What is God to you?

[Sgt. Pepper]

To me, the biblical God is nothing more than a sadistic and psychopathic maniac, assuming he exists at all. The deities I believe in now aren't significant to me because I don't allow them to be. I learned a painful lesson as a Christian not to allow my religious beliefs to get the best of me, so now I keep my beliefs as a Wiccan and polytheist at arm's length and don't get overly attached to any deities.

 

[Wildswanderer]

To me, God is what animates us. Love, music, aesthetics, nature, etc, i.e., the things that move us. What do you think?

God is the Creator of everything. So he's an artist and an architect. He's the ultimate authority, so he is the ruler of all. But mostly he is love, which he demonstrated by allowing humans to take his life, so that they could be saved from their own failures and live forever in communion with him.

 

[wandering peacefully]

God to me, is an entity humans created starting probably 90,000 ybp. They used them to help explain all of the mysteries and majiks surrounding them in nature. Some of which could kill so began worshipping them to appease or gain favor. Probably millions of gods in total starting at least with Neanderthals and Aborigines. Maybe even before that.

God's purpose is to make humans feel like someone or something else is in charge and in care of their scary, mysterious and all other emotional attributes humans have that need comfort and for protection.

Nothing new about the need for gods except as we learn more, we need less of them. Some people don't need any of them anymore.

 

[danieldemol]

My concept of God is as intervener in the spirit realm.
God in my view has no desire to interact with the material realm.

In my opinion.

 

[Dawnofhope]

I believe in the God of Abraham. The essence of God is unknowable according to the Baha'i Writings, so in many ways God is somewhat of a mystery to me.

 

[Vouthon]

Yes. Hinduism has 3 primary yogas (paths); Bhakti (path of devotion), karma (the path of action), and jnana (the path of knowledge). There are those that walk more than one path, and there are those that walk a single path.

As a jnani, I am a transtheist. While I acknowledge the existence of gods and the need for them in pragmatic reality, they are transcended by liberation.

That's fascinating Salix, so in that respect you are similar to Buddhism and Jainism (a transtheistic religion)?

In your worldview, therefore, is moksha - the state of liberated consciousness from samsara and maya (illusion) - the supreme unconditioned state, something that souls just attain/realize but its not understood by you as a supreme reality like God?

Is it more like Buddhist nibbana then, than it is union with/realisation of Brahman as the Self (like in Vendanta proper, a theistic/pantheistic concept)?

 

[DNB]

To me, God is what animates us. Love, music, aesthetics, nature, etc, i.e., the things that move us. What do you think?

The Father, the only divine Being in the entire universe, holy, all powerful, and perfect. The God of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David and Jesus.

 

[SalixIncendium]

That's fascinating Salix, so in that respect you are similar to Buddhism and Jainism (a transtheistic religion)?

Similar in that respect, yes, at least with Buddhism (I haven't done much study on Jainism, aside from knowing it's transtheistic). Where we differ is the view on the permanent self. Buddhism, as I understand it, speaks of anatman, the non-self, to bring one to non-attachment by recognizing everything is impermanent, whereas Hinduism speaks of Atman, which is the permanent, unchanging, eternal Self, and everything else is impermanent.

In your worldview, therefore, is moksha - the state of liberated consciousness from samsara and maya (illusion) - the supreme unconditioned state, something that souls just attain/realize but its not understood by you as a supreme reality like God?

Not quite. There is nothing to attain. One is already that supreme reality (Brahman), but is ignorant of that fact due to attachment and desire to that which is impermanent in pragmatic reality as a result of Maya. Moksha is merely the realization of one's Self as that supreme reality and that everything in this perceived reality is an appearance.

Is it more like Buddhist nibbana then, than it is union with/realisation of Brahman as the Self (like in Vendanta proper, a theistic/pantheistic concept)?

Yes.

 

[rational experiences]

As an innocent mind a baby first I must ignore evil greedy rich man's false preaching indoctrinations. Lying adults. All once were just a baby too.

