h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Degree? In what? You've probably told me this before, we've been speaking for so long, but I can't remember. I think I assumed you studied something like English Lit (no offence).

I agree that somethines things need to be said, for the benefit of the speaker rather than to convey something to the listener.

I always thought that physical things (like the universe) weren't a part of God, but that consciousness and thought were. Possibly in a 2001 sort of way, and that was what made humans different (in his image...). I may be wrong.

Everyone assumed I was going to do Eng Lit, but after four years of GCSEs and A levels and constantly hearing what a tough course Eng Lit was to get on to - plus my own personal preferences - I did Philosophy, including a little bit of Philosophy of Religion.

The whole 'nature of God' thing is a bit mind-boggling, isn't it. As I say, Spinoza's line about how if the universe contains everything it must also contain God, and if God is infinite he can't be smaller than the Universe, therefore the Universe = God, always seemed quite compelling to me.

The image of God thing... quietly disregarding Genesis, I would interpret that as the fact that humans have an understanding of good and evil, a conscience if you like, that doesn't *seem* to exist in animals to quite the same extent. But it's strictly a personal view.

But if you believe in a God that created the universe then he doesn't have to exist inside the universe does he? At least not as far as I see it.
But I agree with your point about men "...in the image of God..." to be a spiritual rather than physcial resembelence.

If the Universe (which I take to mean 'that which includes *everything*) doesn't contain God, and God exists, then it isn't the Universe.

I'm not sure one can rationally talk about the creator God or the very beginnings of the Universe. We don't have the words for it. There could be no such thing as Time before the Universe was created, so God couldn't have actually done anything (to say nothing of the whole 'where did God come from' issue).

Personally, and I mean no offence, I am more comfortable with the concept of a God intimately and inextricably involved with the world than the completely separate being you're talking about.

Isn't there a concept that God exists outside of time and space, unchanging?
So He would be a separate entity, that you can have a relationship with, but at the same time as the creator, capable of such insight that it could be a closer relationship than any other.

As the creator of something you surely have a responsibility towards it, so God is inextricably involved, but kind of hovers with the capability to overview things.

Well it's no more or less illogical than the big bang.

I would use 'universe' to describe the physical universe, everything that can be touched, or seen with a telescope (assuming we had the technology), and 'god' as something separate from that because he is not of the physical universe and likely doesn't have a physcial existence unless he chooses to. Like consciousness doesn't reside in a particular place in the brain the way vision or hearing do.

Bu then again I'm just an amateur compared to you two (Awix, is this all hypothetical for you or do you actually believe in anything?).

yeah, that makes sense.
the physical existence of God would, in Christianity, be Jesus, of course.

Do I actually believe in anything...?

Gosh, you make me sound cynical! Ermm... I will confess I've been operating in tutorial mode for most of this thread, rather than expressing personal opinions. My own beliefs... are my own, by which I mean I'm not a formal member of any organised faith. The things I believe I've come to after a bit of thought and, um, soul searching.

It's quite hard for me to express this in words (yup, muddy-headed new ager alert), quite simply because I've never really sat down and made a list of 'Things I Believe'...

Now you mention it, I'm not sure there is anything particularly profound and/or meaningful I would happily stand up and admit to believing in, my natural instinct is to prevaricate furiously and answer questions with questions. Oh dear.

Boy, I'm depressed now. Passive agnostic and I never even realised it. Does this disbar me from the rest of the thread?

Going back to the "Before the universe was created there was no time, then God couldn't have done anything" point you are making an assumption here:
1, That God is human like in the sense that he needs time to function. Which is, as I see it- and meaning no offence by this at all, a quite naive thought.

Well, and no offence, you seem to believe God is humanlike in any number of ways, so why should you object to this particular one?

And God may be all-powerful but He surely can't do the logically impossible (eg creating square circles, for example). In order to act one needs time to do it in (hey, CW, you were right about the use of 'one'!).

The fact that people were created in gods image is somthing I have pondered greatly as I belive god was created in mans image.

