What Does God Mean to You?

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From what many of you are describing, god is more of a subconcious embodyment in man that strives to do what is right. It represents our basics needs to be moral and just. This doesnt necessarily mean that god lives in a actual place (outside your mind), or that you will visit that place when you die, but it does mean that god is real... just on a subconcious level that we cannot yet understand.

And another that I've been thinking about:

The god that you are all most familiar with, the one in the bible, is actually a manifistation of our fears for dying. Like all creatures, we have a survival mechanism (fight and flight) that activates when we sense that we are in danger. This also applies to our ultimate fate: death. Our mind, to be more at ease, does not accept this and creates the notion of "god" or an afterlife to remedy that. This way, if we live on even after death, we have nothing to fear.

Of course, it also raises the question as to why our minds would even be built like that to begin with.

I try not to get too vague about my notion of God, but I must keep it simple. Too often people describe just about anything as god--themselves, the spirit, nature, the laws of science etc. Or they describe themselves as 'spiritual' when they in fact have no spiritual beliefs whatsoever. There's nothing wrong with being an atheist. It doesn't mean you're shallow, immoral, intellectually dishonest, or anything like that.

As I said to Todd on another forum, the fact that he has thought about it enough to decide he is an atheist seems to indicate that he has at least thought about it, which is something at least.

I like your description the most - it's the most tangible idea and it doesn't start bible-bashing (or the other way round).

i think that prayer is morally shallow...as it offers false sense of hope and to say to someone who is hungry or cold that youll pray for them anyway...also i think christians excuse themselves from lieing in that if they say there is a god to themselves or someone else then they are living a lie and will lie about anything else...im atheist.

Of course it's shallow to say "I'll pray for you" to a hungry person if you can, in fact, do something for them. But if you can't, prayer is probably the only thing you can do. Either way, it isn't okay to do nothing.

[sarcasm]I also think atheists excuse themselves from lying, that they say there is no god to remove all moral absolutes they don't like and thus reduce personal responsibility to justify their own selfishness...if they are living this lie they can lie about anything else.[/sarcasm]

i am late to this discussion and haven't read everything, yet.

i offer my generic view.

I think that if god is made up by man, then the notion came from the study of philosophy.

The notion that there is a god would give us a higher purpose and hope for eternal life.

the idea of religion, which is based in the belief in god, higher purpose and hope.
religion was likely first brought about by a person wishing to take a mass of people and encourage like minded thinking, purpose and hope. In an effort to rule peacefully and without question.
it has been noted throughout history that religious leaders were either, the leaders of the tribe or the right hand person to the tribal chief.

The idea of free will in human beings make it nearly impossible to form a society without chaos, if you were not able to give them purpose and hope and encourage like minded thinking.

Someone correct me if i am wrong, but i thought i understood that the royals in england were direct decendents of god.
also the crusades lend support to my theory.

in current times you have missionaries and political ideologies rammed down the throughts of other nations in the effort of the same like minded purpose and hope.

Also, in america, for years we had the soviets as a common uniting factor which helped lump a large mass of individuals into a common hope and purpose. After the fall of the iron curtain there was confusion. now thank god we have terrorists, which we use to control how a mass of people can serve a common purpose and hope.
Also, i believe, that patriotism acts very similar in its uniting ability as does religion.


Also of note, i believe that fear also falls within the parameters as well. In terms of its abilities to takeing an eclectic array of personalities and unite them for the purpose of ruling.

basic version

God is one thing. There have been too many insights I've had into the way the world works - often truly paranormal - for me to stop believing in the idea of a Supreme Being.

Religion is another. It is when groups of people in a particular community get together and say "this is what God is like" in order to defend themselves from another group of people. I have immense respect for good Wiccans, Jews, Muslims etc, depending on what they do rather than who they are. I have my doubts on someone who casts aspersions on another's faith simply because it is not politically correct to be Christian. If one wants respect for one's own faith, then they should respect others, and it is the same for Wiccans as for fundamentalist Christians - some of the Wiccans I've spoken to have been just as intolerant as the people who are intolerant towards them. All of us are equal, however we define God or whatever we think about His existance.

It took me about five minutes to know there was a Supreme Being and it took me 26 years to accept Jesus as my Saviour, mostly because what has been done in His name (just like in Mohammed's or Jhwh's or etc etc etc) to other people is pretty cruddy. Religion is politics by another name; therefore it annoys me when people reject "Judaeo-Christian" morality and think that justifies cruel or amoral or immoral behaviour that would not be acceptable in other societies as well. A humanist who rejects the idea of God's existence would justify being kind to one another based on the principle that all men and women are equal. So would a Christian - I would say that the best summary of this is the Christian Aid slogan "We believe in life before death". Normally rejection of Christianity is based not on the ideal but on the shabby reality, which is sadly common to all human societies. I very much believe in the idea of a Christian community - the lack of a rector over the last two years in my village has brought us through a difficult time and made the community a lot stronger, since everyone has rallied round to save the church from closure by doing their bit for the church. In fact the church is probably stronger than it was two years ago when the former rector retired (certainly the services are better, he was a bit of a boring old so-and-so).

