God symbolizes many things.
I come from a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
They portray God as a real person having very anthropomorphic qualities.
The bible describes God as having feelings, intentions, a face, hands, etc.
Because all these things tend to be real to the common human,
it makes God seem more familiar and real if he’s more anthropomorphised.
If God had no love, no ego, no personality, etc. We would not feel
as though we could form a personal relationship with God.
Through anthropomorphising the forces of nature, people were able
to establish sensations of personal bonds with reality. This form of love
may be an empty delusion, but it feels so right for some people.
I’ve met allot of people who personally -need- to be religious.
I’d say that God tends to symbolize the super-man.
God builds things with his hands and his mind, like a man.
But God is seen as the ultimate man, a father of all things,
building reality as he Wills it, successfully for his reason.
In this way, God symbolizes the human Will, human meaning.
Many feel that God is life’s meaning.
Your view troubles me. I think it’s lovely that you want a personal relationship with God, but when you go on to say this:
I cringe.
I don’t think God builds reality as He wills it. Rather, God builds reality in partnership with creation, whose many wills bear upon God. (Just imagine Abraham or Moses challenging God’s will and changing God’s mind…)
When you think of God don’t think of a powerful man standing erect and alone with reason to penetrate all problems; rather think of a community imbued by a spirit of helpful partnership and that works together… Recall; it is the earth , not God, that brings forth living creatures of every kind.
It seems to me that Gods represent a truly higher powered parental figure that most humans need. Its tough living in this world and so people use a guiding parental hand to make their decisions in life. If you follow a parent’s rules you get rewarded if you don’t, you get disciplined. It is far easier to have a parent make your decisions for you and if things go wrong or right ,it is how that parent desired it. Your self responsibility is curtailed by the will of the parental God. That way you are not alone in this harsh world of life and death and you remove any deep soulful responsibility to make your own guiding choices. The human adult is a a mature child still needing its parent, so there are Gods.
And right there my theistic “soul” departs and walks a completely different path.
I sense God as one senses tiny particles of mist in the breeze.
I love the sense because it makes listening to the leaves that much more alive.
I sense particles as well, but being that it is easier for me to relate with my particles by giving them a presence and a face, I see my interprtation of “God” as everything I would want in a lover. It is a Man, he is strong, loyal, protective and manley. The ultimate Man.
Does well for my confidence, because I think the mightiest being in the world is interested in me; )
More of a rebellious teenager at the moment, and a child at the foundation of religion.
If God exists and he is omnsicient there is no free will and that makes God a liar, and since he says he is omnibenevolent and therefore never lies that is a paradox that could only be logical if God didn’t exist. Because then no one ever said it not God and certainly not Moses or a prophet and The Bible is a big whopper of a red herring that should be prefaced with: all people in this book are entirely fictional and any relation to anyone living or dead or immortal or transubstantiated is purely coincidental.
Specifically toward the end, the fact that not only are we all tailored to suit Gods purpose, but that our purpose is also a success.
You went on to say that this symbolizes the will of the ultimate man, but more aptly it serves our will.
Further than that you can’t really define what god symbolizes. Realistically god is almost always described as incomprehensible, and as an unknown left to the imagination of all, it can be made to symbolize many different things. It all depends on your pleasure…
one may not understand God if one does not believe in God- this can always be seen through eyes of God…atheists punish God within because they do not understand life…only death can make life possible…time is always needed
Actually most religious texts are filled with good solid foundations on how to live together with out killing each other too much. Most of the 10 commandments for example make good sense. Religious texts are like a parental do and don’t list while the parents are off on vacation leaving their teen alone in the house for the first or second time. Put aside any supernatural elements for a secand look at it like a teen scared to death to piss of its parents. “If you break one dish you will clean the kitchen for 5 years” and that teen knows such a threat will come true or believes it will be done. How do you keep a randy built for trouble group of sentient creatures from totally creating a complete mess of things and killing each other off while you are away? You threaten their very existance.
Some very gifted intelligent human leaders way in the past must have realized this simple truth and manipulated these adult children into believing some omnipotent being is going to wreak havoc and hell if they all do not stop behaving like savage beasts. Being only human the leaders wielded only so much real power, but a God ? A god can destroy the world and your soul with a snap of an eyelash.
