the Nature of God

[Aphrodite]

Dorian Gray
Member
Member # 192

Member Rated:
   posted 12-07-2004 11:28 AM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not only is God described as being outside space, but He is also described as being outside of time. Consider the following:
2 Peter 3:8
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
Psalm 90:4
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Psalm 102:27
But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.

Acts 1:7
...It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His power.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After dispelling any misconceptions about my belief - I am by most standards an atheist - I have to insist that another interpretation of these verses could be that God is very long-lived, and not necessarily outside time. I would go even further and say that if God was outside time, all of 'creation' would be pointless.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When asked “Who or what created God?,” we are making the assumption that God was created. If God exists outside of time and space, and if He is the Creator of time and space, He obviously was not created! God began the beginning! This is why He says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from your premises. For example, there may be an entire race of time creators, and our 'god' may in fact be just a low level creator in that hierarchy. Furthermore, when someone asks "who or what created humans", they are making the assumption that HUMANS were created - which is ALSO not necessarily the case.
Also, as I pointed out, if God is long-lived and not extratemporal, then God didn't create time and is beholden to it.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 The statement of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” is making reference to the creation of time.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are the only one I have ever heard give that interpretation. Many, many scholarly people would disagree with you, believing instead that it refers to what it SAYS, the actual heaven meaning the stars, etc. in life and Spiritual Heaven in afterlife, and the actual earth, meaning the Planet Earth.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jennie,
Does everything you post have to be about aliens? I'm interested in them, too, but they are not the answer to every one of life's little mysteries, y'know.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You know what? God is not the answer to every one of life's little mysteries either. Arguably, God is not the answer to ANY of them. 

[Aphrodite]

Dorian Gray
Member
Member # 192

Member Rated:
   posted 12-07-2004 11:33 AM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I want to tell you something shocking now. All Christians and Jews that believe they are monotheistic are mistaken.
The first commandment says "You will have no other gods before me." If you believe that God gave these commandments, then you must believe that there are other gods besides God - since God referred to them. God apparently knows there are other gods, and doesn't even care if you worship them, as long as you put him first.

In other words, it's a hierarchy that God wants. God doesn't insist that he has a monopoly on deity.

So, despite the rampant belief that Christianity, Judaism and Islam are monotheisms, at least Xians and Jews are actually polytheistic, or should be if they follow the tenets of their respective faiths.

 

[Aphrodite]

bluducky

Member
Member # 1880

Member Rated:
   posted 12-07-2004 06:44 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting things have taken place here while I have been away. (unwillingly so... a blackout that lasted about a day... not too nice)
I gather that everyone now agrees that God is what you make it/him/her/them, and that noone truly knows anything. (regardless of historical documentation and personal experience)

I think Mar's post said it well:


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

we are animals with puny minds and large hearts, easily swayed. we can kill other humans to advance the comfort of our own lives. we can drive endlessly, not thinking of the ramifications of oil - or not even care. we can buttress our security on the lives of lessers, and think nothing of it.
we are rats in a cage, knawing at each others testicles.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well.. maybe not, however the implications are universal.

(of course there have been several other noteworthy posts, but this one I found particularly interesting )

I could preach all day about what God is or is not, but I would much rather simply do what we humans know instinctively how to do -- to just sit down peacefully with my fellow man, and be one with them.

There can be tears of joy or sadness, pain and healing, laughter and sorrow, but at the end of the day, we are all just one big family, and we all know this, we just sometimes lose sight of it..

When you sit in your comfortable chair, and see on the evening news people suffering, dying, and in pain, and your heart reaches out for them, you will know exactly what I'm talking about.

One day, we will all be just like our ancestors, where they have been, we will also go, their paths shall be our paths, and in time, our children shall go the same way.

Beliefs don't matter as much as you think, it is the same journey for all, and the same destination, the contented look on a dying persons face tells us this.

Noone knows what will happen to us, so just relax, and enjoy the ride while you still can. 
 

[Aphrodite]

via mars 2
Member
Member # 1970

Member Rated:
   posted 12-07-2004 07:48 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
this is all so touching. sniffle.
not only that, but my daughter asked for several examples of levers. imagine the fun i had ... first, bill beatty's kid's page,
then a clip of forgotten technology by mr. wattling, a neat cad demo of a pyramid being placed together ... and now, it's late.
so off to slumber land we go.
that my friends, is the nature of god.
sniffle.

ain't life grand?

 

[Aphrodite]

Aristotle

Member
Member # 2244

Member Rated:
   posted 12-07-2004 10:52 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This thread is interesting to me in that, if you take everyone's posts and read them all at one time, do you know what you have?
A pile of gibberish.

There are so many inconsistencies and irrelevancies in the whole thing that one wonders how anyone can even make sense of it at all. Each one of you seems to have created their own "God," whatever suits the purpose. Dawn makes hers a "human" one, Calvin (unsurprisingly) makes his all-powerful, defying description, while one girl (Jennie) even brings the ludicrous idea of U.F.O.'s into the whole thing. Shouldn't that tell you something?

If God is so hard to explain, if there is nothing that any of you can even agree on about it, perhaps he/she/it doesn't even exist at all!

There, that is "my piece." Look around at this world we live in and tell me there's a god, and say so with a straight face.

