What is a god?

[Athena]

Primitive people around the world held a concept of a Creator. For many this Creator was female, and their cultures were female dominated, agrarian cultures. Do understand the worship of this female creator is monotheism, because no other gods were conceived. The Mother gave life and that was that.

How we evolved from one god to many is interesting and we can not be sure exactly how this happened, but we can know some things for sure. Sumerians worshipped many gods and they also had evolved a rather complex governmental bureaucracy above themselves. It appears, at some point, they realized just one god couldn't do it all. They conceived as many gods as they conceived of many bureaucrats, each having his/her own personality, life story and area of responsibility. These gods had to be immortal, because if one died, things would be thrown into chaos.

Once the multi god concept occurred to the minds of men, every time a new concept was realized, they named another god. Problem is, as our thinking evolved, more and more concepts/gods were realized. The number of Gods became unrulely. There was a goddess for plants, a god for building ships, a god for communication, a god for reason, a goddess for weaving, etc.. Just as our bureaucracies have grown, so did the pathiem of gods and goddesses.

An Eqyptian pharoah, Amenhotep IV determined there was only one God. He did this before there were Hebrews, who translated Sumerian stories about the many gods, and made them stories of the one God. Later, the Greeks questioned how the gods resolved their differences, and determined, reason, is the controlling force of the universe. Hindus hold a concept of God consciousness as the one with mulitiple manifestations, and this has a mathematical foundation evolved through several cultures, and is the most appealing to me.

What force makes the river? What force grows the plants? What force in our minds causing one to be a ship builder, another to be a messenger and another to be an actor, or doctor? What are the archetypes we use to build our lives? What is a god?

[Jack]

I suspect the reason that the one-god hypothesis was put forward was that as the gods' representative here on Earth, the pharaoh realized that the fewer the number of gods, the greater his power by representing the one, true god. Too many gods diluted his power. When there's only one supreme ruler, and I pose as the only human intermediary between him and the people, look at what a position of power that puts me in.

Ultimately, gods exist in our mythology to explain the unknown, to give humanity the (false) hope that someone's in charge of all this, someone knows what's happening and why.

[The_Genius]

The anthropic principle makes good sense mates...


I believe there is a God/Creator/Architect... However, most people seem to think of God as something tangible and argue, "if we can't see him, we can't believe in him".


Personal choice I guess...


Although God's characteristics that we know of may not be all true but it is more plausible that there is an engineer who created all things.

[Plasma Snake[D]]

If I tried to define what "God" is, I would say it is something that we see as greater than us and that gives us life, like our parents, or the Sun. I'm just considering what we have worshipped in the past and present. Also, the concept of Jesus is like the next logical progression in the belief timeline. I met a couple of people who thought they were Jesus. I thought about it and somehow I think every young male thinks this way to some extent. Jesus, as the story goes, is the son of God.

[dthmstr254]

What is a god?

A god is the most important thing in your life. It is the item or person that you strive to do things for above and despite all else. Period. End of story.

My god isGod.

[Kuldeep]

A God is the name given to the force who is believed to be creator of this universe and having the ability of performing every miracle and is behind all the misteries.

My feeling of such a force is supreme consciousness which exists in every living and non-living material identities much beyond their individualistic sense of conscious existence. In fact that supreme consciousness is under the shade of ignorance of duality. This ignorance of duality is the real cause of Creation of whole universe.

[The Architect]

God is the thing that humans can look up to, blame there problems on, explain there nautral surrondings. "Aw look its thundering, must mean god is moving his furniture" ever hear that one. My belief in a god is still undetermined.

[Athena]

Quote by: Isherwood I suspect the reason that the one-god hypothesis was put forward was that as the gods' representative here on Earth, the pharaoh realized that the fewer the number of gods, the greater his power by representing the one, true god. Too many gods diluted his power. When there's only one supreme ruler, and I pose as the only human intermediary between him and the people, look at what a position of power that puts me in. Ultimately, gods exist in our mythology to explain the unknown, to give humanity the (false) hope that someone's in charge of all this, someone knows what's happening and why.

I suspect you projected the present American power drive into that explanation. Pharaohs didn't have to worry about their power, because the Egyptian belief system thought pharaohs were essential to keeping the world in order, much as the Mayan were focused on time, ritual and keeping the world in order. Thoroughally knowing both belief systems, and why these people had simular pyramids, could be most exciting, because both were so highly concerned with keeping the world in order and fighting against the chaos the could destroy the world.

