What is GOD?

God is like infinity or perfection: an extrapolation based on what we do know. He is the source of reality and life and all things find their completion in Him. Think of something good or bright or truthful, and He is that to the infinite degree.Goodness, truth, light, love, and life are all the positives and they come in one package. They are all tied together in Him. We can feel the difference between love and hate, truth and lies. If we hate or lie, we don't know Him. The earth will never be in short supply of hypocrites. If you are looking for the truth about any matter, the majority opinion is not the best place to start. Some philosopher dude once said something to the effect, "If you happen to find yourself in the majority, take a step back and re-assess your position." I had a talk with my one atheist friend a couple of days ago and we realized that she could not begin to believe in God because she did not first believe in the reality of good or evil. To know the truth about God, you must first believe in Truth and Good. The three go together.A minority of people throughout the ages in all religions have believed in truth and goodness and sought these things out while a majority of people have sought to gratify their desires with material possession or power. Jesus came to teach what those who believe in and seek Good already knew. His sheep listen to His voice. He embodied all of the positives and as such he WAS God.A few people have real faith. Many more have religion. And still others use the religious crowd to screw everyone over.BTW, I love that signature quote... cracks me up...

Yup, loved it... haven't seen the movie yet though.

God IS an abstract concept. That's the answer. Oh.... He's made of gold. Pure gold. Sounds absurd doesn't it? Nope. Its all in Him, not vice versa. I have a problem with a creation sustaining its creator. He looks like a cross between a galactic fish and an african horny toad. And like I said, He's made of Gold... Pure solid Gold.Naturalists believe only the physical is real. If you are to understand God, you must begin to believe in the reality of the abstract concepts, which you are forced to deal with on a regular basis.If the entire physical world is a computer matrix, and you can touch and see material objects, you will be convinced they are real. Even if you discover that a car is goverened by lines of code, it still looks and feels like a car. Its still real. The reality of the code behind the car doesn't take away from the reality of the car itself.Feelings and experiences of abstract concepts may be goverened by physical actions just as the car was goverened by lines of code, but these immaterial things are still felt and are still real.The naturalist looks at the physical, forgets the abstract, and concludes that its all an illusion caused by billions of calculations per second. I disagree.

I've never used the word platonism before, but I just looked it up and I'm not sure that quite fits my philosophy. I am asserting that our perceptions, experiences, and feelings are all real things, not just abstract things or mere illusions created by the illusion of consciousness. I am saying that knowing how a thing exists, does not nullify the reality of it.If there is no God then there is no good, evil, truth, or meaning, yet I experience these things. So I can either assert that there is no God and then logically put to death half of my being, or I can assert that there is a God and then fully live.

Oh... sorry. I hope I didn't sound rude. I was just trying to demonstrate the absurdity of the idea that some folks have that if there exists this God dude, he MUST be contained within and governed by his own creation. He can't be the supreme being or supernatural if he bows to nature. Who said we can’t? We can’t know him fully, because He is like infinite or perfection sit down and think about infinite for a while. You just can’t fully wrap your mind around it. You can know Him. If you’ve ever loved truth or sought Goodness or loved your neighbor, you’ve known Him. And if you had done this, you would know Chirst too. But you cannot follow the good path when you don't believe in good. You cannot love truth if you don't believe we can know truth. Therefore, you will never know God. But it doesn’t there is no difference between a perfect illusion and the real thing. If we were to somehow learn this whole universe is a matrix, we would only understand more. It would not nullify the reality and existence of the universe. It would only prove our previous understanding lacking. Cognitive dissonance pushes us away from agnosticism towards one conclusion or the other, and then our new found belief begins to shape our perceptions of reality to reinforce that belief. I look at the universe and see beauty, truth, love, and goodness, and my belief is reinforced. You look at the universe and see a cold, meaningless, harsh, Godless place, and your belief is reinforced.

That may be true of some people, but not me. I believe God is behind the weather even though I understand convection and evaporation and the jet stream.Just because we know how God does a thing, this doesn't mean He's not the one doing it. ...people who knew little claimed to know a lot in order to control people or gain earthly possesion. As far as I know this has happened in practically every religion including Christianity. Religion and God are not one in the same. Religion is the set of "rules of the game" that humans create. God is something that humans either seek or reject. Do not look to religion if you are looking for God. Look into yourself and the lives of others, and do not reject any of it as being less than real simply because you understand the science behind it.

