What is god and what does it do?

Seems to me like a better way to approach the 'provide evidence for...' threads.

What is god and what does it do? The more specifics the better. Anyone can weigh in, even Atheists.

 

Yet another attempt to put God into a man-made box. :chuckle:

 

Not much.

 

Bishadi would probably want to argue that one with you considering that he believes that Mother nature is god.

 

I think the problems start when people get specific on theology. The more specific a view is, the more delusional the person appears to nonbelievers. For example if I start quoting the part in Genesis where people live over 1000 years, non believers will roll their eyes and scoff. I use to be a Christian, but long ago turned my back to the religion.

I believe in God and could tell you why... but IMO it does not matter. To me faith is personal, and I have no need to make anyone see God as I do. Some people like to kick down doors to spread their faith... I am more subtle, I believe that God comes to those who are ready to receive him... and if I see that door open in a person I will take the opportunity to talk with them... not lecture them.

 

God is a concept. What it does is keep people in line.

 

God is the creator of all things in existence. He created the universe and all living beings. He has an eternal place for believers in Him and He also has an eternal place for non believers in Him.

 

Case in point vis-a-vis my post.

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. ... http://youtu.be/G1si-PPX3n4

 

There may be many such boxes but without them the word doesn’t mean much of anything

 

Hey IC long time no see! I have been spending too much time in the us vs. them threads (rIslam vs. the West). As for your comment; I respect and somewhat agree with your feelings. However I do believe that God wants Christians to know him everyway possible, lol. If individual suppositions of Gods physical and spiritual ‘form’* is forbidden how are we expected to select the correct path to worship?* Our Christian God may not have a spiritual form nor a physical form. My personal opinion is that I suspect he doesn’t have a physical form, and probably does have a spiritual form. Actually I feel all non-malicious musing about God’s 'everything' (lol) is a good thing with little chance of abuse or harm. God seems to invite our curiosity. Also if we can not know Gods attributes etc, which would include his physical and spiritual form if any etc and other nuances, i.e. his personality, including his emotional make up, or even debate whether or not he possesses such things has very important maybe mandatory applications for Christians and those that may want to become Christians. For example, I am a Trinitarian*, maybe not a traditional Trinitarian, but I do believe God is three discrete hypostases** (or persons) but all are casually combined. Unlike traditional Trinitarian I do not think all the Hypostases are indivisible, eternal, equal, and concretely one ousia (essence or thing). So how if we can not debate what who and etc. God is, how can we determine our Christian identity?

Again good to see you IC.

reva

 

The Gaia thing huh? Or is Bishadi religion more like witchcraft? Most people confuse witchcraft with Satanism. True witchcraft is arguably the oldest religion in the world, and is primarily the worship of nature etc. Of course Satanism like LeVay Satanism is an insidious, selfish religion IMO, and seems to worship self and pleasure.

Reva~

 

Again, we have come to the point that we can't say anything (existence, nature, opinions, actions) about God or any god without specifying what a god is. Sadly, very few agree on that point, and thus, I think there is no universal stance on gods.

Atheists disbelieve all gods. Personally, I think that is flawed, since there are many god-concepts that may be unorthodox, but which still qualify as gods and which do indeed exist. Bishadi claims to believe that God is "the Garden" (fancy talk for the universe), some say the sun is a god, Caesar and Kim Il-Sung claimed to be gods themselves. I believe all of those exist (or existed) and who am I to say that they're incorrect in their application of the word god? If I could, that would be a proper definition, something which he have concluded does not exist. Therefore, I believe or disbelieve gods on individual basis, since the specifics of gods are by nature undefined.

There are many non-human things that are easily classified using our language. Our language is, to a large extent, a system for referring to things without emitting a full understanding of a concept. It seems that by avoiding to define God, you think you strengthen God's inunderstandability (that's not a word, is it?), when to an observer, you're just saying that, given all relevant information, you couldn't tell God from a BIC-pen. A definition is not a complete understanding of a concept, it is just an understanding of what qualifies to bear the word.

 

That's why the ancient Greeks called the first Christians "atheists". Indeed Christians don't believe in gods. Today atheist don't believe in god - that's a complelty different thing. If someoen doesn't believe in god zhen thsi one is in a very great danger to start to believe in "a god". Abortion is for example an antireasonable moloch. The most supporters of Abortions are atheists. It seems to me that the senseless misrespect on god is automatically producing a misrepect on human beings and human rights.

http://youtu.be/JbzaKKfvBo4

 

At the beginning there was Time and Necessity and they made an egg, from this egg Love was hatched and (s)he created the world .

