Why does god have to be an entity?

Discussion in 'Religion' started by Oniw17, Aug 4, 2013.

  1. Oniw17 ascetic, sage, diogenes, bum? Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,423
    Why do we have to think of god as a person or some type of pseudo-creature? I like the idea that god is nothing. God just is. Like time. I suppose my concept of god would be most like Tao. An understanding about yourself and your environment that permeates everything else in the universe. Am I communicating efficiently here? If so, how does that idea resonate with theists?
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,253
    While I was brought up in the christian faith in my childhood, I think more like you do about the 'idea' of God. That God is 'faceless.' That he is genderless, so to speak. That He just is as you say here. Yes, I have thought along these lines myself.

    The human race forever tries to put its 'spin' on things, even God. No one could know what or 'who' God truly is. We can surmise. If you follow a particular way of worship, your religion may point you in a number of directions. But, to me, I shouldn't try to put God into a box. Mankind has been trying to do that, for centuries. Even polytheistic societies, attributed human qualities to 'their gods.'

    It is a flaw of humanity to want to make sense of something...unexplainable, perhaps.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    Why is the personhood of God necessarily prohibited from occupying a greater ontological category than your own personhood (since you talk about the final subject of God culminating from understanding one's self in the phenomenal world )?

    Why attribute yourself some pseudo omni capacity?
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,883
    This and That

    Indeed, theologically speaking, "God is" may well be the only true statement one can make about God.

    • • •​

    Any description of the attributes of God reduces its omni-aspects.

    For instance, I describe the evangelical, fundamentalist Christian God of American sociopolitics a "shoebox deity", or refer to "finding God in the nightstand drawer at an hourly-rate motel". One must diminish God tremendously in order to achieve those sad, theological jokes.
     
  8. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,089
    Because, if God is not an entity, what use is he?
    If his image is not interchangeable with Abraham's, how can he be construed as the patriarch who issues orders and metes out punishments?
    And if he isn't the Boss, how could men who look, speak and behave like Abraham rule the world through mental manipulation?
     
  9. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,832
    God is you--the real you, not your gender, not even your physical self. Therefore God is neither male nor female. God is beyond religion, which is more a cultural artefact. That religions claim to describe the true nature of God is obviously redundant if there is no such description. But you don't need descriptions if you are able to experience a thing. So perhaps experience is the only true "entity".
    We've been using mind-altering substances for a long time, and many cultures have rites of passage that involve the use of such "magic", and the notion of a communion with something.

    Well, to the extent that mere words can only describe something, words reduce the aspects of anything, including experience. I don't know that it's true, but I suspect most people have experienced something that they recognise is beyond description, or at least that words will fail to describe.
     
  10. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    Only if one insists on using one's own inferior attributes of existence as a yardstick for extrapolating about god.


    For instance, if I am situated in a particular location at a particular time, I am necessarily not located at literally millions of other places at the same moment, since my existence is necessarily singular (or at the very least, the avenues I have to expand myself by potencies are tragically limited).
     
  11. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    This doesn't explain how ignorance or conditioned existence fits in to the picture (IOW if we are all god, you have a god that is defeated by ignorance or laboring fruitlessly under a false concept of existence) ... much less why these so-called gods requires psychotropic drugs in order to see clearly (particularly when, under the influence of such drugs, these so-called gods would have a hard time crossing a busy street without getting killed)
     
  12. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,832
    If you know that you are God (which doesn't mean you are "a" god), how does that imply ignorance?

    Since, if you experience God (because you experience yourself), how can you be ignorant of that? Your response doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
    Again this doesn't make much sense. Those cultures that still use drugs to "enhance" self-experience do so in a controlled environment. People on drugs who get run over by cars is more a modern "extension" of the older cultural rituals, minus the oversight by a shaman or tribal elders.
    I guess you could reason that modern "recreational" drug use is . . . playing with God (along with all the perils that might bring with it). Don't mess with the big fella, cause he is you.
     
  13. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    If you have recourse to an existence prior where you didn't know this, you are left with the problem of ignorance I am talking about.

    I mean seriously, if such a so-called god has a hard time telling you exactly when and what they had for breakfast 6 days ago it should be a no-brainer that they are dumbing down the definition of god in hideous manner .....


    Its just the bit where you extrapolate experience of one's self as equating an experience of god that you run into problems.