-- DoctorMO --

Someone told me once that they believed in the bible because no-one would want to invent that God!

no one would want to invent that god for themsevles indeed, but for others or there lowers it is acceptible don't you think? a good way to control the masses through the will of the divine...

-- DoctorMO --

this is problem.

maybe we need two discussions, one for 'assuming god exists...' and another for usage of god (real or not) as means to make others do what you want. which is mentioned in new testament (not that i've read all of it) so is obv a problem going back a long way. relocating to F62072?thread=315403&post=4050312#p4050312 for that one.

i have accepted the existence of god as a fact.

that deserved a paragraph to itself, methinks.

Yes, it did.

It's a decision everyone has to make for themselves, and once made it's not one I would ever presume to argue with.

I know what you mean about this discussion changing emphasis, it started off as (I thought) a fairly objective and theoretically discussion about the value of prayer... but it's started turning into a debate about people's personal faiths. If it carries on this way and I stick around I'm likely to offend someone I consider a friend, which I absolutely don't want to do...

But we'll see how things go for the time being.

Doc's point about the images of God and Man is an interesting one. Personally I find God inconceivable - by which I mean I can't begin to imagine how a being of such colossal faculties would behave, His (for the sake of argument) perceptions of the world would be absolutely different to ours, as would His intellectual processes, priorities, motivation... And I find it quite hard to square this utterly and necessarily alien being with the very human-like God appearing in major religious texts. I almost get the sense that God is so unknowable to us that all we're getting back is a kind of reflection of ourselves, there's a kind of arrogance to the notion that the supreme being of the universe could be so human.

Replying to Awix's point about me assuming "God's humanlike qualities" in several places... as I see it we were created in God's image, so we are like Him (for the sake of argument indeed) in some ways at least. But to assume that He is altogether like us, in having to obey the laws of a universe that He created seems naive. At least to me.

If you believe in a God that created the universe, then logically the universe, as we can see it (and as CW put it), is not all there is. Thus God can dwell outside this universe and thus not be constrained to the rules He created to exist within our/the universe. When, however, He communicates with beings within the universe, that *do* follow the laws of the universe,ie need time to think/do etc, then He must communicate by using time in the same way that they do, otherwise they wouldn't be able to understand Him.

At least that's the way I see it.

that makes sense to me.

but so does what Awix says about if God having such colossal facilities, and being un-human (we won't say in-human, that would have a slightly different meaning). I think that's right, and I think that's why people don't understand how/why God works - and possibly leads to a lot of things that happen seeming senseless (if that makes sense). So I think people tend to "humanise" God a bit, because it makes it a little easier/less scary for them to deal with Him.

Because dealing with the real god would be like dealing with the real universe and that would defeat the point of gods...

-- DoctorMO --

Hmmm.

The existence of the universe seems to me to be inexplicable, whichever approach you take, in the sense that the question 'why is the universe here?' very nearly doesn't make sense - not in the way the question 'why is Australia so good at cricket?' does. With that question you can hypothesise alternative situations (and look at the circumstances elsewhere) and from those try and gain some understanding of why things are the way they are.

But you can't do that with questions about the existence of the universe, because... the question 'what would things be like if the universe didn't exist?' is absurd. Things wouldn't *be* anything.

I appreciate your belief in a creator-God but this seems to me to be just taking the first step in an infinite regress. The universe exists because of God, well, okay, it's a tired old question but what created God? God creating Himself ex nihilo seems laden with paradoxes to me. There's surely inevitably an inexplicable act of creation at some point (or, fact of existence if you're a materialist... ).

Given this, I'm not so attached to the concept of God-as-creator. It doesn't seem to me to be necessarily any more appealing or logical than the idea of God as a fundamental and primal and essential element of a universe which He did not consciously and premeditatedly create.

(What was that book I read about a 'Creator separated from his world by the arch of time'? Bother, that's going to prey on my mind now... )

Ok.

Of course I don't believe in God through some high-minded philosophical argument, if faith was based on scientific proof and argument then it could be argued out of and wouldn't (by definition) be faith. I believe in God because I've met with Him.