Who is God?

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
any god who could be described in a reasonable length post, and debated in a forum like this, would be not worth worshiping.

Not so.

god is that being in which there is identity between the potentiality and the act of existence

or was that too wordy?

@OneFootInTheGrave
The basic problem with your 'evolutionary' model of god-like beings is this:
god's existence is necessary
man's existence is contingent

Our existence is characterised by causes no matter how much control we exercise over their effects.

God, whether She exists or not, is not subject to causality.
[/scholastic mode]

[Berzerker]

Have you ever considered that a certain common aspect of human psychology has resulted in the appearance of a God?

I disagree with the argument that we are psychologically bound to invent god. There are just too many religions that share key details for "god" to be a common "invention". Tradition is what keeps the gods alive...

None of the Gods that have been concocted over the millennia have ever been the same apart from being bigger and more powerful than humans. So no, it is far more feasible that the Gods are a result of a group of human minds than anything more real.

Not sure what you mean, the names of the gods are many but they can often be traced thru time. Even the Greeks and Romans recognised their gods in the much more ancient pantheons of the middle and near east.

You see it in this thread - despite the enormous evidence to the contrary, people still have an innate desire to believe in some controlling being to validate their life...quite bizarre...

Actually, looking at existence objectively I'd say this "controlling being" doesn't exert much control if any...its more of a "prime mover", not a bureaucrat or manager...
But yes, its kinda sad to think that our existence is limited to such a brief moment in time and isn't part of some bigger picture. I dont think we have enough evidence to rule god in or out, thats why I'm skeptical of true believin fundies (I know what god wants and I'll mess you up if you dont accept my authority) and the atheists who cant explain the universe but are damn sure there isn't any designer.

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by Dis
I actually consider myself god...

See? I always knew you were too good to be a man!

According to hindu theology, there is no absolute distinction between God and creation. Everything is one 'energy,' which only appears to be separated into different forms. The shifting veils of illusion separate us from perceiving this.

Neti, neti

It is not this. It is not that.

The true nature of a thing can never be pinned down. No matter how you try to describe the nature of god, illusion and misinterpretation arises.

http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/index.php?automodule=blog&blogid=12&

Everthing is actually one energy, it just appears to be broken up. This is true of the macrocosm (the universe) as well as the microcosm (the human body).

The supreme Self is omnipotent, all-powerful. There is nothing it cannot do. The Shavite scriptures explain that maya throws a series of cloaks over the Self. These cloaks conceal our true identity and they limit the powers of Consciousness. These cloaks are called kanchukas.

The first cloak limits the Sumpreme power of omnipotence and shrinks its capacity to act to that of an ordinary human being. In other words, there are some things we can do and some things we can't do.

The second cloak limits the Supreme's power of omniscience. This cloak produces limited knowledge in the individual soul. There are some things we know, and some things we don't know.

The third cloak reduces the Supreme's condition of completeness or perfection. We no longer feel whole and entire, sufficient unto ourselves.

The forth cloak limits the Self's condition of eternal existence. It creates time and the sequential order of things--past present and future.

And the fifth and last cloak limits the Supreme's all pervasiveness or omnipresence. We understand that we are here in our own living room, we are not in Bali or Madras.

Hence, we can't recognize ourselves as the Supreme Self ? It has shrunk and contracted all it's powersand has become a limited individual soul. The scriptures say that in this condition we have sakti daridya, poverty of Shakti. We wander around in fear and ignorance of who we really are, the Supreme Lord.

This is our plight. Instead of identifying ourselves with our great Self, we identify with our body and our ego.

[Terra Nullius]

The boddhisattva is also described as all-powerful. However, it is certainly not the kind of omnipotence spoken of in the west.

The Ten Powers of a Boddisattva

http://www.geocities.com/amitabha48vows/prajna.htm

1) knowledge of discernment in any situation of what's possible and what's not;
2) knowledge of ripening of deeds in oneself and others;
3) knowledge of superior and inferior abilities of other beings;
4) knowledge of tendencies in other beings;
5) knowledge of the manifold constituents of the world;
6) knowledge of paths leading to rebirth in various realms of existence;
7) knowledge of what will lead to purity and what to impurity;
8) knowledge of various meditations (dhyana) and concentrations (samadhi);
9) knowledge of death and rebirth;
10) knowledge of when the defilements are completely eradicated.

