What are some opinions on God's nature and how can we connect with it?

[phoenixthoth]

ultimately i don't know if i can know the properties of God. but i can state some opinions.

i fully agree that God has nothing to do with reward or punishment. i don't know for sure if there is a heaven or a hell. i won't know for sure until i go there/die.

i've also heard the definition of God as the greatest being. so from that, several things can be deduced such as omnipotence and omniscience. but one can get a bit more than the obvious from that definition. let's assume (call it an axiom) that not suffering is greater than suffering. therefore, being the greatest being, God does not suffer. since suffering stems from desire, God has no desires. God doesn't desire me to get a job or to remain unemployed. God doesn't desire me to try to explain my opinions about it, nor does it desire me to remain quiet about it.

apart from desire, i do believe God has unconditional love for all beings. hilter as much as jesus.

i believe it is possible to make a connection to God and feel its presence in your life. christians attempt to do this when they take communion, but most of the time, i imagine, people experience nothing that transcends the consumption of bread and wine. but sometimes something more is felt. and this is the God connection. and it comes in various amplitudes. it has nothing to do with God and everything to do with you and obstacles you raise against this connection, it seems to me. when the connection is there, there are three words to describe the feelings one gets: peace, love, and bliss. this affects all areas of living. it's more fullfilling that any physical thing on earth.

i also have some thoughts on the way God's mind works. i don't believe it thinks in words as we do. i believe it just has silent understandings that occur instantaneously. if i say "9/11" to you, you don't automatically think about *everything* associated with that date (all four planes, all the imagry, the speeches by the policitians, your own opinion about it, etc). you see "9/11" and you have this silent understanding *which can be expounded upon if desired*. this, i believe, is the fashion in which God "thinks."

this silent understanding can be transferred to people in a process i call "induction." (like electromagnetic induction.) but the main problem is that this silent understanding can get misinterpreted by the human involved. the human feels the touch of God and it can be overwhelming and the message will get mistranslated. people can delude themselves into thinking they are a prophet or the second coming of christ with a special message from God. i believe the bible was written by people who were undergoing the process of induction from God. but I'm not sure if they translated God's silent understanding correctly. i believe anyone, or almost anyone, can access this silent understanding. but it has to be your will and God's will for you that you undergo induction. if you undergo induction, you may notice a strong urge to share your message with others even though it might be devoid of anything useful.

well, these are my opinions about God. i have no way of verifying or rejecting anyone's opinion of God. i only know what resonates with me.

may your journey be graceful,
phoenix

 

[megashawn]

i also have some thoughts on the way God's mind works. i don't believe it thinks in words as we do. i believe it just has silent understandings that occur instantaneously. if i say "9/11" to you, you don't automatically think about *everything* associated with that date (all four planes, all the imagry, the speeches by the policitians, your own opinion about it, etc). you see "9/11" and you have this silent understanding *which can be expounded upon if desired*. this, i believe, is the fashion in which God "thinks."

But really, if you think about it, we think in that exact same manner. Infact, it seems most the problems in the world stem from us not being able to put our "silent understandings" into words that everyone can agree on.

Also, if god has no desire, then why would he have bothered to create life? You seem to believe that god acts without any reason/purpose.

 

[phoenixthoth]

"But really, if you think about it, we think in that exact same manner. Infact, it seems most the problems in the world stem from us not being able to put our "silent understandings" into words that everyone can agree on."

essentially, yes. sometimes though, i do have thoughts. the similarity is interesting.

"Also, if god has no desire, then why would he have bothered to create life? You seem to believe that god acts without any reason/purpose."

there was no reason as far as i can tell. this was not the result i desired; i wanted there to be a reason.

cheers,
phoenix

 

[John_Titor]

phoenix please read this:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5834&perpage=15&pagenumber=4

 

[phoenixthoth]

john,

theories.

do you think there might be a collective little self which on some levels might be "theentity?"

at least as far as others' theories are concerned, droids have a collective aspect to their nature...

may your journey be graceful,
phoenix

 

[radagast]

Originally posted by phoenixthoth
i've also heard the definition of God as the greatest being. so from that, several things can be deduced such as omnipotence and omniscience.

Actually, no. From Omniscience and Omnipotence, you can deduce Greatest, but the converse isn't true. In a universe/omniverse where a being is greater than all others, that doesn't imply supernatural powers.

I'm not trying to attack your beliefs, only pointing out a reasoning flaw.