God is the cosmological constant of the human spirit

 

Or with other words your dogma seems to be: "My toughts are my god". I remember in this context some tourists in the mountains on a bridge. They saw a gigantic wave of water coming down the little river. The tourists were completly fascinated from this wave, they laughed and discussed a lot while the wave came nearer and nearer - They spoke about as if they would be in a football-stadion or as if they would see an interesting film or TV-show ... suddenly they noticed that reality is really real but it was to late to run while the wave destroyed the whole bridge.

http://youtu.be/MgcY-nSeGUo

 

I've never had an answer to this. What did God do before he created the universe and all living things? Before creating the universe and living things where was he? And why did he pick that exact moment to create the universe and living things?

 

You missed the point cosmological constant was made because uncle Albert's equations were not "right" , later he ditched the whole thing.
What i meant is that god was created to fill the gaps of our knowledge, our senses and our understanding , it is a magic paragon that solves all the problems for as long as we can not solve them ourselves but the more we progress the less god we need.

 

What is god?

A concept in theist minds.

What does it do?

Helps theists to cope with their fear of death.

 

One answer - from Augustine - is meanwhile more than 1500 years old and still plausible: God created time so god created the universe in the first second. There is just simple not "before". We are no able to ask what god did before he created the world.

http://youtu.be/1HRa4X07jdE

 

Nah,,, doesn't make make sense.

 

I know Albert very well. I studied his life for some months. He was completly right to call the idea "cosmological constant" his biggest plunder. He was for a moment to shy to accept the expansion of the unverse as a fact.

What is this? Sounds like one of the unscientific ideologies from Nazitologist. I don't know what you need and I don't know who the "we" of your context is.

http://youtu.be/yB-zWmu3l5c

 

The big-bang theory makes sense - ask Leonard Hofstadter or Sheldon Cooper.

[video=youtube_share;qsCDgasR8_4]http://youtu.be/qsCDgasR8_4[/video]

http://youtu.be/ho9rZjlsyYY

 

sure has jesus laying at her feet

 

It is not difficult to define or to describe God and what God does. God made everything then allowed the universe to run on auto, tweaking our reality when something (usually man) mucks up the universe experiment or it seems imminent he is going to! However, in my opinion IMPOSSIBLE to define God with all claims having an accuracy of 100%. Here is the kicker ; God is spirit ie intangible. However the physical universe is tangible for the most part and should be easy to describe/define. That is incorrect IMO. The universe or any object in our universe can not be described completely with a 100% accuracy. There are several evdiences to support that claim and I touch on them later.

Also anything that has the attuibites of God is God. Maybe not the Christian God but God nevertheless. A better question is what is truth? I like truth and believe there are two categories of truth. Its not easy to put into words what mean, lol. The kind of truth I am interested in is being able to describe every bit of data an object possesses to an accuracy of 100% as defined from the perspective a all knowing God or ID. The other kind of truth is truth from a perspective of a biological sentient being created with a mind/brain system similar to our human (limited compared to an all knowing god etc) construction that exists in a time dependent physical universe.

If God exists and I fully believe God does exist , only God can own the first type of knowledge/truth. Man can not hope to learn the truth of the universe in complete infallible detail, at least in the foreseeable future. The big question I have is; ‘does God know the truth of our universe when he in his perfect realm some call heaven*. I feel Gods realm like a parallel universe is completely separate from our physical universe. especially if he enters our temporal universe. I imagine God intentionally designed this universe to be 'unknowable' because it seems mandatory for mans free will to exist.

I will skip those precise reasons due to the length and time a good discussion/debate/defense would require and so I can hopefully finish this thought lol. So there it is. Our universe will be forever unknowable because it was designed so. Consider quantum theory, and the Copenhagen interpretation. Quantum physics with its weird Uncertainty principle and cool/weird superposition where an imaginary quantum is dead AND alive at the same time. Uncertainty woven into the fabric of temporal reality. NOT knowable or at least can not be proved, so what does God do? Defines the universe to an accuracy of 100%.

reva