Having these ten powers at his or her disposal, the bodhisattva works tirelessly to save all beings, knowing fully well that all is inherently empty. The effort is directed toward helping individuals change their karmic legacies and patterns rather than "saving" any solidity called "being."

A boddhisattva has complete possession of the 'Ten Powers.' However, (he) does not, for example, have the power to end all suffering. So, the buddhist concept of 'all-powerful' is certainly not the same as the western one.

Sorry, I'd like to explain this one better, but I've got to pay my library fines first.

It seems like your idea of highly evolved life-forms is probably closer to the buddhist teachings about enlightened beings than western ideas about god.

[Terra Nullius]

Originally posted by Berzerker
I disagree with the argument that we are psychologically bound to invent god.

Same here.

I'm highly suspicious of the arguments based around finding a certain part of the brain responsible for the "God experience."

I don't have a formal argument together at this stage, but,..
One part of the brain is responsible for sight, another for hearing and so on. None of this is taken as proof that the experience of seeing or hearing is mere illusion.
If part of the brain is reponsible for sensing god, fair enough, but I don't see this as convincong proof that the experience of god is just a fantasy.

[Terra Nullius]

... or I could say "God is love" and leave it at that.

But that sort of schmaltz would really make me want to throw up.

[MosesPresley]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Tradition is what keeps the gods alive...

Weakness is what keeps the gods alive. The need for a crutch.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by Terra Nullius

Not so.

god is that being in which there is identity between the potentiality and the act of existence

or was that too wordy?

@OneFootInTheGrave
The basic problem with your 'evolutionary' model of god-like beings is this:
god's existence is necessary
man's existence is contingent

Our existence is characterised by causes no matter how much control we exercise over their effects.

God, whether She exists or not, is not subject to causality.
[/scholastic mode]

now that is an interesting reply, in other words "to qualify for God" you have to be outside of causality. In that way the "evolutionary" approach to God would be inadequate as there is no way of knowing whether this universe allows its "life" to escape causality as it evolves or not.

Anyhow, where I would like to stop is that this is a good definition, as for a "qualification" what is God supposed to be like.

I would like to split the possible Gods into two than. One would be a "God" which could be like my "ant God" example. This one definitely has not escaped "causality" in this unverse, it is just on a different level as a being. The "true God" we might imagine would be the one that escapes this "feature of this universe" thus we could say that he falls outside the scope. It could be the Universe as a whole, a God akin to "Snoopy's God", or just a being that is outside of "causality", regardeless of Universe as an entity.

I'd say that the Christian God is most likely like the "outside of casuality, but independant of the universe if he wished so" God. He might be the creator, but my impression is that he is independant of it. Surely this is open to debate.

Just to come back on my "evolutionary inevitebility of God" - it surely leaves enough space and place for the "life" to trascend again, be it even a jump "outside of causality". The main reasoning here would be, that even though this jump would be even greater than the "greatest jump" evolution created so far - which might be either the transformation from "dead matter" into "life" or the "raise of consciousness" (one or another, take your pick for "greater transcendace point" ), as we have seen so far happened, what you could causally think is a great shift, might be just a lot of small changes in time resulting in the ultimate transcendance out of "causality". It might be the ultimate goal of evolution, as at that moment the process is effectively finished, and surely it can be imagined as an definite end of this process, as afer all all processes taking part in this universe do seem to have an end. This really looks like a logical end to the process of evolution.


Very interesting thought


now on to the intitial problem

god's existence is necessary
man's existence is contingent

I do not see why is this necessarily required, I would say that "gods existance is inevitable" but not "necessary". Mans existence is definitely contingent. As it currently looks like the whole existance of the universe (at least looking from our point of view) is irrational anyhow. If you take God as the "prime cause" you just keep on moving him back to the past, or if you take some yet unexplained irrational event to have started this universe/multiverse/whatever - our own existance is basically irrational. There is nothing that points to "Gods existance being neccessary" in this universe.

However what looks like to me is that even if this evolutionary process has happened through some unexplainable irrational event it will result in "God" and it most likely has already, given the size of the universe in both space and time and the time it took to our own "creation" from what we know about it - which is more or less 4-5 bn years from 0, taking the Solar System into the account.

