I have come to believe that the biggest mistake that humans have committed regarding understanding the source of our existence, and life on this earth, is to personify it.

It is how humans attempt to understand themselves. We place our own thoughts, feelings, wants, needs, and desires into many other things, including a concept of 'God.

My question is this...

Why would 'God' be like a human?

Who said he was like a human? Not very probable is it...

why would God be like a human -- hummm,....

what about Christ ?-- sent to suffer whatever was humanly possible -- is it just a story ??

but I like your theory,...too,..maybe we are just like the animals,..nothing so significant as we want to all believe,..

God created man in his own image, meaning when Adam was created he was created in the image of what God looked like..

We were created in His image.... but that's not why I'm responding.

I get what you are saying...our entire outlook on God is limited to our own understanding & life experiences & not really to who & what He really is.

When I finally got to see God without all the limitations of my own expereinces it was so awesome. To embrace his fill nature is something. His love, mercy, kindness, gentleness, to see Him as a Loving Father, Gentle Sheppard, Councilor, Brother...etc... It moves my heart.

You believe you see the flaws in Christianity so clearly, but all we hear about your beliefs are riddles. Take a break from spitting on the Christians and tell us what is so great about your beliefs.

Glad to see you spider...

I just made some very positive remarks today, in real life, about the goodness that I have seen come from Christianity.

Sorry you misunderstood my intent.

Nothing is so great about my beliefs spider.

CS...you can say nice things, but that doesn't change the bad things. You have boldly declared in this thread that believing in a "personified" God is the "biggest mistake that humans have committed".

My God isn't like a person, people are like God. We have the ability to think, we value justice, we love, we want to be good. That's as close to being like God as we can get, God has many non-human characteristics as well. No body, omniscient, omnipotent, etc.

Spider...

I do not consider the fact that I do not believe in the personification of 'God' to be a bad thing.

It is considered a mistake by me based upon my own personal understandings, which is why I stated "I have come to believe."

I do not believe that we are like 'God', I believe that we are far different, and that is actually claiming 'God' has a much higher standard, not the other way around.

because we are humans
how would we be able to understand God if it's not in a human way?

If you have a description of this God I'd certainly be interested in hearing what you have.

I'm always open to knew ideas.

How are we related to God?

Are we direct manifestations of God?

Are we seperate entities from God that God merely created?

What's your idea of God and our relationship to God?

Not much of a final conclusion creative. It does not describe God at all or what you think 'It' is like.

It says nothing about how reality works, or was manifested or created. I see nothing wrong with that belief Creative, but it is nothing that can rock my world view.

Of course its nice that you have at least come to one conclusion or belief ~~(That God is not like a human and a human is not like God.) Okay where do you go from that premise creative? What's next?

I am anxiously waiting to here your world view and the reasons and evidence for it.

Jeanniebean

But for Creative, "imagination" is just "make believe." (He is probably afraid to go there for fear someone will ask him for his "proof" )

JB

Me too. Lately he seems to be tossing out proclamations that are neither supported by reason, nor appear to even have any genuine substance.

God is different from a human? I think everyone would agree with that. Even Christians (abeit the biblical view does seem to be wildly conflicting in this area as it sure seems to give God an aweful lot of human-like traits. Not the least of which is having him sitting on a throne in heaven ruling over his kingdoms like an earthly human king. He even supposedly has ambitions of coming back to do it in the form of a man named Jesus. If the biblical God is not a human, he sure seems to want to be like a human. He appears to have human desires, and aspirations.)




I'm inclinded to believe this as well. I don't believe that I can out-imagine God.

Therefore anything that I can imagine, then surely God could imagine it as well. And if an ominpotent God can imagine something then he/she/it could certainly do it.

Like they say, "With God all things are possible". I think for a God to be tied down by the restrictions of any specific dogma would be a very uncreative God. A God who lacks imagination.

Why would anyone think that our creator is uncreative?

Yeh, that just makes no sense. If you have a creator, or if you have been endowed with creativity, then imagination is the strongest force in the Universe because it is the core of all things created.

Imagination Itself is the creative faculty inherent in all sentient beings. Without it ... well you are just a robot. Without it, you are simply a biological machine operating on programs contained within your DNA and your cells.

Feeling, emotions, desires and imagination is the fuel that creates universes.