 

[Aphrodite]

Calvin Noble

Member
Member # 2238

Rate Member   posted 12-07-2004 11:22 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's no wonder that some of you can't "find" the true nature of God. You have to have faith in HIM before he can have faith in YOU. It would be a poorer existence if all there was was this world, and then you die. For some of you that's just what will happen.
God doesn't ask for much, but you have to ASK him for help before he'll give it to you.

 

[Aphrodite]

Stacy Dohm

Member
Member # 2189

Member Rated:
   posted 12-07-2004 11:42 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Seems like, instead of discussing God now, everyone is just attacking everyone else's religious beliefs. What's up with that now..? 

[Aphrodite]

Andrew Waters

Member
Member # 914

  posted 12-08-2004 01:07 AM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
''...while one girl (Jennie) even brings the ludicrous idea of U.F.O.'s into the whole thing. Shouldn't that tell you something?''
If I had to choose between God in a ufo and angel wings fastened to his back then I would opt for the simplest of explanations, given the mechanical disposition of human- kind, which would be a ufo. But since UFOs connote silliness to some people then suffice it to say there is in all probability some mechanical means by which they, meaning God and his/her fellow travelers dart to and fro in the galaxy and universe...or where ever.

Now, I've surely reduced the nature of God to an earthly understanding, much to the chagrin of some here, particularly Aristotle, who says everything here posted is jibberish. But the issue isn't whether it is that but rather how you, Aristotle, came to that conclusion.

If you don't believe in a creator, or two, or three, then can't others here say your lack of belief is jibberish also?

I believe the intent of this topic is to stimulate people here to organize their thoughts into some meaningful dialog so that others can get a ''feel'' of how it is they came to see it the way they do.

Which brings me to this.

Stacy Dohm says everyone is attacking each others religious beliefs.

I don't see it that way at all.

It should be viewed as an exercise in intellectual stimulation to get at the core of what it is that make people see things the way they do; to prod them further and in the process a better understanding may be had for all concerned.
 

[Aphrodite]

bluducky

Member
Member # 1880

Member Rated:
   posted 12-08-2004 01:57 AM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew... stop thinking.. you do it to much
(kidding, of course!.... you don't think much at all!! ) (couldn't resist )

this conversation has swerved into a rut, (do to some people's innability to read another's post THOUGHTFULLY, and without understanding it, to criticize it) and now, someone either ought to say something meaningful about God, or start an argument.

that's the way it works, see?

I'll be back soon... hopefully with the desire to converse, instead of run away with my eyes closed...


 

[Aphrodite]

Calvin

Member
Member # 2228

Member Rated:
   posted 12-08-2004 01:33 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe we live on an electron (earth) circling a nucleus (sun) of an element (solar system) of a molecule (galaxy) that is a part of a mechanism inside a cell of a body and that body is God.
Kind of like that episode of Futurama where the worms are inside Fry's body and in the worm city they have a statue in the town center of Fry and a plaque on the statue reads "The Known Universe".

see here:
http://www.gotfuturama.com/cgi-bin/imageview.cgi?/Multimedia/FrameGrabs/3ACV02/Grabs/pic00506.jpg

 

[Aphrodite]

Jennie McGrath

Member
Member # 2197

Member Rated:
   posted 12-08-2004 10:50 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Can you guys just try and stretch your imaginations for a sec?
Who could have written the Bible..? Who could have put all those funky Bible codes in it? Well, unless you buy into the whole God theory, lock, stock and barrel, only an ALIEN RACE could have been advanced enough to put something in there that we'd need modern computers to figure it all out!

And which race of alien being could have just as easily been mistaken for angels, and prob'ly have been throughout the years?

It was the Nordics!! They're the ones that wrote the blamed Bible, and could have been mistaken for angels. Most of the encounters with angels listed in the Bible could just have easily been with U.F.O.'s - think of it!

Chariots of the Gods lives, man!!


 

[Aphrodite]

Baphomet

Member
Member # 2177

Member Rated:
   posted 12-08-2004 11:01 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Actually, I'm disappointed that no one has taken seriously my point the idea that perhaps what has been going over the last two thousand years is that God has, perhaps, been overthrown. I believe that demons are real, and I think that most people probably believe in ghosts. That should tell us that there is some kind of life in the hereafter.
If man truly was made in God's own image, he must also get his warlike nature from God. As I said, the two angelic wars (that we know of) are proof of that. Dawn's idea of a human God segues nicely into my own notion that God is possibly more vulnerable than we have been led to believe, hence, capable of being overthrown. It would certainly explain much of what has happened during the last two to three thousand years.


 

[Aphrodite]

Calvin Noble

Member
Member # 2238

Rate Member   posted 12-08-2004 11:47 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Except for the fact that God is All-powerful, and that good has always been more powerful than evil. God CAN'T be overcome. Simply the fact that He made all this should speak of how powerful he must be, if proof is needed. If you accept that there is a God in the first place (and I realize that many of ou don't), than by His very nature, he has to be all-powerful. 

[Aphrodite]

Baphomet

Member
Member # 2177

Member Rated:
   posted 12-08-2004 11:55 PM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Look around at this world and tell me that good is more powerful than evil. You can't, because it simply isn't true. Evil rules the day. Explain how things such as the Holocaust could have happened if there truly is a God. What sort of God would stand idly by and allow such things to occur? For what purpose? 

[Aphrodite]

Zodiac

Member
Member # 2231

Member Rated:
   posted 12-09-2004 12:02 AM                       
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
God loves, man kills (or so they say anyway)