God In a Few Words or More

reply to post by MaryStillToe

Originally posted by MaryStillToe
It seems to be a bit of double talk that alludes that any written account of a "God" or a creator figure that ever existed is the creative work of an author and should be treated similar to the imagined characters and places in Tolkien's works. Or in other words, God simply can't exist because the very idea of "God" comes from words and doctrines, which can't be relied upon as factual in the first place, is that correct?

I don't know why you think it's double talk... It sounds to me like you understand completely what the OP is saying. At least that's how I understand it.

Man (the author) imagined God and then created faith in His existence.
Tolkien (the author) imagined Orc and we could create faith in their existence as well.

The faith people have in a God has nothing to do with OUR existence. Our existence is clear, when compared to the words on a page. We exist. But the biblical God?? Well, I have as much faith that Orcs exist. Because both concepts come from the imaginations of men.

I don't mean to twist your words, Les Mis. I hope I didn't. Great post.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
reply to post by MaryStillToe

 

Originally posted by MaryStillToe
It seems to be a bit of double talk that alludes that any written account of a "God" or a creator figure that ever existed is the creative work of an author and should be treated similar to the imagined characters and places in Tolkien's works. Or in other words, God simply can't exist because the very idea of "God" comes from words and doctrines, which can't be relied upon as factual in the first place, is that correct?

I don't know why you think it's double talk... It sounds to me like you understand completely what the OP is saying. At least that's how I understand it.

Man (the author) imagined God and then created faith in His existence.
Tolkien (the author) imagined Orc and we could create faith in their existence as well.

The faith people have in a God has nothing to do with OUR existence. Our existence is clear, when compared to the words on a page. We exist. But the biblical God?? Well, I have as much faith that Orcs exist. Because both concepts come from the imaginations of men.

I don't mean to twist your words, Les Mis. I hope I didn't. Great post.

How can you appear to exist without God?
The problem is that the bible will not make sense until the word 'God' stops being a concept. Until non conceptual reality is seen and the world is understood to be just a concept then you will be lost.

Anyone can "prove" the existence of God if they are fully free to redefine what God is. That's no accomplishment. God is either a divine, fully functional and personalitied individual who created everything, or God is the collective sentience that exists literally everywhere where there is sentience. God can't be both - unless (of course) THAT'S your definition of God. The bitch about the God debate is that the most clever of those within the debate purposely remain vague and ready to shift their definitions to do whatever it takes to allow God to exist. And all within an amorphous cloud of poetic language that amounts to not much more than intellectual disingenuousness.

Anything that requires that much dedicated effort from that many devoted people to survive doesn't deserve to.

Once found it is discovered that no word will ever convey it.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
How can you appear to exist without God?

I do exist. How? No one really knows. But I'm not going to make something up just to have an explanation to hold onto. I'm not going to say, "I exist and the only explanation is that a 'greater being' of some kind that we can't see, hear, touch, taste, smell or experience in ANY way, MUST have created me a long time ago."

I think that's what the originators of the God Story told themselves. They thought... "Hmmm... where did I come from? Why am I here? What will happen when I die"? And they constructed an elaborate tale (much like LOTR) to explain the answers to those questions. Today, however, we are finding more and more about the answers to those questions. Someday, we will probably know, but not now.

The problem is that the bible will not make sense until the word 'God' stops being a concept.

Exactly. When God shows me that he is NOT just the product of the imagination of man, then it will stop being just a concept. I don't expect that to happen any more than I expect to learn that Orcs are real.

Until non conceptual reality is seen and the world is understood to be just a concept then you will be lost.

I am not lost. But thanks.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
How can you appear to exist without God?

I do exist. How? No one really knows. But I'm not going to make something up just to have an explanation to hold onto. I'm not going to say, "I exist and the only explanation is that a 'greater being' of some kind that we can't see, hear, touch, taste, smell or experience in ANY way, MUST have created me a long time ago."

Instead of making anything up or listening to opinions about it, look directly at reality.
You know you exist but as what? Forget what the bible says because it is just concepts until what is real is uncovered.
What is real? To me the bible is pointing to reality but it is so hard to see what is real that it is also hard to point. It is prior to any idea or concept - it is what is there prior to any abstraction. It is staying totally with what is here and now. Only here and now can be verified as true but what does it consist of?

reply to post by Itisnowagain

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
You know you exist but as what?

I don't really know. And I don't feel a need to know. That goes for all your questions. For now, I am, and that's about all I need.

Originally posted by spy66

Originally posted by Itisnowagain

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope


But to make myself more clear, it involves a faith in the very words and propositions that state that here first is a God, and not faith in God as such, or as something we have experienced outside of the language that describes to us what God is. This assumption is based on your metaphysics, the whole promise of "God exists", and is a matter of taste or indoctrination, and not the fact of the matter, nor something you creatively contrived. This faith in a God, derived only from scripture or priestly rhetoric, is at best and in truth, faith not in God, but only in the language and words he exists within.

