Defining God/s.

[lightly]

Just more oddities....we see God Letting light be ...and dividing it from the darkness...and God called the light Day,and the darkness he called Night.    ....and yet, there are still no sun or earth!

God said "Let there be lights in the heaven "........in verse 14.    ....still no sun ...until verse 16 when the Two Great (BIG) lights (Sun & Moon) are made.

  Stars aren't specifically mentioned until then as well.   But I think the aforementioned "lights in the heaven"  were meant to mean stars?        stars before our comologically youthful sun was formed...along with the rest of our solar system. Just like what happened. 

        

 

 

Edited September 25, 2019 by lightly

[SmartAZ]

On 9/11/2019 at 3:00 AM, XenoFish said:

It's easy to analyze a god, just look at the culture that created it and the results of belief in it.

Only if you like to think we are descended from superstitious fools. It is far more reasonable to assume those people were looking at something that we have never seen. For example the ancients worshipped planets that modern people can't even point to.

Of course I realize that it hurts to admit you don't know something. Sorry about that.

Edited November 27, 2019 by SmartAZ

[XenoFish]

Just now, SmartAZ said:

Only if you like to think we are descended from superstitious fools. It is far more useful to assume those people were looking at something that we have never seen. For example the ancients worshipped planets that modern people can't even point to.

Of course I realize that it hurts to admit you don't know something. Sorry about that.

So where is the proof of this? Where are the gods at now? Did they just jump ship? I'd like to think our ancestors lack of knowledge lead them to believe that unseen forces were at work. So they named them, spirits. Everything had a spirit or essence at that time. Some of their ideas got big, because gods and goddesses. As a means of knowing what was unknown. A way of gaining personal strength, instilling fear, dealing with a wide variety of emotions. Where the uncertainty of a harvest could be coped with by asking the rain god to bring a much needed shower. That the fertility goddess let a couples child be born healthy. Then you have to war gods, gods of violence. Tribal gods. The hallucinations of the shaman and witches. Such beliefs shape a persons view of the world of their own subjective reality. God and all of the other gods/ess's are ideas. 

[Tatetopa]

Not everyone is afraid of death and some expect no more than to be dust.  Not everyone wishes to abrogate responsibilities for their actions, but Podo might have been right about human insecurity and the desire not tb be alone.  Western traditions is only a portion of the spectrum.  Some gods die, many are imagined to be living as we are in a world of cause and effect unable to bend the laws of the universe to their pleasure.  There a lot to choose from if you are looking.

I have been always a rational skeptic.  I liked the idea that there might be something more, but never found evidence that convinced me.  Growing up in the Christian church, I was not looking for the infinite tyrant again, to me  he seemed oppressive.   I passed through my hippy dippy stage, followed the procedures, bent my mind any number of ways but never a hint of godliness did I find.

I remained a skeptic, but with some feeling left over from the hippie days that life and the world itself was a sort of a god.  Not with awareness or good intentions toward me, but out there. Especially I noticed it while hiking through old growth forests and in the high country.  Love of nature you might say, and nothing more than that, but it gave me a personal infusion of awe wonder and joy that was adequate to satisfy my needs without manifesting a guy in white robes with a long beard.  ( Never did run into Gandalf to my disappointment)

 

[Tatetopa]

Now for the personal story time as a salute to Alchopwn.   I think I have mentioned this on another thread..

Years passed and my life wound on taking a few unexpected turns as lives sometimes do.  One bright morning about 15 years ago I found myself cold and loath to get out of my sleeping bag on a frosty eastern Oregon morning. 

I was one of the fire tenders at a vision quest camp.  I had to get the fire going and heat the stones for the morning sweat lodge.  I had helped at vision quests camps for a few years and continued to do so for a decade more.  I had carried the gear of many of my friends onto their chosen sites to fast and pray for four days, left them to it, and kept a fire burning in camp.  After four days , they came back with something more than they took up the hill, matters not what that was except to them.

On that cold morning, I stayed in the warmth for a few minutes and a part of me wished I had received the calling to do a vision quest myself.   I was too much of a skeptic even in those days to let myself fully go.

As clearly and as bright as that high country sun a strong female voice said to me, "How would you believe yourself even if I did speak to you?"

That was my vision, and it was a good teaching.  It did not come from my conscious mind.  Most likely it came from the mental processes that I am least aware of and do not thoroughly control. No matter, it was a,valuable lesson I needed to hear and a very true part of myself.  Some might have been sure it was a spirit or god or whatever you might call those beings.  I think it most likely to be an auditory illusion from my subconscious(?) . Regardless, it put me at peace with a better understanding of myself.  I am rather glad that part of my mind picked a female voice to play the role of the deity.

 

 

[onlookerofmayhem]

6 hours ago, XenoFish said:

I'd like to think our ancestors lack of knowledge lead them to believe that unseen forces were at work. So they named them, spirits. Everything had a spirit or essence at that time. Some of their ideas got big, because gods and goddesses. As a means of knowing what was unknown.

Agreed. 

The basic concept of applying agency. 

Something is making the wind blow or the sun to rise and set.

Before we realized that, "That's just the way it is." 

It's no stretch to understand why people used to believe a being was responsible for naturally occurring events. 

Problem to me is that we can't find that being anywhere. 

Divine Invisibility is an issue for me.

[Tatetopa]

9 hours ago, onlookerofmayhem said:

Divine Invisibility is an issue for me.

I suppose if you are one of those gods who have to oversee the entire universe, you have to spread yourself pretty thin, tenuous to say the least.

