What is your concept of God?

[NikolaiI]

I just don't like the whole idea of god and religion, it seems hypocritical to me, so I refuse to believe it
I do think that there are some people that find the answer in religion. It's their source of happiness, way of being happy , for me it's not.
Some people believe in God, I believe in art

Well, whether one decides on God or not, there are certainly parts of existence which go beyond what can be expressed in words, and art can do this as well.

[MattG]

My God is whatever I make him/her/it out to be.

Your God is up to you.

I think man creates God, at least our interpretation of God, from whatever whole cloth there is in the imagination.

Even people who share a religion have a different interpretation of what God is to them.

[DanielBenoit]

My God is whatever I make him/her/it out to be.

Your God is up to you.

I think man creates God, at least our interpretation of God, from whatever whole cloth there is in the imagination.

Even people who share a religion have a different interpretation of what God is to them.

I agree.
To quote a conversation from one of Kieślowski's series of short films The Decalouge:

"Do you believe in God?"

"I have a God, but he is big enough only for me."

[Judas130]

There are areas of observation where fact becomes theory, and then one guess is as good as another. However, where there are forces at play that we can't yet document or whether it is the supernatural (or perhaps the two joined), to accept ineffability is in some respects also a resignation. Existence and life can almost always be broken down and analysed - this does not take away its essence or anything special from it, but the mystery is unlocked to an extent and an unlocked mystery can still be marvelled upon as a marvellous feat of nature.
There are of course those who do not observe yet are heralds of their axioms and opinions, riddled with bias perspective and refute all else. Yet is it not that mathematical fractions are true before we've learnt them to be true? So then, there are truths in reality that have their explanations and have been observed and documented by some, and not by others. Does that mean that for those who do not understand these truths, they do not exist? When people in the West believed the Sun orbited the Earth, and that the Earth was flat, was it not true that the Earth in fact orbited the Sun and that the Earth was round?
There are things that are ineffable to some, and we attempt to provide explanations for them. By all means, this is a good thing: it is independent conceptualisation. It may be limited, but at least it is a step towards a truth, than excepting that even though there is another bridge to a level of understanding, we will deny its crossing, and claim there is no bridge or that it leads to uncertainty and ruin. On this concrete conclusion is a brittle fallacy. It is through question and doubt that one finds breadcrumbs, but never a full answer, only a broader perception than the one who denies a crossing of a bridge to a higher learning, and engrosses themselves in what they think they know.
Read that how you like.
Peace.

[NikolaiI]

There are areas of observation where fact becomes theory, and then one guess is as good as another. However, where there are forces at play that we can't yet document or whether it is the supernatural (or perhaps the two joined), to accept ineffability is in some respects also a resignation. Existence and life can almost always be broken down and analysed - this does not take away its essence or anything special from it, but the mystery is unlocked to an extent and an unlocked mystery can still be marvelled upon as a marvellous feat of nature.
There are of course those who do not observe yet are heralds of their axioms and opinions, riddled with bias perspective and refute all else. Yet is it not that mathematical fractions are true before we've learnt them to be true? So then, there are truths in reality that have their explanations and have been observed and documented by some, and not by others. Does that mean that for those who do not understand these truths, they do not exist? When people in the West believed the Sun orbited the Earth, and that the Earth was flat, was it not true that the Earth in fact orbited the Sun and that the Earth was round?
There are things that are ineffable to some, and we attempt to provide explanations for them. By all means, this is a good thing: it is independent conceptualisation. It may be limited, but at least it is a step towards a truth, than excepting that even though there is another bridge to a level of understanding, we will deny its crossing, and claim there is no bridge or that it leads to uncertainty and ruin. On this concrete conclusion is a brittle fallacy. It is through question and doubt that one finds breadcrumbs, but never a full answer, only a broader perception than the one who denies a crossing of a bridge to a higher learning, and engrosses themselves in what they think they know.
Read that how you like.
Peace.

Well, we can always learn things scientifically about religious practices such as meditation, but there will always be a personal, subjective element to it which can only be experienced. And meditation is a good example, because many scientific research has been conducted on advanced practitioners of Buddhism and other religions, etc. But that scientific knowledge, while it is very unique and valuable, is still not the whole picture. Not to say that the personal experience is the whole picture either - they are each part.

