NationStates Jolt Archive

What with all the religion vs science threads knocking around, I thought I'd ask people what their concepts of God are? It's all too easy to throw these terms out there, but "God" to one person may be very different than to someone else.

For reference I am not Christian, or any other major religion. But I am spiritual. I was lucky to be raised by parents who didn't believe in forcing their beliefs onto me and my brother, so I was given the freedom to find my own beliefs. However, when I asked my Dad what he believed he told me that he sees God as the light inside you that is the source of your laughter and tears.

I've always like that idea, even though it's not quite the same as my perception. I believe that divinity can be found in each of us, in the spark of life and consciousness. I don't believe in a creator or guiding force, simply in the magic of the currently unexplainable. I also see it that all deffinitions of "God" are man-made, organised religion has pretty much destroyed the essence of faith and that most humans need religion to explain the unexplainable. I'm pretty sure that my concept of God will be gradullay eroded by science. But for now it suits me just fine.

For those who do believe in some sort of creator, how do you picture that deity? Does it have physical form or not?

And for atheists is it just the Christian representation of God that leaves you cold? Have you looked at other ideas from around the world or looked inside yourself and found nothing spiritual? I once considered myself an atheist, then I realised it was organised religion that put me off all spirituality, when I searched for answers within I found something that I had always believed but never identified as spiritual before!

To be clear, I'm not trying to convert anyone (I abhore the idea) I am just curious to know what other people think.

My personal belief in deity, when i choose to indulge it, is extremely vague. Sexless (or every sex), basically the energy of the planet. This is not the same as the creator, a concept I don't really have much truck with. I prefer to think that the universe has always been, and we've just been having big bangs and crunches for eternity. The concept of a beginning is a human idea, and i don't think it's really necessary to apply that to the universe.

The idea of 'god' doesn't leave me cold, it just doesn't work in my brain. Like trying to install Mac software onto a PC, the concept is incompatible with my operating system. It's the kind of thing which makes you furrow your brow and just go 'what the hell are you talking about?'. The religious claim they can't understand a universe without a god, while I can't understand a universe with one.

I see no evidence to support the notion of gods, therefore I don't believe in them. If we don't currently understand something, we should search harder until we do.

Doesn't mean we can't have a personal philosophy (like the Golden Rule), but it's one we decided on ourselves because it seems a good idea, rather than being the one our imaginary friend told us to follow.

Edit: Besides, most organised religions seem to be a method to control people through fear. Much like governments.

I beleive in The Invisible Pink Unicorn (http://www.palmyra.demon.co.uk/humour/ipu.htm) :p

And for atheists is it just the Christian representation of God that leaves you cold? Have you looked at other ideas from around the world or looked inside yourself and found nothing spiritual? I once considered myself an atheist, then I realised it was organised religion that put me off all spirituality, when I searched for answers within I found something that I had always believed but never identified as spiritual before!
I'm about as Atheist as they come. I'm Areligious to be precise. More and more, I find myself suspecting that religion is nothing but the logical extreme of a sentient & imaginative, and highly social species. I can see why it has been, and to an extent still are, needed. No offence intended towards anyone.

Personally I have great faith in humanity. In human ingenuity, and in the fact that we're a social species. Our ever increasing knowledge and our ever evolving (speaking long term here) societies, grants me high hopes for the future of our species.

I believe we (barring ill & dysfunctional/damaged humans) all have a basic drive to achive positive recognition from our peers, and that we all posses great curiousity. In my mind, that (again in the long run) means we'll always strive to better, not only ourselves, but all of manking, and the universe we inhabit.

The drawback is, of course, that we can easily fuck things up beyond repair, or exterminate ourselves, but I doubt it will happen. We've had 2 darkages as I see it; the time before we developed agriculture, and the unstable period after we developed WMD. Both periods had the capacity to leave mankind either at a deadend, or devastated beyond repair. We did develop agriculture, and we haven't resorted to use WMD yet. Outside a complete breakdown of demoreacy & a pure capitalist (multi?) global society, I have a hard time imagening we will eradicate ourselves now, so I only see us moving forward from this point onwards. Of course, we may well be devastated by epedemics or climate changes, but it's hardly plausible such things can spell the end of our species.

So I have faith in my fellow humans, and count on them to live by the simple principles I do: To have fun, to better ourselves, to help others realize themselves, and to leave the world a better place than we found it.
And largely, people do spend their lives trying to achive those goals. Of course, some humans have radically different defenitions of those things than I do, but I count on human interaction to compare eachothers values, assimilate them & streamline them (on a general level). In short, barring freak accidents, I think the lot of our species will largely be moving in the right direction from now on. Indeed I think we have since the darkages.

I'll much rather ask my fellow humans for directions, than I'll trust something, that I consider to be nothing more than social conventions given shafe by our imagination.

