Who is God?

[DNB]

Well, here is the problem. If God has all the general properties like all knowing, you can only know that if you are God. You can only know if there is an all knowing being if you are all knowing. Are you all knowing?

Sorry MTD, you're not making sense. I can be aware that someone is erudite or masterly skillful at something, despite myself not being so. People do not only recognize their peers, they also perceive when someone is out-of-their-league so to speak.
Man understands holiness, even though he is not as holy as God. Man comprehends wisdom and knowledge, although he cannot fathom God's magnitude of these characteristics.

So, I don't have to be omniscient in order to gain an understanding of what God is. The concept of gender does not confound my intelligence.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Sorry MTD, you're not making sense. I can be aware that someone is erudite or masterly skillful at something, despite myself not being so. People do not only recognize their peers, they also perceive when someone is out-of-their-league so to speak.
Man understands holiness, even though he is not as holy as God. Man comprehends wisdom and knowledge, although he cannot fathom God's magnitude of these characteristics.

So, I don't have to be omniscient in order to gain an understanding of what God is. The concept of gender does not confound my intelligence.

Well, if you check your thinking neutrally, you will realize that you only think God is Y and that you don't know. But I accept that you claim you know based on how you think. I just do it differently. So we are both subjective and apparently God is objective. That is the point.

 

[RestlessSoul]

My answer is this. Look at the 3 base axiomatic assumptions in naturalism. The universe is real, orderly and knowable. That is suppose to be without God, but they are all non-materialistic in ontological terms. Even science assumes that the universe is in a sense a who.
Because we have a mind, it would seem if there is a God, God has a mind.

Consciousness and cosmos unfolding in one unbroken line of movement. To paraphrase physicist and philosopher David Bohm.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Some of you may be asking, what is the point of all this? Is it just a mental excercise? Some sort of self-gratifying meditation? In a way yes, but also in a way no.

If an infinite God wanted to have a relationship with a finite being. If it wanted to have a real relationship where the finite being understood this infinite God, one way ( maybe the only way? ) to accomplish this is to remain hidden. The finite being would never understand infinity if it was revealed to them. The mind would always encapsulate the concept into the borders of the revelation which defeats the understanding and sabatoges the relationship. In this way, "knowing" must be avoided in favor of "understanding". And this is a reason why a God which desires to have a relationship, a real relationship, would still remain hidden. Because it's easier to understand this way. It's easier to understand the unanswered question.

You believe in a personal God, who created man in his own image, for some divine purpose?

 

[blü 2]

Well, you're predicating that there is no God, and that man adjusts his views on God according to the culture in order to retain adherents.
Theists perceive God both in the architect of the universe and in the nature of man. Thus, God's attributes impose themselves upon humans, and not that man conjures up these characteristics by his own vain imagination. And, consequently, man has induced that God is, as far as masculinity is concerned, sovereign, all powerful and mighty, a disciplinarian, austere, all knowing, incoercible.

I'm saying that look where you will, you won't find a real god (or God). one with objective existence.

God doesn't even have a description appropriate to a real being. Instead [he]'s described by imaginary qualities ─ omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, perfection, infinite, eternal &c. If [he] were real, to be found in the world external to the self, which we know about through our senses, then of course [he]'d have a real description. But [he] isn't, and the only way [he]'s known to exist is as an idea, a concept, a thing imagined in individual brains ─ a cultural concept.

So you're correct to say I think we adjust our view of God according to our acculturation.

If there were only one God, the result would be that round the world we'd recognize our God in the the versions of the [always one] God of other nations. Instead, we might have, as the Hindus do, many gods, and an entirely different concept of an afterlife, reincarnation in one form or another, or as the Buddhists do, both theistic and atheistic strains woven around the Buddha's moral precepts, and so on through the religions followed in the West, the native religions of everywhere else, and so on.

 

[muhammad_isa]

If there were only one God, the result would be that round the world we'd recognize our God in the the versions of the [always one] God of other nations..

Why?
Have we all got degrees in theology?
..and even if we did have, do we not all have worldly concerns that cloud our judgments?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm saying that look where you will, you won't find a real god (or God). one with objective existence.

God doesn't even have a description appropriate to a real being. Instead [he]'s described by imaginary qualities ─ omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, perfection, infinite, eternal &c. If [he] were real, to be found in the world external to the self, which we know about through our senses, then of course [he]'d have a real description. But [he] isn't, and the only way [he]'s known to exist is as an idea, a concept, a thing imagined in individual brains ─ a cultural concept.

So you're correct to say I think we adjust our view of God according to our acculturation.

If there were only one God, the result would be that round the world we'd recognize our God in the the versions of the [always one] God of other nations. Instead, we might have, as the Hindus do, many gods, and an entirely different concept of an afterlife, reincarnation in one form or another, or as the Buddhists do, both theistic and atheistic strains woven around the Buddha's moral precepts, and so on through the religions followed in the West, the native religions of everywhere else, and so on.

The problem is that a real being is also a cognitive construct like God.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If I have an X, Y, Z, then God also has X, Y, and Z. If you have A, B, C, then God has A, B, C. If you and I have A, B, C and X, Y, Z, then God has A, B, C, and X, Y, Z? Correct?

Why stop there?

