Nature of God

[Filip Sandor]

So many people talk about God, but how well do you know Him?? I mean apart from knowing that He is Kind of the Universe and the Creator of all things.. what do you think is God's character?

Does God have a character?? According to the Christian religion, we are made in His image, but what exactly does this mean? I would be very interested to hear all the theist's opinions on this. This is a good chance to share your personal beliefs and be heard.

Atheists are welcome to hypothesize too, if there were a real and true God (in your opinion) what would/ or should he be like?

VERY interested to hear the atheist's POV.

Finally, one last request, please refrain from making cynical or abusve comments. I kindly ask those of you who are tempted not to "fall into temptation" and contaminate an intelligent dicsussion for your own pleasure. The prupose of this thread is not to prove or to disprove any religion or the existence of God, but to share our views on the subject [of Godly Nature].

Let's all be sincere and show tolerance for people's views.

Alright then, who's first...?

 

[balrog666]

Which god - Vishnu, Ahura Mazdah, Zeus. the Trickster Coyote?



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[DangerousBeliefs]

I believe if there is a creator of the Universe, such a being would be so vastly beyond us that we are but a tiny infinitesimal speck in the overall scheme of things. So insignificant as to make such a God's existence completely irrelevant to humanity.

In fact, that's where we are today...

 

[Filip Sandor]

I believe if there is a creator of the Universe, such a being would be so vastly beyond us that we are but a tiny infinitesimal speck in the overall scheme of things. So insignificant as to make such a God's existence completely irrelevant to humanity.

In fact, that's where we are today...

That's an interesting point of view. Care to elaborate on it DB?

Why do you say that such a being would be beyond us? What do you mean??

 

[jimmygun]

The God of the bible is a sadistic schitzo who takes infinite pleasure in the suffering of mankind and at the same time blames mankind for their own ills.

Honestly, and for the life of me I do not understand where Christians get the idea that their God is a loving entity.
Maybe someone can explain it to me.

 

[toddjh]

The only idea of a god that appeals to me on any level is the one in Carl Sagan's Contact. He leaves proof of his existence in the form of messages embedded into the decimal (or other number base) expansions of mathematical constants. The first is a simple "Hello, I'm here" message in pi, but they progress into horribly difficult puzzles that not even a civilization hundreds of millions of years old has figured out.

That I could get into. I always did like a good puzzle.

Not much else is revealed about the "artist" in the book, but he created the universe, has an apparently benevolent interest in sentient life, and rewards intellectual curiosity. Not a bad start for a deity.

Jeremy

 

[1inChrist]

God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. He is completely loving and just and we will all be Judged by Him and all His Glory and Grace in the End.

 

[Z]

Re: Re: Nature of God

God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. He is completely loving and just and we will all be Judged by Him and all His Glory and Grace in the End.

Ah, so Hellfire is an empty threat after all. And eternal punishment for finite crimes - clearly an unjust mode of punishment - is another empty threat.

Thanks, 1-inch!

 

[Bikewer]

We puny humans can already hypothesize about causing "bang" events and thus creating universes. We can also speculate about large-scale planetary and solar system engineering.

Maybe being a god doesn't require all that much! The two qualifications would be:

1. Extremely long life-span.

2. Ability to cause "bang" events.

 

[Stitch]

I suppose I can kind of see the "serve" argument put forward by many religions. Humans are much the same, we expect the things that we make to serve us, be that the wheel a house a computer etc.

Where this falls apart however is that we don't make things to revere and praise us, or to give them a choice to do so but threaten to smash them if they don't. We make things for a specific purpose and if we design in attributes (free will, ability to think etc) then we would expect our creation to perform to the best of it abilities with what we have given it.

I can imagine the creators of Hubble or such being rather upset if it refused to be launched in to space because it felt it should stay on earth and worship its creators.

Personally I don't think there is a god i.e. and intelligent creator, but if there was I would hope that it would be the sort that would makes us and set us off to do the best we can with how we were designed with no further interference. Or to put it another way, its existence should be indistinguishable from its non-existence.

 

[Z]

We puny humans can already hypothesize about causing "bang" events and thus creating universes. We can also speculate about large-scale planetary and solar system engineering.

Maybe being a god doesn't require all that much! The two qualifications would be:

1. Extremely long life-span.

2. Ability to cause "bang" events.

So, seeing as I have six kids already, if I can just live to be, say, 150, will that make me God?

NATURE OF GOD:

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 tbsp cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 banana...

Whoops! Wrong database!!

 

[jimmygun]

Re: Re: Nature of God

God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. He is completely loving and just and we will all be Judged by Him and all His Glory and Grace in the End.

Can you illustrate this love you speak of? I don't see it.

 

[Jellby]

The only possible god I can think of is this:

Time as we know it began with the Big Bang. If there was anything before that (assuming we can talk about a "before") that's our god. Whatever it was, it became the cosmic egg (the Big Bang thingy), and so, after billions of years, gave rise to everything in the world. In this view, I'm part of god, you're part of god, the cockroach down there is part of god, Antares is part of god, the empty space is part of god, the ballpen I'm holding is part of god... in short: it doesn't make any difference.

But, actually, I don't believe that's true