Why God

My purpose with this thread is to understand, me personally, I do not believe in God as the creator of all things, but as we are the creators of God. Im open to everything, and to listen to every thought you have... but what I really want to hear is how do you see God? and Why do you believe in him.. and the why, please don't say 'cause there must be something out there. Give me real reasons, explain me your point of view.
It will be all really appreciated.

 

I dont believe in god. I believe in the theory of evolution, and thats a much better explanation of things than just "god created the universe and every living thing"

 

i believe God is the name for peace and happiness, which every being on earth ultimately wants. everyone wants to believe in a happy ending, because sometimes life is shitty. i do not believe in praying or worrying about this God. if a happy ending is what comes next, then we should just live our lives as good people, and happiness will come.

 

It seems to me to be a lot more reasonable to say:

"The universe just appeared."

... than to say:

"God just appeared, and then he created the universe."

One of them presupposes the existance of an entity that is unnecessary to explain things. The concept of "God" doesn't explain jack. If it explains how the universe was created, then how was God created? When people answer this question by saying, "God wasn't created, he just always existed," that's EXACTLY like someone saying, "The universe just was," or "The universe is probably going on over and over again." These answers only cover up the real answers to the question, because without these cover-ups, we would have more and more questions leading us deeper and deeper into unnecessary territory. So why not cut it off before the concept of God? I mean, why do we even believe in God, because some book (which HAS competition, by the way, so if one of them is fake, then it shows that there COULD be a book written like that which is fake; the sheer complexity of the Bible alone is not enough to default authenticity; besides, half the book is just one big copy&paste of "and Mhazeleth begat Jibahned!" (joke! relax, not an insult)) which was written by HUMANS which have been known to lie and make shit up, and to write fictional stories, and write down dreams and imagine things in their heads, and percieve the world in different, differing ways?

And forgive me if the above doesn't make any sense to you ...

Either way, I'm a panentheist. That is, I believe that the concept of God/dess IS the universe, and that we are all part of it; that there probably is a "spiritual" aspect to life, but that there is no "creator" or "overseer."

 

Seneca - What is nature except God?



I have similar feelings as Hikaru. God and creation are the same thing. I believe in magic, miracles, prayer, and even guides, or guardian angels, all becuz of what I have seen over my lifetime........but God, the way religion sees him..no.

 

We dream ourselves.

 

Sweet dreams are made of these
Hold on tight to your dreams
Dream a little dream of me
You walked out of my dreams and into my arms.
And I dreamed I was in a hollywood movie, and that I was the star of that movie. How could I, an overfed, longhaired, sleeping gnome be the star of a hollywood movie. and I stood high upon a mountain top, naked to the world, and every kind of girl...there were tall ones short ones big ones small ones....
The dream is over.

 

There is plenty of talk and theoretical analysis about God, but I feel that god is the totality of life experience.
Because of that, I'm very interested in people who have expereinced God, and disinterested in the opinions of those who conjecture conjecture conjecture endlessly conjecture!
I experienced what I presume was "God" in a death experience I had age 6. From there on I knew a lot of crap was going down here on earth, but it takes a long time to sort the truth from the lies in the same way that mountains of rubble have to be moved in order to find one diamond.

You may be interested in one man's experience ~



Or one man's analysis ~




Hope this helps

 

So what is the function of God/Goddess in this conception of things? If God neither creates nor oversees, isn't he/she a bit redundant?

 

Im not sure if this helps but im sure you must be thinking that some thing or some one is there and no im not saying i belive in God because its a explanation on how the universe began and so on, i have very mixed feelings about this subject but i do belive he/she is there, and no doubt that jesus existed but im just not sure he really did all these things it is very questionable, but i have seen miricals, well what i belive to be miricals(cant spell) i have seen some people be healed it could be purly from thought but i belive that God intervines when he needs to, for example i have seen a guy i know get healed from a compleatly busted ligiment in his knee and the doctor said it could not be fixed to easly, but every on prayed and he is pretty much healed, i belive this to be a mirical and now this guy does Youth work and because his knee is almost healed now he is doing a very good job of it. I belive that God does these things for a reason i mean every thing happens for a reason but yeah.......anyway i think that God only steps in when he/she has to because i think he lets us learn our self......


I dont know if this is a good opinion but it is my opinion so yeah.......i shall reply again after i have seen some more opinions.........

Peace Hairbear

 

I believe in God because I feel him. My spirit. My essence, if you will. God is the supernatural being of the universe...that's a description I heard once. I don't believe in most religion's, as they are only based on interpretations of people. Look inside yourself. You'll find God. Religion is man-made; Spirituality is God-given.

And, yes, I believe that God is the creator of all mankind.

 

umehim: While I don't want to try to insult you or bash you for believing in God (that would be pretty crappy of me), I would like to point out ... you know, sometimes, I kind of feel like I'm being watched, or like someone is following me. But that "supernatural" (if you will) feeling alone doesn't mean that someone actually IS following or watching me.

