Is Nature God or is God Supernatural?

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by The Rhetoric of Life, Nov 4, 2018.

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Who or What is God?

  1. Nature is God (God isn't real)

    3 vote(s)
    42.9%
  2. God is Supernatural (God is real)

    3 vote(s)
    42.9%
  3. God is dead. (God was real)

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  4. Other (perhaps God isn't born yet)? - and others, please specify.

    1 vote(s)
    14.3%
  1. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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  2. Swensson

    Swensson Devil's advocate

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    God is just a word. Like with any word, we attach it to concepts, but with some words like "God", we can't seem to agree on what to attach it to.

    There is no direct answer to what God is, since too many people have differing views on what the word means. You even do it in the same sentence "Nature is God (God isn't real)", those are clearly two different interpretations of God.

    Basically, whenever anyone talks about God without specifying what they mean, you can be pretty sure that either they are more interested in winning discussions than actually be understood, or they don't know what they're talking about (or at least fail to convey it).
     
    Last edited: Nov 5, 2018
  3. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    God is real.

    What He is is something we as humans don't have the ability to comprehend yet.

    Ultimately we may find out that God is nature itself but its a pointless discussion at this point.

    Something created life, scientists call it natural, Christians call it God.

    I've never seen science have the ability to create something out of nothing however.

    Take an empty beaker, cork it, and set it on a table.

    How long do you think it would take for a universe to suddenly materialize in that beaker with little planets that can create living beings?

    All on its own?

    Probably never unless someone does something to help that process along.
     
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  4. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    People have associated what's beyond the known as God.

    God changes as humanity gets answers because what ever we don't know about, we defer to God.

    God is 'the unknown'.

    God is the Higgs boson, at the moment.
     
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2018
  5. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Why does 'Nature is God' mean 'God isn't real'?

    Thats seems aufully presumptuous, like we know everything about the universe or something...
     
  6. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Not necessarily.

    I can speak for myself on this.

    I believe God is responsible and I anxiously await new scientific discoveries because each one proves that my faith in God is real.

    There is nothing that is unknown because I know God did it.

    What science tells me is sort of like filling in the blanks.

    Science tells me how he did it?

    For example, how did he populate the Earth?

    Well through evolution of course.

    But He created that entire process, it didn't just happen randomly.
     
  7. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Like how Pagans can make statues and worship the Earth to blood sacrifice, like also, modern day Hippie Mother Earth. God isn't God, God is weather systems people call God, but it's nothing more than the wind and the rain and the sun etc.
    Seeing nature, and seeing that as God, and worshiping the Earth instead of a being.

    Vs.

    God of the Bible, where we were made in God's image, but we have no pictures of God or know what God looks like as person, where God is faith, and doesn't require evidence of the sea, the land, and harvest moons.
    Where despite pagans and Earth/Mother Nature, there is an all powerful deity that really is God, ergo, 'God is Real' to that answer.
     
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2018
  8. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ah. My mistake.

    su·per·nat·u·ral
    /ˌso͞opərˈnaCH(ə)rəl/
    adjective
    1. 1.
      (of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.
      "a supernatural being"
    I believe God is beyond our current scientific understanding, which I guess qualifies as 'supernatural', at least until we gain sufficient understanding.

    Ill go with the second option :)
     
  9. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    People used to have fits, and before we knew @Spooky, we might've called it being possessed by demons perhaps, and look to God for the answers - because we didn't know.

    We didn't know; God was found in beyond the limits of what was understood.

    Then we found out what a fit was, and, as soon as someone had one, we didn't fear demons, we got them to an emergency room at the hospital perhaps..
    But then we have this Higgs boson, and that's where God has moved to, nowadays, that's where humanity has put God now, in today's unknown.
    'The God Particle'... Perhaps.

    God changes based on what we know.
    What we don't know, we defer to God, God will always be 'beyond the knowledge of humanity.'
     
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2018
  10. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    What does that particle have to do with anything?

