I suppose when the atheist says no god exists they are referring to a personal type god seen by some as Sky-Daddy. I am not an atheist and I have a god but it definitely isn’t a sky-daddy. That just seems so silly.
We’ve kind of been over this before; there are as many definitions of God as there are people in the world really.
But the ‘Sky-Daddy’ you refer to is silly, yes.
chee i assume you are an atheist. or do you have a special god of your own?
I generally describe myself as a humanist to emphasise the human based aspect of my belief. I also sometimes call myself an atheist, mainly in discussions about organised religion, as I want o make it clear that I think religious doctrines are ridiculous and oppressive.
I’ve ruled out pretty much every aspect of God there can be, apart from a few abstract concepts, like for instance I might call God whatever can spawn something out of nothing (this question still puzzles me). But that’s about as far as I would go.
I suppose that is really an agnostic outlook but I don’t like calling myself that as it seems like responding with ‘agnostic’ is like shrugging your shoulders likeyou haven’t thought it through. Like this. 
But I have thought it throug, so I’m a humanist.
What is your God like, turtle?
To tell the truth chee----humanist for me also. But my god is something I don’t understand. So IDK.
I think about the origin of matter and energy. I think about the origin and evolution of life and I am at a loss to explain these things. These things seem
like miracles to me. So that is my god. What I intensely dislike are people who think they know for sure about this shit.
The first two things you mention aren’t really deductible from philosophy I think. Not philosophy alone anyway. There are some strong theories about the origins of life though, and evolution is a dead cert.
I need to make myself clear. There are not good theories for the origin of matter/energy. The ideas for the origin of life are highly theoretical. Of course evolution is a fact. But when you look at what has evolved it seems like it is almost impossible to have happened like the human brain evolving from abiotic molecules.
Haha yup I gathered all that.
Some also have SKY-MOTHER.
LoL.
I’m not shooting out warnings, but I would like to remind everyone of rule 3 in the Religion Forum:
Referring to other faiths as “silly” does technically cross this line.
Whether we personally think a faith is absolutely the most retarded concept that only an imbecile would buy into is aside from the point.
The rules of the forum for the Religion section are held to protect every faith and non-faith standing emotionally.
This helps in reducing discussions that are fueled by negatively emotional responses that can easily trigger when the topic is personal beliefs ontologically, metaphysically, and spiritually.
And reducing this helps increase the general level of perceived respect and emotional safety of discussing our personal beliefs.
And increasing this encourages more diverse and more in depth conversation as more members are going to feel comfortable sharing their ideals which may be laughed at or ridiculed in other areas of their life.
I don’t think it was anyone’s intention in here to offend people, but that is why the rules exist; to help us all realize how our conduct, which we may think nothing of, can impact others.
Thank you to all.
Stumpy
Stumpy I am sorry for the silly. I apologize to anyone offended.
But stumpy I am disappointed in you for not commenting on the positive posts in this thread. There are some thoughts that may be very stimulating.
I will continue to watch your behavior. I think you tend to try to suppress any creative thought about god.
I’m just busy turtle. There are others waiting for longer responses from me as well.
Alright, got some time.
I’m not sure, however, exactly what I would have to offer to the conversation exactly here Turtle.
I mean…essentially, you are just stating your description of what your god is.
And what your god is, is something innately deep. Meaning, it is something in which you feel deep below your cognitive layer.
You can’t define it; you can only explain that there is a feeling attached to it.
All I can offer is the advice to focus on how it feels.
Meditate upon that spiritually, rather than philosophically, and attempt to identify what it is that you feel; and then from that extract what provocations these feelings give you in thought during the meditations upon these feelings.
Perhaps you don’t get to “know” your god in description, but your god can still give you insight.
On direct tangent…well…I’ll say the same thing I say to anyone that gets upset about people assuming that when people say “god” that they refer to a personified variation of the Judeo-Christian god.
Yep. Shit sucks; tough love. That’s why I don’t use that word for anything personally.
It’s already heavily capitalized upon (roughly around 64% of Europe/US identify with the Judeo-Christian “God” in some fashion) so why try shitting upside down?
