GOD is the sum total of all the factors that we know nothing of, but which influence our lives.  As our knowledge of the world increases, the image of God seems to recede, but there is no way to make GOD disappear.  Hardened materialists who maintain that each phenomenon has an identifiable cause can go back in the chain of causation forever, and never reach the end.  Saying that the Universe is eternal gets egg into face right away:  astronomy shows that there is an identifiable start of our Universe, and thermodynamics tells us that the Universe eventually will run out of energy.  The time required to assemble even a simple protein molecule by random processes exceeds by many orders of magnitude the age of the Universe.  Kurt Goedel has proved that it is impossible to define a system fully from inside the system.  It is as if we live in a small apartment within a large building, and we are trying to ascetain the features of the building without being able to leave the apartment.  There is plenty of room for God to exist, and it is not possible for us to peek into all the multiple reaches of the Cosmos to chase the idea of GOD out of there.

Not, “What is God” Seskis, but “Where is God?”  You are mixing two things together here in your Topic, “What is God?”  There is science and there is religion.  Science believes in evolution.  Okay, then perhaps one can go one step further and not only believe in the evolution of the cosmos, and humanity, with God perhaps guiding it, but then one could legitimately believe as I have started to ponder the Bible in the last few days that perhaps God has evolved also.  Could not that be possible?  Perhaps God started as a regular Spirit, evolved to an Angel, and then God.  Why could not this be possible too?  I am not saying this is the way it is, but if you mix science and religion perhaps that is what one gets.  No, Seskis- you cannot say that the Universe evolved, and then state that God exists.  But, perhaps science and religion ARE intertwined, which makes me ponder the question that perhaps God did indeed evolve also.  If people evolved out of monkeys, why cannot God have evolved out of a spirit.

God evolved out of minds of men…...................................

Where did life come from?  It was there as soon as the earth cooled sufficiently for thermophilic bacteria to survive.  It could not have arisen by random collisions of atoms.  By random collisions the assembly of even the simplest protein would take longer than the age of the Universe, yet life on Earth appeared in a few million years, which is just an instant on the cosmic time scale.  Perhaps life’s precursors are floating around in space?  Perhaps Earth was seeded by a highly evolved civilization?  Perhaps in some higher dimension there exists a template that guides the the assembly of atoms to produce living beings?

Here is a helpful quote from Albert Einstein’s essay “Cosmic Religious Feeling.” 

“The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image;  so there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it.  Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were, in many cases, regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints.  Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to each other.

How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another if it can give no definite notion fo God and no theology?  In my view, it is the most important part of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.”

Are U sure you are asking trhe right question?

Perhaps the site below may give you a clue, two or three . . . . ;)

NiceneCouncil.com [admin@nicenecouncil.com]

Have a great summer, as I am heading for Latvia for the month of June.

Vilis (Bill)  Gailitis,  <’))))><

The right question is: “How do humans perceive God?”

this evening god is in st.louis watching the cardinals…...........................

Why not?  God does possess at least some human characteristics, and the capacity of being amused is surely one of them!

G-d is love

astronomy shows that there is an identifiable start of our Universe,

How does it exactly show us that there is a “start” to the universe?

Is there really a beginning? To anything?

If you can count forward, to 1,000,000,000,000, 000,000 etc there is always 1,000,000,000,000,000,001
What about backwards, where is ground zero?

Perhaps you can trace todays world to the big bang.
Do you think it was the only big bang?

The universe may have expanded and collapsed thousands of times over the millenia. When did it all begin? I assume there was never a beginnin. If you can count backwards, one, minus one, minus two… etc. Will you reach a beginning?

Astronomy shows us todays world an it’s interpretation if you believe that the universe only existed since the big bang.

It’s naive to think that all of existence started w the big bang. What existed before then? Nothing?

There is no way that the Universe can be eternal or even pulsating.  The problem is entropy - every process in this world consumes free energy and generates entropy.  Entropy is analogous to the combustion products of a power station:  you can always find new sources of fuel, but sooner or later you’ll run out of space for accomodating combustion products.

I have one question for people who knock on my door wanting to talk about god and jesus, here in England you usually get the jehovas witnesses or the mormons and this question I ask them really confuses them. The question is if god created the heavens and earth and all human beings and animals etc then WHO CREATED GOD ?? and do you know they have no answer for it.
visu labu.
Karlis.

Godmother, of course. Or is it Motherinlaw?

“Godmother, of course. Or is it Motherinlaw? “

Using that perspective, then to have a godmother, god must have had god-parents.
To have a motherinlaw, the god must have been married ie there was/is a goddess.

So .. there is no single god, but a whole family of them up there jumping around on the clouds.

AAArgh .. it’s all too confusing.

I prefer the Indian thinking ... holding up the planet is an elephant standing on an elephant standing on an elephant etc etc into infinitum
Or just as equally in some culture, the elephant is a turtle.

marisr et al.,
“AAArgh .. it’s all too confusing”

Glad to see you resurrecting topics from the archives.  In the open forum this would be desirable too.  Unfortunately, as an example there,  Ulmanis is mentioned and the whole circle of discussion starts new all over again.

Visu labu,