[Judas130]

meditation is a good example, because many scientific research has been conducted on advanced practitioners of Buddhism and other religions, etc. But that scientific knowledge, while it is very unique and valuable, is still not the whole picture. Not to say that the personal experience is the whole picture either - they are each part.

I don't disagree, I did say that "it is through question and doubt that one finds breadcrumbs, but never a full answer, only a broader perception than the one who denies a crossing of a bridge to a higher learning, and engrosses themselves in what they think they know." By this, I mean to say, that if we limit ourselves to one viewpoint, be it just science, or be it just spiritualism, we do our understanding a disservice. If one claims something to be 'beyond words' and claims it to be entirely a feat of their God, while the other claims it is just lights and clockwork, both are burning bridges instead of crossing them. One can only arrive at concrete conclusions by challenging logic and using observation.

[laidbackperson]

My concept of God is like this:

To start with, assume God as a person. Just for argument’s sake let the gender be male. Then this God knows just everything that is there to me. He knows all thoughts that enter my head all the time. He knows my fears, my courage, my plus and minus points, my temptations, my wrong doings and right doings, my aims, ambitions, my all thoughts about all people I interact with. He does not leave me for a single moment even when I am in the middle of a deep sleep. The God also knows my physique completely. Even details of my all nails in my hands and feet, and every hair on my body, the heart pumping blood incessantly to all parts of my body, every cell of the brain that thinks wondrous and irrelevant things, and each and every atom in my body. Everything physical about me is controlled quietly by Him.

I take this God as benevolent, and my best friend. My relationship with Him is easy. He knows fully well that I am going to err every now and then. But He is not like a moralistic priest. Don’t do this, don’t do that. Now you have done this, and you have lost me for ever. He is always there to help me in His strange ways but I am supposed to work and think hard to get the things I desire. Then also, I may not get what I want and have to live with the idea that missed things were not meant for me. Yours is just to try your best, but acceptance of the will of God in all situations is important.

Also I think that God desires that I become a real person at my own pace – selfless, compassionate, fearless to my last breath, great humor, no trace of show off, no idiocies, no sign of ego etc. He has given us something of a free will, but God too works on me, through His myriad way, slowly but solidly, so that my level of consciousness gets higher, and I can be one with Him, some day in some life.

Now let us go to another level.
The way God is with me, so exactly He is with all human beings on this earth simultaneously- with His abilities not diminishing a slightest bit in this multi-tasking. And not only human beings, He has a complete control and complete knowledge about everything that is there in our world. Not only on good things but even in the rotting things like, on each germ on the rotting human excreta of a nomad living in jungles. Going beyond earth, we extend this power and knowledge of God to the entire Universe, He is the Master that controls everything and knows everything. He encompasses everything that is there.

Thinking this way, everything that is there, is God’s and hence we also are parts of God. Besides being all pervading, all powerful and all knowledgeable, I also associate God with eternal, indestructible and purest love.

Taking God as all powerful and all knowledgeable, it is easy for me to assume that God is the greatest scientist of all times, greater beyond our imagination. The negatively charged electrons circling all the time around a positive nucleus and at the same time positive protons huddled together inside the nucleus and not repelling each other, are His doing. So are the brain, kidneys, heart, eyes etc of a human being or a tiny insect, with each part coolly performing its function, a function so complex that scientists who observe all this simply marvel at it. And then we have our earth, revolving around the sun due to gravity around a certain orbit that we as human being survive in it. If we would have been in a nearer planet, the temperature would have been too high for us and if we would have been a distant planet, temperature would have been too cold for us to survive. If we just try to explore what science has discovered about the nature, life and universe, we may find a reason to believe that some super power may be there after all. People will gloat about Big Bang theory and evolution theories, and these theories may be correct to little or large extent, but still underlying it I can see God’s Hand.

What about human inventions then? All human inventions are due to usage of the physical laws that were there all the time but were discovered by scientists over period of time. I believe that fundamental laws are of God’s. Oh, Atheists don’t ask me for proof? Or first remove my ignorance about Why we have a force like gravity, why positive and negative charges attract each-other and why like charges repel each-other, why a moving electron experience deflection in a magnetic field etc.

