What is your 'idea of GOD'?

Some one have been part of our existence and I call Him God , What would you call Him ?

 

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I think you'd be surprised how many claim to know, how many claim the scriptures to be knowledge rather than merely opinions and stories.
And if one considers the standard starting point for knowledge as a "justified true belief", then the only thing separating a strong belief and a claim of knowledge is that the belief would have to be true.
And if the belief is held then surely the person believes it to be true (unless you are aware of people who hold beliefs to be true yet also believing the veracity of that belief is false?) and thus they would claim it as knowledge.
Yes, belief as merely an acceptance for practical reasons of some assessment of probability is plausible in such cases, but rarely is religious belief merely of this ilk, and those that hold to such level are generally sporting enough to consider themselves agnostic.

So Catholicism is a cult? All those who claim to speak with god, or have had god speak with them are to be consider cultish rather than religious?
It is a fine line, and without knowing too much of where other religions claim their source of authority to be (e.g. Direct communion with god or merely through knowledge of scriptures) I would not wish to elaborate further, other than to say that the only real distinction in your definitions would be a matter of age... In that your religions are based on scriptures which, by definition would have to have come from direct interaction with/by god. So either they believe that the scriptures are from people who conversed with god, or their leader converses. Not much of a distinction, to be honest.

And that innate desire might one day be explained by science.

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. Now that would be ironic for the religious.

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No matter what answer science produces, the questions of why, how, and what can always be asked of that answer. Science is truly an endless frontier, but that's a great thing, isn't it? It means the thrill and excitement of discovery will never end, and we'll never get bored.

 

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I expressed my felling about God is a spirit which is a driving force to combine and create a way for our existence on the earth , Our solar system have other planets yet life we have on this planet planet only to my understanding .

 

But it is in the sense that as our understanding of the "deepest underlying reality" is pushed back, so your understanding of god changes.
How one uses such a god in terms of explaining is up to the individual, but it doesn't alter the gappy nature.

How is it omnipotent? It can not break its own rules any more than I can defy the laws of this universe.
Eternal etc... These are concepts only relevant with regard time, and we have no true understanding of what time even is, even if it is more than just a perception.
You just seem to be clinging to buzzwords (to use QQ's expression).

Most scientists feel that same sense of wonder, awe etc. It is often what inspires them to keep working in their field. And many do feel it in almost spiritual ways. Just listen to Prof. Brian Cox (he of "D:ream" fame) espouse the wonders of the universe. But that, for most, is no reason to invoke the label of God, when "universe" or "reality" suffices I every way.

 

For being the Unknown your God is sure taking upon itself a lot of KNOWN properties. So why this need to deify "the unified ground of Being" as a God? Tillich did this. But why not just call it Being? Being is the most obviously present thing in our entire experience. Infinite yet immediately accessible. Luminious, enlightening, and self-sufficient. Being is Being. And science is the chief expositor of this Being. Why this need to personify it as a magical being who loves you and watches over you and will probably ensure your immortality in some eternal transcendental domain? Is it really so unheard of to be in awe of just Being without investing it with some supernatural personal nature?

"The God of the theological theism is a being besides others and as such a part of the whole reality. He is certainly considered its most important part, but as a part and therefore as subjected to the structure of the whole. He is supposed to be beyond the ontological elements and categories which constitute reality. But every statement subjects him to them. He is seen as a self which has a world, as an ego which relates to a thought, as a cause which is separated from its effect, as having a definite space and endless time. He is a being, not being-itself"--Paul Tillich

 

You're building up quite a straw-man there. I didn't say that God loves or watches over us, that it has a personality like us, or that our personalities survive the death of our bodies. And I've already explained why I use religious language to describe the ground of being.

 

So God is just some impersonal metaphysical property without awareness or volition? What's the point in calling it God then? God is generally conceived as a person who has a vested interest in human affairs. A personified character like the Statue of Liberty, even though we understand this figure to only be a fictional metaphor for an impersonal principle.

 

It's not pushed back. The ground of being has never been touched by science in any sense, and it never, ever will. Science can explore the surface of being, the structure of this surface, and it's behavior, but it can't get at what it is, it's ground. The mystery of being is infinite, immutable, and unchanging.