You just get covered in crap and get all bent out of shape over it.
Personally…if I was in your place, I would take the opportunity to give my god a personalized name.
shrug
But, each to their own; this was just my advice and thoughts.
Thanks stumpy. What would really make this thread—
if others would give a description of their god. And I would love to have you stumpy give us your own version again without referring to past posts. Also if you could do that briefly and clearly. Thanks for any attempt.
I don’t have a version personally, so the word only refers to the common reference in Western language; meaning, that when someone says or writes, “god”, down in some manner, I typically assume they are referring to some fashion of the Judeo-Christian god given the previous post’s description of the population adhering to that claim.
If, for instance, I was from India; I would probably have a different understanding of what that word refers to.
Also, today in our quasi-secular rise of spirituality, I understand that a rising portion of people tend to think of the word similar in fashion as you do Turtle; that the term refers to the mysterious identity of that which lies beyond the unknown and originates or governs the fundamentals of existence in some manner.
Some mean it as a force, some as a thing, some as a personified being; but ultimately, all think of it as singular.
In our culture, this is most likely a remnant impression from the overly saturated Judeo-Christian singularity state of their god; making “god” something which is inherently considered to be singular even when the god being described is not adherent to the Orthodoxy of Judeo-Christianity in the social proper.
This produces the common results of people believing in “god”, but not being capable of easily defining that “god”.
They only know that they do believe in a “god”, and do think of it as a singular thing. Even if they never think of it as a singular; their sentence structure and noun choices immediate such an understanding.
Again, personally; I haven’t such a thing as I found the concepts therein to be chaining rather than liberating for me spiritually.
I could not continue to grow fruitfully into my own spiritual self and venture more into understanding my spiritual soul completely while at the same time focusing on a preconceived impression of singular reverence that was either rigidly defined, or radically ill defined and in either case, all together not addressing me.
So for me; there is no god on the bookshelf of my soul.
hi turtle,
first, to me it is evident that no description or pseudo-explanation of divinity can ever be adequate - for in truth it can only be grasped by first hand encounter and direct experience. and even then it is never actually grasped, but rather only glimpsed in the fleetingness of a moment, but nevertheless a moment of the most eternal significance.
In any case, after this moment one can begin to understand the great masters and their descriptions of God - though oddly enough, all acknowledge the futility of descriptions (hence divinity being ‘described’ as ineffable), and warn us about the dangerous seduction of authority and idols.
But hear this: no one, not priest, nor minister, philosopher, or guru can ever lead you to God, for God is within you; you are a god in God, and only you can find him within yourself. You were born to experience this fact. Probe the depths of your own soul in earnestness and faith, and you will find, eventually, once your self has finally been stripped of everything artificial, mendacious, and superficial - ‘one must lose oneself to find oneself’
‘the kingdom of God is within you,’ as Jesus said, and all the great masters are unanimous in regard to divine love: the kingdom of God is found in a pure heart: ‘blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’
precisely love is the enigma and key to God; through a pure love we are united with our fellow men in God.
There are no “good theories on the origin” because there was no origin. The physical universe is eternal as is its cause (“God” by definition).
Both the personal and the impersonal versions of God are accurate (although most speculation of what God thinks, says, or does are presumptuous). The issue is one of a subject that is not all that simple to comprehend and thus the larger masses will always accept the simpler version of any truth statement.
The impersonal Principle cause of all that exists (ie. the Hebrew God) behaves in a similar manner as an individual person and thus can validly be said to be a personal God. The general characteristics ascribed to God are accurate in either case, although if one gets technical or precise, the idea of a person God becomes more difficult to justify, but is never actually incorrect.
The “Sky-Daddy” isn’t “silly”, it merely seems silly to those who have presumed the universe to be simpler than it is. If it acts like a duck, in literature and in thought it can validly be called a “duck”.
It is much wiser to love what is, than to hate how people try to use it, what they think of it, or what they call it.
jss i dont understand what you are writing.
Well if you could be a little more explicative, I might be able to rectify that… ?
i dont understand the duck thing… and you are saying that there is no origin of matter/energy…
is there an origin of life…