What is a god?

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: shunyadragon I believe in God. The IM is an explanation for the nature of physical existence and would include everything physical, but the physical evidence is inadaquate to define God and the relationship to the universe and the IM. From the human point of view we are unable to define God as seperate or a part of anything. Considering our present knowledge of science and math, all we can conclude is our universe is very natural and it works very well. If creation reflects the nature of God, than God is very natural, and again not cultural moribound anthropomorphic image considered exclusive in any one of the competing religious worldviews we call religions, faiths and churches. We are little more than children in a sand box in the distant corner of a dust bunny in the distant corner of the Astrodome. time to get real, and realize what the evidence really indicates. Math is no help in describing or defining God. Math is simply one of the tools used by humans to give order to our worldview of the universe.

I can understand what you are trying to tell. Let me help you to put your mind in different language.

IM you say is physical. I would differ here since the whole IM exists based on infinite levels of consciousness. Absolute consciousness is only one which has become infinite due to enveloping of individualistic Ego developing into infinite meta-physical minds which in turn are further enveloped with infinite physical minds. These infinite minds exist in final envelope of infinite physical bodies in the form of infinite species living as well as non-living ones. Thus, one consciousness appears through whole IM. That ONE CONSCIOUSNESS is the God you are talking about which really does not exist separately anywhere but in whole of IM :)

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: Athena :) I am so thrilled with your introduction of math in this conversation. Here is a major cultural difference the west must over come if it is going to remain competitive in the world. Imagine a few billion people holding a concept of a king like God and incapable of understanding reality mathematically. We are about to experience something like a polar reversal. That is the future will be lead by the east, not the west, now that science has advanced to quantum physics. Because of language and culture the west had the advantage of advancing material technology, but now it is the east that has the advantage.

Everything in present, always remains in transition. Change is law of nature. The best thing would be to enjoy it and if you can, help the change in the positive direction. That would be easier to go with the wind rather going against the trend. However, if you have strength to go against, you would find a place in the history of future.

[Athena]

Quote by: Kuldeep Everything in present, always remains in transition. Change is law of nature. The best thing would be to enjoy it and if you can, help the change in the positive direction. That would be easier to go with the wind rather going against the trend. However, if you have strength to go against, you would find a place in the history of future.

:) So much is happening all at once it might be hard to figure out direction.
However, I believe in New Age, a time of high tech., the end of tryanny, and a time of peace. Look how we are coming together and reasoning from all our different points of view, from all over world. This is the Resurrection with archeologist and geologist bring the past into the present. We have so much more to reason with, than ever before in the history of man. This is very exciting. And I am not sure, but I think this was predicted by many, with the Mayan prediction being clear on this evolution of change. Whatever, if I keep Krishna in mind and do what I can to manifest the good, then I can expect good? :) God is good.

[Kuldeep]

@Athena

Very true: As you sow so shall you reap!!

[alexGERMAN]

A god is merely a being that is not bound to the same laws we are.

[arielmessenger]

Archetypes are eternal dramatic characters that continually haunt human existence like shadows off stage. "God" is the biggest and most comprehensive of all the Archetypes but God is unknowable directly. Humans "know" Archetypes indirectly as spiritual agents communicating with human beings through synchronicity events or "signs". In other words, we have only the trail of Signs left by Something that a human can find and follow leading to new knowledge and new ways of social organization but there's no way to know what has made the Path the individual or the group to follow. For me the Path is indistinguishable from God. It is God for all intents and purposes. But then we are God too, or so the Signs have informed me, only God at a very primitive level way back in the time-space continuum cycle from the Big Bang beginning to Black Hole annihilation cycle that constitutes our material Universe, God's Creation where God creates Itself in "unbegotten" fashion.

[shunyadragon]

Quote by: Athena Hum, I like this explanation.:) All the religions are so culture bound. Around the holy lands, people had patron gods who took care of them and not other people. The God of Abraham is one of these God's. It got mixed up with the demonology from the east where mirages give people reason to believe in demons. Than it was mixed with other Persia, Egyptians, and Greek ideas, but still clinging to the patron god made in man's image. This personal God or Goddess has a lot of emotional appeal, but for good reason these personal god evolved to a God who is not named and no image is to be made of Him. If Jews, Christians and Muslims would drop the cultural stuff that keeps them divided, then maybe we could relax with one God.

