. If God's only in the mind, then God's only imaginary.

No. Its not imaginary. Gods do exist. They arent tangible. Not something you can put under a microscope. Your frame of reference and perspective to understand gods needs to change, in my opinion, to understand gods without needing it to be seperate from ourselves and still call them gods.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Not if God is real. If God is real then God is out there in reality. If God's only in the mind, then God's only imaginary.

No. Its not imaginary. Gods do exist. They arent tangible. Not something you can put under a microscope. Your frame of reference and perspective to understand gods needs to change, in my opinion, to understand gods without needing it to be seperate from ourselves and still call them gods.

 

[blü 2]

Hey not getting out much isn't only a religious issue. Some find it compfortinG arguing with religious folks about God's existence. Stupidity loves company.

I'm not arguing. I'm trying to get an answer to a plain question.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

No it can't. The question concerns a real God. Either a real God has some quality of godness that will allow us to distinguish God from a superscientist, or else God is just a superscientist.

What is a real god apart from culture?

 

[Unveiled Artist]

No it can't. The question concerns a real God. Either a real God has some quality of godness that will allow us to distinguish God from a superscientist, or else God is just a superscientist.

What is a real god apart from culture?

 

[blü 2]

No. Its not imaginary. Gods do exist. They arent tangible.

If they're real then they're as capable of observation as any other real thing and it's just a question of how. If they're not real then they're imaginary.

 

[Desert Snake]

Mea culpa. I think I've fixed it.
Do you mean that an entity becomes a God solely for the reason that someone chooses to worship it, that it's something humans can bestow? That there is no independent quality of 'godness'?

A 'false god', can be be worshipped in the context, of that false god, having 'godlike qualities'. The usage of the word, god, there, directly infers this, as well, because the same word is the name, or one of the names, of the Real God. Using the same word, correlates to the fact that the false god may very well, have godlike qualities, the false god may have qualities that are similar, to the Real God.
The nature of God, and false gods, is independent, from human classification. The classification occurs as a result of the belief in those qualities.

I'm not concerned with revelation ─ if God is real then God has objective existence and therefore God, like any other real thing, can be looked at directly or via suitable instruments. To design those instruments we ask those who hold that God is real what God is; and when they tell us, we know what we're looking for. If they don't know then neither do the searchers, and no one knows what they're talking about.

I disagree with that premise. We can know what we're looking for, however, note that this is subjective. If one wants to worship demons, for example, as gods, they will simply give the title of god, and the god they want to worship, to the demon.

That can't be said of imaginary gods, where the situation is much clearer ─ they can be anything anyone wants.

Believers do not consider God to be imaginary. Hence, the attributes of God, are noted, so forth. Thusly, the Bible, and extra Biblical texts, and what we know of God.

Note: to clarify, humans do not have the 'godlike powers', that some demons might posess to varying degrees. Of course humans are actually at a higher level than demons.

 

[blü 2]

What is a real god apart from culture?

A being with objective existence; and in this thread I'm asking those who hold God is real to explain what the objective quality of godness is; and if there's no such quality, no way of telling God from (in our present example) a superscientist, to say so.

 

[`mud]

Walt just called me simple...where is he...I want to slap him across the face !!!!

Just kidding..of course...thank you for the compliment...I love Stuff ! and Life !

Have you noticed how many posts from you that I have answered ? count em.

You're getting pretty good with the answers yourself.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

If they're real then they're as capable of observation as any other real thing and it's just a question of how. If they're not real then they're imaginary.

They are real. Thoughts arent tangible, yet we can see them in EEG. God isnt tangible but we can see it by culture and experiences

We dont use the same tool to discover the existence of the variety of life. We dont see depessive thoughts as from imagination. Yet, we know they exist because of how it affects the people suffering from it. Likewise with god. We know god exists by the affects it has on its believers. The tool of evidence for neurologist is different than psychology.

 

[Earthling]

So (if I follow your argument) anything and everything can be a god, because anyone can venerate anything?

Correct.

God have no objective qualities to make them gods.

Other than mighty or venerated.