    Even Higgs himself doesn't like the term God particle.

    He thinks its unscientific.

    And since so many of you are harping on that did you ever think that science found something new that God created?

    Has it proven, in any way, shape or form that God does not exist?

    Or was it a means God used to create everything?
     
  11. Mamasaid

    Mamasaid Banned

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    Who cares? Anyone can point at anything and say, "god did that!" It has no bearing on anything at all, except that person's mood.

    Similarly, i can point and say, "unicorns did that!!!"
     
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2018
  12. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Or you could point to it and say it just happened naturally.

    Where is your evidence?

    You have the exact same amount that I do.

    The difference is that you claim God is a myth, I don't claim that "science" is a myth.

    Maybe it did happen that way but maybe God did it.

    When you can reach that level of observance you will be a more enlightened person, not one filled with doubt and preconceived notions.
     
  13. Mamasaid

    Mamasaid Banned

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    Which is correct. Even the god people are saying that, they are just adding a veneer of useless bullsh1t over it.
     
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  14. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm a God person and I'm not saying that.

    That would make your post false.
     
  15. Mamasaid

    Mamasaid Banned

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    I didn't say "all god people".

    I think you understood my point... your attempt to tapdance around it notwithstanding... address it or don't... either tack reflects more on you than it does on me...

    yes, if you point at everything and say "god did that", then you are just saying everything happened naturally, as that is now the definition of nature.
     
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2018
  16. Mamasaid

    Mamasaid Banned

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    Somewhat relevant...


    Look at this guy who survived two mass shootings, saying "God is on (his) side".

    Um... what? He's on your side, but not on the side of everyone who died? He is on your side... but put you through two mass shootings?

    Was God on the shooter's side, every time his bullet found its mark? Was God on the side of anarchy and lawlessness, when the deputy was shot and killed?

    When you can apply your veneer of magical hoo-ha to anything and everything, it means NOTHING.
     
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2018
  17. VoxEphemeral

    VoxEphemeral Banned

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    We don't know what or if God is.

    And therein lies the challenge......and for some of us, the fun.
     
  18. VoxEphemeral

    VoxEphemeral Banned

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    Then again, maybe God is simply not interested in such trivial matters in a world of many billions of people.
     
  19. Mamasaid

    Mamasaid Banned

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    Hmm, no thanks. You can keep those toys. I would prefer that there be no sky daddies or sky mommies.
     
  20. Mamasaid

    Mamasaid Banned

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    Could be! Could be he is, but he has a short attention span. Or he only saves the people whose spirit animals are rainbow unicorns.

    I mean....could be! Just maybe!
     
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  21. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    I think it just means; God is what humanity labels the unknown.

    When we defer it to God, is when it's beyond our understanding... Until we understand it.
    We're capable as a species, to push God back to beyond what is known.

    So, when you said
    Is something, based on words alone (perhaps out of context to what you meant to say, or not, IDK), I believe was correct, when taking history and sum of knowledge and what humanity has attributed to God at one time or another into account.

    To paraphrase; 'God is what we as humans haven't got an answer for (yet) - that is where we put God.'
     
    Last edited: Nov 10, 2018
  22. yguy

    yguy Well-Known Member

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    Not really. We just catalogued some previously unobserved epiphenomena and found ways to alleviate symptoms.
     
  23. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You didn't say some, you said the God people of which I am one.

    That makes your post false.
     
  24. yiostheoy

    yiostheoy Well-Known Member

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    Modern Philosophy has already dealt with this issue.

    Pick up anything by Roger Scruton, the modern version reincarnate of Aristotle, and he will explain it all to you.

    His view of God is of a Deistic God, not Theistic nor Atheistic.
     
  25. Mamasaid

    Mamasaid Banned

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    Gotcha.

    Anyhoo...yes, a lot of people who point at stuff and say, "God did that!" are saying it happened naturally, and nature is just as God wants it.
     
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