Is God In Anyway Necessary?

[blackout]

Have you ever heard of something called "love"?

Yes.
And there can be Love and Relationship there,
with and in God, if we so choose.

Despite what "religion" generally tells us,
God gives us total freedom,
not a life of restriction.

Our biggest restriction,
is our own limited vision and immagination.

God has given us the potential for limitless possibility in (him).

 

[rojse]

Not at all. Where did you get that from?

Where did you get the idea that he was a happy and smiling god from?

 

[doppelganger]

Just an assumption full of generalization.

I didn't claim otherwise. Why do you think "God" is necessary? Because you imagine there has to be a "Creator"? That's simply a thought construct and a trick of logic. "Creation" can easily be explained as a function of my use of language and thought with no requirement of "God" unless you are referring to the collective use of language between consciousness persons from which I might inherit some or part of the meaning attached to symbols. Somehow, I doubt that's what you mean by "God" though.

 

[doppelganger]

A mature Godiverse; ours is a juvenile, I think. What a mature one looks like, I have no idea, but I'm excited

Then we could be regressing or devolving though if nobody knows what a mature one is, right?

 

[doppelganger]

Great post, Stacey. I heartily agree with the sentiment.

Yes.
And there can be Love and Relationship there,
with and in God, if we so choose.

And without attaching "God" as well, of course.

Despite what "religion" generally tells us,
God gives us total freedom,
not a life of restriction.

Very well said. Looking within instead of without for meaning is liberating. The truth shall set you free. So why do so many in "God" seem so scared, guilty and angry?

Our biggest restriction,
is our own limited vision and immagination.

Bingo! Vision and imagination have only the restrictions I've placed on them (or accepted as placed upon them by others).

 

[blackout]

Then we could be regressing or devolving though if nobody knows what a mature one is, right?

It is my strong "hunch",
that the "mass state" of being
is only as "mature" ,
as the individuals therein,
are FREE from the pitfalls of being LED
into a "mass state" of being/thinking/seeing/believing/acting.

Know what I mean?

The "world" is only as DYNAMIC
as the individuals within it are unique in thought & creation.
The "world" is only as FREE
as the individuals within it are free to forge their own personally inspired paths.

Now if we all,
each individual,
one by one,
just stopped "listening to our leaders",
and listened from the quiet within our own selves instead...
unlimited by the illusory limitations of the world mind game...

then we would FINALLY begin stepping into a collective maturity.

(the "leaders" of course will wage war to stop this at all cost)

It is an EXCITING THOUGHT INDEED!
Our whole world contruct would change...
with the "changing" of each mind.
We would come to know a whole NEW reality,
and it would be mindblowing.

 

[lombas]

Who can better decide about the necessity of God than each individual for himself?

 

[doppelganger]

Who can better decide about the necessity of God than each individual for himself?

Exactly. So what's with all the preaching to the "unsaved", projected judgments, sexual hysteria (over other people's sex lives, of course), and other such nonsense?

 

[Diogenes]

I suppose love is unneccesary. There have been many cultures historically that did not place a very high value on love. They were able to survive and even thrive in a material sense. But to me a life without love would not be worth living. This is the most vital 'necessity ' of God for me.

 

[Peace]

Why do you think "God" is necessary? Because you imagine there has to be a "Creator"?

Sorry, we don't imagine that there is God but we are certain and sure 100% with 0 doubt that God is the Truth and He exists and He is my and your creator and the Creator of all what exist in this universe. So our belief is not a mere speculation or an imagination or a dream or a kind of hope that He exists but our belief is a certainty, an assurance and a conviction.

Peace

 

[fullyveiled muslimah]

This question all depends on what is meant by necessary. If we mean is Allah necessary for the existance of any and all things, then I say 100% yes. If however we mean is it necessary to believe in Allah to have what you may consider a good or happy life, then I would say no not at all. That is part of the choice we are given whether to believe in Allah or not. Our belief or lack thereof has no effect upon Allah at all. In Allah's mercy a person who does not believe in Him does not have to worry that they will be singled out in this life for misery. Most times it is just the opposite. Many disbelievers have enviable lives if I limit it to the life of this world only.


I reject the idea that belief in Allah is only for the weak. Only the weak minded people who need a constant crutch will believe in Allah. I reject that because it necessarily implies that people who do not believe are somehow better, or stronger people. When people put forward this argument, they forget that the inclination to worship is inate in all people. Some are more attuned to it than others but it is there nonetheless. Some simply find other things to worship, whether they view it as worship or not. It is inate to have something that is untouchable and sacred to us.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

God is an increasingly unnecessary postulate.

 

[doppelganger]

Sorry, we don't imagine that there is God but we are certain and sure 100% with 0 doubt that God is the Truth and He exists and He is my and your creator and the Creator of all what exist in this universe. So our belief is not a mere speculation or an imagination or a dream or a kind of hope that He exists but our belief is a certainty, an assurance and a conviction.

