The nature of your deity
The nature of your deity
As an atheist, I have long wondered what believers think their god is like. Since most of the professedly religious people on this forum are Christians I suppose my questions will be primarily directed at them.
How do you “see” the god you believe in? Is your god a “being”? If it is, what is the being made of? Molecules and atoms, etc.? Is your god a conscious entity? Does your god hear what you say, or know what you think? Does your god have the power to interfere with the observed laws of the universe? Do you think your god will answer prayers, and if not, why not?
That will do for now.
Please, people. I don't want argument, just information. No one busting in and saying "There is no god!!!"
And if no one responds, well, I can live with that.
How do you “see” the god you believe in? Is your god a “being”? If it is, what is the being made of? Molecules and atoms, etc.? Is your god a conscious entity? Does your god hear what you say, or know what you think? Does your god have the power to interfere with the observed laws of the universe? Do you think your god will answer prayers, and if not, why not?
That will do for now.
Please, people. I don't want argument, just information. No one busting in and saying "There is no god!!!"
And if no one responds, well, I can live with that.
Dig deeper.
I used to be able to describe God quite well. ( I hope you don't mind the capitalization. That's part of my description of what God is like for me, I suppose. )
But, you know, life happens. A decade ago the fire in me burned brightly black and white, and my response to this question back then would have been ... well, more than a little embarrassing to the present day me, I'd imagine.
I don't know that I can answer all your questions about God, as God is for me personally, vison. In fact, I'm quite sure that I can't. God doesn't describe in those terms for me, if He ever did. That is because I believe one of the things that I suppose would "amaze" other, more evolved ( or whatever people who find religious people - well, amazing, or stupid, or weird, or obtuse, or unobservant, or or stubborn or whatever, like to call themselves ) people: that Christians who otherwise seem all right in the head would think in such a way. But to me, it is very logical to believe that I cannot and do not understand all of God - that I do not have the tools, the ability, the capacity, to understand God. A rough parallel, which no doubt can be easily proven to be no such thing: science does not understand all of science. Science has a history littered with great discoveries, but also with partial understanding, such as the history of understanding something as basic to humans as nutrition. Still, scientists discover new "super-nutrients". Still, we apparently do not grok something as basic to life as food.
Anyway.
It is because of this belief I can't answer all your questions. I don't know if God is a "being". What is the definition of a "being", anyway? Something made of atoms? Something conscious? Either way I don't know if God is that kind of "being", because I don't know what God really is. To me, God is a comforting presence.
I don't know if God has the power to interfere with the observed laws of the universe. I believe He does. That doesn't mean He would. I can't prove that He does, or He would. That's what belief is, after all. It isn't something that would stand up to the cleverness of people. It isn't meant to.
I absolutely believe that God will answer prayers. He has answered mine many times. The details of those prayers are personal, of course, but to me that's good enough. Does God answer all prayers? No. I don't know why not. Maybe because always winning isn't fun? I have a happy life. I have had just enough prayers answered to keep it interesting, I suppose.
I believe God can hear what I say and know what I think. For one thing, both of those are ways of prayer, so it kind of goes with that.
I spent a lot of energy when I was younger anguishing over religion, the nature of God. I had a period when I adamantly believed there is no God. Sure, I was a teenager then, so maybe that doesn't count. It counted for me. Then I had an experience that drew me back to exploring Christianity. That's when my struggle with understanding God and how to live and believe in God began - I had a young adult's mind to marry up with belief and religion. It is easier to believe when you are a young child. It is even easier when you are a young child who also has a happy, sheltered life. I didn't quite have the latter, which is where my whole bent away from God began. But I digress: finally, I had a brief epiphany right in a dark moment, and the feeling in that moment is what finally provided a foundation - I will always believe in God because of that brief moment. It crystallized the essence of my belief for me and stripped away the distractions that were threatening to overwhelm me. The essence - just believe.
