The nature of your deity

[Maria]

Sometimes I think the intelligence behind this reality (god, for short) lives our lives with us. I mean, it's there with us, watching what we do our whole lives, from birth to death- and then it steps out of the time stream and hops into another body as it quickens and watches that life. With infinite time available, it could be the motivating force behind every single living thing in this reality, throughout time- all at once.

There's 17 dimensions out there that scientists have detected, and we just use 3 plus time. A god would probably use all of them, plus more we haven't detected yet. I can only suppose we are fascinating due to our limitations. When one is omnipotent, perhaps it's interesting to see what beings with limitations do with themselves. Of course, if one is omniscient- one isn't going to be surprised by what the little creatures do, though, so that theory doesn't hold up.

Voluntary amnesia for the duration of each life? So as to be surprised by the story that unfolds?


Who knows?

It's probably something we really don't want to know for sure.

[Pearly Di]

Certainly not the unhelpful Blakean archetype of an old man with a white beard, which I am completely allergic to.

Blake thought that archetype problematic too, which is why he only uses it when he's depicting a notion of God he had...issues with. Just sayin'.
--Ax the Blake aficionado

Ah.

[Lidless]

Yes my reply was to V-man.

Yes, it was obviously a copy-and-paste! I very, very rarely have a paragraph more than four lines long. I figured since putting quotes around something that is blindingly obviously not a real quote and not having to say that it was not a real quote was acceptable, I didn't have to give attribution to the blindingly obvious cut-and-paste.

Also, given that the copy-and-paste was not an opinion, not a theory, nothing new, just a list of facts almost certainly culled from other internet sources from around the world, it still needs to be attributed?

Really?

Instead of a page or half a page analysing every damned post I make in this thread, how about we stick to the topic in hand and stop cluttering it up. Got problems with a post of mine, PM me. I for one would prefer to read vison's excellent idea for a thread without any more osgiliation.

[Lalaith]

I knew you weren't referring to my post, though for a split second there I wondered. (I didn't figure "weird" was the word you'd use to describe what I said, though. )

Back to the topic, I agree with Di's descriptions of visualizing God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

I'd use the word "light," too. Brilliant, glorious light.

[nerdanel]

@ Lidless - call me incredibly stupid, but I genuinely thought you'd authored the original post when I first read it. I mean, certainly, I assumed you'd culled the facts from elsewhere on the Net, but I actually did think the words were yours. It wasn't obvious to me at all. I'm actually not sure why it should have been; I haven't seen enough of your posts lately to remember how many sentences you usually have in a paragraph, or anything.

And expressing my view as a poster, not a Marshal, I actually do want to be able to see the original source of something that's been copied and pasted. First, so the original source of the writing gets credited. Second, so I know who the original source is, in context, and I can (if the subject interests me) glance at their background/assess their biases/figure out what weight I want to give their "facts."

[JewelSong]

I'd use the word "light," too. Brilliant, glorious light.

Also...light as in weightless. When I pray, I lift it up - whatever it is I am praying about. And like Di, it is in times of deepest trouble and sorrow that I can sometimes feel the weight or the burden getting lighter...as if it is being lifted from me and made as light as a balloon.

[Lalaith]

Yes, something like in your sig pic.

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

How does your (generic) concept of your deity mesh with opposing or alternative deities (concepts of, maybe)? Do you see your deity as the only one, or just one of many in a long line of divine beings?

[Primula Baggins]

One, certainly. That's rather an essential point to Christians, Jews, and Muslims.

[JewelSong]

One God - many forms.

[Primula Baggins]

I'd say not many forms, but many perceptions, with one reality behind them all.

[Frelga]

Well, yes, one. But not as in "mine is right and yours are all wrong." One as in... one so vast and all-embracing that there are many right ways to perceive God. Many wrong ones, too, and that is any perception that allows "treating people as things" to quote Pratchett. And while I'm at it:

There are a hundred pathways to Om. Unfortunately I sometimes think someone left a rake lying across a lot of them.

Carpe Jugulum

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

Why do you say "one reality behind them, Prim?"

[Primula Baggins]

Because I'd say that whatever the truth is, there's only one. The different gods are views of the same God. Believers disagree about who sees most clearly, and whether other believers see at all; but that's my take.

[WampusCat]

What Prim said is my view as well.

I'm not surprised that there are differing ways to view God, if God is ultimately beyond human comprehension. Some might say that means all attempts to define the Deity are false. I think, rather, that they are simply incomplete, that each shows another facet of a reality that is bigger and deeper and more interdimensional than we can fully understand.