It looks like that more the science is advancing; the numbers of non-believers is also increasing. With more people believing that there is nothing like God. I don’t know if something is in God’s mind, but our species seems to be lured into believing that we are the master of the universe and there is nothing like God.

However, I think that more than owing to advances of science, the belief in God has taken a bigger beating due to number of wrong things that happen in world and go unpunished. We take God as all powerful, omnipresent and omniscient, and also as loving and just. Then why office politics, cruelty, loneliness, nepotism, corruption, diseases, hunger, bad bosses, murders, accidents, exploitation and other sufferings are present in this world.

How I fit God into all this?
Honestly, I can not, for I really don’t know what is in His mind. I like to think that if He decides to intervene, everything can be set right in a moment, but He has not intervened directly so far. But that does not prove that He is not there.

Saying that, I can put two concepts which looks logical to me and which can explain above turmoil.

First is the reincarnation concept. If reincarnation is really there, then many things fit into place. All your deeds, thoughts and words are accountable in a most justifiable way. You reap what you sow. However, it does not happen in a single lifetime but over hundreds, may be thousands of our births and deaths. When you die, you carry over something in your next birth. No, not the memory, but something of your consciousness or persona, definitely our good and bad deeds.

One point that I sometimes feel in support of this theory, is that we may often find the nature of a child very different from that of parents. The child seems to have one’s own intrinsic nature (or talent or lack of talent), unaffected by environment he grows up into. Reincarnation theory says that the new birth of a person in a family is as per her/his growth (spiritual) needs in a present life.

Another point that I put in favor of Reincarnation concept is that if it is not there, then we simply die when our time comes. If God is there, and He has given us this only one life, then how much can an average person improve upon his nature/his bad habits in a single lifetime. Really not much, I think. As a famous writer has said in his novel, ‘We can never know what to want, because living only one life we can neither compare it with our pervious lives, nor perfect it in our lives to come.’ If reincarnation is there then learning becomes an ongoing process, and this problem is not there. If God is not there, then just to be lost into nothingness for ever, it somehow does not jell to me. After the way, human beings have progressed from stone age and what all has been done in literature, fine arts and sciences, it doesn’t seem to sum up to anything. That you are alive and kicking one day and next day you are gone for ever. These words, that you still live in our memory and hearts do not seem to have any meaning from dead person’s point of view.

In addition to reincarnation concept, the second concept that may explain the wrong doings in our planet and which looks a bit logical to me is that it is all just a play being enacted by our Creator, in his wild humor. So to have spice, we also to have bad and ugly, with good and joyous. All suffering eventually passes away and it is just a point in the infinite line of time. I have also read that troubled times raises the human spirit and the human consciousness. May be this way, this concept explains the world wars, holocaust, nuclear bombing, 9/11 etc.

Two last points.
I would like to add that belief in God is a personal choice, more than any other thing.. Rather than seeing what is happening in the world, you have to first relate God with what happens to you, or to our near and dear ones or with our answered or unanswered prayers. But relationship has to be essentially between you and God alone – not your parents, brothers/sisters, spouse, lover, kids or friends. We have to take God as our most intimate friend or father or mother or lover, who knows us thread bare. At first instance, God would look dumb and totally passive to you for He works most quietly. But you have to think that He is at work, when you drive fast your car daily and reach your workplace safely, without killing anybody or getting yourself killed. Or when your toddler remained completely unhurt, while falling down from bed. I once saw an enthusiastic person on TV, whose both legs were cut from thighs down on a train accident, walking normally with artificial legs and being thankful to God. He is also very much into social service. You will find many such people in the world who have disability or who have lost their dearest ones of young age, still believing very much in God. In fact, they were believers first, stopped believing when tragedy stuck them and then again became believers with time, as they become aware of working of God. Scientists may say it is in their genes to believe.
One main reason, I believe in God is because by personal experiences I have found Him to be taking care. I think one need not be cunning nor worldly wise in the world, just be simple and straight and you can still manage to meet both ends meet if you are a good believer. There are still lots of good people in the world.

