Who is “God” ?

Religion and Secularism
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It would be interesting to hear about other definitions for God. Obviously mine is an evolutionary perspective.

 

Who is “God,” but for a creation of our unique complex human minds?

Where did God come from?

From human curiosity and wonder. From puzzling over observations and contemplating questions. From love and hunger and fears in the night. From looking at the suddenly dead carcass of a loved one. From missing those who are gone. From buried memories of being coddled within mom’s loving protective bosom.

From our need for someone truly personal, who’s always there, never dying, ready to listen to your constant talk and wishes in complete confidence.

Think about it, our relationship with our God is the most intimate relationship of our lives and reflects our ego in every way.


Who is God from your perspective?

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Don’t you mean “what is god?”

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Don’t you mean “what is god?”
From my perspective, God is the stochastic quasi-intelligent mathematical essence of spacetime that orders the Universe and all events within it.
What is stochastic process mathematics?

A stochastic process is a collection of random variables used to model the evolution of a system over time. Unlike deterministic systems, stochastic processes involve an element of randomness or uncertainty.


https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/courses/1718S/MATH/MATH-365-1718S

In science a God creator is a superfluous concept, according to Occam’s Razor.

In psychology God has a different meaning and purpose.

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God is a creation of human mind.

I would say that many people need to know that one authority exists over them, a sort of super father figure who protects and punish.

My sister who is a traditionalist catholic told me once that to know that god exist reassures her, gives her a feeling of safety.

According Freud, to believe in god is a way to absolve ourselves from guilt…

I would add that god is a convenient explanation for events or phenomena which are beyond the scope of our minds.

A good exemple is Lisbon earthquake in 1755. the church of the time explained it as a punishment of god.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1755_Lisbon_earthquake

Now, the matter is that man creates god according his self image. Every one sees god according his needs, his prejudices and so.

 

 

 

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Or as Matt Dillahunty always challenged his callers, “Why is god a ‘who’?”

There are too many possible answers to CC’s question for a post, but one brief one I use often, “God is a placeholder”. At one time it held the answer to why the wind blew or the water flowed. Now there is not much left except “why are we here?” There’s a little more to it than “God of the gaps”, but gotta make dinner and go golfing. I’m sure the Lord’s name will be invoked.

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Or as Matt Dillahunty always challenged his callers, “Why is god a ‘who’?”

There are too many possible answers to CC’s question for a post, but one brief one I use often, “God is a placeholder”. At one time it held the answer to why the wind blew or the water flowed. Now there is not much left except “why are we here?” There’s a little more to it than “God of the gaps”, but gotta make dinner and go golfing. I’m sure the Lord’s name will be invoked.

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@ mriana, Don’t you mean “what is god?”
Doesn't make near a good a title. ;-)

Tomayto, Tomahto. ??

 

Actually now that I’m thinking about it, perhaps I should have asked,

Where does "God" come from? ?
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@morgankane01. I would add that god is a convenient explanation for events or phenomena which are beyond the scope of our minds. 1755 ...
One good story deserves another, don't need to go back that far in time or distance.

 

American Pentecost The story behind the Azusa Street revival, the most phenomenal event of twentieth-century Christianity. TED OLSEN

christianitytoday. com/history/issues/issue-58/american-pentecost. html

In the early morning of April 18, 1906, San Francisco residents were rudely awakened by the deadliest earthquake in North American history. A devastating fire, … Some 700 people lay dead among the decimated 514 city blocks.

Angry men and women blamed God and the unstable earth sitting atop the unpredictable San Andreas Fault. A gospel tract, rushed to the printer and widely circulated in the area, called the tragedy a judgment and a warning from the God some were cursing.

That same morning, 400 miles south, the world took notice of another movement—one with aftershocks still spreading today. In a skeptical front-page story titled “Weird Babel of Tongues,” a Los Angeles Times reporter attempted to describe what would soon be known as the Azusa Street Revival.

“Breathing strange utterances and mouthing a creed which it would seem no sane mortal could understand,” the story began, “the newest religious sect has started in Los Angeles.”


 

FIRE FROM HEAVEN The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century. By Harvey Cox. Illustrated. 346 pp. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company. $24.

