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)

Well, in my opinion yes we would need to define what I meant, do I mean something physical? Is it invisible? Is it metaphorical? Etc etc

Pure sophistry and semantics.

"When I say a seven-headed dragon I am actually talking about the invisble spirit of the spheres."

But people make physical claims about God, too. If he has no effect on the physical world then what’s that prayer business all about?

One of the first ever pieces of scientific research was looking into the effectiveness of intercessory prayer, and finding that it didn’t work.

Exactly- and that is at the very core of the question. Is that what people think when they think of God. It’s not what I think for instance.

What do you think of when you think of god, @OMG12 ?

Well actually there has been use of the word and symbol of dragon in alchemy since at least the 10th century, a 7 headed dragon would have very deep symbolism. People who study symbolism would very likely link this to creation. Probably says something else about creation if it appeared in my toilet though😀.

https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2021/04/21/the-dragon-is-probably-the-oldest-pictorial-symbol-in-alchemy-of-which-we-have-documentary-evidence/

But… so what?

If you are claiming there is a seven-headed dragon in your cistern, it is reasonable to assume that you mean an actual seven-headed dragon, not an invisible, intangible symbol of a seven-headed dragon. That’s how language works.

It’s sophistry to pretend that when the Bible talks about the virgin birth or the resurrection, it only ever means something different and symbolic. In fact, many, many Christians do believe that’s what happened.

It entirely depends on your audience though, as with any language. Many of my friends would understand the symbolic connotations of a 7 headed dragon and it would be the symbolic meaning of this they would assume I meant not that I have a physical animal in my toilet.

it is the same with the bible (and you have to distinguish between the old and New Testaments especially. You need to look at who the audience was, they would have understood many of the things in an entirely different manner to someone in say 21st century Sussex. You have to go back and try and understand what was meant at the time. It’s simply applying standard historical techniques.

In reality you can only understand the bible if you read ancient Hebrew and Greek, Together with the cultures at the time it was written.

One of the most cited and easiest understood examples of this would be 666 in Revelations. To those who don’t understand you end up with people looking for numbers on peoples heads and various conspiracy theories, to those who understand Gematria it’s clearly referring to Nero, you can then start unravelling the whole of Revelations and it’s symbology as referring to the Roman Empire. The audience for which Revelations was written would have largely understood all of this.

The wonderful Blake quote “Jesus Christ is the only god, and so am I and so are you”

Sorry, I realise that I didn’t answer the prayers part. Well I suppose it depends, do you see a prayer as a meditation or Spell? I would recommend a book by Keith Thomas “ Religion and the Decline of Magic” if you want to explore this fully.,it’s interesting how the role of the medieval church especially (as in local parishes rather than theological positions as such) increasingly blurred the two.

‘The universe has an unseen power beyond the detection of current scientific methods of investigation. The repeated appearance of this concept across time and geography suggests that there is likely to be an element truth in the various iteration of “gods”/“goddesses”

I think it more likely to that the repeated appearance of this phenomena - whatever it is - Is likely to be driven by humans’
needs and perceptions as determined by their biological makeup.

Similar perhaps to the thinking that when psychonauts experimenting with DMT see aliens or God, does this suggest that aliens or God exist, or that there is something about the structure and function of the human brain that delivers this experience? I think the latter.

Keffie12’s declaration that “My spiritual life is based on Onanism” also sparked my interest until I put my specs on. (Apologies, I had misread ‘Omnism’ and had to look it up).

To answer your op, I could see God as a life-force or energy exchange that runs through everything, but there’s really no point since it’s a guess, probably not a very good one, so I think it’s pointless conceptualising. I do think that humans have a need for stories and meaning, and a capacity to feel wonder, but I can get this from looking at life in a different way. I get something like spiritual nourishment from appreciating how little I know compared with the magnificence of what is around me and I think this is comparable with Christians appreciating ‘the glory of God’.

Also I think it likely that the Bible was written as a set of teachings rather than anything that was supposed to be taken literally. A lot of the stories document the extremes of human situations, emotions and outcomes and thinking through these I think facilitates human wisdom through arrival at new insights about ways of being and I expect this is why these are the stories that were honed through the years before being put ti paper.

I’m agnostic, in case it’s not obvious. Don’t believe in a God or gods as written so far, but it would be arrogant to assume that we can know what is or isn’t out there given the limits of human perception and our knowledge today.