Rather wanting more power, the pharaoh with his responsibility of keeping things in order, had be darn sure he was doing the right thing! As more and more gods got added, the greater the doubt of how manage this awesome responsibility became. Amenhotep IV's grandfather, had his men research the archives, not to increase his power, but be sure the right gods were honored at the right time, as the Mayans had to perform the right ritual at the right time. I think understanding this as responsibility rather than a powerful drive would be more helpful to our understanding.

For the Greeks, it was just a matter of reason. With immortals who argue just as humans do, there had to be a higher power, and they figured this was reason. This has a lot to do with why Christianity broke from Judaism, and a tribal God became a universal God. When this happens, you have a huge population of preist and others needed for rituals, including the huge market for munnified birds, and other items with religious purpose, have to change their vocation. It is a serious economic crisis! As well as a political crisis!:eek: The ruler a country, must know the right gods/god and rituals, or all is destroyed by a jealous and angry god. Except if you are a Greek. If you are a well educated Greek, then it isn't the gods that make things happen, but system of cause and effect. And worshipping a god, isn't doing to do as much good as using math and science to understand cause and effect. Even the gods had to surrender to reason.

[Athena]

Quote by: The_Genius The anthropic principle makes good sense mates... I believe there is a God/Creator/Architect... However, most people seem to think of God as something tangible and argue, "if we can't see him, we can't believe in him". Personal choice I guess... Although God's characteristics that we know of may not be all true but it is more plausible that there is an engineer who created all things.

This debate about the gods is as old as man himself. We are perhaps taking ourselves much too seriously, to think this debate is limited to the small number of modern day understandings of God, Judaism, Christian, Islam, Hindu, Buddhist (noting buddhist don't worship a supernatural, personal being).

Newton's scientific explanations of forces that order the universe, thrilled Christian groups who received this information as proof of God. God took on a mechanical aspect at this time. Deism and democracy, both assume this God built this mechanical universe. The break between deism and democracy, and religions, is disagreement about how much this God gets involved in our daily lives and how much we can influence this God. You see all religions hold that we can influence this God. We effect what this God does, by what we think and do, or we can not effect this God who only left us with His mechanical universe.

Still I beg the question, what is a god? So far good thinkers have responded, but we do not have a definitive answer to the question of what is a god?

Another question is, how do we influence this God? Or why does this God do as He does? Or is He doing anything at all? Did He leave us with this mechancial universal, and is not actively involved in our lives?

[The_Genius]

Description of God has been given in the Old testament... I don't know how reliable those stories are since they were formed orally and became more like fairy-tales.

However, the Quran reveals very little about the nature of Allah but adjectives. So to be honest, I don't have an answer for your question...

Tough question you have asked...


But if there is no God, then.....

1. What is the meaning of life?
2. Why is the expansion rate of the universe so precise, which literally makes Earth inhabitable?
3. Our life... Plan of an architect or a mere co-incidence?

[Athena]

Quote by: The_Genius Description of God has been given in the Old testament... I don't know how reliable those stories are since they were formed orally and became more like fairy-tales. However, the Quran reveals very little about the nature of Allah but adjectives. So to be honest, I don't have an answer for your question... Tough question you have asked... But if there is no God, then..... 1. What is the meaning of life? 2. Why is the expansion rate of the universe so precise, which literally makes Earth inhabitable? 3. Our life... Plan of an architect or a mere co-incidence?

May I answer your question with a comment about what Kuldeep said. Kuldeep used the term "who"

who is believed to be creator of this universe

and he speaks of the essense, of "what"

such a force is supreme consciousness which exists in every living and non-living material identities much beyond their individualistic sense of conscious existence

All matter is made of conscious God stuff, this is "what" not "who". I am not saying this exactly right, but we get into trouble with we think of giving God a human personality, be it Isis, Zues or the God of Abraham. Such Gods have no substance other than our imaginations, or explain to me differently. Our humans minds can know such human Gods and they please us, but are these human like Gods real? A sun generates light, but what generates God if not the universe itself?

We are beginning to understand how to think in terms of quantum forces and the interaction of forces. We are realizing animals have emotions, and plants communicate with odors, and deforesting a large part of the earth, changes the climate. We are one with everything on our planet, and it is all God stuff happening.

