Philosophy

I've been on a bit of a philosophical tangent for the past five minutes, alot like many of my others, except this one I'ld like to document, and I'm sober enough to do so. It's of a religious nature, and in this case, I welcome and encourage some criticism so that I can better refine the points.

My inspiration was Ellen Degeneres, or however you spell her last name. As I was flipping the channels by Comedy Central, her hour standup was on, and she was talking about God, labelling her true nature as that of a 47-48 year old black woman. This struck me as kind of funny, but it also struck a deeper cord. What is the true nature of God?

Everyone here should know the quote 'God created man in his image.' But, to my mind, there is still a predisposition to think of this that God looks like one particular type of man-like creature, and that all men are poor imitations. Reread the quote however, and you'll see that God didn't create A man in his image, he created all men in his image. I'll freely expand this to include women, since hat particular brand of sexism is rampant in the Bible. God's affiliation with the female gender is, as always, debatable, but I feel no need to argue that particular minute detail at the moment.

Instead, the important revelation, true or not, which I have just come to, is that God would indeed resemble ALL men and women, and for that fact children, simultaneously. Regardless of your image of the 'true' God, everyone is in common agreement that this entity is omnipotent. Therefore, if it suited the Father's purposes, why couldn't He appear in female form? And why couldn't the benevolent Mother appear as a man if She wished? It is clearly within their abilities to do so, and yet we are to believe that our diety would constrain itself so pointlessly to one unchanging shell? One can only image that a being of such might would indeed find its physical shell trivial, and so why not change it as the purposes entail.

Thus, we can say that if God was going to interact with a being, He (for brevity's sake pronouns will assume the male gender from here on out) would appear in the form they best responded too. If the subject was adamant in his conviction of a male deity, or a white deity, or an asian one, it would be little more than the merest shadow of a thought for God to adapt to these preconceived notions.

I find this premise sound, although one could make the argument that an omnipotent God would find no need to adapt at all to its subject's prejudices. My opinion, however, is that our God is powerful enough that it would have no reason to be confrontational in such a relatively meaningless way. Conformation to the pettiness of a particular human only allows greater insurance of the human's acceptance of His message, and allows God's plan to be acted out with greater ease. You have to assume that He already knows that His presence alone, in any form, is enough to mindfuck any mortal. There's no reason to compound the mental and spiritual tramau that comes from being in the same room as an omnipowerful deity.

I'll now cut off any assertions that sometimes a good, swift kick in the ass about prejudices would serve God's purposes by saying that, yes, there would be times when God might knowingly choose to fuck with a human's head. But those are specific instances when God is again using His transitive physical nature to achieve His most desired ends.

All that said, I will go further. What is the most comfortable form to you? The most natural and familiar? Unless you haven't been allowed anywhere near a mirror, it is your own. My notion is that a form at the least similar to my own would be the form chosen by God, at least at those times when He would choose to speak to me. In contact with any other person, He would assume a form similar to theirs, under the assumption that their own form would be most comforting to them. Even in cases of multiple simultaneous appearances, such as God manifesting before a congregation of people in some way, the power of the Creator is such that He can appear uniquely to each individual at once.

Bear that premise in mind, and then contemplate how every ethnic group of Christians has a slightly different looking depiction of Christ. The Christ child in asian depictions has slanted eyes, and yellowish-tan skin. Latino depictions are slightly tanner than european ones.

That said, I compare the nature of God now more towards that of a mirror unto our own. Accumulate the available evidence, not simply that of the physical nature of God mirroring the physical nature of an individual man, woman, or child. God is the one who bears judgement onto mankind. When confronted with a just and honorable man, God's counternance is said to be kind and fair. And yet when God deals with the vile and wicked, His wrath is without bound.

More examples and evidence will come to me, I'm just happy to have gotten all of this down. Any comments are, again, welcome, as they will spurn me to think further into the matter.

 

A burning bush.

Being created in God's image does not mean his physical image. After all, God is not confined to a physical form except as he chooses to be. We were made to have free will, as He has free will, and to think, reason, and feel as He does. We act on concious thought rather than react to instinct like animals do.

