What is a god?

[dlamberth]

So here is something I have been wondering...what do you believe a god/goddess/deity is in a literal sense? Thoughtform? Supreme supernatural being? etc

I come from the perspective of Panenthiesm, where God is the essence of life itself. All is God, there is nothing but God. Period!!! For me, God is not separate from Life or this Creation be it the seen or unseen. God is whole, united and One with every bit of it.

So you could say that the thought of God are all of the thoughts there ever have been, are being thought of right now and will be thought of in the future.

.

 

[RDKirk]

Just one question: will we have to have crusades and inquisitions over whether it is red or white grapes, or can we skip that part?

Oh, there has been plenty of persecution of Christians by Christians over such things.

 

[RDKirk]

Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

-- Romans 6:16

Broadly speaking, your god is whoever or whatever guides you in your decisionmaking, particularly moral decisionmaking.

 

[BluhdoftheLamb]

Is it in the Bible?

Not the 66 books, but making it that small never happened before 1880. there's a Church or 2 that still includes books that put things this way, yes.

Reconcilable, how?

We've learned quite a bit about stars, including the fact that they "preach the Gospel;" they lay down their lives so we may live. Also, angel means nothing more than messenger of God. God wanted energy / matter to clump together to form stars. It's perfectly ok to think of that as an angel. Also, it doesn't have to contradict science in the least. God's use of different entities in Scripture could easily be condescending to our own ability to understand, rather than revealing exactly what's really going on, in lots of places, including this one. (Some passages, I think there really has to be an entity / figure for the passage to fly)

Why evil and not good? And weren't we talking about angels?

This is one of the more interesting points of this, I think. For an Angel to be good, holy, etc., it couldn't possibly set itself up in the minds of people as something to be worshiped. You might even say it would have a duty to reveal itself to the worshiper, and correct them, literally refusing worship! We see this happen in Scripture, and its so out of character when it doesn't happen that we can use this to identify the Lord Himself; Theophanies, Christophanies, the pre-Incarnate Christ. (All the same thing?)

So these 2 different ideas about what is a god put forward by awitch and I, neatly line up with what the Bible has to say about these things; one true and living God who is the Creator of all things, and many false gods that are themselves created beings.

I really never expected to see something like that, which is why I commented on it. Of course it doesn't mean any of this is true neither do I expect you to believe it; but if his experience is legit, and I know mine is, this all adds up ...

 

[BluhdoftheLamb]

-- Romans 6:16

Broadly speaking, your god is whoever or whatever guides you in your decisionmaking, particularly moral decisionmaking.

A necessary contribution to this thread!

 

[RDKirk]

God's use of different entities in Scripture could easily be condescending to our own ability to understand, rather than revealing exactly what's really going on, in lots of places, including this one.

I agree with this. I would add, too, that it depends on how the revelation was delivered. For instance, a great deal of OT revelation appears to have been delivered by unnarrated dreams or visions that were then inscribed using whatever terminology available to the writer of that time period.

Thus, if the Creation revelation was delivered in unnarrated visuals, we have gotten it in terms common to a Bronze Age man. It might have been described differently if the same vision had been given to John in the Iron Age. It might be described even more differently if the same vision was given to someone today.

OTOH, some revelation was narrated or spoken, such as the Ten Commandments. Scripture seems to indicate the specific instances that happened: "And God spake all these words saying...."

In some cases, such as the revelations of Daniel, we get both: The inexplicable vision and then the narrated explanation of the vision. But even then, the narrated explanation is still limited to the terminology of the day.

Then there is the question of changing historiography. The early portions of the OT were almost certainly originally oral history for hundreds of years before being written down. If you've looked at oral history forms, you will see that they necessarily take a verbal pattern that is easy to remember and recite.

But when we get to the time that histories were written from the start (probably 1 Samuel on) we see significantly more historiographical rigor in terms of details and structure, and that increases substantially with Kings and Chronicles. It's not purely a factor of the date of the writing, but also a matter of who did the writing--whether a professional scribe, for instance, or a disciple.

In the NT, we see far more historiographical rigor in Luke's work than we see in the other Gospels.

 

[Noxot]

So here is something I have been wondering...what do you believe a god/goddess/deity is in a literal sense? Thoughtform? Supreme supernatural being? etc

a god with a small g is a microtheos and microcosmos. an idea of God, a child of God. each their own reality with God. children of God are a drop of water, eternal abysses that came from and are still part of the abyss of God. we are forever filling in the shoes of the one we can never fill in, but that is our joy. we are what happens when the Divine Chaos decides to make more of himself/herself.

 

[dlamberth]

we are what happens when the Divine Chaos decides to make more of himself/herself.

Or perhaps...want's to know and experience him/herself.

.

 

[elephunky]

Thanks for all the replies! Very interesting.

I consider a god or goddess to be a literal being (either though form, divine spirit or supernatural being) that I should be able to communicate with

 

[Sister of Faith]

God is the being who created me and knows me better than i do know myself.
He is the one who created the sun and moon and many other creatures for my service.
He is the one who gives me chances to correct my mistakes.
He is the one who respects me as long as I do respect my mind.
In short,,, because I need to sleep now..[Nothing is like Him].

 

[Zoness]

I do not think God or gods are literal beings, more like conceptual abstractions codified into human-readable terms. To me they are big esoteric ideas like knowledge, beauty, love, hate or cosmic entities like the universe, galaxies, superclusters.

My belief is that if gods exist, which they may and my belief set assumes they do; they are probably impersonal. Why would powerful deities care about my sexuality and alcohol consumption? That seems pretty petty. One may experience such divineness in many religions or no religions at all, its not a tangible experience of visions and prophecies. It's more like a general awareness and appreciation of nature, the human form, the universe and knowledge.

Per my definition, my gods are not my creator in a direct sense but tangentially their existence allows for my own.