This basically the message of the Baha'i Faith is that our human knowledge of God, spiritual realms, and science is relative, and all the different religions of the world are limited human worldviews of the nature of reality which is in essence 'One'. This is even believed as true for the Baha'i Faith in accepting that all worldviews are transitory and only reflect the evolving nature of humanity. Religions and other beliefs tend to cling to their own view of truth at the expence of others. This is the main reason for the violence of the modern world. It is time for us to give up the individual religions or other ancient worldviews as any form of absolute belief, and embrace the unity of the evolving spiritual and physical nature of the human journey and our universe.

[shunyadragon]

Quote by: Kuldeep I can understand what you are trying to tell. Let me help you to put your mind in different language. IM you say is physical. I would differ here since the whole IM exists based on infinite levels of consciousness. Absolute consciousness is only one which has become infinite due to enveloping of individualistic Ego developing into infinite meta-physical minds which in turn are further enveloped with infinite physical minds. These infinite minds exist in final envelope of infinite physical bodies in the form of infinite species living as well as non-living ones. Thus, one consciousness appears through whole IM. That ONE CONSCIOUSNESS is the God you are talking about which really does not exist separately anywhere but in whole of IM :)

I only intended to describe the nature of the physical reality of the emperical realms of science in the IM model. I believe in a Source, some call God, and you intimate as an Absolute Consiousness, and the unity of the spiritual and physical nature of existence that reflect the attributes of each. I believe in the inherent unity of the spiritual and physical realms in the Baha'i view of the nature of reality, but also recognize the limited relative nature of human knowledge in comprehending the nature of existence. We (humanity) have a state of consiousness as individuals and collectively, which evolves through history and shares the attributes of the Absolute consiousness of the 'Source', but will always fall short of comprehending the absolute in our journey through the worlds of existence.

Since the advent of the New Age in 1844, it is incumbant upon all humanity to recognize the inherent unity of the 'human organism', and the inherent unity of all existence far vaster in the macro and micro nature of existence than human journey could comprehend.

[arielmessenger]

Some may be interested in the new universal Religion of Peace which has no formal organization and no written words that have proven to divide humanity into warring camps. But the Religion of Peace does have a new Word of God that contains no written words because God doesn't need them to get across the most important new religious instruction for the New Millennium. More about this later..

[shunyadragon]

Quote by: arielmessenger Some may be interested in the new universal Religion of Peace which has no formal organization and no written words that have proven to divide humanity into warring camps. But the Religion of Peace does have a new Word of God that contains no written words because God doesn't need them to get across the most important new religious instruction for the New Millennium. More about this later..

I am interested in anything that promotes unity and peace for the New Millennium. An interesting question is when does the New Millenium begin. Our calendar is quite arbitrary and likely wrong in terms of the beginning date or what would year 1 AD. It was likely 6 or 7 AD that would be the correct beginning of the 1st Millenium AD.

The greatest transformation from the Old World to the New World we now today began in the 1840s to the 1860s. In reality the passing of the year 2000 did not mark anything significant as far as change.

[Kuldeep]

The Religion of Peace!!!!

Has that anything to do to define "What is God????" I do not think it so. Why not to have separate thread for "Religion of Peace"?

To me, God exists as Universe and its properties. Main property which fuctions in it, is "Cause and effect". However, recently I was reading a book in which a great learned philospher, probably it was Aurbindoo from India who in the course of his discourses in America, had said even Intutional effects also occur , which I can put as a type of cause only. But, how and why Intution could cause effect, I do not know!!!! :( May it is power of mind!!!

Can some body help me to know more about Intutional changes in physical world???

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: Athena Whatever, if I keep Krishna in mind and do what I can to manifest the good, then I can expect good? God is good.

Oh, I did not remember it in time, Krishena itself has defined God in Bhagved-Gita a number of times and in number of examples. He said he is neither good nor bad, neither truth nor lie, neither right nor wrong, neither intellect nor mind....but something beyond which is unconceivable by our natural gifted senses!!!!:( ???

