I see alot of people providing thier proof/disproof of Gods existance…yet i have yet to see a clear consensus of just what God is in itself. Put aside the debate about whether we can concieve things in themselves and lets have a discussion about the nature of God…
In my view there are a few stark distinctions to be made:
Is god a material thing or a purely conceptual thing?
Can we detect gods presence or only conceptualize its existance/ implications of its existance?
Can we attribute a nature to god without reference to human nature? i.e can we only think of god in human terms(like conscious, limitless, unerring) ?
Why do you blush? Do you feel shame? Listen man, if you go to hell you’ll be fine because I’ll be there too. Trust me, you want to hang out with me, not a bunch of boring ass angels. In less then a week I’ll organize an army of devils who will help me usurp the angels and destroy heaven once and for all.
You don’t want to be there when this happens, because it ain’t gonna be pretty.
You said you want “to see a clear consensus of just what God is in itself.â€
Wouldn’t we all? That is what religion is for. If you want to think for yourself then you will have these questions… period.
no.
but since we’re distinguishing for the sake of arguing, i’ll qualify that with the fact that i don’t think anyone who argues for god’s existence argues that he’s a material thing or a purely conceptual thing. also, if he’s purely conceptual, it makes little sense to argue over whether he exists or not.
count me in as voting, yes, you can “detect”/experience god’s existence, and since god is everything, that must mean being aware that you are.
i think the closer something is to human nature and experience, the easier it is to point to it. but that doesn’t mean pointing to something beyond human is impossible or that there is a clear dividing line. although it’s an interesting point that the main features of god seem to extrapolate from human experience. conscious ↔ conscious, limitless ↔ full of known limits, unerring ↔ erring… although perhaps that is enough, since we are “made in his image.” but it makes me wonder, what is god also that i’ve never heard of because there’s no simple translation?
I relate the idea of god to being something very human like, what I mean by this is having the knowledge and ability to experience good, bad and everything inbetween. The only difference is that god is immortal. I believe in a creator but who/whatever created everything is itself on a journey back to the source, and that only when it reaches that source does it become god again. Until this source is reached, we are in relative chaos.
I must disagree here - given a concept of God as creator of ALL, or alternatively the sum existence of ALL, then ALL has each a spark if not a whole of divinity. A truly all-encompassing God would be correctly defined even by concepts which are incorrect. Is there any reason that God could not be both very human and completely beyond human comprehension? I mean, it’s not like we can really comprehend our own existence either.
Desire is the drive toward the fulfillment of potential (the Good) in life
Life is the process generated by the union of Feminine and Masculine through inherent desire
Ehhhhh, Disciple, I’m not disagreeing with your convictions, but rather with your method of presentation. Unless your answer to the question of the “consensus of what is God” is in fact a low-budget spiritualist electronica musician named Joe Smooth, you’re not really answering the question. I could equally answer the question with this:
but it wouldn’t address the question verbally, which I think is what we’re going for here, yes?
God is not the ‘sum’ of all existence. Neither does any creature possess a ‘spark of divinity’.
You cannot define God.
God has nothing to do with humans whatsoever. Only the crooked religions created by humans say that God does. Such religions promote arrogance and hypocrisy.
You are of course correct, an error in my wordage - I meant more to say, that the sum of all things is created and/or is a part of God, that God is in and of all things. But would not anything created by God retain some aspect of His Being, even as a clay vessel bears the fingerprints of the potter?
You cannot define God.
I am unsure of your logic here…please explain. If God has nothing to do with humans, then where did we come from? Outside God? It seems then, that what we DID come from would in fact be God. So, must we have a great deal to do with God?
Ahhh, this is really moving more into religion…nature of the question though, I suppose.
“God” is very recent, whereas ‘gods’ are from the classical ways; ‘gods’ are super beings from outer space or from alternate dimensions [from “the heavens”] which have more technology and intelligence than people, and can create life by transplant and by genetic engineering. In some cultures, tribes and records, the specific planets where the ‘gods’ came from are even listed.
Dan, you seem to base a lot of your arguments in etymology. Can you offer some explanation of why you seem to believe words have such inherent meaning? Not that I disagree with the idea…I’m simply curious of your thoughts.
Oh, and I really enjoyed that poem, Doug. Is that a Burning Man rose?