The last point is that there were numbers of great people who believed in God. People like Mother Teresa, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer etc. They were people who worked ceaselessly and selflessly for the betterment of all. Were they sadly mistaken with regards to existence of God? I think they too must have started believing by personal experiences? Or were their personal experiences only delusional? Are there atheists out there, half as good as them? One may say that Truth need not be statistical. Yes, it is true, but then as demanded by the atheists, God too need not be as simple as digital logic (1: He is, 0: He isn’t), Then we have Jesus, Muhammad, Krishna, Buddha etc, the originators of different religions who earnestly tried to preach about love, peace and brotherhood, again without any self interest. Were they all wrong or foolish or out of mind. Can there be really something behind all this world drama. Just think?

mm… or Grr..

[IceM]

Personally, I struggle with my image of God. I've meandered from Atheism to Christianity, then to Agnosticism, back to Christianity, atheism again, and then now to an undefined denomination.

I define God as all-powerful, but not : all-knowing or perfect. I frequently debate this point, but I simply cannot believe that he is all-knowing.

To me, religion glorifies a God beyond what he may or may not be. Edmond de Goncourt made a great quote that I firmly stick to: that, "If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion." Religious denominations seem to take the idea of a God and add their own descriptions to the point that religion is exxagerated. Perhaps there is a God: but why add the omnipotent, omniscient, perfect descriptions? Why can't a God be flawed? Why must he be perfect?

I think He is immortal in that he lives forever, but mortal in that he makes mistakes; immortal in that he's infinite, but mortal in that he's flawed.

However, I have been flirting with this idea that humans directly affect the nature of God. Let me explain.

I believe there is a verse in the Bible saying that, "Man is made in the likeness of God's image." Well, building on that, let's assume we put each type of individual into a group: arrogant in one spot, wealthy in another, for each type of person. Seeing as how we're all made in God's image, what if each sect composes a part of God? Meaning, if "God" for whatever reason is unforgiving in cold, maybe that's the general attitude of the overall "body." I don't know; it's hard to explain. It is an idea I have been flirting with though.

[Miss Juventus]

I beleive on God completely, and I think that everybody should does.God is there in the seventh sky to lead us..to make our luck. I dont know really what is someone's concept of creating people? who con ever create human, animals, mountains and every thing arround us? It is absolutely a super power that human will not ever have it.

[IceM]

I beleive on God completely, and I think that everybody should does.God is there in the seventh sky to lead us..to make our luck. I dont know really what is someone's concept of creating people? who con ever create human, animals, mountains and every thing arround us? It is absolutely a super power that human will not ever have it.

Then how did God come to be? And please please please please PLEASE do not say, "He just is. He's everything and nothing, and is eternal."

The biggest hypocrisy with religion is that God can be eternal and have no creator but Man does. That is, God doesn't have a creator, he justs exists, but Man HAD to come from somewhere.

Why can't Man just have existed evolutionally? Why must there be some divine Creator for Man? Better yet, why can't God have an origin? To consider God immortal but Man finite is the exact reason I despise theology: it glorifies God beyond what he may/may not be. Why can't He have a Creator? Better yet, why can't He just come to exist the same way Man has?

I've asked that question SOO many types. Please don't answer with the redundant hypocrisy all the others have.

[Miss Juventus]

First of all Im sorry because of lateness.. I dont log in everyday.

No bro, I will not say "he just is".. I just think and sure that your question is WRONG
Let's discuss... I will tell you why your question is wrong.. Not the answer.. because there are no answers for wrong questions.

If I answered you _for example_ that someone created God.. you will ask me: Then who created that who created God?.. and let's guess that I told you again who is that.. you will ask me also again: And who created that who created the creator of God?
And so on for NO END.

For Example, if I said for you that there is no God, just men and women, so no need to ask about GOD. You will ask: How they came? the men and the women?..Then I will tell you about Adam and Eve. Then you will ask me: Who created Adam and Eve? .. What should I said for you? God? I will not, because you will also ask me again: Who created God? Here, we are returning to the first question.

Because of that and to be comfortable.. you should believe on ORGIN, and that orgin who is before every thing in the world is GOD.