    In the next moment you can get struck down with botulism or a toothache ... hardly becoming for a potency attributed for being the cause of all causes

    IOW this so-called knowledge that you are god doesn't help you or anyone in the slightest surmount the nature of existence which renders you fully compliant to the suffering typified by material existence (disease, old age, death, etc)

    The thing about god is that he always has recourse to existence untinged by ignorance and hence always remains fully autonomous.
    The thing about the living entity is that they always have recourse to existence defined by dependence.

    Ontologically these two categories are irreconcilable


    You still aren't explaining why something attributed as being the major prime mover of existence, the potency that occupies the highest ontological category, requires the use of drugs that make the act of crossing a busy road a life threatening challenge (regardless whether one is a shaman, a stupid hippie or a stupid hippie with shamanistic aspirations) in order to lend so-called clarity to this highly esteemed position.

    What is it exactly about a busy road - a hazard capable of being successfully negotiated by a 10 year old - a dire challenge for the so-called gods you are talking about?

    Why does god require a "controlled environment" in order to avoid getting run over by a truck?
     
  14. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,832
    You mean, if you can remember that you didn't know "you are God", then you can reason that you were ignorant of it?
    Well, suppose your ignorance was just because you "forgot"? Now you don't forget because the experience isn't in dispute.

    So maybe there are all these people around you who have forgotten. So what?
    What does remembering what you had for breakfast 6 days ago have to do with what you're experiencing today? I don't follow your reasoning.
    Actually I don't run into problems with my experience. Not at all. Mostly the problems are connected to my day to day existence and dealing with other people who have forgotten something . . .
    Here you're confusing a concept of God with a concept of mortality. If you really are God, then God is indeed mortal (unless you happen to be expecting to live forever, in which case, good luck with that).
    You're the one doing the attributing. So I'll ask: why is God as you describe? Why do you think this? Who told you, or have you worked it out by yourself?
     
  15. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    the fact that you are capable of forgetting such a thing indicates ignorance

    so you have a god powerless in the grips of ignorance for a start ....

    It shows that what you are experiencing today, as evidenced by your ignorance of events several days earlier, never actually leaves the confines of ignorance

    and thats my point : Despite this apparent god experience, you display the same powers of feebleness as anyone else who doesn't have such an experience.

    Actually I am talking about a host of things - including but not limited to mortality - that distinguish god and the living entity as two distinct ontological categories.


    Its kind of like a person who says that they are the president of the united states ... yet they not only can't even begin exhibit any of the powers or influence attributed with such a position, but offer the excuse that as the president they have no requirement to establish themselves in such a capacity (or even a capacity to distinguish themselves from the average joe on the street).

    What the hell is the value of such a useless president?

    :shrug:
     
  16. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,832
    So if I've forgotten what I ate for breakfast last Tuesday, I'm ignorant of eating?
    And, God has to be powerful, because . . . because that's what everyone thinks? Except I'm an example of someone who doesn't think that, I think the "power" of God is something that has nothing to do with leaping tall buildings or causing tidal waves, etc.
    But how do you know that the two are distinct? Is it because you believe they are, or is it because of what you experience?
    An idea of what God is is not an experience of God. The idea that God is "powerful" I guess depends on what you think "powerful" means.
     
  17. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    You are not only incapable of recalling your activities but you can't even steadfastly stand by the notion you are god

    Because its a requirement for distinguishing him from the living entity .... even if we are just talking about a living entity that doesn't know he is God
    You are also someone who fails to distinguish god in any meaningful manner. .... which is why I suggested you are dumbing down the term in a hideous manner

    How do you know your experience is that of God. All you are talking about is attributing a state that doesn't distinguish itself in any manner to a term that requires distinction. Iow if you want to talk about god being incapable of exerting any influence on the phenomenal world your so called experience of being god is totally meaningless
     
  18. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,832
    What if I am capable of recalling my activities? What if I can remember everything I've ever done?
    As for the notion that I am God: this follows from my direct experience of God. That means I can hear and see God, I can feel God and I can taste God.

    What you seem to think the word "God" means is anathema to me.
    Why do you think there's a requirement? If I didn't know that what I experience is supposed to have the label "God", how does that change the experience? The answer is, it doesnt.
    I don't really understand what "distinguish god" means. Does it mean I should be able to distinguish my experience from "myself"? That doesn't make any sense at all. This "hideous manner" you suggest is probably because you have an idea of what God is or should be. God is not an idea and is not subject to what you think.
    How do you know it isn't? You can't possibly know this, all you really know is what you have experienced and are experiencing--no matter how you manage to filter it or categorise it, the fact remains that you experience, you are conscious.
    But if I am God, then I am capable of exerting influence on the "phenomenal world". Your refutation is what's meaningless.
     
