God is Not a Person

reply to post by DISRAELI

No.
It was very obvious from the rest of the post that I meant the "subject of my reasons for leaving the thread".
Now you're twisting words to the point of being childishly provocative, so I will abandon this thread, as predicted, and go and talk to the grown-ups instead.

As I re-read my post to you, and the one to which I responded, I saw that I did misinterpret your meaning incorrectly. Yes, by all means, we can let the matter drop of whether or not you leave (left) the thread. I would like you to stay in it, and I apologize for misreading what it was you wanted to "drop."

My bad entirely. As I said, I was tired. Didn't mean to twist anything.
Are you still there?
Come back!! Please.

Originally posted by buddha
man says "God made man in his image"

why do you think the Old bible said that man could not even look at god?

The image is God forming. God is the formlessness that forms the form and knows the form.
The image (the form) never stays the same, it is like the waves on the surface. Or clouds in the sky.
The constantly changing scene is known by the unchanging.
What is knowing is God.
God is what is constantly present knowing this.

You cannot look at God because it is God that is looking.

Originally posted by wildtimes
reply to post by adjensen

 

Fine, you cease to exist, then cause yourself to exist out of nothing, and you'll have made a point.

We're not talking about "reinventing yourself", for pete's sakes, we're talking about the creation of the universe out of nothing.

Quite. I agree.

CREATION was created, and it certainly was not created by a PERSON. Just imagine!! Oh, wait, that's what humankind has always done -- imagined!! Imagined, what it must be like to have created all of creation which functions with or without MANKIND (probably better without, but that's debatable, since we are, after all, here...for better or worse)....??

It was not a PERSON. This is a cool debate here, folks.

--------------------------------------

Back to Ed (EWR), if a person is in the image of God, so is a tree, a mountain, every natural thing. That people can create out of "raw materials already created", and learn the "principles" of, say, mathematics, physics, horticulture, pmedicine....is all great. But no person has concocted ANYTHING out of NOTHING. Therefore, God is not a person.

That's insulting to God. As far as Jesus being "God", then are there Trees that are God (but not all trees)? Are there fish that are God (but not all fish? I have this weird giant danio in my fishtank that has a humpback - is it the fishes' messiah?) Do you see where I'm going here?

Why would God select ONLY PEOPLE to "represent" to? If anything, because we fight the laws of nature and aren't just able to go with the flow.

I don't know.

The real question here would be, "Is God personal? To be personal, he would need to be entangled with the whole, yet single unto himself. In other words, does God possess a self separate from others? The answer comes from involution. The answer is, yes we are. Do we have a relationship to the Godhead. Yes, by reaching back to unity from multiplicity. The answer to the separate self of God is then reflected back by the whole outside of the temporal and embodied by the eternal. For anything to be lost, something else must be looking for it. Does the unchanging eternal and unmoved draw us back to the unchanging personal autonomous God? Yes. Because we are a reflected image that moves away and then back as autonomous individuals that are perfected back to the eternal, yet never possessing that eternal perfection. We become one with God, yet never alone. If God were not a unique self, then neither could we be. All that is moved must be anchored against what is unmoved or God simply looks at himself. We know the difference because we only see on way. Those who separate themselves willingly keep those who return unique, otherwise, we are all one. Good and evil is the dividing line. Christ keeps us separate, but able to see and know we are unique. He is the only way for the image to exist.

For those who say we are all one, I say, "only if we are in Christ.". Love is the mechanism of unified faith. Only good and Love can be one with God. Christ Is that perfected single image against the opposite reflection. We could never do this ourselves. This is what the crucified Christ is. Our sin was His burden to bear in the image of imperfection. God sees us through Christ and we do the same looking at God.

God have no body like human.
1. Say, "He is Allah , [who is] One,Allah , the Eternal Refuge.He neither begets nor is born,Nor is there to Him any equivalent."
2. Allah - there is no deity except Him, the Ever-Living, the Sustainer of [all] existence. Neither drowsiness overtakes Him nor sleep. To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth. Who is it that can intercede with Him except by His permission? He knows what is [presently] before them and what will be after them, and they encompass not a thing of His knowledge except for what He wills. His Kursi extends over the heavens and the earth, and their preservation tires Him not. And He is the Most High, the Most Great.

you read this very beautiful book at

quran.com...

reply to post by logical7

Windword, let me put my opinion and see what you have to say,
we have a beginning, say the big bang. You say God must have existed before that, true. But the thing you ignore is TIME also started at the big bang. So what was before doesnt concern us. Also SPACE came into existence after the bang.
So how can God make space and then live in it, where was He before the space was created?

