What is God?

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Here is a video about 'what is God'.  I am sure even atheists will agree with most of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9VOz4dV92Q

Try it!

Cheers.

Sriram 

[SusanDoris]

Oh, perleeease!!! I dipped in for ten seconds at four or five places and that was quite enough!

[Gonnagle]

Dear Sriram,

Brilliant old son isn't it

Gonnagle.

[torridon]

I quite enjoyed it, having not expected to at first.  Maybe many western atheists have become effectively allergic to talk of god because of the particular character of abrahamic faiths, they being much preoccupied with ideas around morality, sin, judgement, salvation, heaven and hell and onetruewayism. This was somewhat more nuanced perhaps.

[Sriram]

I quite enjoyed it, having not expected to at first.  Maybe many western atheists have become effectively allergic to talk of god because of the particular character of abrahamic faiths, they being much preoccupied with ideas around morality, sin, judgement, salvation, heaven and hell and onetruewayism. This was somewhat more nuanced perhaps.

Thanks for watching the video ...torridon. 

The video brings out what I have been saying on here for years about Hindu concepts of God and about the different images of God that we create.  In essence, it highlights what spirituality is all about towards the end.

[Sriram]

Dear Sriram,

Brilliant old son isn't it

Gonnagle.

Hi Gonnagle,

Thanks for that.

I know you are a believer, but I have never been able to identify whether you are a Christian or a secular spiritualist.

Cheers.

Sriram

[Nearly Sane]

I liked the delivery, reminded me of

https://www.youtube.com/#/results?q=dave%20allen%20on%20religion&sm=1


The first part is fine. It's the sort of stuff that I am sure puts a lot of people off god, that it is a big something. It's then very easy to drag down by saying you've just made that up. (see Lewis pointing this out in The Silver Chair - though his way out is an argument by consequences which isn't as elegant as the video)



The problem is the elision at the conclusion, that goes because there has been thought of something, then even with no discernible definitio, there is something. And dissolution is not defined either so it ends as mush for me. Pleasant well delivered non judgemental mush, but mush all the same.

[OH MY WORLD!]

"If you were a buffalo, you would think God is a huge buffalo"  OK, whatever rocks you.

"And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name, the Lord.
 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed the Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth."   Exodus 34: 5, 6

Humans are not animals. I do not believe a chicken pops out of the egg and grows up to think about the big bird in the sky. All animals will learn to fear humans.

[ippy]

Why bother asking, there's nothing I've ever seen heard or read that has given me any reason to want to ask, plus there is no evidence any such thing has ever existed, pleasant enough chap, could do with a trim, plenty of the pointed finger assertionatron projector.

ippy   

[ippy]

"If you were a buffalo, you would think God is a huge buffalo"  OK, whatever rocks you.

"And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name, the Lord.
 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed the Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth."   Exodus 34: 5, 6

Humans are not animals. I do not believe a chicken pops out of the egg and grows up to think about the big bird in the sky. All animals will learn to fear humans.

Another one away with the fairies, Woody.

ippy

[Shaker]

Humans are not animals.

Of course they are, you blithering fool. What do you think they are, trees?

[OH MY WORLD!]

No chopper, you are the one in fairy land.

Do us some chicken noodle soup ippy! You're a nice guy but having you around is like being alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbAdoos6HBg

[OH MY WORLD!]

We are set above the animal Shaker. OK, so you can't see yourself as anything but. I can understand why. (snork) ALL animals will learn to fear you.

[Shaker]

We are set above the animal Shaker.

Oh? Says who? Not the scientific community, so who is doing this "setting above" exactly?

[ippy]

No chopper, you are the one in fairy land.

Do us some chicken noodle soup ippy! You're a nice guy but having you around is like being alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbAdoos6HBg

At least I'm another human animal just as you are too.

Woody, a serious question why don't you think we your fellow humans and including yourself are not animals?

What's wrong with being an animal?

It's very easy to see we are animals without a need to consult any experts, whatever makes you think we're not animals?

Seriously Woody why?

ippy.
 

[Shaker]

At least I'm another human animal just as you are too.

Woody, a serious question why don't you think we your fellow humans and including yourself are not animals?

What's wrong with being an animal?

It's very easy to see we are animals without a need to consult any experts, whatever makes you think we're not animals?

Seriously Woody why?

ippy.

There's really only ever one answer to that, and that's the desire to be a special little snowflake without the instincts, the unconscious drives, the appetites, the needs and the habits that we see in the rest of the animal kingdom. In essence.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Just watched it. Starts off ok - people create gods in their own images etc but having set off on a decent road, he then careers off it by assuming that the childhood assumption of a top down creator god must be the correct one and all we have to do thence is to "dissolve" into it. No telling us what this god might be, no explanation for why a god is necessary at all, no clues of any kind as to how we'd know we'd dissolved into a god rather than just got the wrong idea in our heads.   

