What is "God"?

Dissident Heart · Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2004 5:04 pm Post subject: What is "God"?

Here are a few attempts at an answer:

1. God is the ultimate and non-negotiable priority in your life.

2. God is the bottom-line assertion used to tie all of the chaotic components of existence into a meaningful whole.

3. God is the power that heals, mends, and creates new life from death and decay.

4. God is the fundamental ground and source, primary meaning and purpose, ultimate value and goal of existence.

5. God is the incomprehensible, yet comprehensive, foundation and horizon of reality.

6. God is the ultimate authority, rule, director, guide, leader, teacher, support of one's life.

7. God is love.

8. God is a word used by different persons for multiple purposes and according to a wide variety of meanings and functions depending upon shifting contexts and settings.

Edited by: Dissident Heart at: 11/14/04 5:04 pm

Chris OConnor · Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 4:10 am Post subject: Re: What is "God"?

God is a mythological being that is said to have created the universe and everything in it. Different people assign different additional characteristics to this being, such as loving, good, and compassionate, but creator is pretty universal.

Chris

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." - Nelson Mandela

Mr. Pessimistic · Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 11:01 am Post subject: Re: What is "God"?

God was the creation of a scared and ill-informed early ancestor who needed something to explain that which was unexplainable. To assuage the fears, uncertainty and relatively short, brutal life of early mankind.

God is a means to feel good in an otherwise unfriendly life, but alas, due to the aggressive and exclusionary nature of human beings, it has been twisted into a force for conquest and a justification for atrocity.

God, simply, is a crutch...and does not exist...at least not in any way that our minds have imagined one to exist.

Mr. P.

The one thing of which I am positive is that there is much of which to be negative - Mr. P.

I came to get down, I came to get down. So get out ya seat and jump around - House of Pain

HEY! Is that a ball in your court? - Mr. P

I came to kick ass and chew Bubble Gum...and I am all out of Bubble Gum - They Live, Roddy Piper

Dissident Heart · Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 12:17 pm Post subject: Re: What is "God"?

9. God is that to which you sacrifice your time, labor, talents and treasures.

10. God is that mystery from which all things arise from, move within, and head towards.

11. God is that to which you ultimately submit your allegiences, obligations, and commitments.

12. God is the which from which there is no whicher.

13. God is the monstrous abyss out of which arises all pleasure and pain, creativity and destruction, love and terror, life and death.

14. God is the fundamental guarantor and absolute support for the value of persons and the meaning of reality as a whole.

Chris OConnor · Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 12:55 pm Post subject: Re: What is "God"?

Nick

Quote:
God, simply, is a crutch...and does not exist...at least not in any way that our minds have imagined one to exist.

Well said, Nick. I'm not denying the possibility of some sort of deity existing, but all of the Gods I've heard described or defined, by humans, have fallen short in the rational department.

Chris

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world." - Nelson Mandela

Dissident Heart · Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 9:24 pm Post subject: Crutches

Mr. P: God is simply a crutch, and since I am so healthy, strong and free of any ailments or disease, I have no need of such things.

Dissident: Are you saying that humanity has no need of crutches?

Mr. P.: Well, not exactly, just that they have no need of make believe solutions to real problems.

Dissident: Oh, so, then you don't mean 'crutch' you say crutch.

Mr. P.: No, I mean 'crutch' in the way that drunks or addicts think they need their next drink or hit to 'carry' them through difficult times. When they keep relying on their crutch, they never get to use their legs to walk...or, they never get to find real solutions to real problems.

Dissident: Well, having spent a great deal of time in hospitals and in recovery clinics, I've found that crutches, splints, walkers, wheelchairs, casts, canes, etc. are absolutely essential to recovery from injury. Actually, no self-respecting Doctor would allow a patient to leave his care without a crutch of some sort, depending upon the injury.

Mr. P: So, what's your point?

Dissident: Wouldn't you say that humanity is terribly injured in a thousand different ways? I mean, severely crippled in mind, body, cognition, health, politics, education, religion, science, art, culture, ethics, law...whatever....we are a botched and bungled and dangerous species- wouldn't you agree?

Mr. P.: Sure. Dangerous enough to destroy the entire planet.

Dissident: Wouldn't this require a variety of crutches, splints, wheelchairs, etc.?