What rules? The laws of nature? The laws of nature are not mandates nature must obey, and they are believed to have come into existence with the inflated quantum fluctuation we call our local universe.

If it evokes spiritual or religious feelings, then why is it not suitable to use spiritual or religious language to describe it?

 

"Tillich argues that the God of theological theism is at the root of much revolt against theism and religious faith in the modern period. Tillich states, sympathetically, that the God of theological theism:


"..deprives me of my subjectivity because he is all-powerful and all-knowing. I revolt and make him into an object, but the revolt fails and becomes desperate. God appears as the invincible tyrant, the being in contrast with whom all other beings are without freedom and subjectivity. He is equated with the recent tyrants who with the help of terror try to transform everything into a mere object, a thing among things, a cog in a machine they control. He becomes the model of everything against which Existentialism revolted. This is the God Nietzsche said had to be killed because nobody can tolerate being made into a mere object of absolute knowledge and absolute control. This is the deepest root of atheism. It is an atheism which is justified as the reaction against theological theism and its disturbing implications."

Another reason Tillich criticized theological theism was because it placed God into the subject-object dichotomy. This is the basic distinction made in Epistemology, that branch of Philosophy which deals with human knowledge, how it is possible, what it is, and its limits. Epistemologically, God cannot be made into an object, that is, an object of the knowing subject. Tillich deals with this question under the rubric of the relationality of God. The question is "whether there are external relations between God and the creature".[38] Traditionally Christian theology has always understood the doctrine of creation to mean precisely this external relationality between God, the Creator, and the creature as separate and not identical realities. Tillich reminds us of the point, which can be found in Luther, that "there is no place to which man can withdraw from the divine thou, because it includes the ego and is nearer to the ego than the ego to itself".[38] Tillich goes further to say that the desire to draw God into the subject-object dichotomy is an "insult" to the divine holiness.[39] Similarly, if God were made into the subject rather than the object of knowledge (The Ultimate Subject), then the rest of existing entities then become subjected to the absolute knowledge and scrutiny of God, and the human being is "reified," or made into a mere object. It would deprive the person of his or her own subjectivity and creativity. According to Tillich, theological theism has provoked the rebellions found in atheism and Existentialism, although other social factors such as the industrial revolution have also contributed to the "reification" of the human being. The modern man could no longer tolerate the idea of being an "object" completely subjected to the absolute knowledge of God. Tillich argued, as mentioned, that theological theism is "bad theology".


"The God of the theological theism is a being besides others and as such a part of the whole reality. He is certainly considered its most important part, but as a part and therefore as subjected to the structure of the whole. He is supposed to be beyond the ontological elements and categories which constitute reality. But every statement subjects him to them. He is seen as a self which has a world, as an ego which relates to a thought, as a cause which is separated from its effect, as having a definite space and endless time. He is a being, not being-itself"[35]

Alternatively, Tillich presents the above mentioned ontological view of God as Being-Itself, Ground of Being, Power of Being, and occasionally as Abyss or God's "Abysmal Being". What makes Tillich's ontological view of God different from theological theism is that it transcends it by being the foundation or ultimate reality that "precedes" all beings. Just as Being for Heidegger is ontologically prior to conception, Tillich views God to be beyond Being-Itself, manifested in the structure of beings.[40]

"God is not a supernatural entity among other entities. Instead, God is the ground upon which all beings exist. We cannot perceive God as an object which is related to a subject because God precedes the subject-object dichotomy."[40]

Thus Tillich dismisses a literalistic Biblicism. Instead of rejecting the notion of personal God, however, Tillich sees it as a symbol that points directly to the Ground of Being.[41] Since the Ground of Being ontologically precedes reason, it cannot be comprehended since comprehension presupposes the subject-object dichotomy. Tillich disagreed with any literal philosophical and religious statements that can be made about God. Such literal statements attempt to define God and lead not only to anthropomorphism but also to a philosophical mistake that Immanuel Kant warned against, that setting limits against the transcendent inevitably leads to contradictions. Any statements about God are simply symbolic, but these symbols are sacred in the sense that they function to participate or point to the Ground of Being. Tillich insists that anyone who participates in these symbols is empowered by the Power of Being, which overcomes and conquers nonbeing and meaninglessness.

