Can you describe what God is and what he/she/it does?

[Helm]

I'm sure you'll come up with something more intellectual than the typical "guy with a white beard with magic powers who will judge you when you die" description. The more mystically profound you can make it the better.

[Mythos]

The Force?

[Helm]

The Force?

You can call it the Force, Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever else, as long you described it's nature.

When I was young and being raised as a Catholic i had a guardian angel. She was naked with a short black bob, blue eyes and the cutest smile - and of course huge white feathered wings. She never spoke, but just held me when I was down, and helped me though the tough parts of being a kid.

That could possibly have been an imagnary friend, a fair number of children seem to have those. They can be an angel, a fairy or a little purple man.

[Khassaki]

That could possibly have been an imagnary friend, a fair number of children seem to have those. They can be an angel, a fairy or a little purple man.

She was a lot cuter than most imaginary friends

Even at the age of six, I thought the dogma of the christian church was a load of crap. So I invented my own.

[The Dude]

I like the following take on God the most:

Periphyseon Book One examines the first division, God understood as a transcendent One above, and yet cause of, all creation. God transcends everything; He is, following Pseudo-Dionysius, the ‘negation of all things’. According to Eriugena — who in this respect is following a tradition which includes Augustine and Boethius as well as Dionysius and other Greek authors — the Aristotelian categories are considered to describe only the created world and do not properly apply to God (I.463d). God cannot ‘literally’ be said to be substance or essence, nor can He be described in terms of quantity, quality, relation, place or time. He is “superessentialis”, a term which, for Eriugena, belongs more to negative theology than to affirmative.

His ‘being’ is ‘beyond being’. Eriugena particularly admires a Dionysian saying from the Celestial Hierarchy: ‘for the being of all things is the Divinity above being’ which he translates as ‘the being of all things is the super-being of divinity’. This is perhaps Eriugena's favourite phrase from Dionysius. Sometimes, instead of invoking the Dionysian formula superesse divinitatis, Eriugena speaks of the ‘divine superessentiality’ — of the ‘superessential and hidden divinity’.

God is a ‘nothingness’ whose real essence is unknown to all created beings, including the angels. Indeed, Eriugena argues in a radical manner, following Maximus Confessor, that God's nature is infinite and uncircumscribable, such that He is unknown even to Himself, since He is the ‘infinity of infinities’ and beyond all comprehension and circumscription. In the Periphyseon, Eriugena repeats the position of the De Praedestinatione that God does not know evil, and, in a genuine sense, God may be said not to know anything; his ignorance is the highest wisdom.

Eriugena conceives of the act of creation as a kind of self manifestation wherein the hidden transcendent God creates himself by manifesting himself in divine outpourings or theophanies. He moves from darkness into the light, from self-ignorance into self-knowledge. The divine self-creation or self-manifestation is, at the same time (or rather timelessly), the expression of the Word and hence the creation of all other things, since all things are contained in the Word. The Word enfolds in itself the Ideas or Primary Causes of all things and in that sense all things are always already in God:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scottus-eriugena/#3.3

Sums it up better than I could've explained it.

It's an explanation that would fit anyone, even a non-christian. If you really want to believe in god, then this is probably the best definition out there. Others have tried to attach too much morality to god which inevitably leads to problems. Of course, this is closer to pure myth, but considering the basis from which this was written (Plato and Aristotle), there's a lot to say for the logical steps that he's taken in his God concept here.

Another strong contender is Nicholas of Cusa's theology though that's a lot more specifically Christian than Eriugena's. Not sure if I could start quoting bits from his theory without having to delve into explaining what he means by "maximum" and "not-other", though. I'll quote this bit for anyone who's curious and will try and do my best to explain what I can. Or you can read the entire source page.