I believe in the "Giant Pink Flamingo" creation theory, and if anyone can definetly prove me wrong, I'll take my hat off to them. However to do so, will be pretty hard. Because;
I will not accept the bible, written by man, as proof.
I will not blindly accept scientific jargon as proof.

Those of who who posted in the "What Then?" thread will recognize this post, as it is cut and pasted. Apologies if that is bad form, I just didn't feel like writing it all over again. hehehe

How about this:

The Universe IS god.

God is omniscient, meaning that there is no sentient thought ever conceived that he does not know.

God is omnipotent, which means that he is the sum total of all energy (and this includes matter, which is nothing more than very slow energy).

God is omnipresent, which means that there is nowhere in space/time that he is not.

Therefor... God is comprised of all thought, all energy and all space/time.

We are, in every way, pieces of god. In body, mind and spirit. So is the chair upon which you sit. And the dog you just fed its kibble. And the wind. And the ideals you hold. All of it is "god".

You are inseparable from it and it has always existed. It is eternal and infinite. When you die your consciousness and living spark will be recycled back into the cosmic energy pool (conservation of energy dictates that it is impossible to destroy energy).

This has always existed and always will.

Now come on people, favourite drug of choice?

or
God is everything, and the reason there are no miracles is because he would be preforming miracles unto himself.
But to be honest, thats just finding somethiing there, because you want to.
Everyone to afraid of a world without god?

If there is any sort of "god" this would be the only conception I would be willing to believe: The universe itself is a self aware entity that created itself (expressed in physicality as the big bang) by becoming self aware. Essentially I see the physical universe as the imagination of such an entity, and us as essentially Massively Multiple (TM) personalities that exists as temporary entites in it's dream. There is likely a large component of this universal that exists outside of the physical space, much like the subconcious mind exists as a seperate but intrinsically connected counterpart to the imagination (or some would say the imagination is merely a component). This is a bit far fetched though, and until evidence can be shown I would prefer the simpler and equally sufficient explanation of random chance or watchmaker theory. I certaintly can't see any entity operating this universe as a concious being (ie most major religions).

Now come on people, favourite drug of choice?

What is your fascination with drugs, Yana? You tried to derail the other thread like this too...

I just find it interesting what people reply to that, if I ever do get replies.

But the real reason I derail these threads like that is, because no-one ever accepts anyone elses point of view. Lets be honest glamorgane, in the past thread did anyone ever so "oh yeah, maybe your right". No, they just argued whatever their case was, refusing to believe that maybe, just maybe, someone else has a different point of view.

Well, that and I made a thread called "Drug of choice?" and no-one replied to it for like a week so it got deleted, now I'm just gonna branch out.

Honesty - Are you going to ever have any real answers about the mysterys of life, that are garrunteed, absolutely garrunteed to be certain, before you die?

No, I thought not. AH! that doesn't mean you should stop looking, cause I mean, its interesting.

I doubt the existence of God in the form of a God. This is why. I use the word it to describe God because the gender of God, if indeed it has one is unknown.

A God is omnipotent and perfect.
A perfect and omnipotent God has no needs or wants and would never grow bored; boredom afterall is an imperfection.
This discounts two possible suggested purposes for the existence of mankind.

1. God does not need mankind because man is not necessary to its survival.
2. God does not want mankind because it is perfect, being content in itself and not requiring other beings to 'amuse' itself. That said, a perfect god does not need to amuse himself.

So the question remains, what is the purpose of mankind or indeed creation? Because the existence of a perfect God means that mankind and creation can logically not exist, then the existence of man and the rest of creation is meaningless therefore the fact that they exist proves that God cannot be perfect and omnipotent therefore God is not God.

That is not to say that God (the one Christians and other religions worship) as an entity does not exist; it is to say that that God is not trully how we percieve him to be as being the alpha and the omega, the creator of creation.

That said, I am an atheist freethinker. I discount superstition and faith as irrelevent and obstructive to rational thought.

Now come on people, favourite drug of choice?
pot.

for more on god listen to Deicide's second CD

If there is a god, I believe he would be beyond such simple concepts as gender. And good and evil.
Ya see, if there was a god, he wouldn't just be for humans, he'd be for everything. All the living, all the none living.
See a lion kills to eat, but to the prey it captures, it is evil. But its just its nature.
Vampires, are considered evil, but, its their nature to feed on humans.
So to with god, it is his/she/its nature to be everything, and thus free from good or evil.
Good and evil are just to contradicting points of view, if god he existed, he would be both sides of the argument, so neither good nor evil. Merely, existing.

Yeah I like pot, its good.
but alcohol is good to, I mean, but if you spend your life drinking, you become a violent or depressed person.
But if you spend your life smoking pot, you become a lazy waster, contuinely pondering the mysterys of life thinking you'll find an answer to "life".
But for the high, XTC, even though it sounds like the most evil drug in the world, it gives you a really pure feeling of happiness. Honestly though, I don't do it anymore, I tried it a few times, and left it where it was.

