Who is God?

Of course, I have absolutely no problem with that, and believe it also. If there were no humans (or other thinking entities) there could be no religion (can an electron or a universe venerate anything?).
 
Gordian Knot said:
ACOT said "So you still think that Spinoza, Leibnitz and Whitehead described a human like deity?"

No I do not. I'm afraid the confusion is coming from my ignorance of some concepts put forth here. Thick headed as I am though, the gist of the responses generally works its way into my head. Now that it has, I believe I see what you and Radar were trying to say.

Radar, I am only entitled to my opinion if it is based in some version of fact. That is a personal ethic. My facts were in error, so my opinion is not one I was entitled to.

I know not everyone believes that way......
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This was unexpected, I've been working on some more counter arguments. All dressed up an nowhere to go. I'll have to search out some other thread to do battle on!

Gordian Knot said:
The second part of my comment I still hold as valid. That all religions are a construct of mortals. That is a belief, of course, and it cannot be proven, any more than the opposite can be proven.

There was a wonderful quote I read long ago; I believe it was by a mystery writer, cannot remember who. They said "God is the imaginary friend of adults". That is a profoundly insightful statement to me.
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I agree with you in many whys, though I don't really like the quote, I find that it diminishes the idea of God and peoples relationship with he/she/it.
But how we define 'create' here could be very relevant to the discussion of 'Who is God?'.
 
Sorry about that ACOT. Nothing worse than having a great salvo and nothing to shoot at! But it is good that I can pull the unexpected. Keeps people on their toes!
 
A Cup Of Tea said:
Yes, we can always use more of that!
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One thing I can always count on it that the Ultimate Reality most likely exists independent of our ideas about it. For me, personally, any other line of inquiry, or argument, is still fairly arbitrary. This is not to say that I don't entertain ideas or imagine what possibilities may be out there, but it is ever tempered by the bare fact that I really have no blooming idea.
 
Paladin said:
One thing I can always count on it that the Ultimate Reality most likely exists independent of our ideas about it. For me, personally, any other line of inquiry, or argument, is still fairly arbitrary. This is not to say that I don't entertain ideas or imagine what possibilities may be out there, but it is ever tempered by the bare fact that I really have no blooming idea.
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That describes my views perfectly, what joy to recognise something of myself in others...or the other way around. So unfortunate that these three sentences will be lost in the vastness of the internet and I'll never see the again. Life is fleeting.
 
A Cup Of Tea said:
So unfortunate that these three sentences will be lost in the vastness of the internet and I'll never see the again. Life is fleeting.
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Nice. But I am sure we will be fortunate to have more from you. Don't regret.
Paladin said:
For me, personally, any other line of inquiry, or argument, is still fairly arbitrary.
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Paladin, that may not be wholly correct. We have better proofs of existence of physical energy than God/Gods/Goddesses. Compare.
 
Paladin said:
One thing I can always count on it that the Ultimate Reality most likely exists independent of our ideas about it. For me, personally, any other line of inquiry, or argument, is still fairly arbitrary. This is not to say that I don't entertain ideas or imagine what possibilities may be out there, but it is ever tempered by the bare fact that I really have no blooming idea.
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I was talking with my 85-year-old mother just yesterday, about the afterlife ... and we came to pretty much the same conclusion.
 
It is not knowing that is the start of wisdom. Ultimate Reality is what too many think there is. The only real reality is what we experience. The rest is smoke and mirrors.
 
I was watching 'Atlantis' on BBC TV the other night, a nice piece of Saturday-night-escapism until Dr Who comes back on.

At one point, the Oracle says: "only when we know we are truly lost, can we find our way..." Our Lord, never one to mince His words, said much the same thing: "for without me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).

I like the Perennialist definition of religion: 'The discernment between the Real and the unreal, between Truth and illusion' ... one has to let go of all one's unrealities, one's illusions, one' self, before one has a chance of realising the Real, etc., etc.
 
Very Zen! My phrasing would be similar though not quite the same.

We must let go of all our perceptions of reality, accept that our senses bring us only illusions of that reality, and realize that there is no such thing as one's self as a separate entity from everything else, before one can begin to understand what is Real.

The more we learn about this existence, the more we realize that there is an interconnectedness to everything in the cosmos. From the mightiest star to the tiniest, uh, whatever is considered the tiniest currently. I'm coming to a realization that Who is God is the wrong question. The question we should be asking is who is Us? That leads us to the answer of what is Real.
 
The two problems are always the same: what is Real and who am I? Whether one reads the Gathas and rishis or Rufus Jones and Passion for Creation. Whether something as simple as the Gospel of Thomas or Dao te ching or as complex as Process and Reality or Star of Redemption. It is all the same.
 
'Who am I', in my view has been satisfactorily established. We are a bunch or quarks as any other thing in the universe is. The problem is about what is real, as we do not know if there is a difference between existence and non-existence (a-la-Lawrence Kraus).
 
Well, Aup, I think Michael Heller or Roger Penrose are a little less dogmatic. Who am I is a distinctly qualia, existential, and experiential question. There are many, many good reasons for believing material monism (Krauss' viewpoint) is lacking.
 
This is a good thread, and I got good feedback from something I wrote here so it's worth rereading for me.

The Tao makes a strong point in it's unknowableness. It's interesting to me that the Abrahamic texts hold the...formless (?) nature of God but uphold his attributes, like mercy and justice. On one hand God is to big to comprehend, like the Tao, but on the other we (should) have a direct connection to him.
 
In my view we always have a direct connection...the line is always open and waiting for us to pick up... not literally....but all we need to be is open to access what is within.

and now reading back through I also know why Thomas and I have issues....he is a dr Whovian....
 
A Cup Of Tea said:
The Tao makes a strong point in it's unknowableness. It's interesting to me that the Abrahamic texts hold the...formless (?) nature of God but uphold his attributes, like mercy and justice. On one hand God is to big to comprehend, like the Tao, but on the other we (should) have a direct connection to him.
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Oh yes! That was well said.

I wrote some time ago – after reading Denys Turner's The Darkness of God – that the Christian mystical tradition is an apophatic one, it's all about the unknowableness, the formless beyond the formal. It's all there in the Beatitudes.

It's there in Paul and in John, too, even though both express the direct knowing of God.
 
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