What is a god?

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Cris, Apr 10, 2001.

  1. Dark Quasar Registered Member

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    14
    Hmm...

    No one of usual people can be sure about this. But I think, that the more someone studies Nature, the more he get to know about God.
     
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  3. rich68 Registered Senior Member

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    34
    yes but why?

    its all very well learning nature/science and then feeling this overwelming need to be close to god,or better understanding of god,the thing is why do we need to think there must be a god,just because every thing is perfectly put together!or is it the fact that people cant except that it was a freak of nature,i for one think once your number is up,thats your lot,after all i didnt remember coming into this world,and im pretty sure i wont remember leaving it either.pennys for your thoughts
     
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  5. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    Re: Hmm...

    Dark Quasar,

    Firstly a very warm welcome to you there in Moscow.

    Well now I guess this view depends very much on how you see nature. We can view nature as anything or any event that is natural, or is not man made or caused.

    So here are a few examples –

    UV radiation from the sun tends to cause skin cancer and kill people.
    Earthquakes tend to kill people.
    Volcanic eruptions tend to kill people.
    Tornadoes tend to cause destruction and kill people.
    Lightning tends to kill people.
    Mosquitoes spread diseases that kill people.
    Bacterial infections without man made treatment kill people.

    The more one learns about nature the more one realizes that the natural environment is an incredibly dangerous and hostile place. Is this the God you mean, the one that causes random death and destruction?

    Cris
     
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  7. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,884
    Welcome, DarkQuasar

    I'm curious of your opinion regarding the reverse; that is, whether the more one studies of God, the more one learns of Nature. It is to me quite strange that the most authoritative religions in history have had difficulty demonstrating this. It seems that among tribal and shamanistic religions, nature is [the] god(s). In this sense, what one learns about the world cannot, as such, contradict God. Among primitive cultures acting under anthropogenic assumptions, a god can change his mind, a benefit of such interactive fancy. The modern versions of the religions of Abraham are curious in this sense, too. At one time, the Muslim empires led the world in literacy, commerce, and even science. Indeed, even today, Sufism takes what new knowledge it crosses and writes it up as a process of the One God and therefore something to think about. The unscientific nature of jihad-Islam arises from its fundamentalist nature; there is reasonable argument that the modern fundamentalist movement of Islam gained force with each purging of intelligentsia, such as is seen under the reigns of Kemal Ataturk and Ruollah Khomeni. A culture with seemingly reduced critical thinking skills has no need for science, except perhaps the practical chemistry to blow up one's neighbor. I can't say that I've ever heard of conflicts 'twixt Judaism and scientific discovery. As I've mentioned in my more political rants, I can't recall ever voting down a Judaic-sponsored censorship initiative. But Christianity ... I tip my hat to the Catholics in the sense that the Pope apologized for the bit with scientists those few centuries back. However, there seems to be a resistance to certain sciences that extends beyond the fundamentalist movement of Christianity. Whether anti-evolutionary, anti-education, or even anti-life, Christianity seems to foster in its adherents a general malaise of divsiveness that often manifests itself in the information exchange. (It should be noted here that at least one fair-sized Christian sect flourishing in the modern day bears, in its history, serious congregational convulsions regarding the propriety of bicycles; this story itself is a different difficulty with the information exchange, but ....)

    It seems that if we look at certain religions--certain ideas of God--we become focused utterly on the figurehead. Ideas of God prevail, and often cinch tight without the resistance of instinctive doubt. Thus the practicality of a diverse society is subject to the moral scrutiny of a single god; thus superstition inspires scientific "discoveries" that are not, necessarily possible. (e.g.--A Christian archaeologist claims to have found Noah's Ark, I believe, in Turkey. This is well and fine except for the notion that the flood involved in the placement of this apparent boat appears to have been local, as in not covering the world; thus, the "discovery" means nothing to a good deal of literalist, fundmentalist Christians. What happens, then, when such objections push aside evidence of Biblical veracity because that veracity is not manifest according to traditional literalism?)