First, let me say that the "Big Bang" analogy was introduced in into the subject by Akragon, so I followed with the logic of singularity. Nano seconds or for an eternity, GOD was everything withing that singularity. But to me, saying that the "Big Bang" was THE beginning is like saying that January 1st marks the beginning of a time, not merely marking a new year, and December 31st, never existed.

If GOD has no beginning or end, then neither does time and space. Time and space must be cyclical, just like breathing in and breathing out.

And do allow me to use the personifications although i dont believe God is a person but i do believe that He has characteristics like being, All Aware, All knowing, Extremely Merciful etc.

Those are human attributes that can't be transferred to natural phenomena. A hurricane, super nova and a volcanic eruption can display no mercy.

But i do understand when you say that everything is in God but that doesn't have to be material.
If you separate the material and spiritual then everything spiritual is connected with God all the time yet God is outside anything that's material.

Although the physical and the spiritual appear to be incompatible, I don't think that they exist separately. One is a reflection, or a shadow, of the other.

There's a saying in Islam, "the entire universe cant contain God but the heart of a believer can"
and a verse in Quran says "God is closer to you than your jugular vein"

AH! Carlos Castaneda wrote that death should be your most valued adviser on how to live your life.

Peace/

reply to post by windword

Time and
space must be cyclical, just like
breathing in and breathing out.

must be? You mean to say, to fit your theory, time and space MUST be what you want them to be?

Those are human attributes that can't
be transferred to natural phenomena.
A hurricane, super nova and a
volcanic eruption can display no
mercy.

you mean God is just a natural phenomenon? without conciousness?

Carlos Castaneda wrote that death
should be your most valued adviser
on how to live your life.

i thank Carlos for sharing his wisdom.

This is a great thread. I'm only a couple pages in right now, but so far I'm really living the discussion taking place. Thanks OP. This part of your thread especially stuck out for me:

God is not a person; God is a mythic personification of reality. If we miss this we miss everything. ALL images and concepts of God are more or less meaningful interpretations and personifications. And it didn't take a genius to figure out that if you trust, or have faith, in what is ultimately inescapable, your life works better than if you judge or resist what is real. This is not theological rocket science. Religion Is About Right Relationship to Reality, Not the Supernatural All religions offer maps of what's real and what's important. So contends philosopher-of-religion Loyal Rue in his 2006 book, Religion Is Not About God (Youtube clip here). Religions offer practices, too, that help adherents live in right relationship with each other, their society, and with reality as a whole—regardless of how that "reality" is mythically personified. Darwin didn't kill God. To the contrary, he and Alfred Russel Wallace offered the first glimpse of the real Creator behind and beyond the world's myriad mythic portrayals of reality.

I usually read all the way through a thread before deciding whether or not to comment, but at this point I needed to before I forgot what all the wheels in my head were doing:

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by DISRAELI

 

Even those examples are only "part of yourself communicating with you", not the other way round.
If God and the universe were the same thing, then God communicating with part of the universe would be like you trying to communicate with your big toe. You don't do that, except in fun, and you're not really expecting the big toe to respond.

That's because you haven't figured out "God" is within everything. And so you view yourself as separate from "God". Maybe the whole problem isn't that "God" is separated from the universe, but that we have separated ourselves from "God".

The only real analogy to the kind of relationship found in the Bible between God and human individuals is the relationship between two different persons. They communicate. They have things to say to each other. Therefore they are distinct.

Consider the possibility of different "consciousness". Two separate components that are part of the same device have to communicate with each other because they are assigned different purposes and therefore have different functions, but together, they perform an important task that allows the rest of the system to run smoothly.

Just because we talk to an inner part of ourselves that is connected to us, does not mean it has no divinity or no connection to divinity. Who says we are not divine in totality? I'm not sure you understand exactly what communication means.

edit on 30-11-2012 by AfterInfinity because: (no reason given)

Wow. Going from a top down, fractal approach it is almost as though you are saying that I don't actually realize I can communicate with my big toe. That maybe my big toe does indeed have it's own little soul and it's own little consciousness that I haven't conceived of yet. And even my big toe does not realize it is a part of me and can communicate with me. Or maybe it does and I am less enlightened than my big toe--which in a mind-blowing way is still pretty fractal.

