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What is God?
- Thread starter FullyAmbivalent
- Start date
clobberfoe
Member
The supposed aspects of God that seem to be defined and grasped by the mind relatively easily, I am not so interested in (e.g., omniscient, prime cause). It does not seem to me so likely that there is an entity which has those properties, and there's not much more to say about it. Therefore when I think of God I don't tend to think about those properties, even if a lot of other people do.
My idea of God has more to do with people's mystical experiences, for instance the Old-Testament prophets. I tend to think of something a) utterly divorced from Earth-bound reality, and b) powerful (in its effect on the individual, not necessarily in its material effects).
Another way of approaching it: I think about how the human race is young and we know only a tiny portion of all there is to know, and I think of the universe of what we don't know. Occasionally one gets a little inkling of the depth of the universe of the unknown, and it inspires awe. I tend to identify that universe of the unknown with God.
I like to try to get a handle on these mystical sorts of feelings and integrate them with the rest of the world. At the same time, I recognize that I may have these thoughts of God only out of a "desire for a purposeful life" #3 on HouseApe's list (insofar as contemplating great mysterious stuff feels like a purpose) so I'd like to keep an objective distance from it. I suspect being an atheist / materialist is the way to go, at least in this place and time (which is all I know about anyway...).
Forgive my sleep-deprived blathering (*shyly retreats back into corner*).
My idea of God has more to do with people's mystical experiences, for instance the Old-Testament prophets. I tend to think of something a) utterly divorced from Earth-bound reality, and b) powerful (in its effect on the individual, not necessarily in its material effects).
Another way of approaching it: I think about how the human race is young and we know only a tiny portion of all there is to know, and I think of the universe of what we don't know. Occasionally one gets a little inkling of the depth of the universe of the unknown, and it inspires awe. I tend to identify that universe of the unknown with God.
I like to try to get a handle on these mystical sorts of feelings and integrate them with the rest of the world. At the same time, I recognize that I may have these thoughts of God only out of a "desire for a purposeful life" #3 on HouseApe's list (insofar as contemplating great mysterious stuff feels like a purpose) so I'd like to keep an objective distance from it. I suspect being an atheist / materialist is the way to go, at least in this place and time (which is all I know about anyway...).
Forgive my sleep-deprived blathering (*shyly retreats back into corner*).
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