God does exist - but what is he, she or it?

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   promisemposted 8 years ago

   I believe God exists because of my own spiritual experiences and the experiences of millions of other people over thousands of years of human history.
   
   But stating that God exists immediately makes people jump to conclusions about what God IS.
   
   I am not saying that the God of the Christian Bible exists or the one defined by Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and other religions exists. I am only saying that human beings have certain experiences that are spiritual or mystical in nature, and they are interpreted as being a connection to God.
   
   It doesn't matter if you are a fundamentalist or atheist, Christian or Muslim. The fact that we have all argued for centuries about a definition of God (or non-God) supports my proposal that we don't know what God is. God could be an internal biochemical reaction, a surge of some form of energy, an advanced alien being or a true Supreme Being. We are simply guessing.
   
   Even if you have not had a spiritual or mystical experience, I don't think you can discount the millions if not billions of people who have had them over the course of time.
   
   What are your thoughts on the subject?

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      wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      You have stated one of the problems with the existence of a god - even as  you believe it is there you fail to define what it is.  Only that people have experiences they attribute to a god, and of course attributing something to a god does not in any way show the existence of god.  Only that people make one up to explain their experiences.
      
      Like everyone else, then, you will have to define a god before you can claim it exists.  Until that can be done, claiming anything is the result of a god doesn't make much sense.  As you point out it could be internal, it could be an unknown energy source or an ET - all are no better than guesses.

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         promisemposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         If I understand you correctly, I would say our inability to clearly define something doesn't mean that that thing doesn't exist.
         
         Spiritual experiences point to something we label as God. The experience allows us to to say that "God" exists. In that sense, God is just a label. The experience is evidence.
         
         All major religions have "numinous" in common. It's the words we layer on top of it that are limited in nature and colored by cultural and personal differences.

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            wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this

            Of course it doesn't.  But trying to define "God" from actions attributed to it are futile as those actions cover every human experience from finding lost car keys to clearing a road of traffic to saving (or taking) of lives. 
            
            Go back a few years to cosmologists deciding there was "dark matter" out there.  No definition (same as god), but the results of this unknown "dark matter" was to accelerate galaxies away from each other.  So the search began for something which produced that effect, retaining the label "dark matter" until it is found, as nothing more than a label. 
            
            But "God" doesn't work that way - people all over the world ascribe everyday events, all of them, to a god.  They also don't check for other possible causes, preferring to label the cause as "God".  This makes the task of showing the existence of "God" impossible as it rests only on the word of the person (without testing) that "God" caused their experience, and the opposite experience of someone else.  The numinous you mention falls into place here - with experiences unrepeatable, untestable and with opposing effects, all attributed to "God", from differing cultures it is not possible to determine of "God" exists.   
            
            The end result is that you are correct; we cannot say "God" doesn't exist.  Not only is it nearly impossible to prove a negative, but when we cannot define either what "God" is OR what "God" does, it cannot be proven either way.  As individuals, then, we must all make a choice based primarily on whether we want a god or not - there is zero evidence either way even though we like to claim that our experiences are evidence.  They are not.

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            Trichakraposted 7 years agoin reply to this

            Well Said.

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               promisemposted 7 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks, Trichakra. Defining spirtuality is no easy task for anyone!

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      Missy Smithposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      That was very well said Promisem. I have a similar view, and I couldn't have stated that nearly as clear as you. I agree with you on all points.

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         promisemposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Thanks, Missy. I struggle with this one quite a bit!

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      jacharlessposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      If we openly consider all the stories, texts, tablets and said experiences, throughout the 20K + years of human history, the simplest conclusion of what "God" is : is that "God" is everything - as we define the tangible and intangible elements of Life.
      
      Like yourself, I am a man who prefers the philosophy of application/experience over the philosophies of theory, even to a large degree history. So, the adventure to discovery of what begins within.
      
      I have come to accept that on the genetic level we, the entire collective, have perfect knowledge of what "God" is, even as we genetically know every language, when to breathe, how to sneeze, etc. It is also within these beautiful million billion stands of information that we are completely ignorant of who "God" is. It was, and is the inception of indulgance of those information threads, called Reason, Thinking, that confuses us and keeps us bound in an inescapable maze. Regardless of how amazing and beautiful said maze is, it is a death trap.
      
      It is believed the mind, in all its glorious detail, is all man has to show that he is unique and special. Yet, from all that he has done throughout existence, it is the mind that has kept him at a loss, denying him the answer to a question he never really needed to consider -because he already knows the answer. He has always known. It was programmed into him, just as every probable hue of color, alone or combined with another, was programmed into him to enjoy and view from every angle, without effort, without necessity, without struggle or fear, without thinking, dissecting, testing or idolizing, without squabble or shame....
      
      Once agsin, I'll reiterate this, and hope it sticks: whenever, wherever there is necessity, a need to know, there is a lack of experience, complete confusion and chaos. And whenever or wherever there is experience there is no question or answer, no reason, even though that knowledge exists within...

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         DasEngelposted 8 years agoin reply to this

         Very well said.

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   unvrsoposted 8 years ago

   I used to believe that God existed as thought in religion, but now without wanting to offend those who believe in a true God that created us as his image and likeness, I´m starting to believe that each and every human can be the creator of his own universe; not the universe that we know, but another, one of his/her own creation….

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      DasEngelposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      That's a very interesting perspective, and kind of true as well!

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   janesixposted 8 years ago

   What is God? Our creator.
   
   I don't know the nature of God, but I can make a few guesses.
   
   We were given sense organs-God must want us to experience the world. We were give large brains-God must want us to be able to think rationally. We were given a sense of right and wrong-God must want us to behave.

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      wildernessposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      You're right - they are guesses.  For instance, perhaps the big brain is to handle the sensory input, not think.  Most people cannot think consistently and rationally, after all.
      
      People all over the world have vastly different senses of right and wrong - it mostly seems an after affect to the environment (physical and social) and nothing given by a god.  And even fewer people consistently behave even by their own sense of right and wrong.
      
      There is also the problem of every god being intensely anthropomorphic.  We want our god to be as we feel is right, and that just doesn't follow at all.  Until we can know the purpose of creation, trying to deduce the nature of a god is an exercise in futility, and doubly so when we give a god attributes we would admire.

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   DasEngelposted 8 years ago

   God is something like a successful angler.

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   paradigm searchposted 8 years ago

   He wears a lab coat...

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      adevwritingposted 8 years agoin reply to this

      ......... And he studies and performs experiments on humans

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