I do feel my big toe though. I cannot necessarily say that I love it, but I do care for it's well-being and I do perceive and react to the information that I get from it. It and I both may have a hard time understanding our connection and expansiveness because maybe from both of our perspectives the world of my big toe is so small and enclosed.

Looking from this sort of fractal perspective I could easily see that the 'level' of communication would be "smaller" between me and my parts than that of me and whatever larger part I am connected to. If we are all seeking oneness maybe the little fractal that is us needs to 'get it' before our creator can.

Sorry if I veered ridiculously off-topic, but my mind was just running with this simple analogy.

reply to post by wildtimes

Now, above you said you disagree that "self-creation is impossible". You can change certain things about yourself, but you did not "self-create." And you cannot become a cat

I agree that our participation in the illusion of our "co-created" reality and our position in space and time is limited. But, I don't believe that is our permanent or natural state, as spiritual beings. Just as we are isolated to the atoms and chemicals, the matter that is our bodies and the world that surrounds us, our spiritual essence is also a small, isolated component of the vast nature of the spiritual qualities and creative nature that is GOD.

To expand on my definition of GOD, GOD is not only all that is, but all that isn't. GOD is also the empty space. You can't have music or dance with a constant droning of sound. It is the empty space between the notes that create the music and the rhythm that is the dance. Present time is our only and constant tool for self awareness and creation, by using the emptiness as our canvas.

As "String Theory" suggests, reality may exist simultaneously in multiple dimensions. I can liken my understanding of this application of reality by referring to the fantasy novel The Education of Oversoul Seven, by Jane Roberts.

In this book, an individual spiritual entity is being judged for passage by its handling of multiple people existing simultaneously in different time periods. One is living in survival mode at the end of an Ice Age, one is an Renaissance era artist on the run from boinking too many virgins, and one is in an old folks' home, after suffering a stroke.

Perhaps we are operating on multiple levels too, going larger and larger in our personal awareness of being, within the all encompassing body of GOD, using our free will, while creating our own reality within the empty space.

reply to post by awakendhybrid

Sorry if I veered ridiculously off-topic, but my mind was just running with this simple analogy.

So was mine!!

Yes, the human body is an analogy of sorts - every cell in our being does its thing without us "directing it" to. If our brain is working correctly, as well as our spinal column, nerve network, muscles, and so forth, we can direct our big toe to bend and flex, we feel when it's been injured, but if there is a problem with the connection, we can not.

Now, our big toe has no "free-will" normally, but from time to time mine will cramp and bend seemingly of its own accord...is this big-toe free will? Cramps and numbness and such certainly affect our entire being.

Now, think of the human body as a universe: all the parts are necessary to its proper functioning. When a part goes wrong, we are "dis-eased". Health is important. Health is also important for our planet, for things to continue to provide for us. I can whack off my big toe and not die. We can belch a certain amount of noxious gas into the atmosphere and the earth will not die. We can blow up our planet and the universe will not die.

God is beyond any sort of "manipulation" by humans. We are mere cells -- nano-particles -- in a whole that includes us, and that is a reflection of Creation. Do we get pissed off at our big toe when it cramps up seemingly of its own accord? No, we are aware of it cramping, but we don't cut it off to spite our foot. We don't condemn it to hell. We don't really want to lose it...but we can't determine its fate beyond trying to protect it, because it is part of us, and we need it to be whole. We can't send it a note, or speak it into submission, or get it to "realize" its existence...

can we???

reply to post by windword


Brilliant. You and I seem to share quite a bit of soul-awareness theory. Thanks for your contributions, wind, I always enjoy your posts....
it's interesting stuff!!

I'll check out that book.

Your earlier analogy of the heirarchical "characters" also struck a chord with me...I had contemplated writing such a scenario in fiction form, as a matter of fact....!!

Originally posted by logical7
reply to post by windword

 

Time and
space must be cyclical, just like
breathing in and breathing out.

must be? You mean to say, to fit your theory, time and space MUST be what you want them to be?

There is evidence, as another poster linked, that there are echoes of previous "Big Bangs." We are no more certain that the theorized "Big Bang" is the beginning of everything any more than January 1st is the beginning of time. January 1st marks the beginning of a new cycle, just as the "Big Bang" may indicate the beginning of a new cycle.

