Hi everyone,
In my opinion, what we call God is the highest level of Consciousness. This Consciousness can be accessed and found from within ourselves. Most spiritual traditions emphasize the same thing.
According to certain Hindu philosophies our individual consciousness is just a part of the whole and we all are essentially and ultimately the same one level of Consciousness. Realizing this is considered as the ultimate goal for each of us. Yoga and Vedanta teach this philosophy.
To achieve this, we needs religions, prayers and rituals and various images of God.
As I have mentioned in other threads, many recent philosophers and scientists seem to be moving towards a similar idea of Panpsychism wherein Consciousness forms the basis and the physical world is an outcome of that.
(copied from post 72 of 'The Soul' thread)....Freud on the power of the Unconscious, Jung on the collective unconscious, the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM, Wheeler on Participatory Anthropic Principle, Chalmers on Panpsychism, Toroni on Integrated Information theory, Eagleman on the Unconscious mind.....and many others....point to the above.
Just some thoughts.
Cheers.
Sriram