Does God Exist?

[Kilgore Trout]

Actually, I'm just looking for a coherent and consistent definition of what god is. If you believe in the existence of something you've labeled "god," what exactly is it that you're applying this label to?

 

[Breathe]

A coherent AND consistent definition of what god is? You're really pushing your luck.


Myself, I'm a panentheist, or monist - not entirely sure yet, but one or the other. Either way, in my view everything is Brahman. There is nothing that is not.

Sadly this doesn't really explain things very well and I can't think of a way to explain it very well, I'm sorry - although I am young into my path, so finding the way to express it best will take time. However, I can tell you what I don't believe: I don't believe in a beardy man who resides in a cloud who throws lightening bolts at atheists.

 

[Wandered Off]

God has existence as a mental concept (or many) and as a meme. As such, its existence is different for each human with a God/Gods concept. I am not convinced there is an external referent to the concept.

Pantheists might argue that the universe is an external referent. I see God more as a label in their minds for a referent that I do not consider to be God in my subjective reality.

Jeez, could I have put it any clunkier?

 

[Willamena]

Actually, I'm just looking for a coherent and consistent definition of what god is.

As "god" can neither be said to be or not to be, you ask the impossible.

If you believe in the existence of something you've labeled "god," what exactly is it that you're applying this label to?

That which neither is nor isn't.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

As "god" can neither be said to be or not to be, you ask the impossible.

That which neither is nor isn't.

Did you get into the mushrooms again?

 

[Willamena]

Did you get into the mushrooms again?

Mmm.

Maybe this will help. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_Theology#Apophatic_description_of_God

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Mmm.

Maybe this will help. Apophatic theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ah yes, a form of cop-out theology.

 

[TheKnight]

My definition of God is existence.

 

[Willamena]

Ah yes, a form of cop-out theology.

It does make acquiring an image/idea of the divine a bit of a challenge. But too, it's not an impossible challenge. The image is transmitted nonliterally (that's where mythology and the metaphor serve a very real purpose).

The most famous expression of Negative theology in Upanishads is found in the chant, neti neti, meaning "not this, not this", or "neither this, nor that" . In Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Yajnavalkya is questioned by his students on the nature of God. He states, "It is not this and it is not that" (neti, neti). Thus, God is not real as we are real, nor is He unreal. He is not living in the sense humans live, nor is he dead. He is not compassionate (as we use the term), nor is he uncompassionate. And so on. We can never truly define the Divine in words. In this sense, neti-neti is not a denial. Rather, it is an assertion that whatever the Divine may be, universally or personally, when we attempt to conceptualize or describe it, we limit our transcendent experience of "it."

It makes transmitting the image equally challenging, as you probably know from just about every post about "god" made on RF. Our descriptive words are attached to "things," and unless "god" can be a thing (a bit of the creation, not external creator) there can be no words adequate to describe it. All our words, the vocabularies we've built up over our years of cognitive functioning, were fashioned about things and to accommodate things (the creation), even the words "nothing" and "non-existing".

In a very Discordian sense, Eris cheats.

 

[Cordoba]

Actually, I'm just looking for a coherent and consistent definition of what god is. If you believe in the existence of something you've labeled "god," what exactly is it that you're applying this label to?

God is our Creator.

He is The Creator and Sustainer of the universe

He is Eternal: He is The First without start, and The Last without end

He is the Light of the Heavens and the earth

There is to Him no equivalent, and He is The Hearing, The Seeing

 

[Akshara Dasa]

God, in my view, is simply our innermost Being. It is the deepest core of who we are. That is what I label God.

 

[Eliot Wild]

Actually, I'm just looking for a coherent and consistent definition of what god is. If you believe in the existence of something you've labeled "god," what exactly is it that you're applying this label to?

Ahh, excellent question. Pretty much highlights the central chord within all the noise around us. What is God and is God possible?

I must qualify my perspective: I don't necessarily believe in God. But I find the prospect compelling. And I do find the possibility of God too nagging to conveniently brush away.

More to the point, I suppose in searching for God, I am hoping to find a rational explanation for what is, what has been and what might be. My problem is that most of the proposals I've heard thus far fail to meet all my conditions for "rational". But then again, I'm crazy drunk most of the time, so what do I know about "rational"?

 

[Tiapan]

God (omni-everything type dude) doesn't exist yet but may in the distant future due to the universal law of entropy. There is not yet enough chaos to allow an entity of that complexity at this stage.

Cheers

 

[joea]

Actually, I'm just looking for a coherent and consistent definition of what god is. If you believe in the existence of something you've labeled "god," what exactly is it that you're applying this label to?

The question about God, is that of an existential truth. Once God is told, it becomes a lie. God is not some place else......it is here, right now, this very existence, hence, the truth.