I am aligned with the theory, as are others, that time and the universe are within a cyclical reality. Of course that idea can be debated, but no one knows for sure what is true.

I have never postulated that GOD exists without the universe, time and/or space. If it can be postualted that GOD has no beginning or end, then it can also be postulated that the universe, time and space also have no beginning or end.

Those are human attributes that can't
be transferred to natural phenomena.
A hurricane, super nova and a
volcanic eruption can display no
mercy.

you mean God is just a natural phenomenon? without conciousness?

Let's put it this way. I don't believe that GOD throws around super novas, hurricanes or volcanoes because he's angry at us humans. We live within a natural environment that mimics the randomness of the universe. We on't find ourselves in the path of destruction because of GOD's judgement against us. Nor do I believe that GOD actively intervenes to stop a hurricane, super nova or volcano because of pious prayer.

I don't know that compassion and mercy are anything other that the morality of self survival through the agreement of empathy. "Do unto other as you would have them do unto you."

reply to post by logical7

you mean God is just a natural phenomenon? without conciousness?

God has to be a conscious being? Who is it that comes up with all these parameters that a god must fulfill in order to be a god? Who is it that pretends to understand what it is to be a god, or what a god is like?

Why can't a god be a natural phenomenon, and the human understanding of the idea of a god is simply pitifully lacking due to our subjective viewpoints?

reply to post by wildtimes


In my view god is not a person, because if god was a person (as some believe) then god would be fallible and therefore not a true god (because why would the all powerful omnipotent god have "human" weaknesses when god is the creator of ALL things).

God does not submit to his creation (however we humans tend to do that with technology it seems).

A fallible god is a weak god and a weak god will be crushed eventually...in fact show me that god and I will destroy him to proclaim the title of god...but that sounds ridiculous.

We will not admit that god is the unimaginable, that point far beyond our consciousness that we simply cannot comprehend, a being that is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient who wants for nothing yet all want for that god (to return and reconnect to your source).

That is a god I can rely on, who I can turn to and who will never let me down

Found this one just now via Google:God is a Presence, Not a Person

Question – Osho, What is God?
Osho – Prem Sukavi, GOD is not a person. That is one of the greatest misunderstandings, and it has prevailed so long that it has become almost a fact. Even if a lie is repeated continuously for centuries it is bound to appear as if it is a truth.

God is a presence, not a person. Hence all worshipping is sheer stupidity. Prayerfulness is needed, not prayer. There is nobody to pray to; there is no possibility of any dialogue between you and God. Dialogue is possible only between two persons, and God is not a person but a presence – like beauty, like joy.

God simply means godliness. It is because of this fact that Buddha denied the existence of God. He wanted to emphasize that God is a quality, an experience – like love. You cannot talk to love, you can live it. You need not create temples of love, you need not make statues of love, and bowing down to those statues will be just nonsense. And that’s what has been happening in the churches, in the temples, in the mosques.

Man has lived under this impression of God as a person, and then two calamities have happened through it. One is the so-called religious man, who thinks God is somewhere above m the sky and you have to praise him. to persuade him to confer favors on you, to help you to fulfill your desires, to make your ambitions succeed, to give you the wealth of this world AND of the other world. And this is sheer wastage of time and energy.

And on the opposite pole the people who saw the stupidity of it all became atheists; they started denying the existence of God. They were right in a sense, but they were also wrong. They started denying not only the personality of God, they started to deny even the experience of God.

The theist is wrong, the atheist is wrong, and man needs a new vision so that he can be freed from both the prisons. God is the ultimate experience of silence, of beauty, of bliss, a state of inner celebration. Once you start looking at God as godliness there will be a radical change in your approach. Then prayer is no more valid; meditation becomes valid.

It's very difficult for life-long Westerners to conceive of the thinking of Buddhism or the Upanishads, etc....because the West -- and the Abrahamic religions -- all personify God.

I remember struggling to comprehend Alan Watts, years and years ago. It takes total concentration to "get" the things the ORIENTAL (sorry: edit to correct: the Occidental is the Western style) faiths are brought up with. .... like learning a new language, except harder. Like learning the Chinese language, or the Egyptian hieroglyphs...

it's not that hard to learn a new language that uses the same alphabet as your own. That is simply stringing sounds together in a new way. It's infinitely harder to learn a completely DIFFERENT language. Many people are polyglots, but not all of them understand MUSIC, how to make it, how to read it. Nevertheless, they understand how music touches something deep inside us.