Our existence is not gaurenteed by a separate God who oversees everything and can make things happen depending on if He is pleased or displeased by humans. Our existence is the result of universal laws, and our ignorance of these laws can lead to our extinction on this planet. If we have an existance separate from God, or an existance separate for our earthly bodies and planet, is questionable. If all is God stuff, nothing is separate from God, only

under the shade of ignorance of duality

do we appear separate from God. Like, your shadow not exist without you? Nothing would exist without God, but that does make Him like a human who can be a true God or a false God, like a person can be a good president or a bad president. He can not be pleased or displeased and make things happen as He wills them to happen, voilating universal laws if He so desires, and as Bush thinks he can do.

Most important- sacrificing animals on the alter, buring candles and insense, performing rituals and saying prayers, will not alter the universe, will prevent a volcano from erupting or a river from flooding, or prevent the mongols from invading. When people speak of their God, they are not only speaking of a God, but also of the power and previlege this God gives them, such as the privilege of holding the holy land and making refuges out non Jews, or winning wars against infidals, or having a right to world's oil at low prices.

[shunyadragon]

Quote by: Athena Primitive people around the world held a concept of a Creator. For many this Creator was female, and their cultures were female dominated, agrarian cultures. Do understand the worship of this female creator is monotheism, because no other gods were conceived. The Mother gave life and that was that. How we evolved from one god to many is interesting and we can not be sure exactly how this happened, but we can know some things for sure. Sumerians worshipped many gods and they also had evolved a rather complex governmental bureaucracy above themselves. It appears, at some point, they realized just one god couldn't do it all. They conceived as many gods as they conceived of many bureaucrats, each having his/her own personality, life story and area of responsibility. These gods had to be immortal, because if one died, things would be thrown into chaos. Once the multi god concept occurred to the minds of men, every time a new concept was realized, they named another god. Problem is, as our thinking evolved, more and more concepts/gods were realized. The number of Gods became unrulely. There was a goddess for plants, a god for building ships, a god for communication, a god for reason, a goddess for weaving, etc.. Just as our bureaucracies have grown, so did the pathiem of gods and goddesses. An Eqyptian pharoah, Amenhotep IV determined there was only one God. He did this before there were Hebrews, who translated Sumerian stories about the many gods, and made them stories of the one God. Later, the Greeks questioned how the gods resolved their differences, and determined, reason, is the controlling force of the universe. Hindus hold a concept of God consciousness as the one with mulitiple manifestations, and this has a mathematical foundation evolved through several cultures, and is the most appealing to me. What force makes the river? What force grows the plants? What force in our minds causing one to be a ship builder, another to be a messenger and another to be an actor, or doctor? What are the archetypes we use to build our lives? What is a god?

From the evidence we have of primative cultures, God or Gods took many forms. Assuming the earliest God was a woman is naive. In the primal cultures of humans things were not that simple. Yes, early primative societies did have female Gods, and with some the woman diety was very important. But more often animals were depicted as Gods. In Oriental neolithic cultures, the pig was an early image of a divine creature that became a dragon, and the dragon became a God father of all humans, some times a bird-like dragon described as the mother of all humans and sometimes having female and male charactoristics, the feng huang (misnamed as the Pheonix in English). Later the female god was depicted as riding the pig or dragon God.

As humanity moved out of the Stone Age, humans particularly incarnate Gods as rullers of humanity in worldly and extra worldly forms became the God or Gods of human fears and desires.

My view turns first to the nature of existence as we see in the universe. If this is {'Source') God's creation, than it is a much grander vaste witness of God than any primal or ancient civilized worldview of God or Gods. The 'Source' concept would be in someway compatable with both the Theist and Atheist worldview, if the anthropomorphic mythic burdensome notions are dropped from the dominant thesitic beliefs. The 'Source' is personally involved with creation in a very natural way, which is most important if people are going to lift themselves up and out of the primative worldview.

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: Athena The break between deism and democracy, and religions, is disagreement about how much this God gets involved in our daily lives and how much we can influence this God. You see all religions hold that we can influence this God. We effect what this God does, by what we think and do, or we can not effect this God who only left us with His mechanical universe.

I liked the way lucidly you asked your doubt in the mind. Equally with clear mind, you pick up my direct and confident answer to that. NO, God has no role to play in our day to day life or inthe functioning of universe. This is so as I told in my definition of God, it is all human mind's imaginations that there is a God somewhere sitting and acting. There is no separate God sitting like Mr. Lord X anywhere. So no body has left you in anybody's mechanical universe. The whole thing is that a game is being played by your own mind (physical as well as meta physical)

Still I beg the question, what is a god?

I agree my definition of God was comprehensive, but in view of my number of posts on the topic, I thought you would have got the complete reply. But, it seems you do not recollect my past views about ultimate consciousness, individual consciousness and this our universe!