  19. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    Then you would be a popular guest on talk back shows to say the least. ....

    Then we can move on to the problem why you can't say what I had for breakfast this morning ....since I take it that you understand there is a requirement for laying claim to activities above and beyond any particular individual if one wants to talk about knowledge of God
    Given you can't even lay claim to a state impervious to ignorance .... or even explain why such sojourns into such a state can be catalyzed by taking drugs that grant a diminished capacity for hazard negotiation less than a ten year old .... I think we are still left with the problem of you dumbing down terms for the sake of egotistical convenience

    I remember a cartoon about a new drug called "future". Groups of people would take it together and then go around saying things like "its 2023 and having just received my fourth Nobel prize for my latest invention, I am celebrated as the greatest scientist of the millennium" etc etc

    Iow just like you, there were people getting excited by their experiences ( despite being completely incapable of qualifying them in any meaningful or relevant manner)
     
  20. arfa brane call me arf Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,832
    Where does this "requirement" come from? IOW, who ordered that?
    Where do I claim "activities above and beyond any particular individual"? To me, that means the activities of individuals other than myself.

    Are you implying that we can't talk about knowledge of God unless some "requirement" is met? Why is that? What's the requirement? I mean if you want to know something, isn't that really the only requirement? Unless of course you can somehow exclude yourself from "knowing" (maybe you're too stupid), then exclude everyone else by implication (since of course, everyone else is just like you), what requirement is there?
    I think what you mean here is that my "definition" doesn't jibe with yours. And as I may have mentioned, your idea, my idea, anyone's idea, of God, is not God. God is (an) experience. Live with it.
    "Just like me" huh? Are you omniscient?

    You appear to be someone who believes that God has a certain definition, "behaves" in a certain way, and any other description is "dumbing it down". But I don't think you know what God is, It seems likely you've forgotten. And what you appear to be trying to tell me is that I don't know what experience or consciousness is because I can't define either of these things. Can you?
     
  21. PsychoticEpisode It is very dry in here today Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,452
    Why does god have to be an entity? Would you worship God if he was raw sewage? Well I guess you would have to, but you might not like it.
     
  22. Gage Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    165
    Idk man "Tao and Te" is just so different than Abrahamic gods it's really hard to even make a comparison between the two. Guess I kinda see what your saying but the two concepts just don't fit together very well. Lol thought came to mind of a catholic priest reading laozi in his sermons. O Gage...

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  23. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    if you can't distinguish the experience of knowing you are god, by any value, ability or attribute, it is non-different from not having the experience ... since both states would be identical



    Sure .. at least if you are intent on meaningful discussion.

    Otherwise we can say things like "Circling the aspect of interior lighting I have come to understand that triangles are just like hexagons"

    If you actually know something (as opposed to attempting to borrow from the authority of the subject in some dubious manner eg: "hey everybody I am just like god ... even though there is a good chance I will be shitting my pants if I manage to live another 75 years") you shouldn't have any problem meeting this requirement.

    For instance I can tell you a triangle has three sides, and this in itself is sufficient to distinguish it from a circle. You may disagree and say that you have experience of a circle with three sides ... but it would become apparent in the course of such a discussion that its either a matter semantics (You are using the word circle to define what I call a triangle) or you have either a vague or no clue what you are talking about.

    I am saying your (theoretical) definition of god - namely one that is incapable of bearing so much as a ripple on the surface of the phenomenal world - is one that doesn't gel with the standard definitions of god (summum bonum, omnimax, cause of all causes, etc etc).

    Fair enough if you want to say that you had this neat experience on magic mushrooms in pursuit of shamanistic practices, but you are just dumbing down the definition of god (at best ... and at worst, reinforcing a pathetic stereotype ... anyone recall the old simpsons episode with krusty the clown on acid from the 70's?)

    You believe that you can say something like "I am god" and completely fail to display even a trace of anything to justify such a claim except the mortification that your ego might be bruised if one suggests otherwise.



    Plenty of info out there to explain what god is.

    Everytime I bring you back to these standard definitions you insist that these are fabrications and that its actually your (apparently drug induced) experience that is valid ... despite the fact that in the middle of such experiences of, you would have a sense of hazard avoidance more diminished than a ten year old

    It seems likely you've forgotten. And what you appear to be trying to tell me is that I don't know what experience or consciousness is because I can't define either of these things. Can you?[/QUOTE]
    I don't doubt you had some sort of "experience".

    Your complete inability to dress it up in any way resembling the term "god" (without dumbing down the term of course) seems to indicate you are deluded
     

Share This Page