What is God?

[Ssel]

What is your answer?

Wouldn't you need to first realize what a "god" is before you get into what The God is?

That was the question... what is god?

Read the topic header. Read the answers being given. Read.

 

 

god of war = the nothing of war?

god of life = the nothing of life?

 

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The word "god" is made from the word sounds of "ghe" meaning spirit and "odd" meaning being unique unto itself - standing alone. The word refers to a spirit which has the stand alone control over something.

 

A god of war represented which ever spirit had control over the creation, events, and outcome of war.

 

A "spirit" merely refers to the unseen motions or energies concerning something. The word often gains mystical respect due to its unseen nature. "Where does it go?" and "Where did it come from?" and "What would it look like without a body?"

 

Magic refers to the efforts from the ancient Egyptian Magi who made attempts to control these unseen forces.

 

In a scientific sense, a spirit is merely the inner functioning. In a more social sense, a spirit represents an attitude and degree of liveliness. In a personal sense, your spirit is the combination of your feelings, memories, thoughts, and deep desires. Your "soul" is the most foundation concerns of your spirit and from where it springs and to where it returns.

 

The gods throughout history were personifications of the causal and controlling motions and events of major concerns. Those studying such things often found a means of directly affecting them and becoming a part of the cause or control. Priesthoods were developed so as to attempt to ensure that such events and concerns could be controlled.

 

The priesthoods were invariably secretive not merely for selfish desires of total control, but more importantly to ensure that control was possible. If one broadcasts what they are going to do, they affect their ability to do it. Science has the same problem in any experiment and now that science has gotten into social control, much of it has become secret as well.

 

The word "God" uses the cap "G" to represent the spirit which controls all things, the creator and controller of the entire universe. It refers to which ever events, objects, and energies combine such as to cause reality to be what it is.

 

Priesthoods concerning God were developed for similar reasons as other priesthoods. They developed watchers to be their eyes such as to watch events. They developed a gathering of thinkers so as to predict and calculate events. And they developed affectors so as to have some control of events. They attempted to form a "body" to house the spirit of God.

 

All of the people and events concerning God were the results of such attempts of men to understand the God and become the body of God.

 

As far back as 4000-5000 years ago, someone recorded some of the thoughts concerning "Lao Tzu". In these writings, Lao Tau explains that the entire universe, as a whole, is a living being. This is the first record of Man perceiving that reality itself is a living God with attributes much the same as Man himself. Trying to understand, predict, and control this being is what all religions have been about.

 

Today, the exact same attempts are being made because the very challenge of life is to ensure its continuance and harmony. If Man merely let nature take over, then he would be merely a part of its compost and nothing would advance. Eventually the compost would have an enemy that it could not handle and would die out.

 

But today the controlling attempts have the use of science and technology. These make it far more likely to succeed. Ultimate and total control of all things, to be God, is Mans never fading ambition. It takes merely eyes to watch all things, brains to calculate and cleverly outwit all things, and arms to affect all things.

Look around.

 

"There shall be no God before ME", said the blinded Man.

[Amethyst]

God is a man-made notion that represents a person or group's archetype for perfection."

 

I would agree. Although not necessarily perfection, but something that fulfills an ultimate wish or desire.

 

Want to defeat all your enemies in battle? God will do that. Want to worship a fluffy, lovey-dovey god of peace, love, joy, etc? God can be that for you. Want to worship a woman instead of a man? Okay, the goddess will do that. Want everyone who isn't Exactly Like You to be tortured for all of eternity? Okay, god will do that. Want god to be like Superman, smiting evildoers all around the world when they die? Okay. And so on.

 

This is my theory. A deity is essentially the ultimate Mary Sue (for those who don't read or write fiction, a Mary Sue is a subconscious self-insert by the author to fulfill some wish -- be it popularity, beauty, having the dream guy/gal, beating up the bad guys and saving the day, etc.).

 

God is the ultimate wish-fulfillment character. Not only will a god do whatever you ask, but a god makes you feel like by worshipping it, or saying the appropriate prayer, doing the appropriate ritual, whatever, you are almost doing the magic yourself. This is somewhat mitigated by dogma that says you have to give credit to god, but I think that deep down, many people secretly do think they performed a miracle by asking god if their prayers were actually answered. No wonder people are so addicted to the idea of god!

[Ssel]

If you don't understand it, assume it might be something bad.

 

If you don't like it for being something bad, proclaim it is merely invention to attempt to control you and try to get others to help you get rid of it.

[Lycorth]

To me, "God" is the First Cause, that which created at least the basic elements of life and the universe and at least gave them their initial push to develop and form into what we know now, no doubt with at least some vague idea of how it would all turn out. Basically, I believe in at least one "creator".

 

There could be one creator or many. Said creator(s) could be immortal or perhaps part of a race of such beings, and maybe the creator(s) responsible for starting our world is long since deceased. Said creator(s) could be male, female, both, or neither. But these minutia do not matter.

 

What is clear is that said creator(s) do not expect our worship, or else we'd be getting regular and unmistakable visits for the purpose of worship. We were not given a set of laws to live by nor a set of rituals to practice, or else we'd have not just regular visits to ensure we're doing it all right, but an unmistakable and easily verifiable compendium of laws and ethics. Our creator(s) do not micromanage our lives, as all the evidence points to us being totally in control.

 

My idea of "God" is not a supernatural tyrant who nitpicks our every action and wants us to jump through hoops, giving us only a few vague "books" and a bunch of hearsay and superstition to follow. Life is our religion, Reason and Truth are its sacraments, and we are just as capable of figuring out what is good on our own as we are at conjuring up evil on our own, without help from "angels" or "demons".

 

That is my god(s), and I put no other gods before.