Do you want me to repeat the whole story?

The type of description you want for your type of God is not possible to provide. It is really beyond conception! It is to be felt only since it is beyond conception, I repeat and again.

Another question is, how do we influence this God? Or why does this God do as He does? Or is He doing anything at all? Did He leave us with this mechancial universal, and is not actively involved in our lives?

I am telling you again and again that you in reality beyond your own mind (Individuality) is the God you are seeking. In that stage this universe is just one of your infinite properties. In that sense yes, you are playing the whole show.

But, till you are considering your self as separate individual, you are bound by the natural properties of the universe. Still you are master of your ownself. Unless you O.K anything you won't perform any action.

Thus, no separate God exists anywhere which governs your or universe's actions.:( :)

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: The_Genius Description of God has been given in the Old testament... I don't know how reliable those stories are since they were formed orally and became more like fairy-tales. However, the Quran reveals very little about the nature of Allah but adjectives. So to be honest, I don't have an answer for your question... Tough question you have asked...

God is all human mind's frame work. No eparate God other than universe is possible.

But if there is no God, then..... 1. What is the meaning of life? 2. Why is the expansion rate of the universe so precise, which literally makes Earth inhabitable? 3. Our life... Plan of an architect or a mere co-incidence?

My answers are:
1. Meaning of life is you exist and like to continue existing with help of a instrument known as mind (Meta-physical mind to be more correct).

2. Just a property of the system, named as universe!!!

3. Definitely a co-incidence, no architect business!

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: shunyadragon My view turns first to the nature of existence as we see in the universe. If this is {'Source') God's creation, than it is a much grander vaste witness of God than any primal or ancient civilized worldview of God or Gods. The 'Source' concept would be in someway compatable with both the Theist and Atheist worldview, if the anthropomorphic mythic burdensome notions are dropped from the dominant thesitic beliefs. The 'Source' is personally involved with creation in a very natural way, which is most important if people are going to lift themselves up and out of the primative worldview.

A nice try to explain the God based on creation and its creator funda may be possible. But, the problem with this explanation is that this universe itself has been scientifically proved to be infinite. Now, if you are add a separate creator (God) to it, it would still remain infinity only. So my logical conclusion is a that there can be no separate God other than UNIVERSE.:(

[shunyadragon]

Quote by: Kuldeep A nice try to explain the God based on creation and its creator funda may be possible. But, the problem with this explanation is that this universe itself has been scientifically proved to be infinite. Now, if you are add a separate creator (God) to it, it would still remain infinity only. So my logical conclusion is a that there can be no separate God other than UNIVERSE.:(

Nothing is in reality proved. Most scientists consider the universe to be finite, and that there is a medium or matrix, I would call the Infinite Matrix (IM) from which our universe and other universes are born live and die according to the laws of the IM.

My argument is not to explain God, but that 'IF' God exists, God reflects his creation and not one of the many culture-bond world views that define a narrow image of God at the expense of others.

[Kuldeep]

Quote by: shunyadragon Nothing is in reality proved. Most scientists consider the universe to be finite, and that there is a medium or matrix, I would call the Infinite Matrix (IM) from which our universe and other universes are born live and die according to the laws of the IM.

O.K ! Agreed there is IM and has some laws. I would prefer calling IM only as eternal God.

My argument is not to explain God, but that 'IF' God exists, God reflects his creation and not one of the many culture-bond world views that define a narrow image of God at the expense of others.

God cannot exist as separate indentity in addition to IM since I (Infinite) includes everything. Therefore question of God existing in addition to IM does not arise, mathematically so.

[Athena]

Quote by: shunyadragon Nothing is in reality proved. Most scientists consider the universe to be finite, and that there is a medium or matrix, I would call the Infinite Matrix (IM) from which our universe and other universes are born live and die according to the laws of the IM. My argument is not to explain God, but that 'IF' God exists, God reflects his creation and not one of the many culture-bond world views that define a narrow image of God at the expense of others.

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.

[Athena]

Quote by: Kuldeep O.K ! Agreed there is IM and has some laws. I would prefer calling IM only as eternal God. God cannot exist as separate indentity in addition to IM since I (Infinite) includes everything. Therefore question of God existing in addition to IM does not arise, mathematically so.

:) 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.

[shunyadragon]

Quote by: Kuldeep O.K ! Agreed there is IM and has some laws. I would prefer calling IM only as eternal God. God cannot exist as separate indentity in addition to IM since I (Infinite) includes everything. Therefore question of God existing in addition to IM does not arise, mathematically so.

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.