A humans realisation why.

The theist.. science the practice of men is first and always just theories. What science is first to men. Thinking stories only.

As no man is God is a reality statement I believe in by the observed teaching. My owned experience.

What science of man isn't. Space empty infinites body.

And held mass O the planet we live on I agree is its owned god body.

So mother of God a thesis is most acceptable. Space law owns the held cell O the law outside of human sciences controlled or ownership.

Yet ownership men is all about God as his adults want to own and control it as man's confession not God....I want to invent it's control by my machine. Also not God.

So even when man breaks held space fused laws God in space law mass owns....law still puts the cell O body back. As the heavens is first in space laws too.

Proving he doesn't own god by any type of word or human used imposed word use as a thinker. Claiming his human words will and must tell him.

If I ask spiritual humans surely they'll tell me scientist. Yet men say god isn't science.

Science men say the God type O cell form closest body to human is ape monkey life. By observation as an adult humans experience.

As he explains naturally first it's also why he says and hence its not science. It's observation. As humans with machines hadn't invented space law.

To See as a man is holy he said. No man is God in laws. Man's science is just stories only as first position.

 

[CharmingOwl]

The gods are something that exist for me to benefit myself and progress my agenda. This does not mean they are unappreciated or used as tools with no respect to their offerings, but at the end of the day my path is that of self-empowerment and the development of supernatural abilities so I don't have a sappy answer to the question.

 

[dybmh]

I don't have a sappy answer to the question

... no sappy?

Not into tree-gods, I guess .

 

[osgart]

Whatever a person places as all powerful and all important in their life is there God. Otherwise there is no God.

 

[Mock Turtle]

To me, God is what animates us. Love, music, aesthetics, nature, etc, i.e., the things that move us. What do you think?

For me, God is the simplest and most natural explanation for existence, and perhaps why so many readily take to believing in such.

However, given we humans often do have the intelligence to question and learn, it seems as well to do some work so as to eliminate all other possibilities before having such acceptance. Many are not bothered and/or will be satisfied with one of the numerous explanations and descriptions of such a God (and hence will often have a religious belief), but many will not be, and hence will have to research and find suitable answers that can explain as much as the easier God explanation might.

Who knows as to why some feel the need to find other answers and where many don't, but eventually it all boils down to either accepting one version or the other, especially when there are just as many reasons not to accept the God explanation as there might be to believe such.

Oh, and I mostly don't believe in God or gods - given that I have found enough evidence so as this not to make much sense.

 

[RestlessSoul]

The light in the darkness. The clear spring in the desert. The shelter in the storm.

 

[Mark Charles Compton]

To me, God is what animates us. Love, music, aesthetics, nature, etc, i.e., the things that move us. What do you think?

I don't see really anything to fancy. God, to me, is not a personal being, just a force. Like the Bible says, in God we live, move and have our being.

I'm pretty sure I perceive God similarly to the main theme within your comments here. A universal all-permeating force or energy that is essential for matter to coalesce into higher entities, such as the 'conscious agents' we humans liken ourselves to. The Force from the Star Wars franchise in a nutshell... "May the Force be with you!"

 

[Guitar's Cry]

God is a metaphor that represents our relationship with the Universe.

 

[Colt]

To me, God is what animates us. Love, music, aesthetics, nature, etc, i.e., the things that move us. What do you think?

The Universal Father.

 

[LuisDantas]

What is god to me?

Literally nothing.

There is no meaning to the word, although people often lend it a plethora of insufficiently developed meanings for various reasons.

That leads to camouflaged confusion with no upside.

I guess I feel no craving for doing the same.

 

[Aštra’el]

The Supreme God- highest above all others- embodies Creation, Destruction, and Divine Order over Primeval Chaos.

 

[PureX]

"God" is just the word I use to refer to the great mystery source, sustenance, and purpose of all that is.