What is "God" and what can "It" "Do"?

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Message 1258620 - Posted: 11 Jul 2012, 0:06:06 UTC - in response to Message 1258616.  

A thing to consider is that God may be a she and that possibly could explain it all.
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Message 1258621 - Posted: 11 Jul 2012, 0:12:17 UTC - in response to Message 1258620.  

A thing to consider is that God may be a she and that possibly could explain it all.

Are you suggesting that the universe was created on a PMS day? ;)

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Message 1258628 - Posted: 11 Jul 2012, 0:31:40 UTC - in response to Message 1258623.  
Last modified: 11 Jul 2012, 0:32:13 UTC

Please refrain from sexist tangents.

guido, one you brought up gender. Two IMO there are two schools of thought on this subject, a predestination model and a free will model. You refute the predestination God, that does not preclude the other.
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Message 1258637 - Posted: 11 Jul 2012, 0:49:16 UTC - in response to Message 1258632.  
Last modified: 11 Jul 2012, 0:55:02 UTC

Bad post, it needs a red x. I really went way off topic, I'm sorry and will stand in the corner and face the wall.
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Message 1258651 - Posted: 11 Jul 2012, 1:18:13 UTC
Last modified: 11 Jul 2012, 1:25:33 UTC

My guess is that noone has ever seen or witnessed God in flesh and blood.

Science still is about matter and energy.

Everything in existence is known to have started up in the big bang.

It may possibly be a little easier at believing in Jesus Christ, because the story behind is well taught and old.

What about the 10 commandments which were delivered or given to Moses? These ten general rules are stating in a simple way what you are not supposed to be doing or not doing.

Some sciences are recognized (and possibly respected). Other sciences are not being so.

Give a believer (or "Churchman") the task or opportunity of trying to explain God. Will he or she be able to to this in a scientifical way?

You do not need mathematics or physics in order to try to explain God. But the subject of "faith" (including religion, moral and belief) does not go well with everyone here either.

I came across an excellent YouTube video a little while ago which I am watching right now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl3QSLzMwX0

Very good one. Something you should have a look at.

Is it easier to explain or accept the precence of black holes in the Universe?
Can these things be more readily explained than the possible precence or existence of God?

If God really existed and he was supposed to make order out of things, why are not always the ten commandments being followed up be everyone. Do we need constant earthquakes or other natural disasters in order to be reminded about such things?

Some scientists, like Stephen Hawking, are trying to unify several mathematical rules for certain phenomena into fewer, more general rules. Does this possibly make these unified rules more simpler in nature? Is it not there always an "intrinsic" complexity in things in existence which possibly or supposedly can not be readily explained in a more easier way than it already is?
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Message 1258652 - Posted: 11 Jul 2012, 1:21:01 UTC

GOD is Here, There, Everywhere, and GOD can do As HE damn well pleases. Whether Humans like it or not.

I love the GODs/GOD portrayed in the World of Tiers series of novels by Farmer, and in Heinlein's depiction in Job, A Comedy of Justice.

SmiteMeGODSmiteMeHardFourthAngel

May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!
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Message 1258655 - Posted: 11 Jul 2012, 1:42:23 UTC - in response to Message 1258646.  

What exactly did i say for you to assume that i accept the predestination model?

The implication was that if the predestination model were true then "God" is
a sadist, or at the very least an incompetent designer who is "not all knowing".


In my old age i now see "God" as a "Myth" perpetrated by slick con men, and
deluded evangelists, who use the "Concept of God" as a stick to beat the rest
of humanity to their own imperfect view of what "Humanity is Good For".

It's realy the ultimate Pyramid Scheme.

Guido, I can easily see your argument for many organized religions, I'm not so sure about God.
Upon rereading your original post, I agree, you said if God were to exist. Your point is well taken.
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Message 1258677 - Posted: 11 Jul 2012, 2:37:35 UTC

My take on God is if it exists it can not posses any absolute attributes. Those always lead to a contradiction. For instance if it knows everything then how can it forget? If it has all powers then how can it restrict its own powers? Worse contraindications are introduced if it has assigned concepts of good or evil. Those are human concepts and belong to humans. Creation of the universe has its own issue, what created God? Even if you posit God outside of time, that means there is another time dimension or you can't create, creation implying some kind to time to have a before and after. Again, what created God in this other time?

As to organized religions, I tend to agree that they are all con jobs. Good ones considering how long they have persisted.

As to doing God's work, what a hoot. Nearly every person saying this posits that God is all powerful. Why does it need a puny human to do its work?

As to obeying a bunch of laws, another hoot. If God is the designer, it designed the universe so we could not violate its laws, such as going faster than light. The other laws are human inventions.

Does this mean there is no God? No. It does limit what God can be. It rules out what all the organized religions have to say about God.