But because of all those angsty moments about who God is, what God is, how God is ... it just doesn't hold any attraction for me anymore to try and figure out and understand and make clever arguments about the nature of God. I'm perfectly content to know that I don't know. ( I can totally see how this would puzzle or infuriate some people, by the way. It is like I get mad as heck when people believe that the world's oil supply is endless, that pollution is harmless, that perfectly clean drinking water can run down the gutter if they want it to, and so on. Their beliefs, to me, makes my world and my living worse that it would be otherwise. The religious beliefs of people who use God as a justification for doing bad things to people does the same for other people. Remember, I grew up in a country where white men decided that God meant the world to be ruled by white men and that white women and white children were supposed to obey them and be lesser to them, and men and women of all other other races were ... well, you all know about Apartheid. )
I'll probably be willing to elaborate some more on my post if asked, but I definitely don't care for any argument. I'm not going to bother responding to any posts from atheists or agnostics or whatnot picking apart what I said, either. I already acknowledged that cleverness can very easily pick big holes in what I said. I just figured vison asked about what God is like, and I'd try to say a little about what God is like for me.
But, you know, life happens. A decade ago the fire in me burned brightly black and white, and my response to this question back then would have been ... well, more than a little embarrassing to the present day me, I'd imagine.
I don't know that I can answer all your questions about God, as God is for me personally, vison. In fact, I'm quite sure that I can't. God doesn't describe in those terms for me, if He ever did. That is because I believe one of the things that I suppose would "amaze" other, more evolved ( or whatever people who find religious people - well, amazing, or stupid, or weird, or obtuse, or unobservant, or or stubborn or whatever, like to call themselves ) people: that Christians who otherwise seem all right in the head would think in such a way. But to me, it is very logical to believe that I cannot and do not understand all of God - that I do not have the tools, the ability, the capacity, to understand God. A rough parallel, which no doubt can be easily proven to be no such thing: science does not understand all of science. Science has a history littered with great discoveries, but also with partial understanding, such as the history of understanding something as basic to humans as nutrition. Still, scientists discover new "super-nutrients". Still, we apparently do not grok something as basic to life as food.
Anyway.
It is because of this belief I can't answer all your questions. I don't know if God is a "being". What is the definition of a "being", anyway? Something made of atoms? Something conscious? Either way I don't know if God is that kind of "being", because I don't know what God really is. To me, God is a comforting presence.
I don't know if God has the power to interfere with the observed laws of the universe. I believe He does. That doesn't mean He would. I can't prove that He does, or He would. That's what belief is, after all. It isn't something that would stand up to the cleverness of people. It isn't meant to.
I absolutely believe that God will answer prayers. He has answered mine many times. The details of those prayers are personal, of course, but to me that's good enough. Does God answer all prayers? No. I don't know why not. Maybe because always winning isn't fun? I have a happy life. I have had just enough prayers answered to keep it interesting, I suppose.
I believe God can hear what I say and know what I think. For one thing, both of those are ways of prayer, so it kind of goes with that.
I spent a lot of energy when I was younger anguishing over religion, the nature of God. I had a period when I adamantly believed there is no God. Sure, I was a teenager then, so maybe that doesn't count. It counted for me. Then I had an experience that drew me back to exploring Christianity. That's when my struggle with understanding God and how to live and believe in God began - I had a young adult's mind to marry up with belief and religion. It is easier to believe when you are a young child. It is even easier when you are a young child who also has a happy, sheltered life. I didn't quite have the latter, which is where my whole bent away from God began. But I digress: finally, I had a brief epiphany right in a dark moment, and the feeling in that moment is what finally provided a foundation - I will always believe in God because of that brief moment. It crystallized the essence of my belief for me and stripped away the distractions that were threatening to overwhelm me. The essence - just believe.
But because of all those angsty moments about who God is, what God is, how God is ... it just doesn't hold any attraction for me anymore to try and figure out and understand and make clever arguments about the nature of God. I'm perfectly content to know that I don't know. ( I can totally see how this would puzzle or infuriate some people, by the way. It is like I get mad as heck when people believe that the world's oil supply is endless, that pollution is harmless, that perfectly clean drinking water can run down the gutter if they want it to, and so on. Their beliefs, to me, makes my world and my living worse that it would be otherwise. The religious beliefs of people who use God as a justification for doing bad things to people does the same for other people. Remember, I grew up in a country where white men decided that God meant the world to be ruled by white men and that white women and white children were supposed to obey them and be lesser to them, and men and women of all other other races were ... well, you all know about Apartheid. )
I'll probably be willing to elaborate some more on my post if asked, but I definitely don't care for any argument. I'm not going to bother responding to any posts from atheists or agnostics or whatnot picking apart what I said, either. I already acknowledged that cleverness can very easily pick big holes in what I said. I just figured vison asked about what God is like, and I'd try to say a little about what God is like for me.