The divine Not-other is simply not one of the things we are familiar with in the world we inhabit, where all is multiplicity and difference, where each thing or state of affairs is other than or different from every other existent thing or situation that obtains. Nicholas terms the multiple things we deal with “others” because each one of them, each “other,” is distinct from every other thing. Nicholas also proposes that such finite things possess and lack what things different from them possess—to be other or distinct is precisely not to be one or any of the finite others. Our language and thought busy themselves in finding and making further distinctions and divisions between things and parts of things, between one condition and another, between one state of affairs and another. So we come to know that one thing is other than or separate from another thing or that we find it in another that is related to, yet different from, something else.

Nicholas' central point is that the divine Not-other is nothing like all the finite, limited others of our experience. Nicholas writes, “Not Other does not lack anything.” Even in common sense terms, any given thing is “plenty lacking,” to speak colloquially. No matter what it has, it arguably is lacking some of what it should have as a specimen of its type, and it certainly lacks what other things not of its kind possess. One way to think of the finite things with which we are familiar is to consider that their being limited means that they are just so much and not more. But this is exactly how we should not think of God, who “does not lack anything” and outside of whom nothing can exist.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cusanus/

[Bromordra]

Until recently I would have told you there definitely is no god due to the infinitude of the universe and the logical impossibility of there being a creator god above and greater than it. Now, however, after learning a few things, such as the possibility of our living in a bounded universe, the quantization of a particle's spin, and how plank lengths work, it seems that there is a finite amount of information in the universe, thus I accept the possibility of some grand designer of the universe, in a deistic sense.

If I were to define this hypothetical god that I'm okay with existing, it'd simply be the creative force that set down the rules and bounds of our universe. In effect, as far as our experience of the universe goes, the only evidence of this god would be the universe itself. So the pantheistic expression of the universe as god also would apply fairly well.

[Mythos]

You can call it the Force, Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever else, as long you described it's nature.

2:00

[Col. Tartleton]

The One:

The Two:

The Three:


All in good time, all in good time.

[Hax]

May it be with you.

[Khassaki]

When I was young and being raised as a Catholic i had a guardian angel. She was naked with a short black bob, blue eyes and the cutest smile - and of course huge white feathered wings. She never spoke, but just held me when I was down, and helped me though the tough parts of being a kid.

[Vir Triumphalis]

God is destiny. He is the final judgment.

[Mr. Crow]

God is destiny. He is the final judgment.

a old zurvan, Destiny, the eternal time, entropy, the never ending all power-full maggot, enemy of all living things, ad of all those which do not live, but in the end, he does not judge us he merely delivers the punishment, we judge ourselves.

in a less serious note, and in the words of Deny crane: " god is like me but thinner" so following this line of thought, he is currently unemployed, it is the crisis!

[Helm]

I see Taoism, Platonism and pantheism getting a mention, these are all the heavy hitters imo, even though I'm still not quite sure as to what they're meant to be hitting and why.

[The Dude]

I see Taoism, Platonism and pantheism getting a mention, these are all the heavy hitters imo, even though I'm still not quite sure as to what they're meant to be hitting and why.

Well obviously the "inevitable" conclusion that the origin of all is One. At least, in the case of Platonism. That's what god is in its basis, really. The complete, perfect Oneness from which all singular things are spawned. Some then attribute sentience to this Oneness, others do not. There's a lot of ways to approach the concept.

I personally think it's all a bit of a premature conclusion.

[Pantsalot]

Despite my support for Christianity & how I often call myself one, I like to believe god is existence
itself, creating everything from the big bang theory to the laws of physics & is generally impossible
to understand because of this.

[Col. Tartleton]

I see Taoism, Platonism and pantheism getting a mention, these are all the heavy hitters imo, even though I'm still not quite sure as to what they're meant to be hitting and why.

I'm just going to stream some ideas about these symbols.

Conceptually we are all the same material. We are the fragmented Primal Atom. In the beginning there was a oneness. It decompressed but it never really changed. We are still at our rawest most infinitesimal level the same subatomics that made up the pre bang universe. That oneness is still present in us all. So collectively we are the infinite facets of God.