    If one focuses on a god, will they necessarily learn nature? This is one of the curious aspects of gods that I've noticed. There are gods which seem so wholly removed from observable nature as to have nothing to do with it. Depending on which sect of faith you ask, the Christian god can be exceptionally antiseptic: miracles simply happen ... never mind that Bob over there got an infinispectromatomic measurement of that angel in the sky. To the other, there are versions of God that are vulgar and common and akin to human spirits.

    Even if it's just a holy monotone: This is my Gogli, which took two and a half nanoseconds to design and implement on the very scale and density at which you observe it ..., it would be something.

    I agree that to study nature is to study God. But I wonder if one learns nature by studying God. I don't think so, and I wonder at the reasons.

    Welcome to Sciforums, DQ ... thank you for making sure my brain got some exercise tonight.

    thanx,
    Tiassa

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  8. tetra Hello Registered Senior Member

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    144
    In the book <u>Contact</u>, there was a kinda weird god that was part of nature.

    Somehow he implemented a message into pi, like the 200 billionth billionth digit started a perfect circle in 11 base math.
     
  9. Chagur .Seeker. Registered Senior Member

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    2,235
    I think, that the more someone studies Nature, the more he get to know about God.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    From my own experience DQ, I have to say that my only feeling is that the more I learn of Nature, the more in awe I am of the infinite variety of life on this unique and lonely planet. The god-thing doesn't enter into it in the least.
     
  10. Dark Quasar Registered Member

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    14
    ...

    I didn't expect that. You don't understand what i mean, maybe because i have no habit to write so large messages, putting all my thoughts into multi-page works, so it's my fault. I'll try to explain (what is really hard to do, because i really want to sleep, but can't not to explain what i think).
    Here i can see some strange assotiation: Nature..... - is disaster. I think this is wrong.
    Studying Nature, for me, is studiyng it's principles and laws. These may be physical, biological, psychological and other laws, that helps human to understand Universe structure. The more i got to know about them, the more i was thinking about Universe was developed, but not just accidentally created from the waste.
    And Whoever did this, i think He is God. And He is VERY intelligent. If we think in criterions of modern [pseudo-science], spreading everywhere in our world by [pseudo-scientists], then we are - just NO MORE THAN walking billions of chemical reactions.
    And... i NEVER unite God and religion (+ Bible, bearded cloud-sitting old guy that intervents into our lives, and so on).

    I have more to say, but it's very late. 2:11! Glad to be participial to this forum, but i think i gotta go sleep. Bye everyone!

    P.S.: Sorry for my typos etc., i just have no more powers to check what i wrote (Last time letting myself to go sleep so late. Even before holidays). Bye again. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz......
     
  11. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,884
    um ... yeah ... whoops.

    DarkQuasar ...,

    Often what happens is that I start out with a short comment and, well, it grows. For instance, there's a recent post in which I started in the Children of Adam and Eve thread in the Christianity forum where I meant only to present a sarcastic quote from an English theological comedy, and instead vomited out a few paragraphs apparently making genetics into a philosophy instead of a science. As with your post: I acknowledge the notion that that the more someone studies Nature, the more he get to know about God. I can't seem to figure out, though, why the converse is not consistent in most of its forms. This quandary runs as long in me as I have accepted that the word God equates to the whole of "creation", and sack the names and personalities except as affinities.

    That much runs stock and standard with me; the rest appears, and felt to be at the time, a loose string of the ideas that motivate me to the question.
    I would, instead, assert electric reactions; to the other, I am unsure if lightning even has a specific chemical structure ... it seems that it can occur in disparate media: I don't imagine a lightning bolt in Iowa is the same as the electrical discharges observed near the center of the galaxy. I really should undertake some form of theoretical mathematics, as it would enhance my expression of certain fundamental concepts, but I suffered through so much fundamental algebra (without ever failing it, either, though I gave that my damnedest) that it has been joked on more than one occasion that I dropped out of college in a desperate attempt to avoid confronting calculus. (Actually, it was mostly alcohol-related, but a word of advice to parents: don't ever tell your kids, right before they head off to school, that you think college is a bad idea because you don't think they can finish. It's easy enough to convince us--I slept through my first midterm exams because I was hung over.)