ON April 14, 1906, four days before the San Francisco earthquake, a subtler but more enduring upheaval also began in California. A religious revival, led by the Rev. William J. Seymour, a son of former slaves, started in a rundown building on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. Services went on day after day, the mood growing increasingly enthusiastic, drawing hundreds, black and white, as word spread. Within a week, The Los Angeles Times told of a “weird babble” coming from the building.


Hallelujah, praise the lord of your choice !

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@citizenschallengev3 Maybe it doesn’t make near as good of a title but what it is is a human creation and it comes from the minds of humans.

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Did you mean, god is a creation and resident of our mindscape? ?

As opposed to physical reality.

If you know what I mean.

?

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Think about it, our relationship with our God is the most intimate relationship of our lives and reflects our ego in every way. -- CC
I was skimming emails and saw this again. I agree the question is worth asking. It's also easy to answer with, "well, what do you mean by "god" or "God"?

It’s always been weird to me that this supposedly super important thing to so many people is not polite conversation. I guess it’s because people take it personal if you don’t agree with their answer. I think it was Greta Christina who pointed out that this is unique to this question. I can not like vanilla ice cream and you’ll be fine with it, but, if I don’t like your god, I’ve just put down your entire worldview.

That comes from our tribal past, when culture was tied up with gods and they expressed your history, your moral fabric. I thought we were disentangling that when I was much younger, then I got busy with life, and now I can’t believe we’re still fighting over it. It’s probably the big one, the thing about death, and how your gods judge you at the end, trying to make right all the things that we can’t make right in our lives.

It seems like we could just get more comfortable with it, like, it’s okay if Ted Cruz says Jesus says we should not tax the rich, but if some other guy says Jesus or whoever says we SHOULD tax the rich, then move on. If they want to keep debating the theology on the floor of Congress fine, but I think most voters, even Christians, would get tired of that. Just state your values, claim your faith if you want, then get on with all the reasons for whatever the vote is you want. It’s all those reasons that sum up to make a belief system anyway, so all of them should be openly discussed.

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I can not like vanilla ice cream and you’ll be fine with it, but, if I don’t like your god, I’ve just put down your entire worldview.

Exactly! Even if you say that you see nature as all powerful and find awe and wonder in it, Xians accuse you of worshipping nature and some atheists get bent and start saying nature isn’t a god, when that’s not exactly what you said. Never once is the word “god/God” used in such a statement, but some people from all ilks get bent. It makes no sense, for people to get bent when what gives one person numinous feelings and not another to get bent because it’s different for different people. What gives one feelings of awe and wonder, as well as how they label it or don’t label is the #1 thing that is personal due to how people react. Next to that are political views.

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A zen koan: “What is it that makes the flag sway about?” Your mind. We learned at some point in evolution to form causal relationships between things, and we used language and art to communicate the concepts. If one were to learn to still their mind (meditation technique), all causal thinking and conceptualization stops.

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So they tell us.

Have you ever tried it Foghorn.

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It seems to me Koans are more about us and our outlook on the world. They promise no resolution, only ways to think about things.

... The understanding of a koan includes individual experience, but it’s also held in the collective. That’s the public nature of the “public case.” In working with koans, we strive to find our own expression of that collective understanding that has come down to us through the centuries. When we experience the gap before vast empires of thought and feeling arise in reaction to a moment, that too is the field of the koan, which includes but isn’t limited to our individual selves.

What’s so astonishing and beautiful about koans is that they aren’t intended to describe something to us or even teach us something but to invite us to take them into our lives so that we can experience the same state of consciousness as the characters in the story. …

https: // www. lionsroar. com/how-we-work-with-koans-and-how-they-work-on-us/


I can think of a wonderful example, though it’s not in “koan” form, it’s just a mom talking to her toddler, who’s having vast thoughts.

 

Toddler: "What is god?"

Son: “A speck of dust that wanted to be more.”


There are no answers anywhere in there. But there is a world worth of ‘meditative’ value and dare I say some clarity within musing on those thoughts, as life flows by.

 

That bring us back t0 meditation. Meditation is a wonderful thing for personal mental health. But, when I hear stuff like:

If one were to learn to still their mind (meditation technique), all causal thinking and conceptualization stops.
I wonder, what does that get you?

Have you ever experienced it?