But I think people do have an idea or two and those are the ideas I'm interested in. And it is interest. I said in my first post that I'm an atheist, not that anyone here would be surprised by that. I am quite willing, perhaps in another thread,to explain why I'm an atheist.yovargas wrote:In other words - a Mystery. I think, in a way. that's part of the point.
I truly do not wish for any arguments in this thread. But I would like to know what people think of when they think of god.
Dig deeper.
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I'd have made some of the same points as Griffy. I don't believe I could understand the nature of God even if it were somehow laid out before me in terms a human could grasp—which I don't think is possible.
And I'm fine with that. A world containing only beings and ideas and realities that I personally can understand would be a narrower and duller world. I like a world that contains things that other people understand better than I do, and things that nobody understands yet, and things that nobody ever will understand.
I realize that those are fighting words for rationalists; but consider: we accept the idea of concepts too abstruse for a child of four to grasp. Doesn't that mean it's possible that there are concepts too abstruse for a scientifically trained adult genius to grasp? The difference is degree, not kind, and we can't restrain the universe to the size of our little ruler.
That doesn't mean, ever, that we should stop trying to understand everything, or stop thinking and arguing about the question of God if that is our inclination.
But I don't think God saves some people and not others. I think God watches and hopes, and reminds us to love and help each other. I don't think God puts a finger on the scale. This amazing universe runs by physical laws, and that's as it should be. Why would we strive to understand a universe where the rules were always changing? Science is the greatest tool our minds have, and it utterly fails if the rules it studies aren't constant. I don't think God would play that kind of trick on us.
Edited to fix spacing—I know, I know
And I'm fine with that. A world containing only beings and ideas and realities that I personally can understand would be a narrower and duller world. I like a world that contains things that other people understand better than I do, and things that nobody understands yet, and things that nobody ever will understand.
I realize that those are fighting words for rationalists; but consider: we accept the idea of concepts too abstruse for a child of four to grasp. Doesn't that mean it's possible that there are concepts too abstruse for a scientifically trained adult genius to grasp? The difference is degree, not kind, and we can't restrain the universe to the size of our little ruler.
That doesn't mean, ever, that we should stop trying to understand everything, or stop thinking and arguing about the question of God if that is our inclination.
I think of God as coextensive with the universe (all of space, all of time) and therefore not something one can point to or measure. Certainly not an object made of matter. But, yes, a being.How do you “see” the god you believe in? Is your god a “being”? If it is, what is the being made of? Molecules and atoms, etc.?
An unconscious God would not be worth thinking about. When the old legends in Genesis say we were made in the image of God, I believe that it's our minds that are that "image," not our bodies.Is your god a conscious entity?
I believe that God does hear each of us and cares about each of us (part of the incomprehensible power of God). I do pray. But I know that not all prayers are answered, or not in the way that I was hoping for. If you think about it, that would be an impossible universe, where every prayer was answered. People want conflicting things, and sometimes horrible things. And we've all seen what happens to people who want for nothing and get their way in everything. Many of them turn into monsters. I don't think that's what God wants for us.Does your god hear what you say, or know what you think? . . . Do you think your god will answer prayers, and if not, why not?
I believe so, although the existence of miracles beyond the resurrection is not essential to my personal faith. I believe that miracles happen, but within the laws of the universe and as a result of them (and of human knowledge). Medical miracles are an example—that they happen is unquestionable. That they don't happen to everyone who prays for them is also unquestionable.Does your god have the power to interfere with the observed laws of the universe?
But I don't think God saves some people and not others. I think God watches and hopes, and reminds us to love and help each other. I don't think God puts a finger on the scale. This amazing universe runs by physical laws, and that's as it should be. Why would we strive to understand a universe where the rules were always changing? Science is the greatest tool our minds have, and it utterly fails if the rules it studies aren't constant. I don't think God would play that kind of trick on us.
Edited to fix spacing—I know, I know
Last edited by Primula Baggins on Mon Nov 16, 2009 4:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
I imagine a genderless, formless, timeless, omnipresent intelligence whose main interest in humanity seems to be in keeping the experience from getting boring.
