What do you think God is?

[J-Mann]

... if you think there is a God at all, that is.

Growing up in the Midwest (and around those who embrace a literal interpretation of the Bible), God was imagined as some old -- though not infirm -- father figure who ruled in a sky kingdom from a throne. He was human in appearance, masculine in gender and demeanor and wizardly in how he interacted with the human world.

Over time, I started to develop a different view of God (I often told my mother that I'd prefer to think that God was much more of a scientist and much less of a magician than her religion taught her).

That's continued to evolve over time. I'm not religious any more, and even saying I'm "faithful" or "spiritual" would be a stretch. However, I still believe I'm a small part of something much, much bigger.

I'm a believer in the multiverse, in that every possible timeline or permutation of our current universe (far bigger than just Earth) has happened, is happening and will happen, infinitely and eternally. We just happen to live in a single instance of this universe and are experiencing time (which flows in two directions) in only one direction, one quantum frame at a time. But every possible and impossible me exists, as well:

 - I'm the President of the United States
 - I'm a convicted felon spending the rest of my life in prison
 - I'm currently winning a gold medal in the 2024 Olympics
 - I'm hunting the stars of every Bravo show for sport
 - I'm an overweight, unemployed 32-year old from Oklahoma
 - I'm celebrating my 125th birthday
 - I'm already dead ... a trillion times over for a billion different reasons

And I believe there is a wider multiverse -- an infinite number of permutations of "the beginning" that alter our basic laws of physics, from infinitesimally small to wildly different. That layer of the multiverse stretches on infinitely, as well. In some, humanity can exist. In others, it can't. In some, "angels" may be a normal / present species. In others, "demons." Can they access our layer of the multiverse? Who knows ...

So, my belief in something larger is that "God," as it exists, is the embodiment of everything. The smallest quark and the largest galactic supercluster. He ... she ... it is everything, experiencing everything and able to "do" everything.

So, when a Christian says, "Through God, all things are possible," my (admittedly different) belief supports that.

[solarstorm]

Maybe a frog?

[HagridOfTheDeep]

We are actually pretty much on the same page.

I believe God is more likely the force of everything and anything than an actual sentient being.

I'm also open to the idea of a multiverse. Admittedly, heaven is a difficult concept in which to have unshakable faith, but knowing that there are infinite universes with infinite laws of physics does make an afterlife seem somewhat possible.

[Ban my account ffs!]

God is light.  Not to be confused with Lucifer, who is lite.

[Warren 4 Secretary of Everything]

Morgan Freeman

[memphis]

Morgan Freeman

Nah, the best Hollywood interpretation of God came in the form of George Burns in Oh God!

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

We are actually pretty much on the same page.

I believe God is more likely the force of everything and anything than an actual sentient being.

In my view, that renders God as simpler and less nuanced than His creations, something unlikely in a vacuum.

[Tender Branson]

A most-likely (the agnostic in me) made-up figure that tries to compensate for/deal with the smallness of humans and their transience. Basically a figure out of a random book.

[afleitch]

... if you think there is a God at all, that is.

Growing up in the Midwest (and around those who embrace a literal interpretation of the Bible), God was imagined as some old -- though not infirm -- father figure who ruled in a sky kingdom from a throne. He was human in appearance, masculine in gender and demeanor and wizardly in how he interacted with the human world.

Over time, I started to develop a different view of God (I often told my mother that I'd prefer to think that God was much more of a scientist and much less of a magician than her religion taught her).

That's continued to evolve over time. I'm not religious any more, and even saying I'm "faithful" or "spiritual" would be a stretch. However, I still believe I'm a small part of something much, much bigger.

I'm a believer in the multiverse, in that every possible timeline or permutation of our current universe (far bigger than just Earth) has happened, is happening and will happen, infinitely and eternally. We just happen to live in a single instance of this universe and are experiencing time (which flows in two directions) in only one direction, one quantum frame at a time. But every possible and impossible me exists, as well:

 - I'm the President of the United States
 - I'm a convicted felon spending the rest of my life in prison
 - I'm currently winning a gold medal in the 2024 Olympics
 - I'm hunting the stars of every Bravo show for sport
 - I'm an overweight, unemployed 32-year old from Oklahoma
 - I'm celebrating my 125th birthday
 - I'm already dead ... a trillion times over for a billion different reasons

And I believe there is a wider multiverse -- an infinite number of permutations of "the beginning" that alter our basic laws of physics, from infinitesimally small to wildly different. That layer of the multiverse stretches on infinitely, as well. In some, humanity can exist. In others, it can't. In some, "angels" may be a normal / present species. In others, "demons." Can they access our layer of the multiverse? Who knows ...

So, my belief in something larger is that "God," as it exists, is the embodiment of everything. The smallest quark and the largest galactic supercluster. He ... she ... it is everything, experiencing everything and able to "do" everything.

So, when a Christian says, "Through God, all things are possible," my (admittedly different) belief supports that.