What would a God be under what is left? If you insist that God caused the universe then they both must have started simultaneously. That leaves us with a big clue. If you remove all the anthropomorphism as well then God may not be a "living thing" as we would know it. But there is no reason to expect God to be life as we know it. Where does that leave us? God is a thing that started when the universe did. The one thing we know that fits that description is the universe. ergo God is the Universe.

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Message 1258681 - Posted: 11 Jul 2012, 2:46:13 UTC - in response to Message 1258677.  

My take on God is if it exists it can not posses any absolute attributes. Those always lead to a contradiction. For instance if it knows everything then how can it forget? If it has all powers then how can it restrict its own powers? Worse contraindications are introduced if it has assigned concepts of good or evil. Those are human concepts and belong to humans. Creation of the universe has its own issue, what created God? Even if you posit God outside of time, that means there is another time dimension or you can't create, creation implying some kind to time to have a before and after. Again, what created God in this other time?

As to organized religions, I tend to agree that they are all con jobs. Good ones considering how long they have persisted.

As to doing God's work, what a hoot. Nearly every person saying this posits that God is all powerful. Why does it need a puny human to do its work?

As to obeying a bunch of laws, another hoot. If God is the designer, it designed the universe so we could not violate its laws, such as going faster than light. The other laws are human inventions.

Does this mean there is no God? No. It does limit what God can be. It rules out what all the organized religions have to say about God.

What would a God be under what is left? If you insist that God caused the universe then they both must have started simultaneously. That leaves us with a big clue. If you remove all the anthropomorphism as well then God may not be a "living thing" as we would know it. But there is no reason to expect God to be life as we know it. Where does that leave us? God is a thing that started when the universe did. The one thing we know that fits that description is the universe. ergo God is the Universe.

+42!

Steve
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Message 1258683 - Posted: 11 Jul 2012, 2:47:29 UTC - in response to Message 1258677.  

Gary, good argument, I remain agnostic.
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Message 1258696 - Posted: 11 Jul 2012, 3:39:58 UTC
Last modified: 11 Jul 2012, 3:42:16 UTC

If we are supposed to be believing in God, we should also be believing in the Bible and what is being taught there.

But not everything is good, many things are evil (like earthquakes, tsunamis, famine and desease).

Do we relate both the good as well as bad to nature, or do we relate such things to God and the Devil, which again implies religion?

To many people, religion is not supposed or can not be science at all.

Can religion and faith be attributed to nature as being explained by scientific means?

Some sciences (not necessarily astronomy or even E.T. research) deal with the subject of the "supernatural". Are these sciences regarded as being established or recognized in the same way as the more "traditional" sciences?

If we should sometimes be dealing with such subjects, are we then discussing them as seen from a religious perspective, or possibly a scientific perspective?

Which approach is supposed to give the best result or answer in return?
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Message 1258861 - Posted: 11 Jul 2012, 11:17:32 UTC
Last modified: 11 Jul 2012, 11:21:53 UTC

guido.man,
Do you really want to know who God is?
Or do you just want to have an abstract chat to completely knock the whole concept of God?

If you want to know about the Higgs Boson, you would read a science article that tells you about it!
If you want to know about Einsteins general relativity, you would read a science article that tells you about it!

If you want to know who God is, then you have to read an article that discusses God. That article is the Bible, or the Koran or whatever. You MUST read the source of the story to find the truth!

So what does the Bible say about God?

IMPORTANT; It says that Jesus was his "Son". So we all know most of the stories about Jesus, so we know full well that Jesus was a Man, a human being, just like you and me. So lets put 2 and 2 together. If Jesus was a flesh and blood human being, then God, his father was a flesh and blood human being just like you and me. Its that simple! Its not magic!

So if God is a human being, what's the difference between God and me and you?

The difference is that God is a scientist just like us human beings do science today. But God, the scientist, cracked all the problems that we are still trying to figure out today. So that means that God cracked genetic engineering. And so God has altered his genetic code so that he does not have to die. This means that God, and his buddies like Jesus, and the prophets, and Buddha, and who ever else got into this elite club, they are all immortal.

So along with immortality, they enjoy all the other benefits that we are currently enjoying through scientific advancement. But they have ALL of science, so they have the scientific stuff that we are currently just dreaming about.

Now thats how you use logic and your intelligence to find out who God really is. Want to know who and what God is, then you got to reference directly from the source material, the bible. Everything else is just hear-say!

John.
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Message 1259204 - Posted: 12 Jul 2012, 2:44:54 UTC

Science is science and religion is religion; they are not necessarily incompatible. But science doesn't prove religion nor does religion teach us science. The purpose of science is to explain the workings of the physical universe; while the purpose of religion is (very broadly) to teach us how to be better people to each other and to ourselves.

Please don't use the words of the Bible or any other religious book to argue that since the science isn't right, therefore religion must also be false. Religious teaching is rife with parables, metaphors and allegories, because those teachings are not concerned with scientific reality, but with moral and ethical truths. If you dismiss the works of Shakespeare or Tolkien because what they wrote did not really happen, then you miss the point completely.
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Message 1259319 - Posted: 12 Jul 2012, 11:10:14 UTC - in response to Message 1259204.  
Last modified: 12 Jul 2012, 11:24:20 UTC

Science is science and religion is religion;

Are you sure about that Qui-Gon?
Are you really sure they are separate and different things? Did you actually think it through or are you repeating that line because you heard it somewhere else?