That's kind of the same as the non-Abrahamic GOD concept. You just listen to it, and it resonates. You don't ask it to "give me a B", or "give me an F#", and it doesn't ask us to pray to it for the B or the F#. It is music all the same. Men can apply principles that are outside of us to create the soundwave that is B or F#, but they cannot implore music to make a B into an F#, nor to kill off F#.

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
Might you point out where in the historical records it says God took the form of Jesus Christ?

As a Christian, I accept that the New Testament is an historically accurate representation of the life of Christ. Both the Gospel of Luke and The Acts of the Apostles are generally regarded by historians as well researched and written historical treatises.

reply to post by old_god

We will not admit that god is the unimaginable, that point far beyond our consciousness that we simply cannot comprehend, a being that is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient who wants for nothing yet all want for that god (to return and reconnect to your source).

That is a god I can rely on, who I can turn to and who will never let me down

I agree that we we simply cannot comprehend it....
but admitting that we cannot is possible. That's what makes it so fascinating. We have infinite resources in language and writing and sound-making, but we are not, except for brief moments of enlightenment, able to constantly plug in.

Meditation helps. It takes practice and concerted effort. From time to time the "truth" spark ignites, and it is bedazzling, grand, inexplicable. Like NDEs, or tantric trances.....
but if we lived like that all day every day, we would do NOTHING, and that is not why we are here. So, we are yanked back into whatever this "physical existence" is, and are compelled to "live it".

As Osho said in the link above:
You cannot talk to Love. You can Live it.

Originally posted by windword
I never said that in the universe isn't expanding. Where do you get that?

From your claim that the universe is cyclical and your dismissal of my pointing out that it is not.

But, can you show me an example of a black hole that expanding, rather than contracting?

We don't know that there isn't a "wall" out there, that will cause the expanding universe to bounce back, and to contract.

A wall?

Okay, I know that physics isn't your thing, but no, there's no "wall" out there. The reason that the universe is expanding and continues to accelerate is that it is the universe itself that "holds itself together" and as the bits get further and further apart, it loses the ability to keep itself together. Barring an external force (which you say doesn't exist,) this will continue, unabated, until the expansion gets to the point where everything, every atom in existence is being pulled apart. Even your vaunted black holes will be ripped to quantum level shreds, and even the shreds get torn apart until there is nothing.

It won't be pretty, and it will be the ultimate end of existence, with no way to be avoided or to rebuild, but it's about 16 billion years in the future.

We live in a disposable universe.

Originally posted by Spacespider
reply to post by wildtimes

 

Your god is a computer

I am going to create a thread about this in the near future

Be sure to quote this guy's rant on the stupidity of the "Simulated Universe" theory, it's a classic

It’s very shocking when supposedly intelligent people seriously consider the idea of our universe being a simulation. Reminiscent of flies attracted to a rotting carcass, hypothetically intelligent people are drawn to this idea of reality being simulated. Note how David Chamlers considers the metaphysics of the Matrix. The simulation argument is merely an escapist fantasy, intellectual decay, a new form of religion, a topic in my opinion fit only for discussion by daydreamers or people tripping on magic mushrooms or '___'. Very worryingly many respected media organizations give credence to the simulation meme. The notion of our universe being simulated is anti-intellectualism therefore we must fiercely oppose it. (Source)

reply to post by wildtimes


You are only pretending to be a person. Playing the role. Behind the mask what are you really?

Originally posted by AfterInfinity
reply to post by adjensen

 

That's the right answer -- it comes from God, but how is it God? How does God become the whole of his own creation?

Are you dense? If "God" was all that existed before, then what else was there to form a separate being from which to craft the universe. If all "God" was alone, the sole inhabitant of existence, then he was the only source of material from which to craft everything.

Hence, the creator became the creation. As Christians are so fond of saying: "He's God. He can do anything."

Yes, some postulate that God formed reality out of his own being, but, again, the result of that would be "a universe that is fashioned out of God", not "a universe that IS God." Let's say that you cut your hair and made a sweater out of it or something (ewww!) -- is the sweater you? No, of course not, you're still over there -- the sweater is just something that you made out of your hair. (And no, I'm not saying that the non-incarnated God has hair and made the universe out of it.)

This is a really basic concept, I have no idea why you can't grasp it, apart from your constant insistence to argue with me on everything. The creation cannot be the creator, it is logically impossible.