 

[phoenixthoth]

well, there's an inherant flaw in the greatest being definition to start with. it's not the definition i personally use.

i'm not sure why omni______ce is considered supernatural.

to me it seems as though a being with omni______ce is greater than a being lacking it.

on the other hand, having infinite awareness, infinite power, and infinite presence makes it seem as though infinity is the greatest thing. but there are infinitely levels to infinity, without a greatest infinity.

there are at least two approaches:
definition: God is the greatest being.
"theorem": the greatest being has greatest awareness, greatest power, and greatest presence.
note: greatest = infinite.

approach two:
definition: God is a being with infinite awareness, infinite power, and infinite presence.
note: infinite is greatest.

may your journey be graceful,
phoenix

 

[radagast]

Putting aside the obvious problems with defining 'Greatest', without picking a specific category of comparison. Greatest baseball player may mean something, but Greatest human would translate to a different person depending on who is doing the judging.

Back to the posit in question, that the greatest entity in the universe/omniverse is god, therefore omni******. Well, if there doesn't appear to be any other beings in the galaxy, aside from on earth, and intelligence is a strong weighting factor in greatest, wouldn't that mean humans were god?

An absurd example (given I understood your intent), but since humans are not omniscent/omnipotent, perhaps you can see why I had issue with your initial statement.

Omni****** is supernatural, because all examples within nature fall far short of that. But if your having a problem with that, substitute the words Omniscent/omnipotent in the phrase I used and it would still be valid.

You theorems have a problem, they are working backwards. While defining god as the greatest AND Omniscient/omnipotent is one thing, saying that the greatest is god, and therefore would be Omniscient/omnipotent is a leap you haven't shown. i.e. a non-sequitur.

 

[phoenixthoth]

this is where the word greatest is too vague to be useful. I'm sure what it means when comparing two beings, though one thing seems clear to me: a being having omni____ce would be greater than a being not having it.

i'm not even sure humans are the greatest beings on this planet, especially since our "intelligence" may lead to the end of life on the whole planet as we know it today. but when comparing apples and oranges to an infinite being, the first two may be hard to value as one being the greater of the other but the third is clearly greater than apples and oranges.

the idea is also this. a being that exists is greater than a being that does not exist. therefore the greatest being would exist since otherwise a being that doesn't exist would be greater than the greatest being. but that's assuming a being that exists is greater than a being that does not exist. "greater" seems mostly arbitrary except that i think that having infinite awareness, infinite presence, and infinite power is greater than having finite awareness, finite presence, and finite power. on the other hand, there is no greatest infinity...

there is one example of a being in nature with omni_____ce: God. therefore, since God is a part of nature (some say IS nature), there is nothing supernatural about omni_____ce. you could say that omni____ce is superwhatisknownttobenaturalsofar.

cheers,
phoenix

 

[radagast]

Originally posted by phoenixthoth
there is one example of a being in nature with omni_____ce: God. therefore, since God is a part of nature (some say IS nature), there is nothing supernatural about omni_____ce. you could say that omni____ce is superwhatisknownttobenaturalsofar.

cheers,
phoenix

And if you could show him/her to me, I could see accepting that there is nothing supernatural about omniscience/omnipotence under at least one definition of 'natural', but since you accept that such an entity exists and I don't, this isn't accepted by me.

The most common definitions of natural circle around 1) arising out of nature (which god does not), within the known laws of physics (again which god doesn't), and not man made. e.g. Humans are natural, but plutonium (being man made) isn't.

Also, and most damning (I love using that in a phrase), to say that god is 'natural', and given god, by most definitions, is the most superlative in all positive categories, renders the term supernatural meaning 'greater than possible', which is a little absurd.

 

[Scott Sieger]

Do you really think that God does not suffer...I would tend to think he is the master of suffering and suffers like no other...

 

[Scott Sieger]

Pheonixthoth,

You are describing something that man kind has been experiencing since the dawning of sentience...

This connectedness that we sometimes feel, like when you look up at the stars and feel the overwhelming urge to say "wow" o rthose walks on a beach at sunset woth the waves rolling in and the seagulls squawking.

That feeling you get when you watch children playing especially if they are your own.

All to do with universal love, not the love of the atypical God but universal love just the same.

People may argue that a God may or not exist but never argue that love can be treated in the same way.

WE know that love exists not only at a personal level but a more universal level. The love one has when they look at the image of our planet from pictures taken from the moon.

The love of nature and all those things that make humanity so special.

If the word God was replaced with the words "universal love" we probably wouldn't have so much of a problem.

 

[Reflector]

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