Why should you believe on orgin?
Now, I will ask: Who came first..the hen or the egg? and how did you know? and who was come first.. the female or the male ? and pleeeease tell me HOW it come first? No answers

You can feel God bro.. in everywhere everytime.. in your soul..in luck.. in a suddenly accident.
Do you believe on pain? Yes
Did you ever see it? No
Why do you believe on Pain? because you feel it.
So why do you believe on pain and dont believe on God?
Despite of that the feeling of pain in just when you hurt by something.. but you feel God everytime everywhere..

Tell me who create the LUCK? Why is your luck is different from mine?
Look at your face.. could our humane power make like it? Dont say please it genes from a sexual relationship.. because you will return for the first question.. Who created mom's and dad's genes? Who created grandpa's and grnadma's genes? and who created that who created all of that?

GOD IS THE ORGIN. Islam is a medicine for all the soul questions. I'm happy that i dont go through many people's spirals.

[Babbalanja]

It says a lot that the ancients used their God to explain mysteries, while modern believers use mysteries to explain their God.

Regards,

Istvan

[DanielBenoit]

It says a lot that the ancients used their God to explain mysteries, while modern believers use mysteries to explain their God.

Regards,

Istvan

Lol, so true

God, ehhhh. I find it even more annoying when believers try to rationalize God. God is just one of those things that is just beyond our comprehension and unreachable. I'm not even saying that there is or isn't a God, the ontological question itself is a futile one.

I know I'm going against human nature when I say this but, can't we just live with some mysteries? Must we apply a system of belief to everything? Without mystery there is no wonder. We humans are the saints of unanswered questions.

No bro, I will not say "he just is".. I just think and sure that your question is WRONG
Let's discuss... I will tell you why your question is wrong.. Not the answer.. because there are no answers for wrong questions.

If I answered you _for example_ that someone created God.. you will ask me: Then who created that who created God?.. and let's guess that I told you again who is that.. you will ask me also again: And who created that who created the creator of God?
And so on for NO END.

For Example, if I said for you that there is no God, just men and women, so no need to ask about GOD. You will ask: How they came? the men and the women?..Then I will tell you about Adam and Eve. Then you will ask me: Who created Adam and Eve? .. What should I said for you? God? I will not, because you will also ask me again: Who created God? Here, we are returning to the first question.

Because of that and to be comfortable.. you should believe on ORGIN, and that orgin who is before every thing in the world is GOD.

Why should you believe on orgin?
Now, I will ask: Who came first..the hen or the egg? and how did you know? and who was come first.. the female or the male ? and pleeeease tell me HOW it come first? No answers

First, we should not base an argument or system of belief out of ignorance. Whether if it's any question. "Where did my Mountain Dew come from?" "I don't know." "Thus there must be a God."

Okay, in all seriousness now, this concept of 'orgin' is an old and original one (excuse the phonetic irony ). It dates far far back and was in fact one of the prime arguments Aristotle used in theorizing that the universe was ageless.

The problem is not the infinite regress found in the chicken or the egg question, but that these word games have no basis in reality. We never percieve an orgin, we merely make connections. Things happen according to the laws of physics, but how does that imply that there's a causal orgin? Putting aside the discoveries in quantum theory. . . .

It is just common human logic to think of things in terms of orgins, but that doesn't mean that the mechanics of our minds have any basis in the mechanics of the universe.

Now let's go into Derridean discourse: Let's say that God is the origin of this structure we call the universe. God is the center and origin of the totality. He is the governing element of the structure and is above all other things, and thus has no other equilvelent. He is the center of the structure, and yet he is independent of the structure (for to be part of the structure would make him adherent to the structure, and thus not all-ruling). God is the center and yet not part of the totality, i.e. the structure. And thus the center is outside of the structure; the center is not a center, and the structure is not a structure (without any sort of center, a structure is chaotic).
(Note: We can replace the deconstructivist jargon "center" with "orgin" and it would still apply to the same thing.)

Basically the rersult is a chaotic system open to infinte play and infinite means of interpritation. Locality being the only means to make any rationalistic coherence.