    But I really should learn theoretical mathematics because something about the method of working a Mandelbrot set fascinates me and might possibly give me a device by which I can punch a hole in the philosophical sense of determinism that prevents people from understanding that in the end, yes, life is merely a phase in an event we call the Universe. Even if we demonstrate the presence of spirit, it must necessarily have a medium of operation, else it would not exist at all.

    See? I did it again. Really, I should have stopped after the second sentence.

    thanx much,
    Tiassa

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  12. Dark Quasar Registered Member

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    14
    Reactions

    Want to add one thing about our chemical/electricical discord. If you meant electric reactions in human's brain, then i'll say, that they are just a trace of chemical reactions. For example, while you read and realize what i wrote, first of all it's a chemical reaction in your eye's retina: rodopsine (not sure it's translated like this; it's one of the proteines, contained in our retina) is untwisting, when affected by the light, and THIS is, in end total, produces electrical impulse, that runs in our nervious hutches into brain. I can explain every human action like this. Very romantic, isn't it?
    But i believe, that human is DAMN MORE complex, than our modern science think. Even with these infinite long and difficult biological/chemical/electrical processes.

    Uvidims'a

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    Bye!
     
  13. Chagur .Seeker. Registered Senior Member

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    2,235
    And this, DQ

    >>>And Whoever did this, i think He is God. And He is VERY intelligent.<<<

    Is what I mean by God; the 'god-thing'.
     
  14. rich68 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    34
    Mmm

    well the concept of GOD, could be a supreme person,or thing,who is the ultimate controller of the universe.Finding the beginning of the idea of god would be very difficult for,unlike anything we have experienced here he is eternal.you could say he has no beginning or end.but we also would say we have this same eternal nature,the thing is we are covered by our material bodies made from earth,water,air,underneath this material covering we exist as an eternal spiritual being,a tiny part of the supreme being.we have the same qualities as god however he has them in unlimited qunatities,and we have them in small quantities.as far as i can see this creation being gods first,he has somewhat different perspective to us.
     
  15. DEVILDOG Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    84
    this is only my opinion

    GOD IS....THE GREATEST EXAMPLE OF MASS HYSTERIA KNOWN TO MAN.

    Most of the people I have encountered believe in God because their parents believed. They were raised in church since as far back as they can remember. (I was raised Catholic). After I made my confirmation I was allowed to choose. I have been to several churches including Baptist, Missionary Baptist, Pentecostal?, Presbyterian, and Catholic of course. I've even done some looking into Voodoo and Paganism.

    Voodoo for example is believed by many to be associated with Satan but they pray to St. Peter or Papa Legba as he is called. They believe the magic was taught to Ham, son of Noah, by Watcher Angels. Pagan gods were named as Saints to convert more Pagans to christianity. The Christmas Tree, a long standing symbol of Christ's birth and everlasting love, was actually a Pagan tradition which was also converted over.

    Brainwashing can be achieved by continually repeating something over and over again. If you continually bring a child to church, they will believe it to be the truth due to repetativeness of the Bible. This is my theory on the belief in Faith. My father-in-law became a minister for this exact reason. He later got a psychology degree. He then sat down and reread the Bible from cover to cover hoping to get a better understanding of it to help in his preachings. He has given up his ministry, and I quote, "Because the bible contradicts itself from cover to cover and top to bottom."

    But, like I said, this is only MY opinion of the Faith.

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  16. Deadwood Registered Senior Member

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    386
    Who is God?

    God is triune (Father, Son and Holy Spirit)
    God is good.
    God is kind.
    God is slow to anger and full of compassion.
    He is a jealous God (that we may turn to evil, demons etc, does not want us to be consumed by evil.)
    No sin in Him can be found.
    It is impossible for god to lie (therefore He cannot deceive and always keeps His promises).
    God is all-knowing-all-powerful-all-present.
    God is the author of life.
    He created all, but He Himself was not created.
    God is perfect, no fault in Him can be found.
    He is a just and merciful God.
    He is a loving God.
    He still loves us, though we are not perfect.