[+Hammerclaw]

On 11/26/2019 at 8:21 PM, XenoFish said:

So where is the proof of this? Where are the gods at now? Did they just jump ship? I'd like to think our ancestors lack of knowledge lead them to believe that unseen forces were at work. So they named them, spirits. Everything had a spirit or essence at that time. Some of their ideas got big, because gods and goddesses. As a means of knowing what was unknown. A way of gaining personal strength, instilling fear, dealing with a wide variety of emotions. Where the uncertainty of a harvest could be coped with by asking the rain god to bring a much needed shower. That the fertility goddess let a couples child be born healthy. Then you have to war gods, gods of violence. Tribal gods. The hallucinations of the shaman and witches. Such beliefs shape a persons view of the world of their own subjective reality. God and all of the other gods/ess's are ideas. 

Imagination. Look around you at all the artifacts of human existence, all the products of a multitude of human imaginations; to think of something, an axe, a spear, fire, a shelter of sticks and wattle, a cell phone. This gigantic collection of stuff we live inside of constitutes civilized existence. Man, this talking monkey, this collection of hubris and vanity and ambition and restless greed has a very fertile imagination. Why did it imagine something so materially useless as gods and spirits and demons and deity? For want of answers to it's existence, why did it create so many mysteries, so many more unanswered questions?

[Cultivator of Fa]

On 8/22/2019 at 11:16 AM, Alchopwn said:

The fact is that around the world there are a great many religions, and many of them include a belief in vague, but allegedly powerful and beneficial supernatural entities that are often rendered in English by the term "god" or "goddess".  Many people claim that these entities have a superficially human appearance in mant cases, but had more animal appearances in the past when humanity was closer to the natural world.  Gods are supposed to exercise power over the natural world and humanity's various fortunes, and according to the High Priest Anebo of Ancient Egypt, we also call them "divinities" because their oracles are most accurate at predicting the future, i.e. divination.  I would also point out that Anebo also talked about Daimons, which have powers similar to deities, but lacked their oracular ability, and some of whom were moral and some were dangerous to humans.  Of course this has nothing to do with contemporary religions. Or does it?

Now it has also been said that you cannot define God as it is impossible to speak of something infinite, and yet mathematicians have a very interesting and abstruse philosophy around infinity LINK and other philosopher have also grappled with the issue reasonably effectively LINK.  So, however limited words may be, humanity remains resilient in their use on such topics, and we should persevere in that spirit, should the matter arise.

So, beyond the preamble, I put the question to any interested party, when we talk about a god or many gods, what exactly are we talking about? 

I would ask atheists to refrain from merely restating their skepticism ad nauseum, as it will not be conducive to coming to any sort of understanding of what believers are experiencing.  This is conducted in a spirit of inquiry, to gain an understanding of this phenomenon that is so central in so many people's lives, and how it is experienced by them.

I think you will get a billion different answers to what a God is, because every person understand it differently.

I am not going to try to explain what every God, Buddha or Dao is, because they are all different according to what level of wisdom they have reached.

But example Buddha means an enlighten being "someone who have realized the full truth of cosmos" God is found in Abrahamic religions and cultivation paths whereas Buddha is found in Asian religions and cultivation paths. 

In my understanding it is only a word for explaining the wisdom level a being have reached.

So God is the word used in Abrahamic religions for an enlighten being

and Buddha is the asian way of describing enlightenment.

The description of what Enlightenment is, are described in each religion or cultivation path.

in Falun Gong it is described as Shen, shan, ren, or Trutfulness, compassion, forbearance

[Jodie.Lynne]

On 4/19/2020 at 10:28 AM, Cultivator of Fa said:

In my understanding it is only a word

Correct. 'god', 'goddess', 'buddha', and 'guru' are merely words. Placeholders for things we do do yet understand.

The words represent concepts that an individual has no knowledge of, let's use the example of a volcano in primitive times.

The volcano may rumble and spew smoke, and the locals have no concept of what causes this, but they do realize that this thing, this 'volcano' is very powerful, can cause the ground to shake, the skies to darken. And that creatures that wander too near will die.

Lacking understanding, or even knowledge of geo-thermal reactions, the structure of the planet, or the theory of gases, these people would, most likely, tend to anthropomorphize a natural phenomena, with a being, or entity. Thus, the creation of a 'god' that must be appeased and placated.

[R.A.L.sees]

Just to continue the Bible's sequence of creation.  Have you ever  noticed verse 26: Let US make man in OUR.  Curious. Next verse: He made male and female, Adam and Eve came in Chapter 2.   The subject of the TREE of KNOWLEDGE.  Now I thought long and hard on this and maybe take you on a little trip with IF's

Tree of Knowledge, good and evil, thou shalt not eat...thou shalt surely die.

So if knowledge will kill us, what is it in knowledge that is so harmful.  Let me propose that is in the end JUDGEMENT.  You're right Im wrong, Im right you're wrong.  I love you I hate you  You were supposed to do this and I was supposed to do that.  Can you imagine what life would be if we didn't end up at one end or the other with judgement.  That' where the good and evil took the divide.  If you are different than me and I am different than you, who is right.  Isn't that a huge price to pay...  So instead here we are, looking for answers and exchanging experiences or opinions.  However they may differ, each one has one.  That takes us to the 10 commandments cuz everybody now knew what they knew and were willing to die over it.  If everybody had instead worked together as a village, everybody would have worth, all would be equal.  There would be plenty for everybody, I mean look what they did with the fishes and the loaves. (who said there was no humor in religion)  But, somebody got greedy with this new knowledge and made his worth more than the worth of rest.  Can you see where this is going.  And so now here we are.