Thanks for your replies. I'm not really sure what this means, but I do know that in order for much of integral calculus to make sense, we must have infinite. And likewise I'd like to think that we must have other extrapolated abstract concepts such as perfection and absolute good and God for other aspects of life in this universe to make sense. My bad... I misjudged your position. Just about every agnostic I have come across is really an atheist and a naturalist. The logical conclusion to which is nihilism. I'm fairly certain Robinrohan is a self-professed nihilist (correct me if I'm wrong) and others are nihilists when arguing against God and humanists when arguing politics or the meaningfulness of life. Quite a few have told me that we cannot know truth (a few have told me that we can, but I believe this to be an exception to the rest of their worldview). This comes from their scientism philosophy.So from this I gather that you are not neccessarily a naturalist, not a weak atheist, and do not neccessarily hold a scientism worldview.I said that if you did not believe in good and did not believe we could know truth, then you could not follow the good and true path. I think that makes sense. Do you agree? If you do in fact believe in good and the knowledge of truth, then you can, and you can know God as well. How so? Is an object that is governed by probability and energy and cosmic constants any different than an object that is governed by lines of code if there is absolutely no way to tell the difference between the two? I say again, there is no difference between a perfect illusion and reality. A perfect illusion is no illusion at all -- just a hole in our understanding of reality. You are an exceptional agnostic. Most do not believe in a knowable unifying conclusion. Again, I misjudged your position.I have heard many say that the universe is exactly the opposite of what one should expect if a Good loving God created it, what with all its emptiness, meaninglessness, and suffering. You are obviously not a nihilist as many are. Great! You see and believe in beauty, truth, love, goodness, and the awesomeness of nature. You practically know God already! You are not a typical agnostic at least in my limited experience with agnostics.

Umm... I say, everything is a thing, and if its a thing, it is real.

Is all suffering inherently evil? I don't believe so.Does God have to like everything that goes on in the world? I don't believe so.Everything is on its way to somewhere... from chaos to perfection or from chaos to destruction. And my point was that mankind creating religion is not the same as mankind creating God. You cannot be certain of whether mankind made up God or whether mankind gained the ability to become aware of God.

...everything? I think I understand the way you are using these words, but I guess I just don't get the point you are making... That's pretty cool... I'm gonna start saying that... hehe...

And my question is: why not? Is our physical pleasure God's only motivation for acting? It is easy and arrogant to criticize anyone from lifeguards, to highschool football coaches, to presidents, to God for not doing things the way YOU believe they should be done. Have you ever thought about it from the opposite direction? Apparently not.We cannot know the answers. We can only understand the questions. You're thinking about it as if God were a human engineer. You can't understand with your presuppositions about what god is.

I think you missed my point in bringing up infinite and perfection... I'm too tired to write it out again right now. That has absolutely nothing to do with nihilism being the logical conclusion to atheism/naturalism. I think you missed what I was saying again. I said nothing about judging people. I only mentioned Good and Evil as being either real or illusive. If you believe there is no good and evil, only pain and pleasure... life and death... clumps of molecules acting out pre-programmed lives in a meaningless universe without a programmer, then what motive could you have to pursue a path you do not believe exists? This is a complete diversion from the point we were discussing. Let's try to focus here. I will say in response to this that it cannot be logically established that the existance of God should remove all human responsibility. This is only your assertion. I UNDERSTOOD what you said... Did it make sense? Well that all depends on WHAT GOD IS. No it wouldn't. It would just mean that laws are governed by more laws which may be governed by still more laws... It doesn't mean that what we once thought was real is now an illusion.

...but but but.... I don't get it... Everything you just said was completely self-contradictory. But we ARE by definition sentient beings...!?I can understand the spirit and the idea behind it, but I can't go anywhere logically or philosophically with it, and besides, my mind has a problem with nothingness. I'm not so sure nothingness actually exists.... dang there's another self-contradictory statement... now you've got me doing it.I can understand obliterating the physical world to find something deeper, but I cannot understand obliterating the physical world in order to find nothing.

OHhh.... well, now that makes a whole heckuva lot more sense. Sounds like God to me.ABE: Thanks for adding that on there. I definately agree with it.Yea! I finally broke the 1000 mark.This message has been edited by Hangdawg13, 06-13-2005 12:34 AM

Thanks for your replies Ifen. I've read them several times. I like getting a fresh viewpoint on things as I am getting tired of the same old debates here.I understand exactly what you are saying and in some ways you have said what I have felt in my head, but not been able to put into words. I will have to roll all this around in my head and try it out for a couple of weeks before I can really say anthing worth saying about it. I will surely do a little more reading of these eastern philosophies you speak of.I think the particular vocabulary used has made it difficult for me to understand the "nondual" viewpoint before. I dunno, Perhaps if Siddhartha had lived today and spoken english, he might have picked different words. Nevertheless, I understand the ideas behind the words.

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"Words take us further from the Truth. Where can I find a man who has no use for words so that I may sit and speak with him." -- Ancient Chinese Philosopher Dude