The point of threads like this isn't to convince others that you're right, Yana. It's to engage in intelligent discussion that gets people to think about their beliefs.

Trying to derail it with constant talk about drugs won't help.

Just remember that God does not necessarily equal religion. I don't know what to believe.

The point of threads like this isn't to convince others that you're right, Yana. It's to engage in intelligent discussion that gets people to think about their beliefs.

Trying to derail it with constant talk about drugs won't help.
Thank you, absolutely right. It's good to see people discussing this resonably :-)

To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute, such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it from His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His praise, or that human heart comprehend His fathomless mystery. He is and hath ever been veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men. "No vision taketh in Him, but He taketh in all vision; He is the Subtile, the All-Perceiving." No tie of direct intercourse can possibly bind Him to His creatures. He standeth exalted beyond and above all separation and union, all proximity and remoteness. No sign can indicate His presence or His absence; inasmuch as by a word of His command all that are in heaven and on earth have come to exist, and by His wish, which is the Primal Will itself, all have stepped out of utter nothingness into the realm of being, the world of the visible.

(Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 97)

Well, that and I made a thread called "Drug of choice?" and no-one replied to it for like a week so it got deleted, now I'm just gonna branch out.

Honesty - Are you going to ever have any real answers about the mysterys of life, that are garrunteed, absolutely garrunteed to be certain, before you die?

No, I thought not. AH! that doesn't mean you should stop looking, cause I mean, its interesting.


All the people have formed a god in the world of thought, and that form of their own imagination they worship; when the fact is that the imagined form is finite and the human mind is infinite. Surely the infinite is greater than the finite, for imagination is accidental while the mind is essential; surely the essential is greater than the accidental.

Therefore consider: All the sects and peoples worship their own *382* thought; they create a god in their own minds and acknowledge him to be the creator of all things, when that form is a superstition -- thus people adore and worship imagination.

That Essence of the Divine Entity and the Unseen of the unseen is holy above imagination and is beyond thought. Consciousness doth not reach It. Within the capacity of comprehension of a produced reality that Ancient Reality cannot be contained. It is a different world; from it there is no information; arrival thereat is impossible; attainment thereto is prohibited and inaccessible. This much is known: It exists and Its existence is certain and proven -- but the condition is unknown.

All the philosophers and the doctors knew that It is, but they were perplexed in the comprehension of Its existence and were at last discouraged, and in great despair they left this world. For the comprehension of the condition and mysteries of that Reality of realities and Mystery of mysteries there is need for another power and another sense. That power and sense is not possessed by mankind, therefore they have not found any information. For example: If a man possess the power of hearing, the power of tasting, the power of smelling and the power of feeling, but no power of seeing, he cannot see. Hence, through the powers and senses present in man the realization of the Unseen Reality, which is pure and holy above the reach of doubts, is impossible. Other powers are needed and other senses required. If those powers and senses are obtained, then information can be had; otherwise, not.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith - Abdu'l-Baha Section, p. 381)

Edit: Besides, most organised religions seem to be a method to control people through fear. Much like governments.


That is all that any organised religion is. A way for someone to control other people and make them do what they want. I have studied a lot of different religions, from Christianity, Catholicism, Judaism, Druidism, and Wiccan among many many others and have found that they all (including Islamic and other middle eastern religions) are about making their followers do what the person in charge wants them to do!

for atheists is it just the Christian representation of God that leaves you cold? Have you looked at other ideas from around the world or looked inside yourself and found nothing spiritual? I once considered myself an atheist, then I realised it was organised religion that put me off all spirituality, when I searched for answers within I found something that I had always believed but never identified as spiritual before!

To be clear, I'm not trying to convert anyone (I abhore the idea) I am just curious to know what other people think.


I'm an atheist and while organized religion does indeed leave me cold, I dont believe in God because anything supernatural, be it gods or ghosts or astrology, seems ridiculous to me.


If there was a God I like to think He'd be like Morgan Freeman in bruce almighty. That would be nice. But God isnt really something I can conceive of so I cant really come up with a personal version.

What with all the religion vs science threads knocking around, I thought I'd ask people what their concepts of God are? It's all too easy to throw these terms out there, but "God" to one person may be very different than to someone else.I like to treat evolution as a Gestalt entity. It's nice to consider myself as part of some sort of grander system to allow me to appreciate how I and the world around me are working together to sustain this emergent consciousness just by going about our own lives. It also gives me a sense of my own role in the world, and also a sense of empathy for others who are, in effect, inescapably linked to myself.

I guess you could call that God. It's not any sort of theology, nor is it a belief I hold with great vigour; it's just a helpful way of looking at the world.