I disagree with you Qui-Gon. I think religion is what happens when an intelligent civilisation discovers everything there is to know about science. Currently we, the human race, are in a transition period between having almost no science back in the 15th century, to having the vast majority of science right now at the start of the 21st century. By the end of this century, we will have resolved 99.999% of all the problems that currently elude scientists.

After that period, from around 2100 onward, there will be no more scientists who "investigate" things to find out how they work. Because we will know how everything works. After that, it will just be engineers who use the science!

Its from that point onward, that nobody will be able to argue about the results of science. From that point onward, science will become more like religion than science. In a way, science will loose some of its excitement because we will have all the answers. Its at this point that scientists will start using more and more poetry to describe just how amazing and beautiful things are. More and more analogies will be used to describe things. By the year 2200, science will sound more like the bible you read from ancient times. Full of hidden meaning, coded words and proverbs. Science will have become a full fledged religion that nobody can argue with. And at that stage, the people who control science will have become very powerful, like priests and kings that nobody can argue with. Their scientific word will become Law.

So Qui-Gon (Liam Neeson), are you really sure that science and religion are not the same thing! For all of human history, it was the priests that did scientific things. The priests WERE the scientists. Its only in the last 20 years that TV stations have been broadcasting programs that claim Darwinian human evolution is true. You will find out in time that Charles Darwin was wrong, and the Bible is truth. The bible is a description of what happens when scientists go off to new planets and start creating plants and animals, and then other intelligent beings in their own image. And we too will give our future "created" children a book, which we might call it the bible, to let them know their origins.

Its cyclical, it just goes around in circles. The "created" becomes the "creator".

John.
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Message 1259324 - Posted: 12 Jul 2012, 11:24:20 UTC - in response to Message 1259319.  

snip
The bible is a description of what happens when scientists go off to new planets and start creating planets and animals, and then other intelligent beings in their own image. And we too will give our future "created" children a book, which we might call it the bible, to let them know their origins.
John.


& that confirms that there is a god? Using your example, what's to say that "someone else" hasn't already done this with the earth?
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Message 1259326 - Posted: 12 Jul 2012, 11:31:14 UTC - in response to Message 1259324.  
Last modified: 12 Jul 2012, 11:40:06 UTC

snip
The bible is a description of what happens when scientists go off to new planets and start creating plants and animals, and then other intelligent beings in their own image. And we too will give our future "created" children a book, which we might call it the bible, to let them know their origins.
John.


& that confirms that there is a god? Using your example, what's to say that "someone else" hasn't already done this with the earth?

Sirius B,
Thats my very point here! That is what our Bible is!! Its a description of what happened in our past. Scientists who look just like us, and do all the things we do, found a new planet and travelled to that planet, the Earth! They started creating plants and animals through genetic engineering. They were at this for several thousand years because their planet was full of people and they needed a fresh new planet to "create" new living creatures. And finally, around 4,004 BC, they created us Human Beings. Its just like it says in the book of Genesis.

But they chose not to give us the scientific knowledge, because just as it says in the bible, if we "ate from the tree of knowledge, we would surely die". If they gave us the science, then we would become "Gods like them". And that is what has happened today, 6,000 years later. We human beings have become "God like" since we have discoverd genetic engineering, and all the other science.

I'm not a bible expert, but somewhere in the bible is says that a "day" is a thousand years. They came here roughly about 10,000 BC, created us around 4,004 BC, and today, in the year 2000's, we have entered the 7th "day". A day being a thousand years. Now its our turn to be "Gods" now that we have entered the 7th day. It just goes around in circles, and time goes on and on. The created becomes the creator.

John.
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Message 1259335 - Posted: 12 Jul 2012, 12:30:36 UTC - in response to Message 1259326.  

They came here roughly about 10,000 BC, created us around 4,004 BC


Have you been reading this?
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

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Message 1259338 - Posted: 12 Jul 2012, 12:44:09 UTC - in response to Message 1259335.  

They came here roughly about 10,000 BC, created us around 4,004 BC


Have you been reading this?

Hi Bobby,
No, i never read the Chariots of the Gods. But i know whats its about. The dates i mentioned are in lots of books Bobby. All those people get the dates from the Bible itself.

I do like Erich von Däniken. I like his bold faced approch to trying to get to the truth. He tells it like it really is! The guy is cool!

John.
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Message 1259382 - Posted: 12 Jul 2012, 14:46:09 UTC

OMG........?!?
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Message 1259432 - Posted: 12 Jul 2012, 16:07:12 UTC - in response to Message 1259382.  

OMG........?!?

Shouldn't that be OMD? Devil!

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