    We were created in His image.

    Thank God for who He is. For His love, grace and mercy, which has no bounds. And which has filled my life and many around me.
     
  17. DEVILDOG Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    84
    How can you say this? Incest is a sin, yet the world was supposedly populated first by Adam and Eve, then once again, after the big flood, by Noah and his children. Last I checked inbreeding and incest are one in the same.

    While on the subject of Noah, he was said to be over 200 years old when he built the Arc and over 700 when he died. Yet it can't be proven, but it is believed through "Faith".

    Just remember, the Bible was written by man, for man, but it wasn't written by the Apostles themselves. It was written by others.

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    Saint Isidore of Seville
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    THAT APPEARS TO BE BIBLICAL......DOESN'T IT?
     
  18. rde Eukaryotic specimen Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    278
    It's a while since I read the bible, but in Genesis didn't god deceive Abraham into thinking he had to sacrifice his son? I belive 'burnt offering' was the phrase.
     
  19. pragmathen 0001 1111 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
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    Re: Who is God?

    <blockquote>
    <font size="1">quote:</font>
    <hr>
    <i>Originally posted by Deadwood</i>
    God is triune (Father, Son and Holy Spirit)
    God is good.
    God is kind.
    <hr>
    </blockquote>

    God is a schizophrenic person with delusions of grandeur, what with having three specific deity-complexes arising within his psyche.
    God is good to those that worship him, ruthlessly evil to those that don't.
    God is kind to those that pay attention to him, sadistic to those that don't.

    <blockquote>
    <font size="1">quote:</font>
    <hr>
    God is slow to anger and full of compassion.
    <hr>
    </blockquote>

    God is slow to anger, allowing the ignorant to proliferate and permitting indecencies in His name to be perpetuated ad infinitum; He is full of compassion to those that, under the Inquisition, convinced themselves they were witches and were thus, compassionately, granted an ignominious death.

    <blockquote>
    <font size="1">quote:</font>
    <hr>
    He is a jealous God (that we may turn to evil, demons etc, does not want us to be consumed by evil.)
    <hr>
    </blockquote>

    He is a jealous God, full of contradictions, by which he commands his disciples to <i>not</i> be jealous of others, yet God is the ultimate Mr Green.

    <blockquote>
    <font size="1">quote:</font>
    <hr>
    No sin in Him can be found.
    <hr>
    </blockquote>

    No sin in Him can be found because He decides, varyingly, what is right and wrong according to His own actions. Man's ways are not God's ways, meaning that God can get away with anything and call it justifiable and holy.

    <blockquote>
    <font size="1">quote:</font>
    <hr>
    It is impossible for god to lie (therefore He cannot deceive and always keeps His promises).
    <hr>
    </blockquote>

    It is impossible for god to lie (therefore when He said unto Abraham, "Say to these people that your wife is really your sister" it was not a lie; when He said unto Abraham, "I wish you to take Isaac and sacrifice him" it was not a lie).

    <blockquote>
    <font size="1">quote:</font>
    <hr>
    God is all-knowing-all-powerful-all-present.
    <hr>
    </blockquote>

    God is all-knowing-all-powerful-all-present, which means that God was present when countless lives were persecuted, hounded, and tortured mercilessly under the hands those that were supposedly in the service of Him (Holocaust, Inquisition, Crusades).

    <blockquote>
    <font size="1">quote:</font>
    <hr>
    God is the author of life.
    <hr>
    </blockquote>

    God is the author of life, creating Adam whole, but insulting Eve by creating her from Adam's rib.

    <blockquote>
    <font size="1">quote:</font>
    <hr>
    He created all, but He Himself was not created.
    <hr>
    </blockquote>

    He created all, but He Himself was not created, therefore man can blame no one else for the depravity instituted by God <i><b>except</b></i> God.

    <blockquote>
    <font size="1">quote:</font>
    <hr>
    God is perfect, no fault in Him can be found.
    <hr>
    </blockquote>

    God is perfect (except for that one time when he wasn't explicit enough in his directions for Cain on what to offer as a suitable sacrifice), no fault in Him can be found (those that do find faults misunderstand Him).