Looking at texts in such a way helps one to understand how we made it so far. Religious texts keep the adult teens from being too rowdy and throwing too many destructive frat parties while the parents are away. And in many ways it helps to mature a person. We learn some control, we learn social skills, ethics and morals through these texts. Even Atheists learn through being with the religious or from some religious person/s somewhere teaching someone in their Atheist lineage learn these ethics and morals. The morals, ethics and behavioral structures are the primary reasons for texts to exist. Gods are that character that is used as the bogeyman/parent. If you believe your God is real then of course you will feel that God present. It only makes sense that way. If you did not feel your God then there really would be something wrong with you.
It is entirely possible that a superior sentient being did set this all up. That too makes sense.
This seems a good thing for you; it seems to make you at rest, so I would call it good.
For myself, and that is all I can ever speak for in this regard, I simply lack the expanded form you have.
For instance, I could have as easily drawn the picture of God being the water in the air just before a storm, or the force of the storm.
Without either being negative, but instead tranquil; even as being part of the negative concept of a storm.
Throw me death of a person and I will feel god in their body, my breath, and the air.
Throw me death of my family and I will feel god in my agony.
Show me violence; cruel against children; horrible, and I will see god in the child’s eyes and the murderers “soul”.
Show me birth and I will feel god in the joy of the parents.
Show me and old long lived person and I will feel god in knowing this person; indifferent to their demeanor.
Show me a rock, and I will sense god in the rock’s indifference to exist anymore than I have right to exist.
Masculine or Feminine; Masculine by force as god is upon, Feminine by grace as god receives, Neuter by existence as god is built upon or dug into.
This last is how man treats god.
The previous are some ways I sense god in varying conditions.
Your interpretation sounds feminine to me, everything sounds beautiful, water, wind, air, even the word ‘tranquil’. Almost would sound as if your “God” is a female, You are the Man, and together you are neutral.
It would seem to work well for you…
Whatever works, All is Good.
God is mans want for power, his desire for eternal life. his way of creating imortality for his spirit. God is nothing but the thoughts and want’s of man. Because Man is God unto It’s self.
To the guy impliing that the OP is a Female Treehugger:
Soon… Humans will find that gender and belief mean nothing to anyone or anything in the universe… Very soon. some things go deeper… and your eyes very soon will be opened whether you wish them to be or not. Your time of trial is comming and it aproaches fast, do not fail, or you as a species will die. And another will take your place. As it has happened before… So will it happen again until the experiment succeedes.
That’s right, YOU are the experiment. And YOU alone will choose your fate.
So are dog and god in Scrabble so what? That’s just a plattitude to anyone who isn’t a God fearing Christian.
Yeah God’s always better than you, in fact God is the sort of person that is so good, that you couldn’t possibly question anything he does because you’d be wrong and he has a better bike than you. End of story, let’s all stop thinking now.
To say God is truth… And Truth is God. IS irelivant and rather stupid and foolish if you do not even know what either are.
If you can not define God, (and no defining God with something else which you can not define though making you sound all knowing makes you sound ignorant to the people who actually are intelligent… No offense). And you can not define Truth with something else which you are unable to give meaning to IE God,>
Then you are using words which have no meaning. To define something and understand it you must do exactly that. To say that God is Truth, and Truth is God means nothing to anyone, not even to you. because you Have no definition other then such to define either. They are just meaningless words with unspoken pretenses which could mean… Anything you desire or want.
“Truth”, is not the same as truth. Just as Universal “Truth” is not the same as Individual “Truth”.
Universal Truth is all encompassing. It is a theory or definition which can not be disqualified or proven incorrect under any circumstance. And applies to all things in existence… not just Physical matter.
Individual Truth, is what you as an individual see as truth for “yourself”, your perception of reality which defines the way you personally see the world and view it. Your individual truth is not my individual truth. However My universal truth is Yours.
A Universal Truth is that everyone has an Individual Truth.
Make sense?
Real Truth and Absolute truth is simply the Blank slate upon which everything else exists and manifests itself in individual truths. Universal Truth is the combination of all Individual Truths.
You see. REAL Truth, has nothing at all to do with God in any way form or fashion. So obviously God is not Truth. You want to disprove me? Tell me how God is Defined as Truth and then How truth is Defined as God. Be ready to defend yourself and be ready for a long debate.
