God - Who or what is he/she/it?

[Mercury]

I'm always curious to see how people picture what "God" is ...

Is God an entity that we could understand or is God something that no mortal Human would EVER be able to even begin to understand?

Do you even believe that there is a higher power?

Does a certain religion have it right over the others?

So what do you think? What is "God?"

 

[HK]

I'm going to have to go with other - I don't think, even if there is something like a God out there, that we're even close to being able to comprehend it.

 

[Mercury]

I'm going to have to go with other - I don't think, even if there is something like a God out there, that we're even close to being able to comprehend it.

Crap ... I meant for it to say "God is something mortal humans will NEVER understand fully."

Darrell!?!??!? LMAO!

 

[HK]

Oh lmao I wondered

 

[Leananshee]

Dr. Jeff Schwartz's experiments with OCD patients suggest that there is a will above and beyond the wiring, people can actually rewire their own brains through guided self-directed therapy, that can be measured (the rewiring part, that is, not the will per se). It makes me wonder whether will is a force like electromagnetism, strong and weak forces? Of course I am speculating, but what I think of as God is more like a greater will, in part comprised of the will of all life, that cycles with the other cycles of the universe. Not something to be prayed to or worshiped, not something that metes out benefit and punishment, more like something to be tuned into or not. If you tune into it you're more likely to feel as part of the whole and not an island, more likely to treat others as you would wish to be. If you separate yourself from it, well, that's the literal meaning of sin - separate or without.

 

[Mercury]

Dr. Jeff Schwartz's experiments with OCD patients suggest that there is a will above and beyond the wiring, people can actually rewire their own brains through guided self-directed therapy, that can be measured (the rewiring part, that is, not the will per se). It makes me wonder whether will is a force like electromagnetism, strong and weak forces? Of course I am speculating, but what I think of as God is more like a greater will, in part comprised of the will of all life, that cycles with the other cycles of the universe. Not something to be prayed to or worshiped, not something that metes out benefit and punishment, more like something to be tuned into or not. If you tune into it you're more likely to feel as part of the whole and not an island, more likely to treat others as you would wish to be. If you separate yourself from it, well, that's the literal meaning of sin - separate or without.

Wonderful post! :thumbup

 

[Darrell]

I fixed your poll, Freddy.

 

[Mercury]

I fixed your poll, Freddy.

YAY! Thanks!

 

[Johnfromokc]

You need a "Who the fuck knows?" selection.

 

[Mercury]

You need a "Who the fuck knows?" selection.

LMAO! True

 

[Mercury]

I too have always considered "God" as an "energy of sorts" that we Humans could never fully understand. I think that we have good insights from time to time which can be observed in every religion and belief structures.

I have always been amazed by the sheer audacity of those who believe they have "God" completely figured out. How could we have any clue as to what "God" "wishes", "thinks", "acts" and the like? We are talking about something that created the entire universe, something that has always existed and always will ... we can't even wrap our mind around the concept of "infinity" alone.

 

[HK]

I find both ends of the spectrum baffling, the idea that we can completely know a God, and that we can completely dismiss the idea of one.

 

[TenaciousDave]

You need a "Who the fuck knows?" selection.

^This

 

[Panacea]

I think god is a social construct alone. If we could one day define the first force of life, I feel it would like not be anything similar to the human/ghost god we know.

 

[Mercury]

I find both ends of the spectrum baffling, the idea that we can completely know a God, and that we can completely dismiss the idea of one.

My thoughts exactly!

 

[Mercury]

I think god is a social construct alone. If we could one day define the first force of life, I feel it would like not be anything similar to the human/ghost god we know.

A very good post! "the first force of life" ... it is that phenomenon which is so clouded in mystery.

 

[Leananshee]

Never much believed in an anthropomorphic god, or thought of a holy "ghost" as literally that. Nor have I been too keen on using the word "mystery" with divine concepts, sounds too foo-foo glamour and glitter Twilight-y to me.

Acupuncture is an example I like to use a lot. It used to be thought of as valid in the West as voodoo, yet now it's used to anesthetize patients who can't be put under conventionally. But if you think of the nervous system as an electromagnetic system, and tapping nodes with needles altering that, different combinations will produce different effects. The "aura" (wooooo.... a Shoshone friend of mine referred to many hippies as "woo-woos" - point a crystal at 'em and watch 'em go "wooooo") is just the body's EM field. My point? What once was some mysterious "woo-woo"-y thing isn't.

Translate that to God. There are still countless people out there who think there's this transactional God who blesses and punishes us, and we better belong to the right club for interpreting what it wants. We attribute everything we don't know or think is really great or dismally unfair in our sight to it. We use it to justify our social constructs, to be sure. And there are those who, knowing that, reject divine notion entirely. Can't say I blame 'em.

But for me, all I can do is go by what I experience and try to take the "woo-woo" out of it. I feel no compulsion to join the "we're not worthy" club, sing hails and hosannas or try to be "one with the earth mother". I do, on the other hand, feel a connection with things and people around me, and with people I'm close to even at a distance. My grandmother knew immediately when my mother passed on, as did I when she did, from across a continent. I'm sure I'll be long gone before there's some explanation for that. I'm just going to experience what I can with the BS meters on full when someone else tries to "explain" it.

 

[HK]

I like the idea that perhaps we are linked to the people close to us in some way, not in a mystical sense but something to do with EM fields. Maybe you get attuned to the people you care about, or those you spend all your time around like close family, making it possible to sense when their particular energy changes or dissipates.


And like you say Leananshee, treatments like acupuncture are gaining credibility. I find the idea of your own energy field being something you can alter fascinating. It's a far more realistic explanation for some of the 'weird' things that go on in the world than religion has ever come up with.


In the case of ghosts and so on... maybe people really can sense things like leftover energy. Nothing disappears after all, maybe what people think they're feeling or seeing is just like an afterimage that a person leaves behind. Hell, if we're all connected to others by our energy fields then maybe mediums work by picking up the leftover connection our loved ones carry around with them for a time afterwards.

 

[Mercury]

Well said Leananshee and HK!

It is amazing how one can sometimes "sense" things as if though connected in some manner.

 

[Francis]

But for me, all I can do is go by what I experience and try to take the "woo-woo" out of it. I feel no compulsion to join the "we're not worthy" club, sing hails and hosannas or try to be "one with the earth mother". I do, on the other hand, feel a connection with things and people around me, and with people I'm close to even at a distance. My grandmother knew immediately when my mother passed on, as did I when she did, from across a continent. I'm sure I'll be long gone before there's some explanation for that. I'm just going to experience what I can with the BS meters on full when someone else tries to "explain" it.

Thanks.. This is the part that gets me.. You see I believe in God and Science but neither can explain nor accept this..

I have said many times I don't believe in religion because to me religion today is more about money, converting more people for more and more money, than it is about history and facts.. I really don't think it ever changed but from what I see of it today it's only gotten worse. Religion is also man made and to me a man made tool is to control others..