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When I lived where I had lots of choices, spiritually, I went to a Zen meditation. Nice crowd, a little younger than my then 30ish self. At the end, the teacher did a koan about two Buddhists walking along and one said, “The answer to everything is right here” and patted the ground, the other said, “Yes, isn’t that sad.” Maybe not exact quotes there. A couple people didn’t like it and kind of argued and the guy just sort of repeated it as if it saying it slower would make it easier to understand. Then they all went out for ice cream.

To me, it says, the answers, the meaning, are always right there in front of us. It’s why the Buddha tapped the ground after sitting under the Bodhi tree for however many days that was. The sad part is, you can only grasp that for an instant, then you start trying to understand, then you start trying to figure out what to do about it. You can’t. The best I’ve managed to do is find one thing to make a passion, and find others who have that passion. It has to be something of value, which will mean it’s linked with everything else.

If you choose human rights, you can’t do that without environmental issues and inner city issues being included. Even if you choose getting rich, you can’t do that without getting a lot of people in on your plan.

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What gives one feelings of awe and wonder, as well as how they label it or don’t label is the #1 thing that is personal due to how people react. -- Mriana
When I was googling "proof of God" a decade ago, several of them just say, "look at the trees and all this creation, of course there is God."

And I kept noticing, people are amazed by the same things I am, touched by it, but then they tack on “God” in some form or another. Then they refuse to discuss the thing that both of us can see and experience, instead, they want to argue about their supposed reason for it existing, then they want to judge me for wanting to argue about that, then they want to talk about shoes or baseball or something.

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When I lived where I had lots of choices, spiritually, I went to a Zen meditation.

I went for the Tao online community with Derek Lin and would still attend their Tao study on Sunday mornings if I didn’t have to work that day. I found the Tao very fascinating, still do, but I don’t take it to heart like true Taoists do. There are some nice sayings in it though and it is atheistic in some respects, as well as very nature oriented. I do keep in mind that the Tao/path/etc that can be described is not the Tao/path/etc at all. Any deity that can be described, is likewise not a god at all, but rather just a human concept. That very first saying of the Tao is, IMO, worth hanging onto for it is a good reminder that when it comes to religion, all there is are human concepts and not at all what it really is. Which sort of leads us into some Buddhist concepts too- like the snake/rope scenario. Things aren’t always as they appear to be.

When I was googling “proof of God” a decade ago, several of them just say, “look at the trees and all this creation, of course there is God.”

No, that’s might be one’s concept of a deity, but nature is not a god, despite her powerful force and those who say such things, omit the science behind how the earth etc was formed.

And I kept noticing, people are amazed by the same things I am, touched by it, but then they tack on “God” in some form or another. Then they refuse to discuss the thing that both of us can see and experience, instead, they want to argue about their supposed reason for it existing, then they want to judge me for wanting to argue about that, then they want to talk about shoes or baseball or something.

Pretty much. They have the same awe and wonder, but attempt to put a humanoid entity behind it and if you attempt to explain the science, they attempt to shut you down. I get the same problem. Sadly, they have all this awe and wonder with nature, but they have no respect for her/it/whatever and then when something like a pandemic comes about, they reject the scientific nature of the virus that is now in nature, attempting to kill us, because we were too stupid in caring for the earth. No respect at all for the earth, nature, climate change, other animals… then when nature attempts to kill us all, they still have no respect, because… “My God’s bigger than your god and my God will protect me from a stupid virus, so I don’t need no stickin’ mask, but yet I needs this 'ere gun to protect me and mines.” while they are jumping you for wearing a mask to protect yourself and others. rolling eyes No respect for anything or anyone. Now if their concept of deity is real and they don’t need a mask for protection, why do they need a gun for protection? Whereas, if one respects science, respects nature, and follows the current information science has for us to follow, then there isn’t a contradiction… although, this repeal of mask mandates is a bit disturbing to me, despite being fully vaccinated. Let me get use to not social distancing before I ditch my mask and become fully confident in the vaccine with has about 95% efficacy. You know, maybe the mask with a PM 2.5 filter makes up for the 5%. If it doesn’t, well… it just makes me feel better while I adjust to being fully vaccinated and see what happens when both vaccinated people and stupid people ditch their masks. Stupid people who refuse to wear a mask might receive the Darwin Award, while vaccinated people will be susceptible to stupid people’s COVID virus and may or may not get a mild case of COVID, unless they are immunocompromised, then they could end up in the hospital. It’s a wait and see if the science is right. Those who are vaccinated and trust the science enough to ditch the mask, good for them. Those not vaccinated and are too stupid to be vaccinated and/or wear a mask, I hope they don’t get sick and die. Those of us who are vaccinated and choose to wait before ditching our masks, that’s fine too or should be. I just know there are stupid people out there who will harass mask wearers- vaccinated or not.

