If you think there is a God, but you don't accept the traditional view, how do you view it?
I believe that there is a God or Higher being that created this whole "thing" we are in, but I don't think it's the same as you read about in the Bible.
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I've started an almost similar thread about this subject of what is a god for those who believe. I really don't think that there is a god. And even if there is, I don't think it should be revered as something holy but just a normal thing. Like an event that just happen to accidentally caused the birth of man like the concept of evolution.
That's an interesting way to look at it. I can't find the thread, could you post a link to it because of the concept of an accidental god is too good of a discussion to pass up.
God is not exactly the one thats described in the holy books, Every religion preaches its own god and have their coresponding beliefs, And most of the gods in the holy books are just to make us realise the good and evil part in society.
I believe God is an ideal that man uses in order not to face up to life and it's inherent harshness. It is easier for us to defer the harsh realities to God than to face up to them ourselves.
Hi everyone. I'm new here. I grew in a catholic family and ever since I became aware with the religion, I believe in God in a traditional way. But just recently, I undergone some sort of experiences and meditations that lead me to view the things I once believe in a different way. I don't know if I consider myself an atheist right now because I still believe in God and that God is in each of us. We are part of God and there's a lot for us to discover. As of now I don't believe that having a religion is beneficial for me. All I believe now is that we are vast more than what we imagined.
Personal opinion is that there is God and to me He is the Holy and Supreme Spirit Being. Just my believe and I'm proud of it.
I suppose that I don't really think there is a god. I do however believe in the natural laws of energy which govern this world and what we know of the Universe, and I can see how with some loose interpretation that could come quite close to the God Concept that I've seen in several religions.
I think this question will never end until there are proof of existence and non-existence of god. For now, we have to live according to goodness and humanity. Whether god is real or not, we have clean conscience for doing good thing to others and respecting others' beliefs.
I think god is a potato LOOOOL
In all seriousness, yes i think there is a god. But its nothing of this hokus pokus shit about jesus and satan / all the 200 other gods. But i doubt this god would reveal himself honestly, cuz we are a failure, and it makes no sense to do it. Thats why its easy to not believe in these 200 gods which are published, cuz no god would just reveal himself like that to the people.
- Schibaka^^
I'd find it easier to simply believe in all 200 some odd Gods than to pick favorites among them. *that* would be an interesting world, wouldn't it?
We could have gods for everything, beer gods, car gods, anti-dumba## gods! It would be really cool!
Have you read Neil Gaiman's American Gods? I didn't see a beer god in there (we've already got Dionysis, that's wine, but wasn't there a lady of the Hops?) but he did a pretty interesting run down of the road gods :)
Loved that book! As far a caricatures go, I like the technical boy(internet god),Mr. Wednesday(Odin) and Mad Sweeney (the leprechaun who is much taller than most people expect) the most as far as the gods from that story go, I found them the most interesting, Liked the media god too her name eludes me. The black hats were great as well (born of American paranoia a mixture of modern god workers obsessed with everything black) I specifically like Mister Road the best. Great caricatures and overall message of the war waging between old and modern Gods, what constitutes a god and the effects they have on the lives of common people.
(Atheist here)
Nothing but a 'father' figure, and that we need to grow away from - like our own dads. One day in our life, we move out of our parents house.
So, what I'm saying is : that we need to move on from being dependent from that 'father figure'.
Interestingly, your view is shared by the expression of the god concept in Hegel, and more clearly in Nietzsche :) Nietzche is more of an entertaining read, though. Both are better in German, if you speak the language.
To some people this may sound really strange. It may offend or it may amuse, but I mean to do neither, because this is, in fact, the Biblical meaning of God. In ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and modern English.
It can be both helpful and problematic to atheists. Helpful in that it demonstrates what the word God really means, and problematic because it demonstrates what a nonsensical term atheist is by definition. A parable that goes like this: "A lone weary man makes his way slowly through the grassy plains. He hasn't eaten in days and he is cold and frightened. He needs something to eat. Fire to cook it on, keep him warm and protect him from snarling beasts that roam the prairie.
