What is God in General?

[Shuttlecraft]

God said "I fill heaven and earth" (Jeremiah 23:23/4)

so in a sense the universe is a goldfish bowl, he's the water, and we're the fish-
"For in him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28)

He's a bit like 'The Force' in Star Wars-

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[Willamena]

God is what's left over.

 

[Goblin]

it is everything, yet at the same time nothing explainable at all. God has so many emotional adjuncts on it, i think its best to use a different word. if you need a word, to try and get more real about it

 

[Sha'irullah]

Placeholder much like 0

If I had a number which projected a real amount of things such as 100 this means that there can be 100 actual things.
Lets make this 100 the Universe and say that it is broken down into 100 something. I cannot measure, calculate nor distinguish it unless I have a place holder to make it calculable and distinguishable.
Thus a Zero is used and god works much in that function for many people. Except unlike the zero god is not necessary because god functions as a 100.0. God is the unnecessary, unneeded and nonexistent decimal in an equation.

When you simplify you end up without a god

 

[rusra02]

I believe God is a person, a spirit person. (John 4:24) He resides in the spirit realm, heaven. (Hebrews 9:24) The Bible reveals the true God to be loving, just, righteous, infinitely wise. He feels joy and sorrow, and cares deeply about each one of us. (1 Peter 5:7) He is patient and kind, but does not tolerate wrongdoing indefinitely. (2 Peter 3:9) These are but a glimpse of the personality of the greatest Person in the universe, Jehovah.

 

[Goblin]

what kind of body does he have & how did he attain that form, is he a shapeshifter? does he have his own parents? is their a never ending line of Gods, like does God have a God & does that God have a God.

there are alot of questions that tend to pop up at the idea of a well defined person God.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Inspired by a thread in Christianity DIR. I am interested in hearing what you believers in God actually envision God to be... A person? Does God have form? Etc.

Whenever I think of God, I always imagine an abstract ball of information, all of this existence is, at the most basic level, made of pure information in my opinion, and that is God. But instead, all of this information is just one being, experiencing it all at once. All of time and all of space all at one point in space and one point in time.

When you think you have identified God, that is the moment at which you have misunderstood the word 'God' altogether. Just as not every shape has a formula, not every concept can be named. What we do know and can prove is that our own perception is limited, which leaves plenty of room to not know what God is and not a lot of room to know what God is.

 

[Robert.Evans]

Inspired by a thread in Christianity DIR. I am interested in hearing what you believers in God actually envision God to be... A person? Does God have form? Etc.

Whenever I think of God, I always imagine an abstract ball of information, all of this existence is, at the most basic level, made of pure information in my opinion, and that is God. But instead, all of this information is just one being, experiencing it all at once. All of time and all of space all at one point in space and one point in time.

Yes. That is the short answer.
When you speak of these things, I have little I can add.
God is the Existence which is everything. Existence is one definition of Yhvh. He is everything. We are part of him, aspects of him. We are ultimately part of one Existence that is the experiences that we see, and are also us. The Existence that is all things is, in short, cleanses itself of that which is error... to return it completed to itself. This is a long process.

It is in its purest form, something that just 'IS'. Beyond that, we see the expression of that 'awareness' and that is the 'consciousness' that we see in physical terms. We are all One Existence ultimately. Have a good day

 

[paragon]

God is an admirable height.

 

[Goblin]

God is divinity beyond all duality. Everything caught is some sort of dualistic polarization is Gods children

 

[idav]

God is the spark of creation and life that is a fundamental to the fabric of existence.

 

[Orbit]

God is the spark of creation and life that is a fundamental to the fabric of existence.

Given this, can God be known? Or is it guesses at most?

 

[idav]

Given this, can God be known? Or is it guesses at most?

As far as I am concerned, general realitivity proves it for me.

At a high enougy energy everything is eternal and thats where we come from.

 

[allfoak]

For me to try and comprehend God is like a worm trying to figure out why i just stepped on it.

 

[Maranatha]

For me, as others have said, God is a word with almost too much baggage, and too connected with authoritarian 'king' God notions.

As a Quaker and a Universalist my notion of God is that everything conceivable (and unconceivable) within the Universe is made of God; not as a personal 'man' figure, but as a force of potential. I'm a nondualist so to me there are no simple 'facts' such as 'free will' versus 'determinism', or 'good' vesus 'evil' and that these are illusory states of mind and viewpoints.

God, to me is the *thing* / *force* that 'hard wires' in my being, the feeling that doing something compassionate, loving, collaborative is somehow *right* in a way we cannot explain....... and conversely, the thing or force that leads to doing something harmful, selfish or ill-intended, just somehow feeling not right to us.

Atheists and materialists could I guess call that the 'moral compass'. To me, experientially there is no 'moral compass' to be found within the body, just as there is no separate, ego or 'self' that we can point at. So to me, 'God' is that which fills those gaps that we experience but which cannot be explained.

I mainly take my inspiration on what God is to me from the (in order): Hindu (Advaita), Buddhist* and more mystical/spiritual forms of Christianity.


*Contraversial I know.

 

[Acintya_Ash]

Inspired by a thread in Christianity DIR. I am interested in hearing what you believers in God actually envision God to be... A person? Does God have form? Etc.

Whenever I think of God, I always imagine an abstract ball of information, all of this existence is, at the most basic level, made of pure information in my opinion, and that is God. But instead, all of this information is just one being, experiencing it all at once. All of time and all of space all at one point in space and one point in time.

I believe God as a person...who is the source of everything and the cause of all causes.

 

[Whiterain]

what kind of body does he have & how did he attain that form, is he a shapeshifter? does he have his own parents? is their a never ending line of Gods, like does God have a God & does that God have a God.

there are alot of questions that tend to pop up at the idea of a well defined person God.

God in incarnations may have worked for centuries prior to monotheism..

The idea of pantheism died a long, long time ago with brutalic murder and execution, to my knowledge..

The idea of such Godly incarnations would have fit well with the organization of pantheistic royal kingdom;
like we all had. This method went to fault of nature and these kingdoms slowly dissolved over the generations
and came into Christians and other monotheist.

As far as a metaphysical God - I do not argue to hard trying to make the irrational and irrational being rational.

Understanding why this happened, outside of Christ being significant, is key...

Other than that these religious organizations wanted to enforce an invincible God - the Pagan Gods have not met the perquisites, as far as invincibility, as in you shoot me I'm dead.

The immortal soul had been around a while, not the "invincible" body.

Yet, I believe immortal body may be real, not invincibility.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

I believe God as a person...who is the source of everything and the cause of all causes.

I am glad you pointed out God as a person. I think God is required to be a person, or a living, willful being, otherwise not worthy of the title God.

 

[Orbit]

I am glad you pointed out God as a person. I think God is required to be a person, or a living, willful being, otherwise not worthy of the title God.

Interesting. I don't see God as a person, except as a metaphor. I see God in a pantheistic way, defining every particle and physical law as God itself. I'm leaning towards panentheism, but this still is very far from God as a person.

Anthropomorphizing God as a person just doesn't resonate with me--it's too much like the old guy with white beard sitting on a cloud.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Interesting. I don't see God as a person, except as a metaphor. I see God in a pantheistic way, defining every particle and physical law as God itself. I'm leaning towards panentheism, but this still is very far from God as a person.

Anthropomorphizing God as a person just doesn't resonate with me--it's too much like the old guy with white beard sitting on a cloud.

I, too, am a pantheist. The universe is very much a person, at least that's how it comes off to me. However, as for every particle or physical law, I am unsure that is pantheism, perhaps animism? A particle or a physical law, do either of them have a the property of "God" without the universe beside it?