Seems to be a likeable chap, but nothing there to get your intellectual teeth into. Disappointing.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Sriram,

Just watched it. Starts off ok - people create gods in their own images etc but having set off on a decent road, he then careers off it by assuming that the childhood assumption of a top down creator god must be the correct one and all we have to do thence is to "dissolve" into it. No telling us what this god might be, no explanation for why a god is necessary at all, no clues of any kind as to how we'd know we'd dissolved into a god rather than just got the wrong idea in our heads.   

Seems to be a likeable chap, but nothing there to get your intellectual teeth into. Disappointing.

Hillside is turning into Dawkins.

[Shaker]

Hillside is turning into Dawkins.

Dawkins is already taken.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Sriram,

I know you are a believer, but I have never been able to identify whether you are a Christian or a secular spiritualist.

Christian, it is written into my DNA, I am a Christian, Our Lord Jesus Christ is my Salvation, but where I differ from other Christians ( and I have said it before ) Christianity is my home not my prison, I can visit Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Paganism etc etc and find joy and enlightenment in their teachings but I always return home.

Where I can't visit is Atheism, a closed club, you need a certain kind of mind for that club, but it is fascinating trying to work out, what kind of mind

Gonnagle.

[Sriram]

Dear Sriram,

Christian, it is written into my DNA, I am a Christian, Our Lord Jesus Christ is my Salvation, but where I differ from other Christians ( and I have said it before ) Christianity is my home not my prison, I can visit Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Paganism etc etc and find joy and enlightenment in their teachings but I always return home.

Where I can't visit is Atheism, a closed club, you need a certain kind of mind for that club, but it is fascinating trying to work out, what kind of mind

Gonnagle.

Hi Gonnagle,

That's a rare but very nice combination. A faithful Christian but also secular and integrative. Most Hindus would applaud that! So do I.

Cheers.

Sriram

[Sriram]

"If you were a buffalo, you would think God is a huge buffalo"  OK, whatever rocks you.

"And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name, the Lord.
 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed the Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth."   Exodus 34: 5, 6

Humans are not animals. I do not believe a chicken pops out of the egg and grows up to think about the big bird in the sky. All animals will learn to fear humans.

Hi OH MY WORLD,

It is true that we have created God in our own image because that is what we are programmed to do. When a child asks where the sun goes in the evening...we say it goes home and goes to bed. That's what the child can relate to. Most of our understanding is based on anthropomorphic concepts.

That would be true of a buffalo too...if they could think and imagine like us. Nothing new there.

You are  mixing up the God that we create for our understanding... with the Real 'God' that is our source and ultimate destiny. The first is just an image, a symbol that we use to relate to the unknowable and using which we get over our fears and anxieties. 

The second is what generates the world through its transformation and therefore forms the core of all creation. If you want to imagine it...think of it as similar to the String of String Theory.

Most Hindus are clear about the distinction. We know that the images, rituals and rules are only steps in the ladder that takes us closer to the real God within us.   

I think the Gnostic Christians knew it too.

Cheers.

Sriram


 

[Sriram]

Sriram,

Just watched it. Starts off ok - people create gods in their own images etc but having set off on a decent road, he then careers off it by assuming that the childhood assumption of a top down creator god must be the correct one and all we have to do thence is to "dissolve" into it. No telling us what this god might be, no explanation for why a god is necessary at all, no clues of any kind as to how we'd know we'd dissolved into a god rather than just got the wrong idea in our heads.   

Seems to be a likeable chap, but nothing there to get your intellectual teeth into. Disappointing.

Blue,

Typically, as long as the Sadguru says what you believe in, you are fine..... but where he goes beyond your experience, you become restive and uncomfortable.

We should resist too much emphasis on intellectualism.  We can only understand things in terms of what we have experienced. If you have never experienced gravity....any number of classes on Newtons Laws will make no sense to you. It'll all be abstract (Ahem!...NS) and even weird. But one experience of gravity and it all becomes clear in a moment.

Its the same with God.

We know of the unconscious mind that forms a much larger part of our mental process than the conscious mind (like an iceberg). It knows more than the conscious mind and takes decisions faster than the conscious mind does. The conscious mind is only the front office of a much larger set up that we are not normally aware of.

For a start therefore, the unconscious mind can be seen as a larger and bigger part of ourselves that we wish to relate to or dissolve in.  Nothing wrong with that!

Cheers.

Sriram

[floo]

God is whatever the human ingenuity wishes it to be.

[Outrider]

A reasonable stab at an explanation for why the gods we have are depicted as they are, but no explanation for why we should feel justified in accepting the claim of gods in the first place.

Some interesting things on the psychological expressions that are embodied in religious sentiment, but little on the foundations of theology in the first place.

O.