Mr. P.: You are confusing your metaphors.

Dissident: No, I'm being very literal. Humanity is crippled in need of immediate care and recovery, thus requiring some form of crutch. But, I don't necessarily ascribe such a negative connotation to the term as you do. I keep it simply medical.

Mr. P.: No, humanity needs to stand up and face reality for what it is...not relying upon fantasy, make believe, and superstitious nonsense.

Dissident: True. You demand humanity all walk, run and dance as healthy and vibrant and sane beings...perhaps like yourself- one of the lucky ones?

Mr. P.: What do you mean?

Dissident: Since you seem to walk without a limp, are free of injury, and absent the disease and malady that infect and disturb so many of us mere mortals...you must be one of the lucky ones. The rest of us, uggh...we have to live with imperfect, broken, flawed, incomplete, often ignorant, and occasionally criminal humanity...all in need of a crutch to help us along. You, on the other hand, dance and skip and run right over our heads!

Mr. P.: This is nonsense. I've only said that God is a crutch that I don't need- nor does anyone.

Dissident: Have you any need for any crutch?

Interbane · Graduate Student Joined: 09 Oct 2004 Posts: 439 Gender:

Dissident: Wouldn't you say that humanity is terribly injured in a thousand different ways? I mean, severely crippled in mind, body, cognition, health, politics, education, religion, science, art, culture, ethics, law...whatever....we are a botched and bungled and dangerous species- wouldn't you agree?

I disagree with most of that. We are a dangerous species. Is a tiger botched and bungled? No, but it's certainly dangerous. Same with humans. Are we perfect? No, but that does not mean we are botched and bungled.

There's grounds to argue this from your worldview, but not from mine. It sounds odd, but that's just the way it is. You may call it relativity. For example, I believe in survival of the fittest and evolution. If that were the means to the end that is humanity, then we can be considered exceptional. We are the ultimate survivors.

The difference in worldviews is that my rating mechanism is evolution and survival of the fittest. Yours is the religion you believe in, which implies we were created. As we are, we've done great destruction to our planet. That is a logical sequitur to the idea that humanity is botched and bungled. Any contradiction you come up with is an expression of your worldview, which is incompatible with mine.

Sorry for butting in Mr. P, I enjoy debating with Dissident.

MadArchitect · Posted: Tue Nov 16, 2004 1:26 am Post subject: Re: Crutches

Chris Oconner: Different people assign different additional characteristics to this being, such as loving, good, and compassionate, but creator is pretty universal.

Only in monotheistic traditions. You could probably narrow that further to only Western monotheistic traditions. The Greeks, for instance, believed at certain points that Necessity created the world.

misterpessimistic: God was the creation of a scared and ill-informed early ancestor who needed something to explain that which was unexplainable. To assuage the fears, uncertainty and relatively short, brutal life of early mankind.

That's a pretty ill-conceived dismissal, given that early gods were often as brutal and fearful as anything else in the experience of early humanity.

God is a means to feel good in an otherwise unfriendly life, but alas, due to the aggressive and exclusionary nature of human beings, it has been twisted into a force for conquest and a justification for atrocity.

The fact that the aforementioned atrocities have, so far as history may serve as witness, almost always accompanied certain forms of religion suggests that the discrepency in your comment derives from the premise that God is a concept rooted in beneficience, not in any change in the nature of religion.

Well, not exactly, just that they have no need of make believe solutions to real problems.

The question is, which problems are addressed by the concept of God. You guys seem to have answers that you're well-satisfied with, and the necessary correlary to those answers is that everyone who believes that God solves those problems is deluded or irrational. I'd say that's an indication that your premise needs re-examining. It's entirely possible that the concept of God arose as a tactic for dealing with problems you haven't considered as part of the religious perview.

fpla83 · Almost a regular Joined: 01 May 2004 Posts: 40 Gender:

I think Mr. P just about nailed it. Well done.

Doc Tiessen · Intern Joined: 27 Sep 2004 Posts: 161 Gender:

MadArchitect:

Could you explain more about the Greeks? You have mentioned the concept of necessity and I would like to hear more about this topic.

Chris & Interbane:
I must really conclude that you love to discuss with Dissident about God.

Diversity is Good!


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