The reason I don't believe Jesus is the be-all and end-all of religion or God is that I can't accept that a remote mountain tribesman in Peru who lives his life according to a good moral code is automatically going to Hell because he doesn't know about a man who lived several thousand miles away in a particular historical context. If there is life on another planet, I would very much doubt that they would accept our concept of Jesus - and God would have shown them His way in a very different context, one appropriate to their society. So God Himself - or the concept of a universal force or moral system - could exist independently of any mortal society which has crystallised Him in their own image. Saying that, religion has spread in conquest and if I was true to my real roots I would be worshipping either Wotan or the Celtic gods, but that's too logical for this time of night. The trouble with faith is that it ultimately defies rationalisation.

"The Last Battle" by C S Lewis (the last Narnia book) is a good read on this subject. Aslan tells one of the Calormens that when he prays to Tash with an honourable request, he is praying to Aslan - except he doesn't realise it, since "Aslan" is just how He is known to the people of Narnia. In "Dawn Treader" Aslan tells the children that "I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. That is why you were brought into Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there..." Thus Aslan = God = Allah = Jhwh = Wotan = etc etc etc.

The Jesus story was only really revealed to me over the last two years by the real sacrifice of someone I loved very much (platonically) and who kind of acted out the Easter story in front of me, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. Before that I didn't quite "get" Jesus, and wasn't sure about paying lip service to him by getting confirmed when I was 16. But it was right there on the night I was confirmed almost ten years later that I finally understood the meaning of the (possibly allegorical) story, which as a story definitely beats any armchair Marxist polemic on the inequalities of the world and the irrelevancy of Christian morality.

My pasta told me to show you this

http://www.venganza.org/

reading this i feel lends credibility to my earlier statement as to how it acts as a uniting force when meant to bring a large mass of people under on blanket. Its just by a different name.

But,
it also brings me to a question about christianity and their beliefs.

Christianity believes that there is only one way into heaven. it says in the bible, "but by me will you enter the kingdom of heaven", said Jesus.

Which means, According to christianity, that you must accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour and that he died for your sins, since no man is without sin.

Which begs the question.

Why are Christians so supportive of Jewish people. Peoiple born in Israel but do not practice Judaism are called Israelites. A Jewish person is one who practices or believes in Judaism.

And Judaism only follows the Old Testament. They do not believe that Jesus was the son of God sent to earth to die for all man's sins.

Acoording to Christianity the people of the Jewish faith should be going to hell. But yet, they offer so much support .

It seems like a contradiction in faith to me.

I think I'm right in saying,
(and please "do" correct me if I'm wrong)
that Muslims also agree with the Old Testament right up untill Abraham
something to do with a promise god made to Abraham
The Jews believe Isaac is the true lineage
and the Muslims Ishmael
could that be Armagedeon in a nutshell
thats religeon for you
count me out I'm afraid

I felt like joining the club and share my views as well. You have a lot of interesting ideas as I see it!

To me, the definition of God is equal to the definition of the universe, which is equal to the definition of existence. God for me is experience itself. As Bill Hicks said: "Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration; that we are all one conscious experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves."
The existence of the universe I see as a constant fluctuation between two extreme polarities, or an energy vibration, as in the Yin&Yang map of the universe, and our perspectives are formed by inherently deterministic critical points which either attract or repell something external from the point of observation. All matter has (is) consciousness because that's all that exists: there is only reflection of what's perceived as the non-self. The enlightened person understands that it doesn't have any needs for itself anymore, since there is no self there which is disconnected from all the rest. It doesn't fear death because it has given up all personal notions and only exists for the benefit of the entire creation. (That may be one version of altruism btw) The Zen Lamas refer to themselves as "this monk" or "this old fool" because of this non-ego awareness. So God for me is the concept of All in this dichotomy.
Someone here mentioned a very interesting thing, in my opinion. That when he/she (sorry, don't even remember the sex) painted something he wasn't being critical and that was when he/she managed to make the most of the painting since he/she simply experienced it. That's when he/she let God work through him/her, so to speak, as he/she mentioned. I totally agree with that. The only thing we can do in this illusion of individuality is to use it for the benefit of our environment and be as open channels as we can to the entirety of the idea of it all.
When most of us give up and become violent and egoistic, what we've really lost is a belief in our own ability to help make the world a better place. Since all of us do exist and God (according to this concept) is the only planner, all of us by definition have some meaning in it, so what we should look for is the inherent meaning we think separates us from the rest of it and try to apply that with efficiency in the world. Single individuals are misguided and have their own idea to live out (existing in different places in the chain of development toward enlightenment), so we shouldn't listen so much to other people as maybe too many of us do, but believe in ourselves for that reason and never give up. From that system it's best to work out the personal idea as far as possible and only the individual itself knows best how to do that, is what I mean. I think that's what Ayn Rand meant too, for those of you who read/write in that thread.

I think that about sums it up for the most part. That's my contribution.

Excellent.
This is what i look for when i involve myself in these discussions.
At the very least you offered me food for thought which may or may not change my point of view in the debate of egoism vs. altruism.

thank you for allowing me to store more reason within the frameworks of my mind.

Anytime!

Nothing

Then, what doesn't God not mean to you?

That's a double negative ~ means the same thing.

Nothing