Before I go too off on a tangent about masks, nature, and pandemic… my point is, the mask issue, IMO is a good example of those who respect science, other humans, and nature or not. No mask = no respect at all and mask = respect. That’s how I see it. Please no one eat roadkill or we may be doing this all over again with some other pandemic. A Chinese bat and then U.S. roadkill. If only humans could stop encroaching on nature and eating other animals, maybe we could avoid the next pandemic, but there’s always humans who are daring enough to eat anything that doesn’t eat them first. sigh. No respect. I’m talking respect, not reverence, but they could almost be one in the same.

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Regarding #344202

Wow, watching the decline. The weird transpositions between thought and fingers, words getting typed, or for that matter read, I swear I typed and saw “Mom”. It gets ever more curiouser curiouser watching the posted paragraphs and what shows up in leu of what I think I typed. Fortunately, it’s smallish stuff, grammatical details, but getting worse not better. The constant distractions are part of it, but that’s a constant, this is increasing. Weird thing is, it’s okay, not enough of a future out there to have me worrying about it. I had my time and it was good. That’s not true inside, my body won’t allow me get too lazy, so I do what I can, just keep on, keeping on. But, the spirit, the soul, the young hope and passion and promise in humanity and the world has been evaporated. Think about it, there’s not one natural Earth Sciences topic, that can be discussed without reference to the destruction man is inflicting. Those cascading destructive consequences. {I think of the horror Attenborough must live with, having gotten to know our natural world so intimately a half century ago and visiting those places now. Every spectacular nook and cranny on this spectacular Earth is a shadow of what it was just a few decades back, let alone a few centuries back.

What “future hope” people do create for themselves seems all based on the same “more consumption, more disregard for others", game plan that the Age of Expansion set up for history. How do we deal with all that? I do it by accepting the fatalism and fact that I have but one life to live and it’s nearing its end. Blessed in memories of a sweeter more promising world and a life well lived. Today I’m fortunate enough to live offsides of the reality in a way most others aren’t. But I still feel it and know it’ll reach our little corner. All my people around here believe in the future with wonderful plans, and wonderful day to days, believing we will figure it out and be okay and the future is bright beyond the current gloom. I don’t argue, I’m good with the dream, I sure as hell hope I’m the one that’s wrong and they are correct. It would be wonderful.

 

Okay back to the God thing. I believe Gods are very real.

I believe that many people need something bigger, something eternal, absolutely reliable in their lives. Something that knows the answers to all. That’s why they reached for Gods, each tailored to their own needs and understanding of their own human condition. Gods are valid, gods are real.

Even today as science reveals ever more layers upon layers of constructive biological complexity, it can easily overwhelm our limited minds, and for many God is needed for some sort of resolution to how all this complexity could possibly function without a something behind it, or one’s mind would blow up.

And indeed, there is a something behind it, but nothing that does us here on Earth any good, so we need to dream up our own gods which we do with alacrity.

The thing we need to get a grip with is that they are characters of our Mindscape, the mental realm. Respecting the physical material world we live within and the fact of Earth’s Evolution and biosphere, and the rules all that exists by.

This brings me full circle to what started this ramble that went beyond my expectation. Now I don’t have time to comment on all the cool stuff that followed that post. I beg your indulgence. ?

Allow the belated correction, since I can’t edit the original.

Toddler: “What is god?”

Mother: “A speck of dust that wanted to be more.”

#344202

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That’s why they reached for Gods, each tailored to their own needs and understanding of their own human condition. Gods are valid, gods are real. -- CC
Can't do this justice right now, but hopefully I won't lose the thread. A debate going on now is, did humans construct gods to help handle some societal problems and that was a mistake, a necessary evil to get us past the brutal tribalism, OR, is our thinking about nature and origins and the source our thoughts part of our evolution, and we are taking part in that evolution with our abilities to reflect on our own mortality and likewise our survival? I'm leaning toward the evolution of our thoughts currently, but I don't really know, and the cool thing, no one really knows.