Question About God

[Rome]

G_d is a tricky thing…

Gramdma was all like “ God put your damn pants back on. You’re scarin’ all the children.” Then God was all like “**** that, I’m a go pee in the punch bowl or some potted plants or some **** like that…”

I use the term God because I cant think of anything better to make up a neologism for it. The two things that will keep people looking towards “G_d” are fear and laziness.

 

[Jolly Green]

What is the purpose of god?

I can only speak for the Christian faith, protestant specifically. Anything eternal, as the God of the christian faith claims to be, does not need a purpose. Something is created with a purpose in mind. God was not created.

Why bother to create humans, put them through a test on earth, then send them to heaven or hell? What does god get from this?

For his glory and his pleasure. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," to put it lightly. God does not "need" entertainment. He chose too because he chose too. Not out of necessity, because He needs nothing. Not out of boredom, because He doesn't get bored. He just decided to.

If heaven is eternal, what is god's role in heaven? Does he hang out with all the spirits there?

Bible says that those "whose name is written in the Lamb's book of life" will have eternal fellowship with Him in Heaven, (likened to streets of gold and mansioned.) Hell is eternity away from God (likened flames in Hell.)

Those are "simplified" answers.

Cheers,
D

 

[Quirk]

Originally Posted by Rome

G_d is a tricky thing…

Gramdma was all like “ God put your damn pants back on. You’re scarin’ all the children.” Then God was all like “**** that, I’m a go pee in the punch bowl or some potted plants or some **** like that…”

I use the term God because I cant think of anything better to make up a neologism for it. The two things that will keep people looking towards “G_d” are fear and laziness.

I guess it all depends how you define God. To me, God is the unknown, and the willingness to examine the unknown is the antithesis of fear and laziness.

 

[Britalian]

Originally Posted by VersaceMan

I'm not a religious person and tend to disagree somewhat with the way organized religion has become, but at times I am spiritual.

Lately I've been thinking a lot more about religious and spiritual issues, but I just had a thought a second ago.

What is the purpose of god? Why bother to create humans, put them through a test on earth, then send them to heaven or hell? What does god get from this? If heaven is eternal, what is god's role in heaven? Does he hang out with all the spirits there?

If there is a god, perhaps we are entertainment of sorts for him. Maybe, since some believe that humans are created in his image, we share a bit of human nature with him - that is, the urge to show people beautiful things. If that were the case, maybe god just wanted to show us his masterpiece - the universe.

Obviously nobody knows any of these answers, I just wanted to pose the question and get some discussion. Perhaps AlanC can chime in and give me a little perspective on it.

I see religious belief as originating from one of several reasons;

1- the fear of NOT believing: the consequences of what COULD happen after life- the guy with the forked tail, eternal nothingness etc

2- To put ones life, the universe etc, into a manageable context which is 'acceptable' - something with which to face the future; the randomness or survival of the fittest alternatives are unacceptable.

3- To give the stuff which comes to us, and those things we wish for, accountability, in the context of: an overseer providing to those who are good, wholesome etc. It 's a payback justified from our own good behaviour.

t

 

[funk_soul_brother]

Tck: Your comments in this thread are basically verbatem to my own. I believe that we are a rapidly growing group of people on this Earth. I have a definite sense that some major changes and true paradigm shifts are going to take place within my own lifetime. Throughout all recorded time the religions have served the people and ultimately crumpled as the population grew into a new way of thinking. I truly believe that the time of Christianity is nearly over and that a much more nature-based ... I hesitate to use the word, but for simplicity's sake ... religion will move the people. For me, what you are saying is essentially just that: a nature-based philosophy in which all things are ultimately of the same thing.

God IS flowing water, the force that pushes blood through the veins, moves a sperm towards an egg, a planet to spin, and on and on. That's what makes God a part of us and everything. To get close to God is to just feel the breath for example. To see the energy behind everything that keeps it moving, that makes us grow old, that's God. Which everyone is a physical part of with the conscience and awareness to actually see it.

I couldn't agree with more enthusiasm. For me, though I've often been referred to as a pluralist, I basically take the "Star Wars" notion and apply it to our existence. We are of God because God is all things, all ways, always. "The Force" that's in each and every living organism. I was raised in a Christian house, granted quite a lazy one, and I'm glad to have been grounded in some understanding as a child. It helped give me a sense of guidelines about the World, something larger than myself. However, when I was in university, my eyes became opened to so much more. The first year program at my alumnus is virtually a study of the evolution of the western mind. Over the course of a year, we read selections or the entirety of 68 different historical pieces of literature, be they religious philosophies or significant novels. The timeline started in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia and moved on through Ancient Greece, the dawn of Christianity, the Middle-Ages, etc etc to contemporary literature. This gave me such a vast perspective on "The Question of GOD" that I really found it difficult to believe fully in the Christian God the way I had previously. However, at the same time I recognized the fundamental truth in all religions. I believe that in worshipping anything natural in this World, we are worshipping some part of God. I think throughout time we have given this God different definitions and boundaries constructed of the human mind, yet there is a common thread running between each and that is the acknowledgment of the existence of LIFE. Life is God, in my view, so to further the waterfall analogy -- God/Life is the waterfall and as it's split we perceive the droplets from many different perspectives, depending on time and geography, etc. But fundamentally these religions are all the same. They're all just different paths to the same pool at the bottom. I don't believe that any of them are "correct" so long as they de-value another. And I don't think I'm alone. I see a movement, an undercurrent of people who are beyond religious wars and doctrine and scripture and dogma and human based laws. More and more people whom I meet say, "I'm not religious, I'm spiritual" and to each person that word means something different. But I think that humans are not strong enough to exist without an idea of God, so there will inevitably be a new definition that we come to as a whole. And I believe it will be simple. It will be in the worship of life, in all its forms on this Earth. We have been abandoning our Earth, our great Mother, and as a species we are sensing that it's time to change. Our lives, our Godliness is dependent on it.

 

[life_interrupts]

Gentlemen:

A very informed and enlightened thread. My personal experience is that God is what is possible in the world -- good, bad, transcendent, and depraved. There is faith and there is religion. Faith is belief beyond tangible experience. Religion is man's attempt to codify the ethereal and indefinable that is faith. I am in awe of people of faith, for they believe in the possibilities of existence and beyond. Religious people scare the hell out of me. And it's usually clear who is who.

 

[designprofessor]

Good thread! Here's some suggested readings:

Q:The struggle with faith? read Keirkegaard
Q: Do away with idols? read Nietzsche
Q:The god impulse? read Freud / Joseph Campbell
Q: How to balnce it all? read Buddhism /The Dalai Llama /The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Q: What about the beautiful gutter of life? read Charles Bukowski
How did it start? Steven Hawking, The Quotable Einstein

 

[Tck13]

Originally Posted by designprofessor

Good thread! Here's some suggested readings:

Q:The struggle with faith? read Keirkegaard
Q: Do away with idols? read Nietzsche
Q:The god impulse? read Freud / Joseph Campbell
Q: How to balnce it all? read Buddhism /The Dalai Llama /The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying
Q: What about the beautiful gutter of life? read Charles Bukowski
How did it start? Steven Hawking, The Quotable Einstein

I have all books by Joseph Campbell on my list of books to buy from Amazon. He seems to have an incredible understanding/gift of the human archetype, mythology, and symbolism.

Carl Jung should be in there somewhere...

 

[designprofessor]

As I understand, Campbell was a protoge of Jung.

 

[johnapril]

God is in the details.