A prerequisite of religion is faith so it is an absurd argument to say the intellect of Justin wellby, BTW not very Christian traditionally, pro trans and disliked my many many Christians, means they see evidence of God.
The minute anyone sees any evidence if god it is no longer a religion but fact.

To answer the op, obviously if you see god as a man on the cloud it is ridiculous. But god is transcendent and the kingdom of God is within you and all around you, to me this means god is not a conscious presence but the energy that makes the laws of nature/ physics exist. Like mother nature or the earth goddess but for the universe. I think people who think of god as a being are taking literally concepts that were never meant to be literal at all.

Obviously if you see god as a man on the cloud it is ridiculous.

I completely agree. Also, obviously, if you see god as the energy that makes the laws of nature/ physics exist, like mother nature or the earth goddess but for the universe, it is ridiculous. I mean, obviously.

The trouble with everyone pretending that no-one takes the Bible literally is that lots of people take the Bible literally: https://lifehopeandtruth.com/god/blog/what-does-god-look-like/

The link above tells us that God wouldn't let Moses see his face, but did let him see his back, "which was evidently as much splendor and majesty as a human being could comprehend".

I mean, obviously that's ridiculous. But "obviously that's ridiculous" is not a good start to a debate.

That's why it makes sense to ask for good evidence as to why anyone should believe in the "man in the cloud", or "the energy that makes the laws of nature/ physics exist, like mother nature or the earth goddess but for the universe". There is good evidence for neither.

I don’t think anyone is saying no one takes the bible literally, the question is, is it meant to be taken literally?

Is a collection of Bronze Age stories written by many hands, supplemented with the two thousand year-old contradictory hearsay accounts of the life of a self-proclaimed prophet meant to be taken literally?

I would say that it is absurd to think that anyone who wrote a bit of the bible had such a conception of it as a single coherent text to be able to know what it means.

I would also say that the Quran is absolutely meant to be taken literally.

I don’t think anyone here is arguing that they were written as a single book, ie what we now refer to as “the Bible”. It was largely drawn together during the first few hundred years after Christ It’s clear its contents are a collection of stories, many of which are arguably adapted from other cultures, eg Noah and the epic of Gilgamesh.

Can’t really comment on the Quran as I’m not that familiar with it. But Sufis also look at the esoteric/internal meanings in the Quran which I understand causes much debate in Islam.

The Book of Mormon is absolutely meant to be taken literally.

Well this is actually very interesting- quite a few scholars have noted Kabbalistic and occult influences on Joseph Smith. It’s not really surprising given the occult revival led by Levi, (practically contemporary with the writing of the Book of Mormon) smiths alleged connection to freemasonary (an allegorical system) and the rise of the Jesus/Joseph:Glastonbury myth ). This paper is a good starting point.

it would be incredibly surprising if the Book of Mormon didn’t contain many of the techniques found in masonry, occultism, Kabbalah given Sniths apparent connections. It should be remembered that Smith thought the book should be read alongside ( usually seen as subservient)to the bible.

in fact the technique of providing a (false) lineage is extremely common in occultism - see esp the 19th century Hermetic order of the golden dawn, the Rosicrucian manefestos and indeed the Corpus Hermetica.

Of course very recently the Book of Mormon has been seen more stand alone:important but that’s largely irrelevant. Many mormans recognise it was a work of allegorical fiction I understand.

it’s certainly a very interesting area which requires more work.

it’s certainly a very interesting area which requires more work.

It's certainly an obvious load of bollocks written by a convicted conman.

I was commenting on your original point that the Book of Mormon was meant to be taken literally. I was merely pointing out that looking at the connections of the writer and the contemporary society there was a very high chance that the book would have had some allegorical or coded meaning. This appeared to be the point in question. I don’t think we were talking about the moral position of the writer.

The allegorical or coded meaning of The Book Of Mormon is "how much money can I make from this scam?"

Do you think The Book Of Mormon is a divinely inspired text?

That’s an interesting take on a religions sacred text- not a position I would take.

Is it divinely inspired? Well that brings us nearly full circle back to what is God/divinity?

And what's your answer? Is The Book of Mormon a divinely inspired text? And is it true?

What’s the definition of God /the Divine that we are using?

Whatever your definition is.