How do you like to visualize God?

No, that would be your god killing the first born of all Egyptians with a plague, one of seven plagues sent from this god of yours.

Who is the baby killer?

 

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06612a.htm

http://biblehub.com/drb/revelation/4.htm

 

You miss the point....if Matt believed in the possibility of God then perhaps he wouldn't delight in mocking those that feel certain.

 

Wrong. It is asking for support from those who believe and expressly stating that those who do not should just sit quietly aside while those such as you continue to espouse unbelievable and unprovable ideas to make yourselves feel better.

 

YOU miss the point, If anyone decided to attack your God it would defend itself...instead people defend themselves after YOUR attacks and you throw a tissy.

 

Your "point" is a misrepresentation of maat's views, so far as I can tell.

 

I would love for there to be a loving God that truly fit the mold of your post I addressed. After being a Christian for more than 35 years, I know you are practicing religion and that the abrahamic God you worship is no different than any other proclaimed God, a myth. The reason I address Christian posts is to remind them they are not special in the religious faith. I find it arrogant when Christians makes such bold claims of special relationship with this mythical God, all the while the majority of humans suffer having no blessings from him. Truth is, your only blessing is to be living where there is plenty.

 

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Who said God is a male?
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That was not the point of this thread. The point was....to adress what your vision of God is. Not to point things out about others faith. My faith is not a game. It is my reality.

 

No one that I know. God has the best attributes of both sexes. Perhaps our language has limitations, but the male pronoun is always used when speaking of generalities including both sexes.God does not need to dress sexually provocative to attract others as your picture implies.

 

You may have practised the religion but I seriously doubt you ever had a relationship. Now go about the business of this thread or take your childish rants elsewhere.

 

No it is not. He has completely failed to describe his own vision of God.

 

I used to have as much a relationship as any other Christian. I would thank him for the good things, ask forgiveness when did wrong, talk “to” him many times a day like he was with me and ask for guidance. The reality is that it was a feel good one sided relationship with a character in a book of Jewish folklore.

Unfortunately, this “relationship” had me constantly questioning my worthiness. I felt guilty for prospering while so many did not. I foolishly condemned those in third world countries as suffering due to their own choices.

Eventually I started questioning certain doctrines. I found that a pre-rapture and eternal hell were false doctrines. While debating these issues here and other forums, I ran into atheists who opened my eyes to other biblical absurdities. I realized the Bible was nothing more than folklore.

After becoming atheist, for a while, I still believed there was some higher being blessing me. This was short lived due to looking at the world around me and accepted that believing so was arrogant.

Today, IMO, if there is a higher being, it is indifferent to us or merely an unconscious force like nature.

 

Given the amount of rudeness in many of your posts, the bolded is quite sad.

 

I understand that. But when those origin stories enter major contemporary religions, it's inevitable that some believers in those religions will have an image in their mind of God despite the fact that in most cases trying to form an image of God is strongly discouraged. It's a contradiction Christians have to struggle with.

I'm being a little lazy here, but what do you mean by the logos of the universe? Did some ancient Greeks actually believe Zeus is formless and all the other gods are merely the equivalent of angels like in Christianity?

 

It would appear that I ruffled a few feathers with my post, so let me explain my post.
Many of the threads here which discuss gods do so on the assumption that the god being discussed is actually the western type god of the Abrahamic faiths, in fact so much so that few people even think any other gods are to be considered. As an atheist I do not state that god does not exist, the reason is simple "gods" do exist! Unless there is a clear definition of what you consider to be a god. When I am asked to visualise a god here is exactly what I visualise,



No I am not joking or taking the mick, this is who I visualise. The is actually a recent event and comes from a debate on here where I discovered that Prince Phillip was actually considered a god by some, information here,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Philip_Movement
Obviously I thought of this as something of a joke, then in a conversation with a friend from New Zealand he explained that these people are serious and what is more, Phillip treats their views with respect. These people believe in him with the same faith that many others have in other gods, to these people this is not silly, this is a living divine being. There are and have been in the past many living gods, Hirohito springs to mind.So I can quite honestly say the first things that pops into my head when I see the word god is Prince Phillip. It is like that song you hear and cannot get out of your head the rest of the day.

OK do I have a serious point to this?

Yes, as an atheist I should not be so arrogant as to dismiss the existence of gods before I actually understand what people mean by gods. It also serves to remind me that because I was brought up in a western country, have read mostly western views on gods I instinctively have a western perception of gods. It reminds me to keep a completely open mind when thinking of gods, it is why I claim to lack belief.

With regards to a creator god, I read what @Max Rockatansky wrote about god, I would go further than Max with his blind men analogy, I think if there is a creator god as described by Max we would be more like a bug in a mattress on an aircraft carrier, completely unable to comprehend its purpose or even make any educated guesses as to its purpose let alone those people that created it. For all we know the scraps of knowledge we claim to have might be no more than a girlie poster on the wall next to the bunk. We cannot even use the word force, since whatever that "something" is might be so far beyond our understanding as to be quite beyond what we call a "force"

I am not ashamed to say my thoughts on gods are confusing and I often consider other aspects that wander into my head sometimes. it is one of the reasons,
I am an atheist, I lack belief.

 

Given how you take great joy in belittling those of faith....any rudeness taken is well deserved.

 

IMO Your worthiness was never in question. Prosperity is a "state of mind". We are all given different situations to rise above and there are as many different situations as there are people. "To much who has been given, much is required." My worthiness never depends on the situations of others. My vertical relationship does in no way depend on the horizontal. It does give me power to deal with the horizontal and see to the needs of those less fortuneate.

 

Agreed, but it's probable that there are those who see religion as a tool toward spiritual enlightenment (e.g. "becoming closer to God") and others who are stuck at the dogma level. In Christianity, that is commonly see as someone who constantly sins all week then repents on Sunday. Bill Clinton is good example of this.

 

A slight disagreement. Admittedly, the scale of the Universe is impossible for most people to fathom (and even then only as a string of numbers), but faith AKA spirituality isn't just a form of physicality or mentality. It's a third component of being human. Whatever it is, the vast majority of the human population has it. Like anything with humans, there's a bell curve for spirituality with "when you're dead, you're dead" atheists on one end and "all blasphemers must die" on the other end. In the middle are those who continually seek spiritual fulfillment.

As for your bug analogy, while the bug may not be able to fully comprehend the size and purpose of the aircraft carrier, it can certainly figure out it's placement in it (to some degree), that it's complex and that it's moving (given it can think, of course).

 

The logos is like the force of order of the universe. Some Greeks and Romans (like the Stoics) believed that the universe is Zeus's/Jupiter's body and that he is the order of the universe. The other gods weren't just angels though. All of the waters of the world, for example were Poseidon's body and he was their divine principle/source of order. The same went for fire and Hephaestus.

 

Saying your tone is sad is not taking joy.
I do note the bitterness in many of your posts in many different threads.
Perhaps being christian isn't all that beneficial.

 

You seem to indicate that in your mind god is only for your version of religion and does not apply to any other religion. You once again fail in even admitting what the alleged values of god are and put forth only your own hatred as the only religion you will follow.

 

Wong. Have you never heard of a ship being called "her", or an aircraft?

Your claims are becoming pitiful.

 

"God" transcends anything that is human. A raindrop has limitations that all the world's oceans do not but the oceans have all of the same attributes of a raindrop but a lot more.

Some people have worshiped female gods since women birth us all.