God exists by not existing. Until you find nothingness you will be full of ideas and have only an idea about what the word 'God' means.

edit on 1-6-2013 by Itisnowagain because: (no reason given)

God exists by not existing?

God must exist if God exists. God can not be not existing and existing at the same time.

If god is infinite and has always been, then he both exists and not exists. To be everything, he has to be nothing at some point. Or there is a limit to his being. A limited god?

An unlimited god, would encompass all reality, all possibilities, for he would be the creator or it all.

And if he does not not exist, then he cannot exist.

And if he exists while not being infinite, then is he really the god you should be worshipping?

I can throw seeds into a garden and then build a patio on the seedlings. I do not expect the seedlings to worship me for creating their ability to live... any more than they should thank me for removing it.

God is simply put, a mans inability to understand reality. Nothing more. And despite how all encompassing believers would have it, there are some people on this planet who have never even heard of god... let alone believe in some supreme infinite being.

To some people, time simply is a measure of one thing to the next. And god has no place in causing them to act differently to events within their now, then or later.

Every single day I become more and more astonished that with our ability to think and reason, we still require an invisible creator to answer things we dare not question... it's mind boggling.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
You know you exist but as what?

I don't really know. And I don't feel a need to know. That goes for all your questions. For now, I am, and that's about all I need.

If you do not know what you are then how can you be sure of anything? If you were a pair of scales (and did not realize you were a pair of scales) and you were trying to measure the length of a piece of wood...........................well, you can see the dilemma - the figuring out would be wrong from the start. The answer would be something like 'the length of this piece of wood is 1kg'.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
If you do not know what you are then how can you be sure of anything?

To be honest, I really cannot be sure of anything. All I can "know" is what I perceive. That's the best I can do. What I experience with my senses is all I have to go on.

I THINK I know what I am as far as being a living organism on a planet in the solar system... but for all I really know, I could wake up tomorrow with my reality completely changed. My experience tells me that is unlikely, but I do believe in possibilities.

It is also unlikely, from my experience, that I am a pair of scales.

If this idea is to be taken to its fullest, then no one believes in God, everyone of faith merely believes in the concept of a God that they were indoctrinated with either by family, friends, or outside influences.

reply to post by MichaelPMaccabee

Originally posted by MichaelPMaccabee
If this idea is to be taken to its fullest, then no one believes in God, everyone of faith merely believes in the concept of a God that they were indoctrinated with either by family, friends, or outside influences.

I tried to think of a succinct way to put it, but that's much better than what I came up with.

However, to me, it's like aliens, angels, fairies or psychics... Do you believe in them? Whether or not we believe has no bearing on whether the object of our belief is "real" or not. Some of these might be "real" some might not, but there are people who believe that all of them are "real" and others who don't.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


Superbly written. A few years ago, I struggled with this same line of reasoning. Word, it seems, is at the heart of all the world around us. We know this is true. Take a look at the acorn. Does the acorn have a 75 foot oak tree enfolded into it, occupying the story of the future oak tree? Of course. Does the oak tree impress its story into the acorns it drops on the ground as seeds for the future forest? Do the eggs in the nests hatch the impression of words written in the yolk? Indeed, the future nests of countless oak trees will bear witness to the FACT that we CAN see God's word all around it. If this word were not expressed into reality, we would be able to say, "This darkness around us bears no evidence of God." Since light has shined in a dark place, God's manefest glory is all around us. Not only HIS glory all around us, but his WORD as EVIDENT. Why is His word evident?

The Orc was not a manefest reality until the mind of one man conceived the code rendering the form. When that word is then engaged on a screen of 2D pixels, I know the Orc as that image on the screen. Even the word itself (ORC) conveys a host of previous images and mental impressions connected with the story. When I view the acorn or oak tree, what am I seeing? Instead of 2D pixels, I am collapsing the wave function of 3D particles. In human language, these particles are Voxels (3D pixels with information wrapped 360 degrees). Light is the mechanism for this Word (information) to render what is collapsed from probability.

Did Genesis 1:27 state that we are INSIDE an image and THE image of God? Look in a mirror, do see you or your image? What does that tell you about where you are now inside an image? Did Genesis 1:1-3 show us Time (Beginning), Space (Heavens), Matter (Earth) and Energy / Word / Wave (Light). Fiat Lux! God is evident.

Two related threads: Voxels

We are the Shadows We Cast

There are two reasons we can know God as evident.

1) Since we are the shadows we cast, the image of God is evident. You cannot have an image without a mirror (Something to reflect the original).

1 Corinthians 13

12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Where can you hide from the truth of the Bible? Nowhere. God is the architect of all forms. No other book renders the same image of reality. This is the enigma of all enigmas.

2) When considering the Word and the forms it takes, name any form you created? For instance, you think and move only. Apart from thoughts and movements, do you do anything to create the changing forms you occupy? NO!!!! NOOOOOOOOO! You only move and think. You can take NO credit for any of the forms around you. Other than the states of matter that you change with though, you cannot claim the fact that your hair grows, the Earth turns or your eyes view light.