In the end, the "structure" is not the world itself, but merely our traditional Western mind-set. That mind-set is given to the dogs once picked apart. We have merely been meddling in our own abstractions for the last twenty-three hundred years.

You can feel God bro.. in everywhere everytime.. in your soul..in luck.. in a suddenly accident.
Do you believe on pain? Yes
Did you ever see it? No
Why do you believe on Pain? because you feel it.
So why do you believe on pain and dont believe on God?
Despite of that the feeling of pain in just when you hurt by something.. but you feel God everytime everywhere..

That's a matter of interpretation. As a believer, you have God as the ultimate signifier. You, like everyone else, create a map of things in your head and have them all point to an orgin, merely as a matter of coherence. But in fact, these words are not all pointing to an orgin and are merely pointing to other things, signified to the signified, and so on and on, for then for there to be a final signifier would have to have it apply to a semantic choice in order for it to have any meaning.

In the end all of our infinite regresses of logic merely refer back to our words.

Tell me who create the LUCK? Why is your luck is different from mine?
Look at your face.. could our humane power make like it? Dont say please it genes from a sexual relationship.. because you will return for the first question.. Who created mom's and dad's genes? Who created grandpa's and grnadma's genes? and who created that who created all of that?

The genes question is merely a matter of biology, which I think you will find quite interesting upon studying the workings of evolution.

Many of us look at things in terms of a creation because we relate it to our everyday life. We assume that since their was a creator to a painting, that there must've been a creator to everything, which is a bit ridiculous because of the fact that the painter didn't really create anything in the first place. He merely just mixed a bunch of materials together until it came out appearing as something coherent. Creation as it is usually used as a word, could really be considered creating coherence, as oppose to creating things.

[IceM]

If I answered you _for example_ that someone created God.. you will ask me: Then who created that who created God?.. and let's guess that I told you again who is that.. you will ask me also again: And who created that who created the creator of God?
And so on for NO END.



Because of that and to be comfortable.. you should believe on ORGIN, and that orgin who is before every thing in the world is GOD.

Why should you believe on orgin?
Now, I will ask: Who came first..the hen or the egg? and how did you know? and who was come first.. the female or the male ? and pleeeease tell me HOW it come first? No answers

You can feel God bro.. in everywhere everytime.. in your soul..in luck.. in a suddenly accident.
Do you believe on pain? Yes
Did you ever see it? No
Why do you believe on Pain? because you feel it.
So why do you believe on pain and dont believe on God?
Despite of that the feeling of pain in just when you hurt by something.. but you feel God everytime everywhere..

So, if I'm not mistaken, you are saying the belief in God is plausible because there are no answers to my questions. In essence, because I cannot answer my questions, I just have to accept God as truth? Really?

You say that I cannot see pain, which is true; however, (to use your word) you can, in most scenarios, see the ORIGIN of the pain. If someone is on fire, can't you see the cause of their pain (i.e the fire). If someone is being stabbed to death, can't you see the cause of their pain? (the knife). Sure, let's take your theory of origin.

I believe we came from somewhere, but where? If I accept *your* version of origin, we came from God. But why must we have an origin when God *doesn't*? Just because there are no answers to the origin question doesn't mean God is inherently eternal and our Almighty Creator. I hope not to sound aggressive, but if you expect me to completely drop my longing for answers, you're essentially asking me to forsake logic and reason, curiousity and a lust for knowledge.

Sorry, but that's not happening. And my questions aren't wrong. Your theory is.

[JuniperWoolf]

My concept of god(s) = the subject of a lot of really neat, well-written, epic stories. I don't care what atheists say, religious stories are frickin' cool. The bible was a GOOD read, and greek mythology is wicked.

That's really my only concept of God. I'm neither religious nor an atheist. Believing in anything without proof is silly (and every single atheist that I know including my mate insists that atheism isn't a belief, it's a lack of belief. I think that people DO have faith in atheism and there's no point in arguing about it AGAIN). I'm pretty sure that we as a species understand basically nothing about how the universe works. To speculate is pretty arrogant, and any ideas are bound to be incorrect (not on everything, eg. we have a pretty good concept of how the reproductive system works, or how a neuron fires, but figuring out about how life originated? That's probably not going to happen).