You know, when I was still a Christian (pre-16-year-old childhood), I saw a lot of funny things ... like how I was a poor kid who didn't have any money, who barely even had a minimum wage job, and yet ... our church was saying, "hey, we need money to keep being a church," and I was putting just as much money into the collection plate as anyone was. Only a few people contributed, and a lowly child like myself was giving more money than most people.

So, I saw a bunch of these hypocritical kinds of things, and I looked deep inside of myself, and I realized ... all the things that I used to call "God" were just parts of ME that I had covered up and didn't want to formally address and question before.

Ever since I started doing that, I've been a much more moral person. I've been kinder to strangers and friendlier to neighbours, even if they did things I didn't like. I've learned how to not hold a grudge, and I'm actually trying to make the world a better place now; living by simple quotes, like Ghandi's quote, "hate the sin and not the sinner." I found a repository of truth when I looked deep inside myself and questioned the cover-up.

So, perhaps God lies within you, but he doesn't seem to lie within me. He used to, but then I discovered that he was just a thing I made up so I could be secure in my actions, however immoral they might have been (not that I purposely did anything immoral).

I'm also a very spiritual person; I guess that is "God-given" in the sense that I discovered my spirituality when I looked inside myself and started to question "God."

 

Before I start, I think that there probably is not a God, but in philosophy "probably" doesn't cut it if you want to have knowledge. So, while there probably is no God, I, and I don't think anyone else, can claim that they have knowledge of the non-existence of God. First off, the theory of evolution doesn't disprove God's existence. In fact, it doesn't even come close. At best it just disproves the concept of God held by Christian fundamentalists, a conception that most people already know is false anyway. It is quoite possible that God created nature to work in accordance with the theory of evolution, or that the theory of evolution is inaccurate to begin with. Yes, it is probably right, but I just said that probability doesn't make knowledge, now didn't I? Furthermore, the theory of evolution is not a theory in the way that Einstein's theory of relativity is a theory. Einstein's theory has been verified with actual experiments. No experiment, at least not one I can think of, can verify the theory of evolution. Anthropology is a pseudo-science anyway.

Second, I don't see why the principle of sufficient reason, the fact that everything has a cause, has to be thrown out. It's a physical fact. To say that the universe "just appeared" is no more justified than saying God just appeared, but at least God, if He exists, is a being who could be capable of "just appearing" if He wanted to. So, the atheist is as in just as big a pickle as the theist. It makes the most sense to me to say that all the matter in the universe just always existed, but that runs into a whole new set of problems itself and, in any case, does not constitute knowledge.

 

Well I read this.. and only a few, had said something. First to the people claiming the non-existence og God, I do not belive in God either.. so please don't try to convince me. What I intend with this thread is for people to explain the existence of God, with reasons and arguments. My purpose is to understand what you believe in, and that is not something I just believe in without asking.

 

Here is one thing about God: God want's you to see God's hand in things. If you constantly look to people for answers about God you are looking for answers that people offer you instead of God. Ask God to explain God and God will. God knows all of your thoughts (God made them) and when you have reached sufficient understanding you will be taught about God's existence.

People can tell you their experiences of God, but only God makes your own experience of God. Just like everything else in life, if you are not attracted to knowledge of God at this point in time, it is because you have not been created to be attracted to knowledge of God at this point in time. You could be interested in atomic structures, molecules, sex, drugs, rock & roll, beer, cigarettes, BBQ's, springtime, hot chicks, video games, tv shows, etc.- and God made it to teach you about God, so it is good for you to be attracted to whatever you are attracted to. Eventually you will see the hand behind the scenes, directing your life in a good direction. You cannot see God's hand without God calling your attention to God's actions.

Right now you could be standing in the middle of a forest and not know it because there are too many trees around you for you to see the forest. This doesn't mean the trees are bad, it just means that you are learning about the parts instead of the whole.

 

Logic error: You say "at least God ... is a being who could be capable of "just appearing" if He wanted to," however ... before God appears, he is just as much "nothing" as any of us are before we come to exist. "Nothing" just doesn't have the ability to become "something," unless it's a different kind of nothing (which means that it is SOMETHING, and that it exists to begin with).

My apologies for not seeing your reply, will answer the question now.

It's not a question of the function of God/numen with panentheism. "God" IS the universe with panentheism. That is, even if God does nothing BUT exist, then it is still vital, because without God, we can't exist ourselves. God doesn't have to create or oversee to be important, simply because from a panentheist view, the important thing is that God IS, and not what God DOES. Also, I'm renaming God as Gaia, because I don't like the misconceptions associated with God anymore. =P

If God wants me to see His hand in things, why don't I? I've tried before. And I don't mean I half-assed it either, I used to be a devout Christian. I've asked God (or tried to ask him at least; he probably wasn't listening) to explain himself, but I never got an answer. And hey ... I thought I made my thoughts, and not God?