Tillich also further elaborated the thesis of the God above the God of theism in his Systematic Theology:


"… (the God above the God of theism) This has been misunderstood as a dogmatic statement of a pantheistic or mystical character. First of all, it is not a dogmatic, but an apologetic, statement. It takes seriously the radical doubt experienced by many people. It gives one the courage of self-affirmation even in the extreme state of radical doubt."

— Tillich , Systematic Theology Vol. 2 , p.12

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tillich

 

While I don't think that God is personal in the sense that it answers prayers or is concerned with how we live our lives, I am inclined to believe that God is intelligent, due to the logic I see in the universe. The universe doesn't have to be logical, but it is, and all true scientists believe this, or else they wouldn't bother trying to understand it.

"To [the sphere of religion] belongs the faith in the
possibility that the regulations valid for the world of
existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason.
I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without
that profound faith."
--Albert Einstein

"In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of
religious reverence, for he finds it impossible to
imagine that he is the first to have thought out
the exceedingly delicate threads that connect his
perceptions."
--Albert Einstein

The major world religions that personify God in that way do so with the qualification that God is ultimately unknowable, which means we shouldn't mistake our idea or personification of God for God itself, for to do so would be to worship a false idol.

 

It's hard to imagine a logical mind without it being embedded in a universe that is already logical. Events and phenomena and interactions to be logical about. So did God always coexist with the universe, or exist in some universe that could provide his logical thoughts a context to be logical about.

The whole concept of God existing at all came out of religion. It wasn't like there was some universal experience of God first and then religion's peculiar take on that being. Religion also came up with other mythical concepts as well. Heaven. Hell. The Devil. Sin. Are these also just literalistic interpretations of metaphysical properties as well? Cuz if your going to get your ideas from religion, surely you must accept the whole package.

 

Yet, here you are telling us about the unknowable.

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It is hard to imagine an intelligent mind coming from an unintelligent universe; figs do not grow on thistles.

God didn't come out of religion, religion came out of an experience of God. And while I find the worlds religions very interesting and at times insightful, especially those of the East, I don't have a religion, and the only reason I brought it up is because it was said that I shouldn't refer to the ground of being as God, as this disagrees with some religious ideas of God (that's debatable), which is like saying we shouldn't refer to Einstein's universe as the universe, because it disagrees with Ptolemy's universe, or someone else's.

 

Happens everyday in hospital birth wards all over the planet.

No it didn't. God, and it's alleged experience, are the products solely of religion. History backs me up on this. Unless it happens on an individual psychological level, in which case we call it psychotic delusion. Your attempt to redefine this magical all-knowing being as some vague intelligent unknowable is a last ditch effort to salvage a totally debunked concept. Besides, it explains nothing to even posit a God. How will you then explain God? You won't. You'll just accept him on faith, just all religious people do.

 

The universe is intelligent, if it weren't we couldn't understand it.

This is like saying the universe doesn't exist, it came from physics.

It is not God that has been debunked, but images of God misinterpreted as concrete realities that have been debunked. What those images referred to is still there, all around you.

What does it explain to posit Reality, Truth, or the Ground of Being? It explains how very little we know, which is a very important thing to never forget, lest it be the death of science.

 

No, it's consistent. Therefore we can understand it. It doesn't have to be intelligent.

 

What we see is a universe that grows, from simpler states, to ones of greater complexity. Humans can create machines which can calculate faster than any human.

 

Nothing to posit here. Reality and Being and Truth is just what is. To not posit it to be insane. To posit God is to add something on to that. A magical omniscient Who who is behind what is. It explains nothing and never will. It is only a soothing belief to help us not feel so lonely and insignificant.

 

Couple it's logical consistency with the fact that it contains self-sustaining processes, the fundamental characteristic that separates a living thing from a non-living thing, and it becomes undeniable that it's intelligent.