How about you and me and my neighbor, and the cat, and the table, and the government, an artist, and coffee, and... and ... and ... and .... all of us, each and every thing, and even non-things all have attributes. If I have ... then God has ... is a massive idea. It never ends. I imagine it mathematically as a multi-dimensional domain with infinite dimensions. Something like this:

( ∞ , ∞ , ∞ , ∞ , ∞ , ∞ , ∞ , ∞ , ∞ , ∞ , ∞ , ∞ , ... )

If infinity includes both positive infinity and negative infinity then this infinite domain can be used to represent symbolically every thing and also every non-thing that ever was, is, isn't, wasn't, and could be. Each dimension represents an attribute which exists as a spectrum. These attributes are completely unlimited.

Most people are familiar with 3 dimensions, X, Y, and Z in the form of ( X, Y, Z ) because that can be used to describe 3 dimensional space. But that same model can be expanded into 4 dimensions, or 5 dimensions, or 6 or even infinite dimensions. Visually, in the imagination, this process can be started, but it's impossible to finish. It begins with nothing, then becomes a dot. The dot becomes a line extending forever in both directions. The line becomes a flat surface forever growing. The flat surface becomes a solid cube forever expanding. And on and on it goes. I don't know how to imagine it past this. It's a great big question mark. The question is the answer.

Yes, you have a cognitive model of God that makes sense to you. I have another one that makes sense to me.

 

[blü 2]

Why?
Have we all got degrees in theology?
..and even if we did have, do we not all have worldly concerns that cloud our judgments?

As the bible says, God begins as a god among many gods, simply, to his followers, the greatest of them. Not till after the Babylonian Captivity does [he] become the only God. Not until the Christian God is [his] covenant with [his] people thrown out. Not until the 4th century CE does [he] become triune. Not till later does [he] become both Catholic and Orthodox. Not until later again does [his] Catholic version split into Catholic and Protestant. Not till after that do all the different Protestant versions of [him] appear. Not till the 18th century does [he] begin to renounce slavery. Not till the 19th century does [he] become the God of the Mormons. Not till the 20th century does [he] become a Rastafarian deity.

Can you not see that those are all different gods, even before we move to gods who have always had different names? Can you not see that each god reflects and thus affirms its own culture?

 

[blü 2]

The problem is that a real being is also a cognitive construct like God.

No. You need parents, air, water, food, shelter, society, a mate, and they all come from the real world, the world external to you. They don't come from your imagination; they are not simply conceptual. If you're in doubt, try going without air for half an hour ─ but for goodness' sake don't try too hard.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No. You need parents, air, water, food, shelter, society, a mate, and they all come from the real world, the world external to you. They don't come from your imagination; they are not simply conceptual. If you're in doubt, try going without air for half an hour ─ but for goodness' sake don't try too hard.

Yeah, you are not an individual because you are external to me and thus you are totally objective and independent of all minds and you don't have one. You are nothing but a mindless physical objective process and thus utterly worthless, because you are not a mind and thus not a human.
The world external to me is a concept and thus you are external to yourself. I hate this stupidity and but it is not real, because you are not subjective. You are nothing but a real objective being.

 

[dybmh]

You believe in a personal God,

yes

who created man in his own image

internally, not externally... yes

, for some divine purpose?

yes!

 

[muhammad_isa]

Can you not see that those are all different gods

No .. just different creeds .. nothing surprising there for me.

Can you not see that each god reflects and thus affirms its own culture?

Of course you will find creeds mixed with culture..
Mankind have a tribal nature, and have various intentions
for professing creeds.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No .. just different creeds .. nothing surprising there for me.


Of course you will find creeds mixed with culture..
Mankind have a tribal nature, and have various intentions
for professing creeds.

But you are so special that you are outside that. That is your trick in the end and you really don't get that for you, only when others do it to you.

 

[muhammad_isa]

But you are so special that you are outside that..

Oh .. it's very kind of you to say so..

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Oh .. it's very kind of you to say so..

Well, you are not unique in that. Most people consider themselves the objective standard for how to be a human. I am even weirder than that, because I just answer subjectively when we play this game.

 

[dybmh]

God begins as a god among many gods,

That's not the beginning of the story.

 

[blü 2]

Yeah, you are not an individual because you are external to me and thus you are totally objective and independent of all minds

I don't follow your argument. Why would existing independently of you make me cease to be an individual person, a distinct self?

No one is totally objective. But maximizing objectivity is always a good idea if the question is, What's true in the world external to me, reality?

And because humans are social animals, only rarely and abnormally might it be said that an individual "independent of all [other] minds.

The world external to me is a concept

It exists independently of you, and because you can inform yourself about the world external to you via your senses, you have a concept of it.

 

[blü 2]

No .. just different creeds .. nothing surprising there for me.

So all gods and goddesses, all gods that are animals in form, all deities that are mountains, or caves, or rivers, are just the one god all the time, you say?

If that's what you mean then I think the evidence is against you. To take just one set of possible examples, the Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, Oriental native religions, have concepts alien to a single deity, let alone agree on what the single deity is or does or thinks or wants.

 

[YoursTrue]

Males dominate all forms of life, there are only a very few exceptions where the female is biologically more powerful, or mentally. Thus, the exception is not the rule. Therefore, my understanding of God as a male is first, figurative, for God is spirit and has no anatomy in order to even try and distinguish His gender. And secondly, because masculinity denotes leadership, protector, provider, sovereign and supreme.

I would question anyone's impression that God is female in any sense of the term, for nature and creation do not warrant it.

I will simply say that mothers and fathers have different characteristics emotionally. I'm speaking of good mothers and fathers. Not all of us have had that so unless we learn, we may not know.