How do you conceptualise god?

[OMG12]

Just that really. Atheist, believer or agnostic what do you think of when someone says god? Not a judgement about existence, what concept comes to mind, if you’re a believer (of any faith) how do you conceptualise your god (inc in the plural and feminine)

I like that

Someone once explained the holy trinity in an interesting way to me, that God is like water, He takes 3 forms: Ice, Liquid Water and Water Vapour. So these equate to the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit - all one element but in different forms.

Church teaching and tradition, which originated from the Church Fathers.

Yes, this is a great way of describing it 😀

As an atheist I don't even try.

For example, ask a Christian how they conceptualise Odin. I imagine they don't bother. That how I am about all gods.

Thats an interesting perspective- my spiritual practice requires me to have concepts of lots of different entities. If someone said Odin to me I would have a concept of what they meant and a picture in my mind. What comes to mind if someone says God?

As a psychologist and ex-spiritual seeker myself, and more significantly as an experienced life coach for almost 20 years now, I can tell you beyond doubt that seeking God is one of the most damaging pursuits an individual can embark upon during their lifetime.

I have now sadly seen countless times the damage that this pattern does to a person’s psyche, to a person's ability to genuinely overcome the problems and limitations in their life, and ultimately to their entire existence, as the pattern unwittingly grows and consumes them over time.

I would strongly urge you to start detaching from these kind of thoughts, and to stop framing life in terms of “God” and “God’s will”, and whether you can have some sort of relationship with him or not.

The only thing that you should be cultivating faith in is your ability and commitment to never stop looking for the answer to whatever problem or limitation you are experiencing in your life, that has led you to turn to the notion of "God" in the first place.

This is an interesting question and it's made me aware of something! Basically I conceptualise God now the exact same way as I did when I was at primary school. Namely, an old man with long white hair and beard sitting on a cloud. 🤣

Wow, I’m sorry you’ve had that kind of experience, in the flip side, I can only say my experience and that of many others I know has been the exact opposite,

I’m interested to know what makes you think all those things you mentioned are incompatible with seeking God?

it come across that you have quite a few issues round this, why? What have you found so damaging?

Roman Catholic.

How do you conceptualise God?

I don’t!
God, by definition, is ineffable, beyond conceptualization, beyond imagination, beyond language. The Christian belief that God is a trinity helps underscore how rich the mystery of God is and how our experience of God is always richer than our concepts and language about God.

My concept of God has changed from the grey bearded old man to something better described in the original Hebrew wording in Genesis.... "I am what I am" ...undeterminable or undescribable in our human language. "Force of all Forces" ... the "force" over the sum of everything. The Spirit being described as the "breath" ... everything around us, within us and essential for continued life. Jesus is the "Word" of God .. what we have heard and seen as our role model on earth, sent to redeem us & give us a path to live a life with God and set up the church on earth to help us have that fulfilling relationship with God.

I see the Trinity as someone described it ... different aspects/elements of the one "force of all forces". for example the Sun has a physical existence we can see in the sky, light that exists around us even when we can't see the physical Sun and heat we can feel which can be experienced with or without the physical sun or light.

I like this.

I'm agnostic, but attend church with my daughter because she wanted to go. The strange thing is, I really enjoy it, I didn't expect I'd feel welcomed.

I don't have a image of God in my mind, and although the majority of the congregation are there to worship, the overriding take away for me has been to live kindly.

I think the following is needed:

(1) base level of reality that everything else depends on.
(2) it has to be intelligent and conscious in some sort of sense, maybe not a sense we can understand.
(3) theists are normally going to say that it's impossible to understand the reality of God.

For the purposes of religion:

(4) God has to care about humanity

I see "god" as an archetype, a collection of traits and properties that add up to "angry, all-powerful father figure who hands out sweeties with one hand and blows with the other". The constellation of traits and properties varies from culture to culture, but the concept is broadly the same. "God" is a fantastic tool for mass social control, because - as Stalin and numerous other high-control human leaders have realised - it is cheaper, easier and more effective to control large groups of people if you can infect them with a belief system which infantilises them, fosters a dependence mindset and replaces their natural critical thinking skills and consciences with an external morality with carrot and stick baked into it. The sooner humanity grows out of "god", the better.

I like the quote from Einstein, "[T]he fanatical atheists...are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional 'opium of the people'—cannot hear the music of the spheres."

Do you see a distinction between god and religion?

I'm no more fanatical about the absence of god than I am about the absence of the tooth fairy. I just find and have always found the whole notion silly. Evidently fanciful.

When you get into the detail of any particular god, like the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful Christian God, who turned himself into a man to be crucified as he must have known he would be, then rose from the dead like he must have known he would be and that this is suposed to be some kind of grand transformational gesture, it's the kind of weak narrative that wouldn't even survive a Pixar story meeting.

The mythos is no less fanciful than that of Santa Claus, and the apologetics is no more than a sophisticated version of when parents their kids how "yes, santa can come into our house even though we don't have a chimney."

However, I am all for the wonder of the universe and the music of the spheres and it's a category error to conflate the two.

Well maybe that isn’t what the Bible actually describes?

I would say look at some similarities between religions, look at what the holy books actually say not the short version. look at it as the mystery it is (clue in the word mystery)

I always find those who start trying to compare gods with the tooth fairy and Santa either uneducated or fanatical.

maybe you hear the music of the spheres but you could never create it,

No, thanks.

I have had over 50 years of various religious denominations trying to persuade me that theirs is the One True Way, and none of them have given me a good reason to believe them.

I am not searching for a god, thanks.

Thanks to Terry Gilliam, like this -

Imaginary character sitting in the clouds - similar to Father Christmas and the tooth fairy.

Ah no worries - but maybe don’t equate your lack of curiosity to other people being “as thick as mince”.

If it’s not something you’re interested in / fine no worries, rather perplexing why you would choose to comment on a thread about something you don’t believe in. Was it just to tell people they’re not as clever as you? Or did you have something interesting to add?

Just that really. Atheist, believer or agnostic what do you think of when someone says god?

You asked. I gave my honest answer.