What is a god?

[elephunky]

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

 

[MyLordMySavior]

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

What is God? God is a Supreme Being, Creator of all things visible and invisible. God is outside our laws, in which we are bound to, like the laws of physics, time, etc. God is the Lover of our Souls, our refuge, and shelter from the storms. God is Justice. God is Love. God is faithful, slow to anger, patient, merciful, gracious, and kind. God is our Savior. God is the beginning and the end. God knows all things, God is all present, God is all powerful. God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.






~Antonia

 

[HeathenWarrior]

While I could try, I am not sure the human language could do what I experience "God" to be with any justice.

 

[BluhdoftheLamb]

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

While I could try, I am not sure the human language could do what I experience "God" to be with any justice.

Ineffable.

Thoughtform isn't too bad an attempt, really. Except said thoughts have the power to cause what they think to actually happen. In a way we can do that, too; but it takes natural human effort, and time. I think this may well be part of what the phrase 'created in His image and in His likeness' may refer to.

Supreme Being is part of it, but ya gotta add "incorporeal" in there.

I rather like the Native American ideas, taking a spiritist attitude (similar to pagan? Or more like pantheism?) but then adding it all up to 'the Great Spirit.' I think that may be as close as anything else we're likely to utter?

'The maker of all that is, seen and unseen.'

 

[awitch]

I believe they are products of the big bang, just like everything else. Distinct personalities, none of which are omnipresent or omnipotent. They are not all love and flowers and lolipops, but not mean or evil either. Mostly indifferent, I would say. They don't run the universe or guide natural processes. I wouldn't say supernatural either. I like the term "hypernatural"

 

[BluhdoftheLamb]

I believe they are products of the big bang, just like everything else. Distinct personalities, none of which are omnipresent or omnipotent. They are not all love and flowers and lolipops, but not mean or evil either. Mostly indifferent, I would say. They don't run the universe or guide natural processes. I wouldn't say supernatural either. I like the term "hypernatural"

This is the basic difference: what you're describing may well exist, but God describes them as "no god at all." By definition God cannot be the product of the big bang, and as near as I can tell would have to be the source of it. (This one qualifier would put him outside both time and the universe)

 

[awitch]

This is the basic difference: what you're describing may well exist, but God describes them as "no god at all." By definition God cannot be the product of the big bang, and as near as I can tell would have to be the source of it. (This one qualifier would put him outside both time and the universe)

Well, I don't know what to say other than I disagree.

 

[nebulaJP]

For me God is spirit and spirit, like a lot of things is something that can only be dimly described. The words I use to describe it are awareness, peace, stillness, love, joy. It's something that can only be sensed just like the taste of grapes or any other sense perception. No matter how scientific the description you can never convey to another person the sense perception of grape flavor through words.

 

[BluhdoftheLamb]

No matter how scientific the description you can never convey to another person the sense perception of grape flavor through words.

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?

 

[LoAmmi]

Judaism 101: The Nature of G-d That seems like the easiest way for me to share.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I believe they are products of the big bang, just like everything else. [...] They don't run the universe or guide natural processes. I wouldn't say supernatural either. I like the term "hypernatural"

If the gods don't "run the universe or guide natural processes", then what distinguishes them from space aliens, or from human beings for that matter?


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[ViaCrucis]

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

To quote Moses, "I AM that I AM".

To quote Tillich, "the Ground of Being" and "Being Itself".

To quote St. Anselm, "That than which nothing greater can be conceived."

In Christian thought, God is by "definition" undefinable; Christian theology very often approaches discussion of the Divine Essence by saying what God is not. This is known as Apophatic or Negative Theology. The Divine Essence is ineffable, it is unknowable, unapproachable, incomprehensible. God can only be known by His Energies, His Acts, what God does and reveals. We can say that God is love because He loves, His acts are loving, gracious, and kind; His chief Act--the Incarnation--is an act of Self-emptying, sacrificial, love, a pouring out of Himself into humanity through union with human nature in the person of Jesus.

But what is God? God is God.

God is.

The Fountainhead of Reality? The Source and Origin of existence? That Which Is beyond all that is?

Or more accurately, I don't know.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[awitch]

If the gods don't "run the universe or guide natural processes", then what distinguishes them from space aliens, or from human beings for that matter?


eudaimonia,

Mark

Well humans and any aliens would be corporeal beings that must obey all the known laws of physics. Deities would not necessarily be corporeal and while I don't believe they have scripted The Universe advance, they would have the capacity to influence it.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Well humans and any aliens would be corporeal beings that must obey all the known laws of physics. Deities would not necessarily be corporeal and while I don't believe they have scripted The Universe advance, they would have the capacity to influence it.

Hm, okay, though I'm not exactly sure how to make sense of the Big Bang creating non-corporeal beings.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[BluhdoftheLamb]

Hm, okay, though I'm not exactly sure how to make sense of the Big Bang creating non-corporeal beings.


eudaimonia,

Mark

This lines up perfectly with the Judeo-Christian idea of stars being Angels. We have a textbook comparison of pagan gods, and God.

 

[Eudaimonist]

This lines up perfectly with the Judeo-Christian idea of stars being Angels.

Huh? Where are you getting that idea from? That sounds more New Age than anything else.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[BluhdoftheLamb]

Huh? Where are you getting that idea from? That sounds new New Age than anything else.


eudaimonia,

Mark

It's ancient. Its even reconcilable with what we know of current science. And it also puts all lesser gods as being evil, with God alone being good. Interesting the way all that lines up ...

 

[Eudaimonist]

It's ancient.

Is it in the Bible?

Its even reconcilable with what we know of current science.

Reconcilable, how?

And it also puts all lesser gods as being evil

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


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[LoAmmi]

I've never seen anything in any of the Jewish literature that would even begin to suggest stars are angels. Unless you can provide something otherwise, please leave the "Judeo" off the front of your phrase.

 

[awitch]

Hm, okay, though I'm not exactly sure how to make sense of the Big Bang creating non-corporeal beings.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Me neither.