[loser]

I found it amusing that Athena gravitated towards Hinduism from all of the available religious choices. Just a few years ago, India thought that their (Hindu) religion was the most ridiculous and unbelievable and untenable religion in the world. They invited leaders of all of the other religions in the world to a consortium where they could listen to each attempt at proselytization and determine which new religion to adopt as their new 'flagstaff' religion.

Although I believe that Islam won the upper hand, I think that the general populace would not readily discard their relatively colorful and quirky religion and that experiment eventually failed. Their 'sacred cow' remains.

[loser]

What is a god and from where did it originate?

I think that the answer is a lot more simple than what is commonly proffered. It could have never failed man's attention to see the immensity of the universe in which we live and the absolute minuteness of our own existence. To see the existence of life on earth and to then peer out into that vast universe of stars and NOT see life BEYOND the earth would just be too incredible to imagine.

And, of course, this was before the INVENTION of EVOLUTION, and they could look at all of CREATION and see that there MUST have been a CREATOR. So, if the CREATOR didn't introduce Himself to the people, they could only surmise what he/she/it must look like and, invariably, put a visage upon this diety that mirrored its apparent strengths.

Then, when the REAL God showed Himself to a select people, they could laugh and make fun of those 'ignorant' people who worshipped 'unknown' gods. Its where that air of superiority came from...like an adult talking down to a child. Pride was an expected result...and envy and resentment and well, you get the picture.

No one wants to be shown when they are wrong...

especially when they are.

[Fonceai]

Sometimes, loser, it's not about believing in the religion itself, but about agreeing with the core of what that religion teaches.

You can think Catholicism as a religion is complete bullshit, but you can be very enthusiastic about the core of what it tries to teach.

To answer the topic and OP...

I am a god.

I can both create and destroy my reality, and I am responsible for what happens within it.

I'm not omnipotent... others can eff with my universe and take things from me, or give things to me.

I'm not omniscient... I'm not aware of everything going on in my universe.

I'm not omnibenevolent... I don't care for some of the things in my universe.

But that doesn't make me any less of a god over my own self.

[loser]

and I am responsible for what happens within it.

Only to a limited extent. You are NOT an isolated being but merely a tiny part of a much larger macrocosm. Though you may perceive that you have power over the direction that your life takes, it is merely an illusion. You are a puppet...with all the strings attached. An excerpt from my poem, "The Puppet Master"©:

Lurking in the darkness
Hidden from your view
Awaits the Puppet Master
To pull the strings for you

Your conscious mind assures you
You are still in full control
For it knows not of the Master
That lies within your soul

All those funny feelings
The ones you can't explain
Merely gentle tugs of unseen threads
Woven in your brain

A self-made man you've made yourself
A fortune and a fame
But you're really only a playing piece
In the puppet's master's game

...


So even though you may be a god in your own eyes (or even in the eyes of others), this does not release you from the yoke of a higher power.

[Fonceai]

I'm only not responsible when another person bumps into my universe with theirs and then interferes.

Does that mean they were guided by your enigmatic Puppet Master?

Maybe.

Does that mean I'm not god of my own little universe, solely responsible for the full consequences of my actions?

Absolutely not.

I'm supreme god of my universe, a significant deity in my wife's, and the god of protection, fun, and discipline in my daughter's (my wife is the god of comfort, sleep, and food).

[loser]

Protection: Don't want it, don't think I need it.

Fun: Overrated and too tiring.

Discipline: Keep your hands to yourself!

****************************************************

Comfort: Can't get too much of that!

Sleep: Time for a nap.

Food: Yum, Yum, Yummy!


I think I could worship at the altar of the wife-god but I would never bow down to you. Away with your whips and chains...go play Dungeons and Dragons with somebody else!

[Fonceai]

You didn't quite get it, but that's okay.

[loser]

I think I did, but I was just trying to be humorous as usual. I think laughter is the best medicine and I try to induce as much as possible while I am decimating my opponents in these war of words.

Of course, I have noticed that no one seems to think that I am winning but me...can I be as self-deluded as everyone else obviously is?

Oh, well...I'll keep talking and eventually I'm bound to say something that sounds smart...even if it really isn't.