To claim the usual "we are the only one" or "everybody else is at our level of evolutionary development - or at least thereabouts" or "we are too small to notice" is just a cop out and going against the odds immensly. It is just a"crutch" to help them explain what does not look rational (at least by the standards that various "God's representatives" tend to describe God on this earth) - and which is that "God exists", but he does not show himself and end all problems on this planet as they think their version of omnipotent/ omni-whatever "God" should do. Therefore "God doesn't exist" is the easiest solution.

However this solution is not based on what we know about nature, but what we feel about the alleged "religions" and thousands of our humans claiming to know this that and the other about "real God" plus they than abuse the ones who subject to their beliefs.

While the correct conclusion for that "feelings about the religious abuse" dilemma from my point of view is "not to take what they say for granted" the usual atheist conclusion is "thus God does not exist". Which is frankly a crutch to deal with the "unexplained", and a practical way out to dismiss the annoying religious dudes.


Thus

I am looking at the situation from currently accepted world view towards which the scientific method points at. So the process of creation, which is described through process of evolution. Just taking 2+2 basically, and taking it forward.

Hence

The question: Who is God? For you - whether you believe or not.

edit: to add...
the Buddist God interpretation was great , just to clarify, if it is not clear from the above. My interpretation of God does not have to be like that either, however I think we all have an idea within ourselves of "who God is" or "Who should God be" even if we don't believe in him, with religious indoctrination or without it.

Just one more thought on the "transcendace out of causality":
As we are very differnet from the bricks that today make our houses yet 5 billion years ago, we were just the same as those bricks and who could say whether the hydrogen floating around will be part of an intelligent human or a dead brick. Fast forward 5 billion years. Here we are today and you have both dead matter and living beings making sense out of it, gathering knowledge, ever pushing forward. Even if we fail cockroaches will take our place and move on, setback for some 100 mil years, but life will develop relentleslly, the same as it develops today, even near the vulcanic vents in total darkness on oceanic floor.

So fast forward another 5 billion years, anything could happen. Does it even matter what will happen exactly? Not really. It is just a building block of a whole which is greater than it's parts which even has a name and today is called a human (the whole could be called a brick too ) and tomorrow will be called something else, but from our perspective it would have been God.

[Terra Nullius]

I would say that "gods existance is inevitable" but not "necessary".

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10733a.htm

Considered under its metaphysical aspect, being in its relation to existence is dividend into necessary and contingent. A necessary being is one of which the existence is included in and identical with its very essence. The different beings which we observe in our daily experience are subject to beginning, to change, to perfection, and to destruction; existence is not essential to them and they have not in themselves the reason of their existence; they are contingent. Their existence comes to them from an external efficient cause

The term can be interpreted in several ways, however, in saying that a thing is necessary, we are saying that existence is included in a beings essence.

The essence of contingent beings does not include existence. That is, the essence of man would be the same regardless of whether any man had ever historically existed. The essential features which define Jabba the Hutt are the same, regardless of whether Jabba really existed within history or not.

By saying that god's existence is necessary, we are saying that existence is part of the nature of god, it is part of god's nature to exist.

There is nothing that points to "Gods existance being neccessary" in this universe.

http://www.philosophyofreligion.info/argumentfromcontingency.html

It is because it is thought that the universe exists contingently that its existence is thought to require explanation. If the universe might not have existed, then why does it exist? Proponents of the cosmological argument suggest that questions like this always have answers. The existence of things that are necessary does not require explanation; their non-existence is impossible. The existence of anything contingent, however, does require explanation. They might not have existed, and so there must be some reason that they do so.

Critics of the argument from contingency have sometimes questioned whether the universe is contingent, but it remains at least plausible to think that it is so.

The only adequate explanation of the existence of the contingent universe, the argument from contingency suggests, is that there exists a necessary being on which its existence it rests. For the existence of the contingent universe must rest on something, and if it rested on some contingent being then that contingent being too would require some explanation of its existence. The ultimate explanation of the existence of all things, therefore, must be the existence of some necessary being. This necessary being is readily identified by proponents of the cosmological argument as God.

To put it simply, from this point of view, man could not 'evolve' into god, because the whole nature of their existence is of a different order. It may be possible for stellar dust to condense and, eventually, develop into intelligent life, such as man. However, the very nature of god is inconsistent with that of an evolved being.

It's not my intention to stomp on your ideas and stifle further speculation, so by all means, keep posing the questions. But from what I can tell, the orthodox christian view would be that there is no possibility of god 'evolving' from a contingent universe.