I don't feel any need to worship whatever it is, any more than I expect the stick figures I doodle on a page to worship me-- but once I did have a sort of mystical experience where I think I touched the mind of God. That was kinda cool. And scary. I was drifting half in and out of sleep, when suddenly my consciousness expanded- and I knew everything. Everything I'd ever wondered about why life is the way it is and why the world is the way it is became clear and simple and obvious. I was controlling uncountable complex tasks simultaneously and effortlessly, and understood them all.
Then I started to wake up and desperately tried to hang on to what I'd learned, but it was apparently too much for my brain to hold. I kept trying to hold on to it, but more and more slipped away until when I fully woke all I had left was a memory of a memory of a memory of the simple fact that for a little while I'd understood it ALL. And the idea that if I'd stayed there very long, my mind might have been destroyed.
If I ever find myself there again, I"m going to try to hold on to one simple fact as I wake up, rather than trying to keep it all. The next lottery number might be good to know, for instance.....
That's what the intelligence that runs this reality is to me: HUGE, and beyond the capacity of my mind to understand. I don't know what it's purpose is or why it does what it does, or why it doesn't do more-- just that its reasons are sufficient for itself.
I don't feel any need to worship whatever it is, any more than I expect the stick figures I doodle on a page to worship me-- but once I did have a sort of mystical experience where I think I touched the mind of God. That was kinda cool. And scary. I was drifting half in and out of sleep, when suddenly my consciousness expanded- and I knew everything. Everything I'd ever wondered about why life is the way it is and why the world is the way it is became clear and simple and obvious. I was controlling uncountable complex tasks simultaneously and effortlessly, and understood them all.
Then I started to wake up and desperately tried to hang on to what I'd learned, but it was apparently too much for my brain to hold. I kept trying to hold on to it, but more and more slipped away until when I fully woke all I had left was a memory of a memory of a memory of the simple fact that for a little while I'd understood it ALL. And the idea that if I'd stayed there very long, my mind might have been destroyed.
If I ever find myself there again, I"m going to try to hold on to one simple fact as I wake up, rather than trying to keep it all. The next lottery number might be good to know, for instance.....
That's what the intelligence that runs this reality is to me: HUGE, and beyond the capacity of my mind to understand. I don't know what it's purpose is or why it does what it does, or why it doesn't do more-- just that its reasons are sufficient for itself.
I think the universe has been constructed so as to allow exceptions to the natural "laws". I don't think the god/intelligence is in the business of answering prayers, (more like keeping the plot interesting) but I do think that people can cause their own "miracles" to happen, if they are in the right frame of mind. Magic happens every day- whether you acknowledge it or not.vison wrote:Does your god have the power to interfere with the observed laws of the universe? Do you think your god will answer prayers, and if not, why not?
I think of God in terms of the attributes ascribed to Him simply and unambiguously in the Psalms: Righteous, merciful, just, loving, kind, holy, etc. Beyond that, I don't think in terms of what God is made of. I believe God is all-knowing, so that would include knowing what I say and think. I believe God is all powerful, so that would include having the power to interfere with the observed laws of the universe. I believe God hears all prayers. I don't so much pray for things, as pray about them, and I follow Jesus' model in deferring to God's will at the end of my prayers, since I don't know what would actually be the best long-term outcome in a situation. The last thing I would want is the universe ordered to my specifications by a god who 'answers' prayer. So yes, I believe God answers prayer, but in ways often beyond our understanding and awareness.vison wrote:As an atheist, I have long wondered what believers think their god is like.
How do you “see” the god you believe in? Is your god a “being”? If it is, what is the being made of? Molecules and atoms, etc.? Is your god a conscious entity? Does your god hear what you say, or know what you think? Does your god have the power to interfere with the observed laws of the universe? Do you think your god will answer prayers, and if not, why not?
edit for word correction
Last edited by Cerin on Mon Nov 16, 2009 5:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Avatar photo by Richard Lykes, used with permission.
I don't think I can improve on the thoughts of Griffon, Prim and Cerin, who seem to have said it all for me.
But I will also add that I "see" God as far, far bigger than the boxes I could ever put him in.
CS Lewis wrote a very good poem about the authenticity of prayer, in which he said, in so many words, 'don't let me confuse my ideas of You with the real You.' I'll see if I can find it, I can't remember the opening line at all.