"He stumbles upon something laying on the ground. Its a formerly warmer pile of bovine shit. Now dry. He lifts it and beneath crawls many edible bugs. He gathers more nearby and lights them for fire which protects him and keeps him warm. This shit, he proclaims, is his god."
A god is anything or anyone that is attributed a might or strength greater than the one attributing it. The dung saved the man's life. A god can be a mighty warrior, a ruler or leader, supernatural or natural. It can be real or it can be mythical. For example, I don't believe in Zeus, I don't worship Zeus, Zeus isn't real. Zeus is a god.
God isn't a name to a particular being in the Bible. Saying goddammit isn't using the Lord's name in vain. The word god (God, gods, goddess, goddesses are titles, not names. Like Lord. God means mighty; strong. Lord means possessing authority, usually granted by another. Land Lord, for example. God Parent.
Jehovah wasn't the God of Israel, until after he said he would become their God. The writers of the Bible didn't worship or believe in Tammuz, but they called Tammuz a god (Elohim). As they did Moses, the Judges of Israel and, prophetically, Jesus. Also the angels, including Satan.
There are millions of gods. Paul said even ones own belly could be a god. Idols of wood, stone, metal are gods. Anything that hold some sort of power over your life can be a god. Money, art, knitting, boating, work, music.
I don't understand the question "What is God?" Whether you are a Christian, Muslim, Atheist or anything else, God is still God and he cares about every one of us equally.
Then why is there hunger? Why is there sickness? Why are so many people homeless? It makes me sick when people say that.
As far the hole concept of a God goes, we don't have any kind of proof of its form or existence. A beliver will use the classic excuse that you usually hear it from your parents, priests or various religious figures that "our simple brains can't understand such a superior creature". I consider that idea just a lame excuse, a continuous chase around the tail just to avoid giving an answer because you, as a religious human, can't give, you don't know and you avoid to came to the conclusions that your belives are based on nothing. I can't get why people still belive in Gods after they came to these conclusions by themselfes and they can't explain their existence.
To get in the subject, as a child i was teached that he created the world, he done that, he done that, you have some rules or he will get angry etc. So much information and i always had questions and aparently those rules weren't so bad, you break them and you simply don't live by them and nothing happened. It was a good thing to go to the church but it was extremly ok if you didn't. It a bit of a mindfuck for a child. The God existed for no reason. He was basically useless and i didn't care about him. As i grow older, my mother got in her 40s, got a bit more religious and as the subject was a sensible one, i decided to think that, ok, a god might exist, ok, aparently it doesn't affect me in any way and i can say i belive in him to keep my mother and grandparents happy. Good, but it didn't worked. I realised what i said in the first part of my comment. I can't proove it's existence, he doesn't seem to interfere with my actions and acording to the rules, i was doomed for hell anyway just because i swore a bit. If i was going to be a religious person from now on, i was doomed for hell for my previous actions (according to logic) and it didn't matter anyway.
I simply can't understand why we need a god. From the moment you are born you are doomed for hell, if you read the rules, you will be a siner from some points of view. Ok, you can go and confess. Let's say you killed 50 people, raped 86 children BUT you confesed. You are good for heaven. You break all the rules but from a simple confesion you are ok. Why do we need rules then? Do everything you want and confess once a month, its ok. God's existence and his actions are completly idiotic, ilogical and plain and retarded over the common limits.
Conclusion, Gods are some useless things if we put them in practice. They are ok to control the masses, the simple minded but you really have no reason to belive in one. If you belive, you will live as a complet failure, you can't please him in any way. Is like, you cut yourself with a razor every morning. Is not pleasant, it hurts and you wish to stop, but for a reason unknown to you, the pain continues and you don't stop. You could use some logic and simply stop cutting yourself, but logic is frustating for a religious person, it destroys to much and is not ok with God.
I think god is an idea. No physical form. God did not create us; we created god.
I'll play that game :) If God is the alpha and omega, then he is both the creator and the creation. Just an idea and the disembodied force that follows it through.