But what we do see -- what we encounter -- can comfort, inspire, challenge and transform us.

Human beings like to think in metaphor, so it's no surprise that we rely on images of God (the old man in the sky, for instance). I have many, many images of God, some personal, some from the Bible (which offers a variety of images, such as father, farmer, light, door, vine, wind, even a hen), some from other religious traditions. They are useful windows to the ineffable, but I don't confuse them with the reality they represent.

This multiplicity of images is not a sign of confusion but a necessary result of the human longing to know that which cannot be known in full. To whole-heartedly follow the spiritual path is to become an iconoclast, because your images of God are always being shattered and reshaped. My faith isn't shaken when this happens (not for long, anyway), because I know the limits of my images and trust the reality behind them.

I perceive that reality -- I have experienced that reality -- as a beckoning love, as a call to wholeness and holiness. I am a Christian because I believe that Jesus was so infused with this reality, so aware, so open to it, so empowered by it, so at one with it, that life changed for those who knew him, and for those who follow him now. I find much to learn from other faiths as well.

For me, prayer is relationship, not magic. It's not me presenting God with a to-do list. It's becoming attentive and still. Letting gratitude rise through the muck of complaints and disappointments. Listening to the nudge of intuition. Resting in light. Drinking deep water. Letting go of fear and regret. Knowing love.

If things do not turn out the way I think they ought, I do not consider it a matter of God not answering prayer. I don't think of God as a vending machine: insert fervent prayer, get miracle. But I do know that when I nurture this relationship with God, I can thrive even when everything goes wrong. I know I am not alone. And I know that when I am overcome and unable to pray, the prayers of others carry me.

That's enough theological rambling for tonight. So many words! And all to say: God is beyond my understanding, but not beyond my love.

[Tar-Palantir]

PB: The different gods are views of the same God. Believers disagree about who sees most clearly, and whether other believers see at all; but that's my take.

Indeed. And of course the selective view of each religion (each person too) is somewhat different, with greater or lesser degrees of overlap.

Christian and Jewish views are by now quite similar (having converged over the centuries) but Islam - while sharing many characteristics with the Christian God such as omnipotence - is significantly different from the Christian concept - not being a rational God nor a God of love, for example.

Even among Christians there are differences in the concept of God - for example the Mormon concept of God (and I regard Mormons as Christians, as they regard themselves) is not of a primary creator, but a being who evolved from a man, and there may be future Gods who evolve from men.

[JewelSong]

Puts me in mind of this old poem (based on an even older story...)

The Blind Men and the Elephant
by John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887)


It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant Is very like a spear!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“ ‘Tis clear enough the Elephant Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can
This marvel of an Elephant Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he,
“the Elephant Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral:

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

[Cerin]

I've never understood the notion of different views of the same God. The only way I can see that that could be the case is if the various sacred writings were consistent with one another, or if they were none of them truth. For example, it can't both be true that Jesus was the Son of God and that He was not the Son of God (applying the same meaning to the phrase in each case). One of those statements is true and the other is false. I reject the notion that they can both somehow be regarded as true, or that the discrepancy can somehow be regarded as irrelevant.


Re vison's request, I'm offering this idea for the record, not as a point of argument.


edit to add thought

[vison]

Well, so far the thread hasn't led to any fights, which is a good thing.

I guess the other thing is, maybe I'll start a thread about why I have no idea of a god.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

I've never understood the notion of different views of the same God. The only way I can see that that could be the case is if the various sacred writings were consistent with one another, or if they were none of them truth. For example, it can't both be true that Jesus was the Son of God and that He was not the Son of God (applying the same meaning to the phrase in each case). One of those statements is true and the other is false. I reject the notion that they can both somehow be regarded as true, or that the discrepancy can somehow be regarded as irrelevant.


Re vison's request, I'm offering this idea for the record, not as a point of argument.


edit to add thought

The question of Jesus is easily reconcilable.

To Christians Jesus is the Son of God, and in the trinitarian view, one of three persons in one God.

Jews do not believe that Jesus was the Son of God. That is to say, that they do not believe that the historical figure Jesus is the Son of God.

Would this lead you to conclude that Jews do not believe in the same God as Christians?

That is an extremely odd statement, since it is a fundamental tenet of Christianity that the God of the Jews is the same God that Christians worship, and I understand that Jews believe that Christians worship the same God, although they also believe that Christians are mistaken about certain matters (such as the divinity of Jesus).

In the same manner, Muslims do not believe Jesus was the Son of God, but that he was a prophet; nonetheless, the God of Islam is identified with the God of the Jews and the God of the Christians.

BrianIs AtYou