At the same time, I also "see" him as a personal God. I "see" him as a God of revelation, who desires to reveal himself to humanity.
N.B. Also, while I definitely "see" God as beyond gender, I do think there is a reason for the 'father' language when referring specifically to the God of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Perhaps people more clever than me could explain it. It's something I ponder on mightily. This doesn't mean that the Godhead has no feminine attributes, I hasten to add.
But I will also add that I "see" God as far, far bigger than the boxes I could ever put him in.
CS Lewis wrote a very good poem about the authenticity of prayer, in which he said, in so many words, 'don't let me confuse my ideas of You with the real You.' I'll see if I can find it, I can't remember the opening line at all.
At the same time, I also "see" him as a personal God. I "see" him as a God of revelation, who desires to reveal himself to humanity.
N.B. Also, while I definitely "see" God as beyond gender, I do think there is a reason for the 'father' language when referring specifically to the God of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Perhaps people more clever than me could explain it. It's something I ponder on mightily. This doesn't mean that the Godhead has no feminine attributes, I hasten to add.
"Frodo undertook his quest out of love - to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could ... "
Letter no. 246, The Collected Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
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Letter no. 246, The Collected Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
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There is certainly a collective, and commonly agreed, understanding about the nature of God between Christians (and surely between people of other faiths about what they believe). We do have 2,000 years of collective history and teaching to draw upon.TheEllipticalDisillusion wrote:I find it interesting that a few people have agreed with other posts. Is there a collective understanding about this deity or personal, or a mixture of both?
I can only answer for Christians. Primarily from what I understand of God in the Bible ... and from helpful and illuminating insights from 'mothers and fathers in the faith'. Of course my personal experience comes into play, because you can't talk about a personal faith without personal experience, but I prefer to have a solid foundation of doctrine on which to base my subjective experiences.Where do your understandings of your deity stem from (personal, collective, somewhere else)?
I hope that makes some kind of sense.
I know the feeling.JewelSong wrote:And my thoughts, they are refusing to collect right now.
"Frodo undertook his quest out of love - to save the world he knew from disaster at his own expense, if he could ... "
Letter no. 246, The Collected Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
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Letter no. 246, The Collected Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
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Re: The nature of your deity
Why?vison wrote:As an atheist, I have long wondered what believers think their god is like.
"What do you fear, lady?" Aragorn asked.
"A cage," Éowyn said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
"A cage," Éowyn said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Re: The nature of your deity
Because it is so important to so many people.Anthriel wrote:Why?vison wrote:As an atheist, I have long wondered what believers think their god is like.
And, because it seems like there are so many different ideas.
I have my own ideas, of course. But this isn't the thread for them.
It's just interesting to me.
Dig deeper.
I've been watching with interest and curiousity too, though for me, it's not so much why people believe as why they've stuck with it.
Anth, imagine a river with fertile land on each side. One side belongs to the believers, the other non-believers. They speak essentially the same language. They communicate. They trade. There's a bridge over that river and sometimes, for good or ill, it's crossed. But there're difference between the peoples and those differences breed distrust and distrust breeds fear and hate and all the other bad things that come with that. Is it not just flat out wise, then, to try and understand what the other side is thinking?
Anth, imagine a river with fertile land on each side. One side belongs to the believers, the other non-believers. They speak essentially the same language. They communicate. They trade. There's a bridge over that river and sometimes, for good or ill, it's crossed. But there're difference between the peoples and those differences breed distrust and distrust breeds fear and hate and all the other bad things that come with that. Is it not just flat out wise, then, to try and understand what the other side is thinking?
When you can do nothing what can you do?
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I guess I have never thought of the "divide" between believers and nonbelievers as being an important distinction in the sense you seem to be describing, River. It's not like they are two entirely different kinds of people, with different aims, or as if the whole spectrum of humanity doesn't exist within each category, or as if we can't be friends or live in the same society.
In general, in life, it just doesn't come up. I have friends whose state of belief I have no idea at all of. Unless I know someone because we go to the same church, I have literally no idea what, if anything, people believe.
In general, in life, it just doesn't come up. I have friends whose state of belief I have no idea at all of. Unless I know someone because we go to the same church, I have literally no idea what, if anything, people believe.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King