Makes more sense than some guy in a white robe sitting in the clouds watching over us, doesn't it?
As an agnostic Christian theist, I think the Biblical interpretation of God is extremely misleading and even malevolent. Firstly, to understand what God's personality must actually look like, you must start with His most noticeable traits, which are as follows:
First and foremost, God is transcendent. He exists wholly apart from anything and everything else, and is contingent upon nothing for his own existence. He transcends all of science itself, including spacetime, which leads us into the next trait.
God is spaceless and timeless. He is non-spatial and non-temporal and, as can be inferred from the first trait, does not require these dimensions to exist.
God is eternal. Being spaceless and timeless constitutes being uncaused, beginningless, endless, changeless and immaterial. God undergoes no changes, He is already the perfect being. He has no cause, no end, and no beginning, and is not physically bound.
God is personal. God is an unembodied mind who has been endowed with the freedom of the will; the ability to make decisions independently of any other variable(s). God possesses the ability to will things into existence or will things to happen.
God is omnipotent. God has the ability to do anything and everything so long as He wills it being done. If He does not will it being done, it will not be done. All He must do is speak and it shall be so.
God is omniscient. Now this is where it gets interesting. God, in being omniscient (all-knowing), must be perfectly logical and rational. He must also be absolutely open-minded. If this is true, then God cannot be against homosexuality, as it has been proven to be epi-genetic; caused by biology, which God created. If God created biology then He created homosexuality, and to be against it would be ignorant and narrow-minded of Him, and He, therefore, would not be omniscient. He also cannot condemn us for sins He already knows we're going to commit. This is akin to killing your dog for eating a steak *you* put in its bowl. Once again, to do so would be ignorant and narrow-minded of Him, and also quite unloving, which means, then, that God would not be omniscient.
God is omnibenevolent. God is all good. He can do no evil (though His definition of evil and ours are very different. Don't assume to know what God does and does not consider evil). If God is omnibenevolent, then damn-near half of the stories in the Bible must be wrong, as God kills innocent people in the Bible. His omnibenevolence can be witnessed personally. Just talk and you will know how good God really is.
God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. He is with you always. You shall never walk alone, for the light of the Lord shines beside you.
These are the traits that God must possess in order to be God, and as I have shown here, many of his traits actually contradict how the Bible portrays him. This is part of the reason I disregard the Bible as a Christian doctrine; it's just too malevolent. In my opinion, God is exactly as I have described him, and the basis for my belief in Him arises from these very basic traits that God possesses.
"He can do no evil (though His definition of evil and ours are very different. Don't assume to know what God does and does not consider evil)." - Ironically, this conclusion can be reached only by ignoring your own advice.
Every act that God lets happen is ultimately for some greater purpose.
Let's say there are two different methods to accomplish the identical greater purpose, and one method causes suffering, while the other does not. Do you think both methods are morally equivalent?
If god allows suffering to accomplish this greater good then there must be no other way, or He would have taken said path.
Off topic, but I changed my display name to "Xenophilius", and I use my phone as my Internet is off for the time being. Is my name being displayed as such or still as "Shock of God"?
Why did you change your screen name Shclock of God? Has your faith begun to slip Calk of God? What is it? What gives? Have you been loosing your followers Flock of God? I thought you were finally starting to get somewhere with your spreading of belief that Atheist need to prove the nonexistence of God as much as theist need to prove the existence Pock of God. Come on, if I were you I would have change my name to Orange of God, it would have been much funnier.
You do realize that according to you I am all art of Gods plan right! The best way he could accomplish his goal was to have me do all this to you. You may be on to something!
Elsewhere, you recently said you really enjoy all the nicknames I have come up with for you, Wok of god being your favorite so far. If this is the case why are you trying to change your name. I honestly have not even got a quarter of the way though the list its like your changing your tune from one post to another Xylophonist of God.
Oh, I do enjoy the nicknames. I was hoping I'd get some new ones in changing my name. I also changed it to match the name I use on YouTube. And the name is "Xenophilius".
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