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the Nature of God

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Dawn Moline
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« on: December 12, 2007, 11:06:15 pm »

the Nature of God



I think it's time to inject a little philosophy into our discussions here. The Noah's Ark thread has gotten me thinking about the Nature of God (his or herself, whichever you prefer), and what each of you might think of it. God is the oldest and the greatest of all the ancient mysteries, yet very little actual investigation has ever come to pass into God's own origins. There are several other ancient questions that also come to mind when one is also contemplating God, first and foremost among them:
(1) If the Universe was truly without void, how did God even come into existence in the first place? What was God's origin?

(2) What manner of being is God, energy, substance, or both? Can he or she live and die like any other being?

(3) If God is perfect, as has been said, how can God create something so obviously flawed and imperfect as the earth, and all the people upon it?

(4) Why even allow evil to exist if you know in advance it will lead to mankind's undoing, the corruption of all God's children?

(5) The presence of God makes itself known all throughout the Old Testament of the Bible, all the way up until the crucifixtion of Christ. Where has God been throughout all the last two thousand years, throughout all the famines, the plagues, the wars waged upon a global scale? Has something happened to God, or does God simply not care anymore..?

(6) Just how and when did God even come into existence?

I know what I think of all this already, I've done a lot of thinking about it in the past, but I would like to hear from as many of you as possible to hear what you think about it. There has to be some intelligent design to all of this, I am not one of those people who think that amino acids simply sprung into action and made us. Still, the fact remains that all this is imperfect and since God came before the amino acids, so the question remains, just where did God come from and for what purpose did God create such clear imperfection..?

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« Last Edit: December 12, 2008, 09:20:40 pm by Dawn Moline » Report Spam   Logged

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« Reply #1 on: December 15, 2007, 11:35:50 pm »

Trent

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   posted 11-30-2004 09:43 PM                       
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Another arcane topic makes the Ancient Mysteries section. Okay, Dawn, I'll bite, here's what I think of it all: sometimes I think that God is the only one who's actually real and all the rest of us are just characters in his dream. Weird, ain't it? 
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« Reply #2 on: December 15, 2007, 11:36:20 pm »

Jennie McGrath

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   posted 11-30-2004 10:25 PM                       
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What if God and his angels were really all just aliens from outer space? The stories in the Bible could just as easily involve E.T.s as angels, right? Ezekiel and the angel, maybe it's a flying saucer, Elijah gets carried away by something, maybe that's a flying saucer.
Chariots of the gods, man...

The truth is out there, maybe way out there...
 
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« Reply #3 on: December 15, 2007, 11:36:46 pm »

Calvin Noble

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Rate Member   posted 11-30-2004 10:37 PM                       
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Dawn,
You raised some valid questions, but I also believe that you are trying to see a multi-dimensional being through only two dimensions.

Here is an article I've found that best explains God's true nature:
http://www.ucgstp.org/lit/gn/gn046/noahsflood.htm

The problem here is that many people have a mistaken concept of God. If we conceive of God as physical, anthropomorphic (like man) being, the question of God’s origin is valid. However, such a concept of God is alien to the Bible and to common sense. Consider the following descriptions of God from the Bible:


John 4: 24
God is a Spirit:...
Matthew 16:17
...for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my father which is in heaven.

Numbers 23:19
God is not a man, that He should...;


Obviously, the descriptions and concepts of God given in these passages are that God is a spiritual entity. He exists outside of the three-dimensional, physical world in which we live.
The Bible further supports this concept of God in the following passages:


Jeremiah 23:23-24
Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? ...Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.
2 Chronicles 2:6
But who is able to build a house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Him?...

Acts 17:28
For in Him we live, and move, and have our being;...


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.


If God is a being that is unlimited in time, and if He has access to every piece of time as if it were now, the question of who created God is an invalid question. The problem is like asking a student to draw a four-sided triangle. The terminology is self-contradictory.
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.”

God created time. The statement of Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” is making reference to the creation of time. The reason that things like heat death, the expansion of the universe, and the depletion of hydrogen do not apply to God is because He is outside of time. God has always been. He not only began time; He will also end it. When time ends, all matter and all mankind will enter eternity—a timeless condition free of the negative things that time brings upon us now.

[This message has been edited by Calvin Noble (edited 11-30-2004).]

 
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« Reply #4 on: December 15, 2007, 11:37:10 pm »

Trent

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   posted 11-30-2004 10:47 PM                       
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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.

 
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« Reply #5 on: December 15, 2007, 11:37:35 pm »

Stacy Dohm

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   posted 11-30-2004 11:10 PM                       
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When I think of God, I think of the figure painted on Micheangelo's Sistine Chapel: white hair, a beard, angry. We are supposed to be made in God's own image so I figure that's not too far off.
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« Reply #6 on: December 15, 2007, 11:37:59 pm »

Baphomet

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   posted 11-30-2004 11:27 PM                       
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It's just a thought, but, mankind having been made in God's image, perhaps Heaven and Hell also resemble the earth in the wars and disputes they have in the divine realm. Think of it, there are two wars between the angels that we know of: the war against Lucifer and the war against the Watchers. Perhaps there were many more. Empires rise and fall. Perhaps the divine realm "fell" two thousand years ago and that is why there have been no signs of late.
(Of course, this is all just a thought)
 
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« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2007, 11:38:22 pm »