As for males and females, we are in many ways the same, but in many ways different. God designed both genders to fulfill certain functions more efficiently, so to say that both are equal in every way is a load of crap. It's like saying that a sports car and a pickup truck are in every way equal, and that either one can perform any task as efficiently as the other. But as it pertains to our relationship with God, we are equal. To God's eyes, there are only two kinds of people in this world: Sinners, and saved sinners.

 

I wasn't speaking from a metaphysical sense. I was speaking from out mental image of God's physical being. Image what you view Christ to look like. If you're like the other 95% of Christians, it's similar to your own ethnicity. Now, if you're actually blessed with a complete derth of prejudice as to what God would appear like if you saw him, I'm impressed, but though we cannot limit God to one form, there is one form that would be least alarming for us. That form would probably be the least alarming is one akin to ourselves, that we're familiar with.

You're parsing words Japes, by me saying men and women are equal I'm of course referring to in the eyes of God. The natural course of evolution dictates that the ones that get laid up for nine months at a time tend to develop more in the areas that require little prolonged movement. Men could roam freely and developed their abilities for running, hunting, fighting, etc. Women, on the other hand, learned how to cook, raise children, and sew.

But, this is really irrelevant, as you sound like your in at least general agreement with my premise, even with the specifics of our differing dogmas clash.

 

Jesus Christ was a Jew, and probably looked pretty Jewish, but I see that's not what you're getting at.

How do I imagine God when I talk to him in prayer? I don't really put a face on him. If anything, I envision the cosmos, as it is the most expansive and mysterious thing I know.

 

I don't really envision Him at all... I like to believe that He is inside everything, in everyone. He's not to be seen nor heard; He's to be felt, in the whole of your body and spirit.

"Do not look for Me in churches of stone; turn a stone and I'm there, split a log and you'll find Me."
- Don't know which passage or who wrote it, and the original doesn't go exactly like this, but it's a good message, don't you think?

 

Sounds a little too close to nature worship to me. God is everywhere, but that doesn't mean that everything is God.

 

I don't agree. It can be anything I like. E.g. cheese.

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God
a) is the universe around us -> the computer the universe simulation runs on
b) is the operator/programmer/engineer/whatever of the universe
c) does not exist

And why one earth would he interfere with his own simulation (or more importantly, HOW)?

 

It came from Stigmata, the movie, and was supposed to be the missing gospel of Jesus. I like that version better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigmata_(movie)

I'll post something more substantive on this tomorrow.

 

And here's where someone comes along and kicks Japes for his narrow minded-ness.

I happen to follow a path of nature worship, thank you very much. Everything that lives has a spark of divinity. Every breath is a miracle, every birth a celebration of the universe.

As such, I have no solid vision of God. God is everything, everyone.

 

WOW!!! My dick is GOD!!! I'M AWESOME!!!!!!!!!

And it is in everything, in itself too!!! That... that means I have a fractal dick with infinite size and infinite mass!!!!!!!! I'M AWESOME!!!!

 

Perhaps to better elucidate my point, let me say this. If you view God as the infinite might of the universe, now imagine what form you see God manifesting Himself to you in. It would fall in line with this image of the universe. God could just as easily show up looking like a talking spoon. While the rational part of your brain understands that if God has infinite power, it is, of course, within His means to do that, it would still be surprising. Not only are you communicating with God, God also looks like a spoon.

That said, unless it was in God's interest to surprise you even more than He would be showing up as the grand manifestation of the universe, He wouldn't show up like a spoon. If what you said is true, Japes, that people are rational because God is, then God must rationally decide how to present Himself to people when He decides to.

Many people view the Father as a white male. This isn't an accurate portrayal of His nature, but the more important fact is that's how they PERCEIVE his nature. No one has the mental acuity to truly understand God, but we can, in a way, dumb dwn God to the level we can understand. This often means ascribing a physical description to the intangible. God doesn't have a set form, and yet He is creates one when He wishes to in order to help us comprehend Him.