They have that status thrust upon 'em, someone else's culture, or desire, or whim?

Possibly, but not necessarily.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

A being with objective existence; and in this thread I'm asking those who hold God is real to explain what the objective quality of godness is; and if there's no such quality, no way of telling God from (in our present example) a superscientist, to say so.

There is no objective god isolated from people and culture. The question you are asking doesnt make sense. Its probably why many believers dont answer it. The criteria for godness and relating to a super (human) scientist do not relate to each other at all.

 

[`mud]

I don't think EEG's detect `thoughts`, do they...only reactions...don't they ?

 

[blü 2]

A 'false god', can be be worshipped in the context, of that false god, having 'godlike qualities'.

But if God is real, or gods are real, then they can be distinguished by their possession of the objective quality 'godness', in which case, I'm asking, what is godness? Presumably false gods won't have it, so if gods are real it would be a useful thing to know.

the Real God.

Whether there's only one God, or whether there are many, either there is a quality of godness that makes God a god, or the gods gods, or God / god is an arbitrary title bestowed by humans. Which is it?

We can know what we're looking for, however, note that this is subjective.

Then either God is not real, or God is real but [his] God status is given to him by humans and is not some innate quality of [him]self.

Believers do not consider God to be imaginary. Hence, the attributes of God, are noted, so forth. Thusly, the Bible, and extra Biblical texts, and what we know of God.

But if you need revelation to know about God then God isn't real hence God is imaginary. If God is real then God is as discernible, as examinable, as any other real thing, and revelation doesn't come into it.

 

[blü 2]

They are real. Thoughts arent tangible, yet we can see them in EEG. God isnt tangible but we can see it by culture and experiences

Imaginary gods will produce all those effects. I'm talking about a real god, a god with objective existence.

And I don't have any useful answers so far. If God is real, what's the objective quality of godness that distinguishes [him] from a superscientist? If there's none, then 'god' is an arbitrary title that humans can bestow, hence can withdraw.

 

[blü 2]

Correct.

Other than mighty or venerated.

Possibly, but not necessarily.

Okay, noted.

 

[blü 2]

There is no objective god isolated from people and culture.

Then that's not my concern here. In this thread I'm only interested in real gods.

 

[Earthling]

Then that's not my concern here. In this thread I'm only interested in real gods.

Well, what is, in your opinion a real god and what isn't?

 

[Windwalker]

We both know an ant, a cloud, a sequoia, when we see it. If God is real then God, like these things, has objective existence.

But I just got done explaining that you cannot see God as a separate thing. How then can you look for it as one? You can however see God in all things, if you can get past your mind seeing only an ant, if you can get beyond your concept of an ant.

I am attributing only one quality to God here ─ that God is real / has objective existence / is not imaginary (which all mean the same thing).

Existence is not a quality. It's a reality. Do I have objective existence? Does the universe have objective existence? Then God exists. But don't look for God as a separate object from all objects. The formless God expresses its being in all that has form.

Can you see "art" as a thing apart from the painting? Or do you see art expressed through and in the painting? Is the painting "not art" simply because it is paint on canvas?

Then I'm asking, what is the quality 'godness' that God has and the superscientist does not?

The super-scientist is not the Ground of all Being. The super-scientist has a beginning and an end. The quality of God is the Source of all existence, hence not separate from existence. All That Is, is nothing any individual in itself can claim, even though the individual itself is not separate from that.

In that case the question would become, What objective quality does God have that distinguishes God from mass-energy?

In a word, Life itself. God is the Stillness out of which all Life arises and emerges in form.

 

[PureX]

So, you say, there's no such thing as a real god?

No, I'm saying that "God" is as "real" as anything else is, because both God and reality are metaphysical idealizations that exist in our mind as a manifestation of cognition. "Reality" is a metaphysical phenomena.

All gods are imaginary, hence anything anyone wants them to be?

Everything is "imaginary". "Thingness" is an imagined state of being. There are no "things", there are only various subsets of experienced phenomena that we humans cognate as 'things'. Looking for the "thingness" of God is like trying to measure a sunset with a ruler.