[Terra Nullius]

I would like to split the possible Gods into two than. One would be a "God" which could be like my "ant God" example. This one definitely has not escaped "causality" in this unverse, it is just on a different level as a being. The "true God" we might imagine would be the one that escapes this "feature of this universe" thus we could say that he falls outside the scope.

This seems to me to be perfectly acceptable to buddhist philosophy. A buddha is 'one who has attained enlightenment.' The definition itself suggests a contingent nature.

There is perhaps some conflict with buddhist doctrine which states that nothing really exists. But I don't think it's logically contradictory to posit a two-level structure of deities.
ie. Level One:'enlightened' (but contingent) beings operating within this and other possible universes
Level Two: ultimate god-head, which exists beyond all possible universes.

I'd like to point out that the whole process of 'attainment' is still subject to debate. There are several competing interpretations. How does a being which is bound by time and space attain a form of existence which is not limited by personal existence, time or space. Different schools have different ideas on this. I'm not even sure if it is logically possible for a single being to attain "nirvana." The actual conditions for enlightenment might only exist when all beings escape suffering at once.

It is also worth remembering that, in buddhist terms, truth cannot be expressed verbally or manipulated through a process of logic. It can only be reached at through a process of meditation (an extra-logical process).

So I would really encourage you to think about how exactly you see this process occurring. I don't think there can be a simple, logical answer to this, but,..
How, as you see it, does a being go from being bound by time, space, causality to being unbound by any such restrictions.

Oh, and a quick question,..
The child at the end of 2001 (A Space Odyssey): What are the similarities between this, and your idea of the "ant god."

[Berzerker]

the very nature of god is inconsistent with that of an evolved being.

Actually I'd say it is consistent, cause and effect run throughout creation.

A nearby star goes supernova triggering the collapse of our nebula flooding it with heavier elements which are later incorporated into life. A planet covered with water is smacked by debris producing both tectonic activity and the elements for life and possibly a satellite large enough to produce tidal motion. Life develops at some fundamental level and proceeds to "multiply and fill the earth", and yes, "evolve", with mankind coming "last" in the sequence.

Even the biblical tale of the Garden of Eden describes evolution, the knowledge of good and evil is a transformation from man's more primitive existence (nude and loving it) to man seeking the colonisation of space.

But how does cause and effect even exist without a cause? Could or should this primal cause be seen as all the other resulting causes that exist on a smaller scale? Thats where "god" enters the picture in my good book...
Thats the name I use for whomever or whatever started this all rolling...

[GePap]

I think I have a pic of him somewhere....

[GePap]

Here it is:

[Berzerker]

Hehe

Oops, maybe terra meant god is not an evolved being.

[aneeshm]

Well , I am God . I am all that is , was , or ever will be .

The Yogic view of God is that the consciousness of each person is a manifestation of God ( in other words , that which is conscious is God ) .

This leads to many interesting corrolaries - such as the idea that consciousness is an emergent property of matter , and thus that all matter or energy is a manifestation of God , and that all humans ( and animals , and plants ) are fundamentally equal .

The argument runs thus :

Look at an atom . Is it conscious ( to an extent we can perceive ) ? No . Then look at a molecule . Is it conscious ? No . Then look at a single cell of the body . Is it conscious ? No . Then look at an individual organ ( other than the brain - that is a special case ) . Is it conscious ? No . But is the entire human being conscious ? Yes . How can we say so ? Because we are , and we know we are .

However , is there any force or energy below the level of a human being which is conscious ( such that it can be percieved ) ? No . However , a human is conscious . This means that matter is conscious , however , we cannot perceive it . Or else there is a third component ( other than matter and energy ) . As no third component is observed , it means that matter is conscious .

Now , all that is conscious is a manifestation of the Purusha , or of God , and thus , all of creation is simply a manifestation of God .



Now for that comment about the brain being a special case - the Hindu view of a human being is thus : that the soul ( the consciousness ) resides in a given body , whose method of communication with the body is via the brain . The different nerves carry information to the brain , where it is communicated to the Purusha , after which the Purusha responds and nerves carry information out of the body .

Therefore , according to Hinduism , all humans are intrinsically equal ( because every one is a manifestation of the supreme consciousness ) , and animals , and plants , and in general , the living world should be treated with some respect .




That is , in short , the Hindu advaita view of God .