    <blockquote>
    <font size="1">quote:</font>
    <hr>
    He is a just and merciful God.
    He is a loving God.
    He still loves us, though we are not perfect.
    <hr>
    </blockquote>

    He is a just and merciful God, even though he outright killed a man that was trying to steady the Ark.
    He is a loving God, even though he knew that Jacob purposely withheld his pourage in order that he might have Esau's firstborn blessing.
    He still loves, though we are not perfect, as is evident of the numerous instances in which millions of innocent children and families have been destroyed in the name of Christianity.

    <blockquote>
    <font size="1">quote:</font>
    <hr>
    We were created in His image.
    <hr>
    </blockquote>

    We were created in His image, that of a cosmic terrorist, insanely jealous of those that acknowledge Him, sending out purposely contradicting commandments which have application in one instance but none in others, setting up patriarchal systems whereby women can easily be subjugated and rendered nearly powerless, creating situations whereby the innocent must "confess" in order to be saved from the torture chamber, converting through guilt manipulations, and preying on the gullible and the ill-received.

    <blockquote>
    <font size="1">quote:</font>
    <hr>
    Thank God for who He is. For His love, grace and mercy, which has no bounds. And which has filled my life and many around me.
    <hr>
    </blockquote>

    Thank God for who He is (that we may see Him as He really is, without the veil of ignorance and blind obedience). For His love, grace and mercy, which has no bounds (limited, only, to those that worship Him). And which has deteriorated and consumed and demoralized and stagnated the life of those around me.

    But, alas, I am powerless to effect change within others. I can only sit idly by and watch the locust consume the field. But do I?

    Deadwood, there are two sides to every coin, even with God. As good ol' Mark Twain once said, "Every man is like the moon; he has a dark side which he shows to no one." Unfortunately, for God, we've yet to see a consistent manifestation of his Good side.

    thanks,

    prag
     
  20. DEVILDOG Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    84
    ummmmmmmm

    prag:

    Would an Amen be the right phrase to follow your thoughts, or simply a "that's what I'm talking about." be better suited?
     
  21. Red Devil Born Again Athiest Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,996
    What is a "god"?

    You ask a good question, it appears well thought out. However, as an athiest, my answer is going to be obviously biased. I was having this discussion only the other night with friends. Firstly, my definition of a "god" is thus: Should an alien land nowadays, we would be friendly, inquisitive, or hostile depending on where this "alien" chooses to land. However, we would NOT think of him/it as a "god". In the days of pre-history, if such an occurrence took place it would as a "god came down on a chariot of fire" etc etc. Therefore it is a question of interpretation. Second point is this: the whole basis of religion was "invented" as an excuse to explain events away. Then, later on, religion became an excuse in itself, used as a means to subjugate the populace, to exert taxation of a kind, and to use itself as a lever in politics. For example, the "overlording" of earthly rulers with the "damnation to you all" theory if these rulers would not bow down to the church, who were after all only "peasants" made good. Science today has disproved religious arguements time and time again, indeed, in this "enlightened" society, we no longer need religion as an excuse for explaining things beyond our (then) severely limited comprehension. The universe formed by purely natural physics and not some "divine" architect. Finally, religion itself is responsible for more death and destruction (with the exception of Buddhism) than any other force in history. Religion is outmoded, dangerous and should now be considered a quaint byproduct of history and condemned to such.
     
  22. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,199
    Red Devil,

    Nice first post. Welcome to sciforums.

    The reference to Budhism is also interesting in that that particular religion does not recognize any gods.

    Cris
     
  23. Red Devil Born Again Athiest Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,996
    Hi Cris - thanks for the welcome and the reply. Yes, my reference to Buddhism was deliberate in that they do NOT have a god, which makes it much more of a religion that those that have gods. If I am making myself clear that is? Those religions that state categorically that "their" god is correct and no other are bigots. Although I myself am an athiest, there isn't any religion that can "prove" their god is either actually real or right. Therefore the only religion worth its "salt" on this earth is Buddhism.
     

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