Okay. But the question is "why"?

And how does your certainty transform something from imagination into something not of imagination? Not that it can't, mind you. . . but what is the process by which it does so?

 

[Peace]

Okay. But the question is "why"?

And how does your certainty transform something from imagination into something not of imagination? Not that it can't, mind you. . . but what is the process by which it does so?

But why do you insist on calling it an imagination? Our certainty wasn’t based on an imagination. We never said “Well let’s imagine that God exists and let’s try to prove His existence”. We were born with the innate idea that God is our Creator and He is there with us, which means that we are born believers, all of us, but our environment and our surrounding have it’s shared effects on us too and then experience and life as we grow up has also another effects on us and on our belief. Thus as it happens with some of you, when you don’t find answers to your questions you just deny the existence of God and call it an idea from our imagination.

To answer your question about the process that leads us to believe in God…. well I would say the environment where we grow up in plays a role; it is as a basis to our belief. Then our everyday experiences strengthen our belief in God and our contemplation of the universe and what’s therein including our own selves play an important role in giving us clear signs that all this huge universe and the harmony that exists within it cannot exist without a mighty wise superpower, a superb maker and creator and that Mighty Superpower is God the All Mighty.
One more thing which also plays a really great role is the guidance from God without which we cannot be guided to Him. Therefore, we should all ask guidance from Him to truth that will enable us attain happiness and success in this life and the hereafter

Peace

 

[doppelganger]

But why do you insist on calling it an imagination?

Because it is a word representing an idea related to other ideas and words in thought. I'm not just picking on "God" here. Categories of things and types and differences of things are all products of imagination. Sometimes the mode of imagining things is very useful, and sometimes it isn't. And that usefulness, of course, depends on one's purposes and knowledge.

Our certainty wasn’t based on an imagination. We never said “Well let’s imagine that God exists and let’s try to prove His existence”. We were born with the innate idea that God is our Creator and He is there with us, which means that we are born believers, all of us

That's an ontological claim. Any evidence for that? What of cultures that have no concept of "God" in their governing mythos? Did everyone in those cultures buck their innate belief? And isn't at least as likely that what you perceive as "innate" is merely a symbol passed to you in your culture at a time when you lacked the full self-awareness to evaluate it critically? How would you eliminate that possibility?

Thus as it happens with some of you, when you don’t find answers to your questions you just deny the existence of God and call it an idea from our imagination.

But all "reality" is composed of my ideas and thoughts about it. If "God" isn't an idea, then it is nothing.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

We were born with the innate idea that God is our Creator and He is there with us, which means that we are born believers, all of us

I wasn't.

If you were introduced to your religion at a very early age (by your parents, perhaps?), that may be why you feel the way you do now.

I know I can't figure out any way to distinguish from things I just innately knew and things that were taught to me when I was very young.

 

[doppelganger]

And just to clarify, I'm just asking questions to stimulate discussion and raise challenging issues. If it's "true" to you, then it is true, quite regardless of what I think.

 

[autonomous1one1]

...If God is in any way or sense necessary, in what way or sense is He necessary? And why is He necessary?

Greetings. My first thought on responding with two key points among others was that God is necessary for 'being' and necessary for humans to realize eternal life. Then, after reading all posts I found that Sandy had posted essentially the same thing:

On a grand scale God is necessary for everything since He created everything. On a personal scale He is necessary for eternal life. Among other things.

Frubals to you Sandy!

To offer other thoughts, I like the system of Paul Tillich that implies the necessity of God to answer the questions that come from an analysis of human existence. For examples, from questions arising from analysis of Being, Existence, Life, Reason, and History he gives answers of God, Christ, the Spirit, Revelation, and the Kingdom of God, respectively. I think discussion here would be outside scope (actually, take too much re-study {of over 300 pages} on my part to explain in a way they could be understood) but I wanted to point towards them for those who may want to examine additional intellectuality related to responses to this OP. One additional point in just mentioning this is that there are great thinkers that don't just come up with God because of unconscious 'projection,' psychological coping, buffer to reality, to fill a scientific unknown, or satisfy a human need, or blind belief, or because they were raised that way.

 

[Ozzie]

God is not necessary to the naive and even less necessary to those who as a collective have rejected him. It is very hard to argue that one finds God unnecessary, and is not part of a collective.

To claim God is unnecessary as a truth from an individual perspective is equivalent to saying: "If I was the only Christian on earth, my faith would make sense". Both claims are a priori claims of truth.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

..., I'm just asking questions to stimulate discussion and raise challenging issues. If it's "true" to you, then it is true, quite regardless of what I think.

Thereby rendering the term 'true' little more than worthless ornamentation. Is alien abduction 'true'? Astrology? White superiority? Feel free to pay the word extra to mean what you want it to mean - or to mean nothing at all - but do not pretend that it's a useful expenditure.