I don’t necessarily disagree with what you say, perhaps only the imagery used

I am not a fan of having the starting point for any discussion being ‘god v no god’. We all do it. It’s something that humanity in general presupposes is the manner in which you should view the universe (when perhaps it is not). Secondly, the ‘god’ aspect of that discussion originated from human invention or more accurately, what we choose to ‘extract’ from both our perception of the world and the need to both anthropomorphise and see agents in everything. It comes from a time when almost everyone presupposed there had to be a god/s.

So whenever we think of anything ‘great’, no matter how abstract then we then endow it with that word, often for ease of understanding more than anything. That is the cart leading the horse. It also bleeds into the other human tradition of worshiping an entity for their own means, which I think discussions of the multiverse and ideas like it don’t really need. I doubt you ‘worship’ these concepts, or think they will notice if you say bad things about them.

On the whole I tend to agree. If there is ‘something’ that holds it all together, it’s not organic, it’s probably not sentient, it’s existence may even be transient. It may not be aware of itself or it’s abilities. It does not care if you or I know of it, or if we do know of it, whether or not we kowtow to it. Because in many ways, that would defeat the point of it all. The idea that if there is ‘something’, it’s human in its concerns and picked out a semi nomadic people in one planet out of countless billions of planets in trillions of suns in millions of galaxies in countless universes as important enough to impart it’s wisdom to deciding what people should do and what they should sink their d-ck into is vacuous. It would be the equivalent to me thinking that the entire universe, every person and every event that has ever happened has happened so that I alone (and to hell with everyone else) am here.

[Modernity has failed us]

I believe God is more likely the force of everything and anything than an actual sentient being.

I'm also open to the idea of a multiverse. Admittedly, heaven is a difficult concept in which to have unshakable faith, but knowing that there are infinite universes with infinite laws of physics does make an afterlife seem somewhat possible.

This.

Essentially, I believe God probably exists as a force, we are reincarnated after we die, multiple universes exist and human life exists in alternate universes, with some of that life being reincarnated humans from Earth.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Well first off, God is love and not a stranger.  The rules God uses are simple so that we can all know them.  God offers a full commitment you won't get from anyone else.  God tries to communicate this in ways we all can understand.

God never gives up on us.
God never disappoints us.
God never leaves us.
God never makes us cry.
God never says goodbye.
God never tells a hurtful lie.

We all recognize God and our hearts ache for God, but we're shy about acknowledging that need for someone else.  But God sees inside us and knows that, so God goes along with the game we insist upon. If we'd but ask God how God feels about us, we'd see the love we blind ourselves to.

Anyway, here's a video that explains it better than I can.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

I doubt there is a god, but if there is, I'd like it to be something like that entity Bender happens upon in outer space in that one episode of Futurama where he is floating endlessly.  



If it were to actually be of some human-esque form like you religiouses think, it would only make sense to me as female. 

[anvi]

To me, DNA Polymerase is God.  It pretty much creates all life on earth.

[Mopsus]

I like to think of God as a disembodied mind. God created our universe by "imagining" it, the same way that we might imagine a fictional universe of our own. Of course, there are key differences: our universe is both infinitely more original than anything that we could imagine, given that there was no preexisting mold for God to copy, and is inhabited by sentient beings, which (presumably) could not be said of the universes of our mind's creation. Both of these facts are owing to the radical gulf that exists between God and ourselves: everything that we're able to think and do is limited by our material existence, which, by contrast, poses no obstacles to the Monad. This same way of thinking also allows us to answer the question "Who begat God?", which implies both a material existence and a linear timeline, both of which we know to exist in our own universe, but would be inappropriate to apply to the One.

It might seem that there's little comfort in this conception of the Divine, but I strongly believe that through prayer, meditation, or the use of psychedelic drugs, it's possible to attain a glimpse of the transcendence experienced by God (or as close an approximation as our fragile minds will permit), which can have a profoundly positive impact on the way that we live in and interact with the world.

[Modernity has failed us]

Morgan Freeman

Nah, the best Hollywood interpretation of God came in the form of George Burns in Oh God!

When I was a child, I always imagined God looking like the guy on the Quaker Oats box.

The funny thing about this is that art has, for centuries, predominantly presented God as a white male. Even today, I find myself imagining God as an elderly white man, as opposed to, say, a middle-aged black woman or whatever. It's why I can't really accept the belief that God has a human form. Rather, God must be some type of force--almost like a supercomputer--that keeps everything in order. Which is why I don't really know what to label myself as religiously. I believe there is a God in some incarnation, but He/She/It is not human, and I don't feel it necessary to pray to or worship He/She/It. I absolutely align myself with certain Christian doctrines (thou shalt not kill, steal, covet, falsely worship, etc.) but other things are just far too...I don't know...extreme for me. I can't sit in a building with dozens of other people and chant in unison to appease this omnipotent force.

Anyway, that's just my scattered stream of thoughts about religion. Sorry to detract from the discussion, especially in response to such a benign post

[DemPGH]

What is God?

Simply, that which we lack the ability and frame of reference to explain at any given point in time.

[Bojack Horseman]

A fairy tale.

[angus]

A bit like a light bulb.  The old-fashioned incandescent kind, though, not a compact fluorescent one.  Also, not screwed into a socket.  Like a puff of logic, and not without a sense of humor. 