Speaking of light. Do you see light? No. You see what light reveals and those forms were rendered with a word you did not write. What words were written by God that are revealed by the light of John 1? ALL OF THEM!

Romans 1

19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

We can reason the words away from the Bible all we want, but if the book in question holds the highest axiom from the beginning, then truth is exactly what that word speaks. Truth in Hebrew is Aleph (Beginning) Mem (Water) and Tav (End / Two crossed sticks). What are the odds that this word is still valid today? What are the odds that two crossed sticks ends the story (The Cross) and Aleph (Strength / OX) begins the story? With two pictographs from ancient Hebrew, we get Aleph (OX) and Bet (Tent Opening). What is the WORD we get? Father and father is the strength of the house.

Also, see my thread on ancient Hebrew and Word / World (Two words that render our reality). WORD WORLD in Hebrew...

Between you brilliant OP and this post, how could anyone doubt God's existence. Two sides of a mirror reveal the hop we have. It is a valid and evident hope.

1 Corinthians 13

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The highest axiom of the all.

Originally posted by MaryStillToe
reply to post by LesMisanthrope

 

Your post is very well written, but your idea on God seems to contradict itself, if I am understanding you correctly.

It seems like you are saying that the concept of God is and has been created by the minds of men. For your example, you say that Orcs, Middle Earth, and Sauron were all creations of Tolkien's imagination. However, if that's true, then that also points to your own existence being the creation of someone else's imagination, correct? Wouldn't we call that figure God and wouldn't he be just as real as your consider Tolkien?

You are a figment of God's imagination, that is why you can't explain how you came into existence anymore than Sauron or an Orc would be able to explain how and why they came to exist in their own world.

Amazing insight. Bounce that off of my last post.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


My take on God in a few words.

I don't know what God is, But I sure know what God is not.

reply to post by LesMisanthrope

I don't find it interesting at all. I cannot find any particular interest in the words in the bible, save perhaps for its lyrical beauty.

What I am showing is that faith is not in a God, but, as in your case the scripture of the bible, the faith is only in the words, the only place God is seen to manifest.

The inner language of symbols is a universal expression of reality. You can read it in the Bible for the most clarity, but you can also get it in the Tao De Ching, Dhammapada, Confucisu (Doctrine of the Mean), the eight pillars of philosophy and so on it goes. This is why Christ said, "I am the Way (Eastern), the Truth (Western) and the Life (God's Word / Will / Giving / Capstone / Chief Cornerstone). We must see Christ in light of his place as Creator of the material world (Genesis 2 / Lord) and God as creator of the image (Elohim / God in Genesis 1). To come to the Father (World to Come), we must first pass the Son (Cosmos). There are two creation stories. Two Creation Stories emerge from Genesis.

Colossians 1 (Son of God) is the birth of the material from the image archetypes. One soul holds all expressions. We are drops of Dew from the ONE ocean.

15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

God is not limited to the Bible. That word is internal and inside of each of us. The reflections (Mirror) of that word are in every creation of mankind. We express the Word which is inexpressible; which is inexhaustible and without end. Forms in nature make this possible by unlimited combinations.

The real question here is to ask the question, "Is God Personal?"

The Most Profound Truth comes through Reflection

Is God personal? Read the link above. Confucius said, "I hear and I forget. I see and I learn. I do and I understand."

Look where you wish, but God's image is in everything we touch as humans. Why? We are his image. Why did the Temple of Delphi say this: "Know Thyself"

reply to post by AQuestion

Dear LesMisanthrope,

Hey, you cheated. You asked a question, I answered a question, it is just who I am. You did not tell us what Orc has accurately predicted.

I'm not quite sure I understand what you're getting at. An orc is a character in a book. It is up to you to read the book, and choose to have faith in those words or not.

reply to post by EnochWasRight

Did Genesis 1:27 state that we are INSIDE an image and THE image of God?

Genesis does indeed state things that people might choose or choose not to find faith in. The magic of writing however is that anyone can create a universe in 6 days. All he has to do is put it to paper. It's up to the reader to find faith in it or not, despite the good or bad intentions of who wrote it.

God IS the word. God is the link between all living things throughout the universe. God is a telepathic communication, a line of connection. God is not a being we can look like, God is a sort of energy.

How many things are there out there that are not known, never less not proven. How can a person deny something does not exist just because they have no evidence or comprehension of it YET. There are life forms on this planet that we cannot comprehend. We can't even prove what time or temperature are. All we can do is to give a definition to them or assign a very primitive way of measuring them

This is more than a few words I guess

reply to post by NorEaster


That's why we need the metaphysicians now more than ever. We need a now foundation to build on top of. People simply won't let go unless there is a firm footing beneath them to catch them if they fall. Many people say "science" is the answer, but science is pure data. Anyone can look at the data and make their conclusions. We need the artists, such as those who wrote the biblical passages, or the metaphysicians of the greeks to form the data into something that is worth living for.

My opinion.