Next comes the concept of duality. While the ancients thought of light and dark instead of light and not light we have matter and antimatter. The Single Force and the "Dark Force" etc. There is always positive and negative. Neutral. Sperm and Egg make a Zygote. The Oneness is best observed as two contradictory halves. "Yes" and "No" are the possible halves. "Both" is the whole.

Then we move onto the Trinity.

While we may understand conceptually that things are all one, and in practice can be more readily conceived as two we tend to lump things into threes. For some reason the number is holy, sacred. We don't have three of anything in our bodies (as far as I know). It's alien, magnificent. If a point takes up no space but still suggests position it can be understand as the oneness. From there we move onto a line which stretches on forever in two directions. The line still lacks width and depth, but its length is infinite. This is the positive and negative aspect of duality. But then we get to that third level and we add in width and create a plane. Polygons exist in planes.

We've long imaged alternate worlds tied to different planes of existence. Three is magical. Past, Present, and Future. Your father, yourself, and your son. Your mother, yourself, and your daughter. There is time implied in the number three. One is outside of time. Two is omnipresent. Three has boundaries. Three has a start, a middle, and an end. Look at plays or books. They often have 3 parts. Three ring circuses... etc.

Just some scatterbrained thoughts.

[♔Goodguy1066♔]

I'm sure you'll come up with something more intellectual than the typical "guy with a white beard with magic powers who will judge you when you die" description. The more mystically profound you can make it the better.

He is a divine non-physical being, that is almighty, created the universe and has existed forever and will continue to exist for infinity.

[Helm]

Impressive though the more intellectual/mystical side of theology is I can't help but wonder if it isn't better to direct our energy into the real world, real people (who are still living) and real issues and problems in a practical non-spiritual/supernatural way. What does all this stuff actually do or achieve that is useful for us here and now? Clearly we don't need God or religion to define our morality, you'll note how our moral values have changed radically outside the context of religion, they have even changed in the last 100 years if you take a look at the rights we now give say women our attitudes to race.

[The Dude]

God is an attempt at understanding the universe. We make this attempt because that is who we are. It is inherently human to want to understand a thing for the purpose of mastering it. The struggle that every human being finds himself, daily, is that between life and death. Sounds exaggerated? Think again. We do those things that are inherently beneficial to our survival, we try to avoid those things which put it in jeopardy. When we do things that have nothing to do with either, they are referred to as luxury which is something we can afford ourselves only when our survivalist urges have been met.

Attempting to understand the more abstract side of reality and existence contributes to this survival aspect aswell. Knowing the origin of existence and the laws that were imparted on it means we will be less susceptible to flawed and erroneous action. Knowing when something produces a good result and when it produces a bad one is essential to survival. Thus, knowing the origin of all things, the absolute foundation of existence, is the broadest sense in which these rules can be established. Through knowing that grounding framework, we can deduct further rules and further conclusions. That's all it is and ever has been.

[Helm]

God is an attempt at understanding the universe. We make this attempt because that is who we are.

Of course that is what we want to do as humans but what is so wrong with using science rather than the supernatural to explain it? Thouands of years ago when people believed the gods had power over everything in nature and worship of the gods was a literal matter of life and death not a matter of intellectual sophistry or spiritual fulfilment, you can get all that from the study and appreciation of the physical universe and the natural world as much as you can get them from intangible supernatural forces and beings. Only on one hand you have something that is 100% real and on the other something that may or may not be real.

Attempting to understand the more abstract side of reality and existence contributes to this survival aspect aswell. Knowing the origin of existence and the laws that were imparted on it means we will be less susceptible to flawed and erroneous action.

But do you have evidence to demonstrate that this is in fact the case? Certainly religions do teach practical and good advice for moral living but you don't need God or the supernatural in order to dispense good advice, and moral values change outside of a religious context, the abolition of slavery had nothing to do with a change in religious values for instance.