If God is making my thoughts, then I'm not in control of my life, he is, and He's DELIBERATELY making this circular. What a Jew! (lol my personal apologies to anyone offended by that statement; it's meant to be ironic, and I'd sooner support a Jew than slight one down)

Then why am I supposed to be sent to an eternal damnation in Hell for being a non-believer? After all, God made me do it! *points finger accusingly*

Plus, if I am attracted to atheism (or any creed that is non-God, basically) ... can that really be considered "good" if I'm attracted to what God says I shouldn't be attracted to?

I think it was best said by someone a while ago ... I believe the quote went like this: "When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself!"

 

What I do (as best I can) is maintain a viewpoint from outside of paradigm. This can be difficult given that they're invisible/untouchable and to many people, unknowable. So I seek (as best I can) to not view through the perceptions and paradigms of society, religioun, politics etc.
Doing this has weird effects upon the "God" perception. So instead of "God" being something described in a book or by people in light of their affiliations, "God" has become an intimate animate aspect of self that is at once a part of, and apart from, the life experience (with it's multitude expressions).
Given the various indoctrinations about "God", it can be difficult. The (once) authority of the bible OT is questionable because the "God" therein is described very much like one would imagine a "Darth Vader" type of alien to be. The likes of Von Daniken and Zacharia Sitchin make case for such in their books. Even the bible is in accordance with this view, as Sitchin for one examines from the context of biblical genesis correlated with Mesopotamian clay tablets which complete a quite vivid pictorial of Gods (Gods plural as stated biblically) walking the earth and doing this that and the other, including copulating with earth women (something christendom appears to be in denial of). And if this or something similar be the case, then the entire concept of "God" may come from an alien perspective which has become paradignmatically restrictive to an open-minded appreciation or investigation.

That being said, what I have come to feel is that there is a Divine Creative Force that pervades all of reality. It is like the components and sweetness that make up an orange from an orange's perspective, only on a universal scale as far as reality is. Does an orange know that it is orange and sweet?
This Creative Force follows contours of flow that are integrally incorporated in reality. Maybe governed by polarity, maybe by gravity (physical or emotional) or maybe by command.
At any time this flow can be contacted, metaphorically like digging a ditch that links with a canal so that water can enter fields (fields which may be perceptual or actual). By connecting with the flow of the force, enrichment occurrs. By disconnecting, poverty. By benign acceptanc, arbitrary events may occurr ~ sometimes the "levy" migh break, other times it stays strong.
In terms of human interaction with The Force, we do this via consciousness. There is no difference between thought, imagination, or prayer. They are all made of the same "stuff." And I feel that this "stuff" that makes up thought is the same "stuff" that makes up consciousness, the unification of which avails us the opportunity to direct it toward whatever goal it is we seek. This is the metaphorical "digging of the ditch to the canal" (where direction is intention).
Using this analogy, random thought produces random results, and concentrated thought produces concentrated results. No thought of course produces no results. So that whatever the force of mind is applied to, so it shall appear in reality. All of which is encapsulated in the wonderful saying "ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find, knock and it will be opened unto you....." which is a synopsis of my understanding.
And while it may not be "God' in the conventional sense, I really feel that it is "God" in the actual sense, the way it was meant to be used and understood rather than the way it has been distrorted. The only thing that stands in the way of connecting with The Force is preconception ~ paradigms ~ that forbid acceptance or utilization of it or lock away the truth of it.

 

For me beleiving reaffirms whats right and whats wrong in life, certainly laws made by man do not.

 

Not necessarily, because God would be the start of everything; nothingness can't have a start. And philosophers from Spinoza to Hegel have argued that God is cause sui, that is the cause of itself. Personally, I think that's a bit convenient. But it makes sense because we're dealing being who could, potentially, do anything and so doesn't have to follow the rules of logic - also convenient. The fact is, no statement about God can be verified; conversely, no statement about God can be falsified, either. So, bottom line, theology is just outside the realm of philosophy and is certainly nothing that can remotely be called a science. On the other hand, I think that some theologies are better than others; the theologies that involve God less in the happenings of day-to-day life are usually the better ones. Trial by ordeal doesn't seem to be a good principle of government to me. But that's really just an ethical statement and has nothing to do with whether God actually exists or not. Like I've said, I'm on your side. God probably does not exist. But no one can tell me that they know with absolute certainty that God does not exist.

 

Good reply! Let me step through it ...

Nothingness starts where something ends.

The human mind is logical, and cannot correctly comprehend something that is illogical. For example ... you may be able to *accept* a statement I make, like "2 plus 3 is equal to 100," but that doesn't mean you understand it (because it's illogical, it simply cannot be understood).

So if we are talking about something that defies all logic (even if it's a different logic than what we have in the universe), then ... what is the point to even trying to understand ANYTHING about God? That answer does seem far too convenient.

Yeah ... I have no problem with someone who believes in God, even if they're a fundamentalist, as long as they challenge their faith to be absolutely positive that they're believing the right thing, and that it's based on what THEY think is true, not what a couple of guys scribbled down on some papyrus 2 millennia ago.