For the most part the gods, if there are any, leave me alone and I leave them alone, but when I hear the word God I see it as light without the burden of mass.  Voiceless, genderless, and probably without form.  Definitely not humanoid.

I think maybe God appeared to me in the form of a frail, old, black woman one time.  That was about ten years ago, in Mississippi.  She spoke to me.  Probably saved my life.  Or maybe it was just an old black woman giving me advice.  Who knows?  Either way, I ended up following the advice to my benefit. 

[Cassius]

W.G. Grace

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

A fairy tale.

Aarne-Thompson type?

[TNF]

I don't believe in a god or gods.

[SWE]

I don't believe in a god or gods.

[Beet]

On the whole I tend to agree. If there is ‘something’ that holds it all together, it’s not organic, it’s probably not sentient, it’s existence may even be transient. It may not be aware of itself or it’s abilities. It does not care if you or I know of it, or if we do know of it, whether or not we kowtow to it. Because in many ways, that would defeat the point of it all. The idea that if there is ‘something’, it’s human in its concerns and picked out a semi nomadic people in one planet out of countless billions of planets in trillions of suns in millions of galaxies in countless universes as important enough to impart it’s wisdom to deciding what people should do and what they should sink their d-ck into is vacuous. It would be the equivalent to me thinking that the entire universe, every person and every event that has ever happened has happened so that I alone (and to hell with everyone else) am here.

I actually agree with a lot of this; if anything I'm even more uncertain. In reality, God is just another word for the unknowable, so to answer the question 'what is God' would destroy the concept of God itself. It would also imply that knowledge is possible, when in reality it is subjective and just another word for confidence. That being said, I think it is reasonable to believe that God communicates to us through a series of avatars, one of which was indeed an old white man in the sky with a flowing beard

[afleitch]

On the whole I tend to agree. If there is ‘something’ that holds it all together, it’s not organic, it’s probably not sentient, it’s existence may even be transient. It may not be aware of itself or it’s abilities. It does not care if you or I know of it, or if we do know of it, whether or not we kowtow to it. Because in many ways, that would defeat the point of it all. The idea that if there is ‘something’, it’s human in its concerns and picked out a semi nomadic people in one planet out of countless billions of planets in trillions of suns in millions of galaxies in countless universes as important enough to impart it’s wisdom to deciding what people should do and what they should sink their d-ck into is vacuous. It would be the equivalent to me thinking that the entire universe, every person and every event that has ever happened has happened so that I alone (and to hell with everyone else) am here.

I actually agree with a lot of this; if anything I'm even more uncertain. In reality, God is just another word for the unknowable, so to answer the question 'what is God' would destroy the concept of God itself. It would also imply that knowledge is possible, when in reality it is subjective and just another word for confidence. That being said, I think it is reasonable to believe that God communicates to us through a series of avatars, one of which was indeed an old white man in the sky with a flowing beard

If god reveals itself in a series of avatars, from bearded old grey man in the sky, to a man asking for help on the street or even as a string of numbers in a problem solving equation, wouldn’t exclusive worship of one of those avatars, in the form of traditional organised religion, be idolatrous?

Would it not (to pick up on something I’ve discussed on here before) be more fitting not to actively worship anything at all, less you be worshipping only part of the whole?

An over eagerness towards seeking god (and therefore personifying it in order to gain insight) could lead a believer to believe things or do things contrary to what is the established ‘order’ of things. The non-worshipper, who sees no reason to ‘worship’ what is in effect the reality around them, but loves, listens, touches, learns and enjoys his existence is perhaps having the wider experience.

To take a very stark and very simple example. The Christian, in order to please the avatar of god that he worships, wilfully opposes evolutionary theory thinking that to do so pleases god. In actuality, evolutionary theory is part of the human story and is very much, through intent or causation, a representation of god. So the non-believer is acknowledging god and is close to god through learning about the human story but the believer, who has idolised one archaic avatar of god relevant to a now passed period of human understanding, is through his worship…not really paying reverence to god at all. If that makes some sense.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Over the past few months, during my final law school exams, the bar prep and then the actual bar, I came to know God, through those experiences and others, as something fundamentally different than what most people think of when they think of God. The notion that God is a kind old man that sits on a cloud listening to orders from all of us all day long, "bless me, God; do this for me God" couldn't be further from the truth. Evangelicals just make me laugh. Think you can do anything and just say yes, God, I believe in you and gain eternal salvation? How dumb can you be? To me, God is a beautiful woman, the mother of earth.

God is also not kind. The God that a lot of people subscribe to is one that directly conflicts with the God we all know and love in the Old Testament, the God that burned down villages and slaughtered women and children. I think God is involved in our lives, but allows us to do anything we want. Sometimes she will play tricks on us. Sometimes she'll teach us lessons. Sometimes she will do nothing. It's all a game to our dear Lord, for her entertainment and ours. There have been too many coincidences recently for there not to be a higher power at work.

All I know is I have never been more certain in the existence of God and never more afraid of what she will do in my life next. Like all God fearing people, I am just along for the ride.