Jennie McGrath

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   posted 11-30-2004 11:32 PM                       
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Trent: says you. The archangel Michael or Raphael could have just as easily been mistaken for one of my Nordic types. There's even a book out called "Uriel's Machine" that seems to say the same thing. I'm thinking the angels at least, are the same guys I've been preaching to you guys about.
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« Reply #8 on: December 15, 2007, 11:38:50 pm »

bluducky

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   posted 12-01-2004 12:05 AM                       
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To further what Calvin said about time:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/197.asp
A Creationist perspective of how God came into being.


quote:
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"If the universe needs a cause, then why doesn't God need a cause? And if God doesn't need a cause, why should the universe need a cause?" In reply, Christians should use the following reasoning:

1. Everything which has a beginning has a cause.

2. The universe has a beginning.

3. Therefore the universe has a cause.


It's important to stress the words in bold type. The universe requires a cause because it had a beginning, as will be shown below. God, unlike the universe, had no beginning, so doesn't need a cause. In addition, Einstein's general relativity, which has much experimental support, shows that time is linked to matter and space. So time itself would have begun along with matter and space. Since God, by definition, is the Creator of the whole universe, he is the Creator of time. Therefore He is not limited by the time dimension He created, so has no beginning in time. Therefore He doesn't have a cause.



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I think this kind of reasoning itself is flawed, but is interesting nonetheless.

enjoy.


 
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« Reply #9 on: December 15, 2007, 11:39:23 pm »

rockessence

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   posted 12-01-2004 12:37 AM                       
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Dawn,
I prefer "It" as opposed to him or her. Consider the idea of God as a "matrix" of electrons, a flow of light energy that gathers in bundles and clumps in all that is, but that is spread everywhere (literally).
1- If you consider the aforementioned, then there is no reason for "It" to have a beginning or an end.
The word and idea of "God" or "gods" is purely a human invention. The origin of the word "God" stems from Rot (root) language and was pronounced in the same way (good), and actually meant "GOOD".

2- Both, and no.

3- We are students of this life, and our tool of learning is "free will". Every experience is merely what you make of it. We are flawed humans. We ARE perfect God-beings expressing a human life in order to create our own perfection.

4- Free will is our constant companion. Everything destructive is of human creation. Everything CONSTRUCTIVE is the expression of "God-self" in action. "God" neither allows nor dis-allows evil.

"And each individual has the choice, which no one has the right to supersede--even God does not!" Edgar Cayce Reading 254-102

5-We are not responsible for what has been put forward in either testament. Obviously each person needs to develop their own Godness/Goodness and relationship with their own God-self. We have access to that Perfection every moment, and there are untold numbers of Ascended Masters who will aid us when asked. We have been mis-taught, mis-led, mis-guided and mistaken for thousands of years, hence the strife.

6- There was no beginning of the "matrix", only the beginning of human perception and the beginning of perception of energy. All the rest is forming explanations for the action of energy.

Stacy,
We are always suckers for advertizing! That image was a doozy!

[This message has been edited by rockessence (edited 12-01-2004).]

 
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« Reply #10 on: December 15, 2007, 11:39:51 pm »

Absonite

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  posted 12-01-2004 03:22 AM                       
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perhaps god needs a straw 
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« Reply #11 on: December 15, 2007, 11:40:13 pm »

rockessence

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Ab!,
Every sucker needs a straw!
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Posts: 3128 | From: Port Townsend WA | Registered
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« Reply #12 on: December 15, 2007, 11:40:42 pm »

Essan

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God is simply a manifestation of mankind's inability to accept he's nothing special and that there is much in the universe beyond his ken.
But then I'm an athiest, so I would say that... 
 
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« Reply #13 on: December 15, 2007, 11:41:18 pm »

Absonite

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  posted 12-01-2004 06:16 AM                       
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Dawn,
The Nature of God

here's a little treat for you, in fact the title is called "The Nature of God"

http://urantiabook.org/newbook/papers/p002.htm

 
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« Reply #14 on: December 15, 2007, 11:41:46 pm »

Calvin

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   posted 12-01-2004 02:39 PM                       
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The Gnostic Christians say that the being who created physical existance is not the One True god but a lesser being who was jealous and wanted to be worshipped so he created the existance we know so we could worship it. The One True god is so far beyond us that we are like grains of sand trying to contemplate the size of the universe.
There is a biblical passage that agrees with that perspective a bit.


quote:
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Luke 4:
6 and the Devil said to him, `To thee I will give all this authority, and their glory, because to me it hath been delivered, and to whomsoever I will, I do give it;
7 thou, then, if thou mayest bow before me -- all shall be thine.'
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According to the bible the Devil has authority over the earth and mankind. This also explains the existance of evil.

Also if the Great Plan is for humans to evolve spiritually then Evil is necessary.

Adversity is needed for one to overcome it and grow srtonger.

Also on the nature of God here's a bit from the Gospel of Thomas


quote:
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50. Jesus said, "If they say to you, 'Where have you come from?' say to them, 'We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established [itself], and appeared in their image.'
If they say to you, 'Is it you?' say, 'We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living Father.'

If they ask you, 'What is the evidence of your Father in you?' say to them, 'It is motion and rest.'"


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So according to that the nature of God is motion and rest. Maybe God is the energies that govern the universe. The strong and weak forces and probably dark matter too.

[This message has been edited by Calvin (edited 12-01-2004).]

 
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