My thoughts were mainly aimed towards the members of the several popular schools of thought that attest to God either being a woman, or a man, or black, or white, or asian. If anyone isn't a member of those schools of thought, then these remarks may or may not still apply to you, depending upon the dogma you do ascribe to.

More specifically, though, I was curious if anyone saw any holes in my argument that weren't strictly dogmatic.

 

If believing what I believe completely and whole-heartedly makes me narrow minded, so be it. If I were put on trial for being a Christian, I know there would be enough evidence to convict me. Can you say the same of your faith?

 

What about atheists?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist#Cr ... of_atheism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Atheism

Most criticism are dogmatic by their very nature, or simply stupid.

 

Alright, as promised, I will enlighten you all with my opinion on the matter.

Lets just call it a higher being, to avoid any preset idea's or concepts. It is not a male or female, black nor white, it it isn't even humanoid in form. But it is everywhere, at all-times, simultaneously. If it had a form, the closest you could get to picturing it would be the universe itself, only without the barriers of time and space seperating it.

After all, if you're Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent you dont suffer the penalties of barriers. What it also means is that without barriers, everything is happening all at once. To make sense of it all, it created all of us, to help filter its experiences through boundaries and finite perspectives. Time allows us to experience things one event at a time, space allows us to focus on those events without to much distraction, and being mentally seperated from the bloke next to you, allows you to try and understand what you're experiencing.

When someone encounters something they dont understand, the brain tries to impose an image onto it, so as to best understand it. Its difficult for most people to look upon seemingly absolute Chaos, that operates in perfect Order, and actually grasp what they're looking at correctly. Think of a black hole in space. You can picture it cant you, a great vortex absorbing everything, only problem is nobody's actually seen one yet, and your vision is just an imposed image. When most people visualize some higher being, they picture themselves only perfect and free of the limitations that bind them. They're on the right path, but are still imposing they're own images and limitations upon it.

Therefore, if you see an old man with a flowing beard, a beautiful woman with three incarnations, or an adolescent kid trying to make sense of it all, your right, and wrong. But its OK, its what we were designed for, and someday you'll be at one with it again.

Thats it in a nut-shell, everything, everywhere, all-at-once. A Chaotic explosion of pure Order, Ordered Chaos.

 

I believe in God, but not in the accepted "Christian" description of "Him". God to me is perhaps... just a feeling, or a principle of everything. I'm not sure I can even describe because as others have said, and as I believe, God is something too far beyond and abstract for any human to fathom. I might describe God as being infinity.

Not sure what I wanted to say but I felt like trying to contribute anyway.

 

You guys are focusing on whhat God is, instead of what you perceive him as. God is unfathomable, and yet, at least most people, still have preconceived notion about what God would look like when He chooes to have a body. On those occasions, He can look like anything, and when someone thinks about God, they remember His infinite nature. However, there are still assumptions as to what he looks like.

My premise is that, given the fact that we have subconscious notions as to how God would manifest, He would in all likelihood appear in a relatively unsurprising form. Unless His intent was to expunge those notions, little would be gained from surprising a mortal even more than He normally would, and so there is little reason for Him to appear in a form that would be unduly surprising.

 

Asking what god looks like is akin to asking what ultrasound sounds like. We don't have the capacity to sense either so all we can do is represent them in a way that makes sense to us. Therefore as the bible was written by men in a patriarchal society, god is a wise old man.

However if a wise old man surrounded by glowing light appeared to me right now I would not think "oh it's god come to say hello". I would think:
a, I've gone mad
b, The FBI are using secret technology to screw with me
c, Aliens are screwing with me
However if these options could be adequately disposed of then I might actually believe it was god...
Nah.

 

Are you asking what God would appear as if it bothered to stop by and say hello?

Thats easy, someone you already know. It'd just temporarily 'inspire' them to communicate something of relevance to you and then go about its business afterwards. Path of least resistance and all that.

If this Divine Being really wanted to mess you it might possess some bum or something to say a coincidentally important thing to you. I doubt it would appear as some glorious Hollywood-style special effects old-man sitting on a throne and harps and crap playing in the background.