[Ssel]

... Reason and Truth are its sacraments, and we are just as capable of figuring out what is good on our own as we are at conjuring up evil on our own, without help from "angels" or "demons"..

Basically agree with most of what was said, but doesn't this part above, depend on who "we" are?

 

I have seen far more presumptuous, rush to judgment, impassioned, blinded from detail people than real truth seekers. Such are the makings for superstitions and false doctrines based on social politics of the era. Truth only comes to those with unlustful minds being very careful to see the details and ensure accuracy.

 

How many of those do you see about?

 

Changing the names and words from an ancient usage to a modern usage, but doing the exact same thing is merely self deceiving.

 

"If we don't call it "God" maybe we can have more control over it." ..endless lustful ambition.

[Ssel]

If you don't understand it, assume it might be something bad.

 

If you don't like it for being something bad, proclaim it is merely invention to attempt to control you and try to get others to help you get rid of it.

Oh yes, and don't forget to confuse the defintions of the words so that you can show how meaningless it all was anyway.

[crazy-tiger]

Oh yes, and don't forget to confuse the defintions of the words so that you can show how meaningless it all was anyway.

[Amethyst]

Be good to people, loving and kind, give when you can and help take care of the earth...that's a message that needs no special revelation and if there is a god, most assuredly that is all it asks.

 

Almond to that!

 

[Ian]

I will go with John Lennon's definition in which he wrote/sang some 35 years ago :

 

 

God is a concept by which we measure our pain .("God" from the album Plastic Ono Band. released in 1970)

[godlessgrrl]

God is a concept by which we measure our pain .("God" from the album Plastic Ono Band. released in 1970)

 

That's my favorite non-xian anthem.

 

[Antlerman]

The word "god" is made from the word sounds of "ghe" meaning spirit and "odd" meaning being unique unto itself - standing alone. The word refers to a spirit which has the stand alone control over something.

Interesting etymology. Where exactly did you pull that from? Here's what the highly reputable OED has to say about the word "God". I'm not seeing anything referencing your etymology there. That surprising since it is the most exhaustive dictionary in the world.

 

"god (gρd). Also 3-4 godd. [Com. Teut.: OE. god (masc. in sing.; pl. godu, godo neut., godas masc.) corresponds to OFris., OS., Du. god masc., OHG. got, cot (MHG. got, mod.Ger. gott) masc., ON. goð, guð neut. and masc., pl. goð, guð neut. (later Icel. pl. guðir masc.; Sw., Da. gud), Goth. guÞ (masc. in sing.; pl. guÞa, guda neut.). The Goth. and ON. words always follow the neuter declension, though when used in the Christian sense they are syntactically masc. The OTeut. type is therefore *guđom neut., the adoption of the masculine concord being presumably due to the Christian use of the word. The neuter sb., in its original heathen use, would answer rather to L. numen than to L. deus. Another approximate equivalent of deus in OTeut. was *ansu-z (Goth. in latinized pl. form anses, ON. ρss, OE. Ós- in personal names, ésa genit. pl.); but this seems to have been applied only to the higher deities of the native pantheon, never to foreign gods; and it never came into Christian use.

 

The ulterior etymology is disputed. Apart from the unlikely hypothesis of adoption from some foreign tongue, the OTeut. *gubom implies as its pre-Teut. type either *ghudho-m or *ghutó-m. The former does not appear to admit of explanation; but the latter would represent the neut. of the passive pple. of a root *gheu-. There are two Aryan roots of the required form (both *glheu, with palatal aspirate): one meaning ‘to invoke’ (Skr. hū), the other ‘to pour, to offer sacrifice’ (Skr. hu, Gr. χέειν, OE. yéotan YETE v.). Hence *glhutó-m has been variously interpreted as ‘what is invoked’ (cf. Skr. puru-hūta ‘much-invoked’, an epithet of Indra) and as ‘what is worshipped by sacrifice’ (cf. Skr. hutá, which occurs in the sense ‘sacrificed to’ as well as in that of ‘offered in sacrifice’). Either of these conjectures is fairly plausible, as they both yield a sense practically coincident with the most obvious definition deducible from the actual use of the word, ‘an object of worship’.

 

Some scholars, accepting the derivation from the root *glheu- to pour, have supposed the etymological sense to be ‘molten image’ (= Gr. χυγόν), but the assumed development of meaning seems very unlikely.

 

 

P.S. I once heard a drunken man expound to me how the word "Thunder" came into being because it means The and Under. When put together it means thunder. He then fell asleep next to me where I was studying, and a police officer came by an escorted him to detox.

[spamandham]

Oh yes, and don't forget to confuse the defintions of the words so that you can show how meaningless it all was anyway.

 

Isn't this thread devoted to defining "what is god?"? Words are not defined in some think tank hidden away on Alcatraz, nor are they defined by the teacher's union. They are defined by those who use them. It's pretty damn irrelevant what you think 'god' means if it is not a broadly accepted definition.

 

The problem with the word 'god', is that it does not appear that anyone's definition is broadly accepted. That being the case, we are all speaking gibberish to eachother when we say 'god'.

[♦ nivek ♦]

"God" is the 6.5 pounds of trigger pull it takes just before the last mistake you made causes Mr. Browning's Patent Fool Remover and Gene Pool Cleaner to do its delivery work.

 

kL

[scitsofreaky]

What do I think God is? Pure Self. Or what some quantum physicists are looking for (in vein, I believe), Pure Observer or that which cannot be observed but only observed (hence I think it is futile to try to observe it). I don't think that anything has an identity that is separate from God, so it can also be described as Pure Identity.

[Lycorth]

"God" is the 6.5 pounds of trigger pull it takes just before the last mistake you made causes Mr. Browning's Patent Fool Remover and Gene Pool Cleaner to do its delivery work.

 

kL

 

LMAO!