Creativesoul: take a clue from the screen name that you have given yourself. You are a creative soul. You create with your imagination, and yet you think so little of the awesome power and you call it "just make believe."

Are you a creative soul Creativesoul?? ~~ Or are you just "make believe?"


Jeannie

James,

I have supported my claims, albeit rather loosely, but none-the-less, they were supported, more importantly they could be supported much more soundly if there were an audience that listened as well as spoke. You and Jb are just entirely too busy making up other things and attributing them to me...


Another example... for you JB, who lives through your ego.




You make it all up as you go, and it is more than obvious to me and others as well, I assure you. Now then, since you care to accuse me of not supporting my claims, support the underlined above. Those are your words... not mine.

Quote me and you will find this to be true. Therefore, all of your expressions which have been based upon that misappropriation have been based upon a false premise. Your false premise.


Now then tell me, once again, why I need to get a clue?


I clearly stated the imagination was the source of make- believe, I am sorry that you cannot make the distinction.

And you don't?

Are you saying that you have the Final Answer?

Have you had an epiphany?

Jeannie constantly states that she is merely considering information. She often speaks in her posts like her conclusions are absolute truths. I think that more a reflect of her writing style than her actual convictions.

She's constantly saying that she'll consider any information.

With all due respect Michael you just haven't presented anything convincing. At least not that I can see.

You make statements, but you haven't backed them up with any solid reasoning that I can see.

I'll grant you that Jeannie is 'out there'. She's flying around from universe to universe considering every possibility.

If it can be imagined, it's worth considering. That's her view and I can't say it's wrong.

You, on the other hand, appear to me (not this is just my perception),... appear to me to be trying to figure everythign out from a pure philosophical 'logic' level based on 'pure reason'

And that's admirable.

But that's a very confining way to work.

Richard Feynman had some really great words about that.

""We cannot define anything precisely! If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers, who sit opposite each other, one saying to the other, 'You don't know what you are talking about!' The second one says 'What do you mean by know? What do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you?', and so on." - Richard Feynman

From my point of view this is the circular kind of thing you seem to be stuck in.

You're attempting to start with some basic premises (which you can't get other people to agree with), and then you get upset because they won't agree with your primitives.

That's my perspective of where you're at Michael.

It's not a 'judgment' of any sort. I'm just giving you a heads up on what you appear to be doing from my vantage point.

And then you seem to be accusing Jeanniebean of being egotistical because she won't accept your primitives.

I don't accept them either.

(said light-heartedly)

What point are you trying to make anyway? That you, Creativesoul, know all the answers? And that I, am egotistical and ignorant?

I surrender all of my ideas then. Forget about them. Wipe the slate clean. I know nothing. I have no proof to support anything. I made them all up with my imagination.

Now Creative, tell me how it is. Endow me with your great and powerful knowledge and wisdom. I am eager to learn what you know about the nature of consciousness, the universe, God, this reality, how it works, where it comes from.





Yes I agree that imagination is the "source of make believe." Is that all it is Creative? What else is it?

"Imagination is the source of make-believe....."

What else is it? Is that all it is?

JB



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Definitions of Make-believe on the Web:

* an important form of play in which children pretend they are other people or things - eg, a mother, father, a teacher, a cow, or a tree. ...
www.edsnet.na/Resources/TBCM/TBCM16/M16Glossary.htm

* pretense: imaginative intellectual play
* the enactment of a pretense; "it was just pretend"
* imagined as in a play; "the make-believe world of theater"; "play money"; "dangling their legs in the water to catch pretend fish"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

_________________________________________________

James,

My thoughts are extremely well thought out on a whole. Just because I do not express all of them at once, does not even come close to me making it up as I go. What I think about includes other things as well, and in this particular case, perhaps it is just as well that I kept it simple.



What premise do you believe that I have claimed? that you are in so much disagreement with?

Consciousness requires perception?

Perception equals the ability to collect information?

Energy has no perceptual faculty?

I also said that intelligence requires knowledge, and in the strictest of definitions, I suppose that this could be considered as a false claim. If you read through the other thread, I addressed this myself, immediately after writing it, rather than erasing it, which I could have done instead.

However, I still hold it as true. Ability is not sentient, therefore without fulfilling the potential it is as useless as no intelligence. So what usefulness is potential without experience, which is necessary to gain knowledge?

My comments on JB's ego have nothing to do with her difference in opinion, but has everything to do with her false assertations of me and my character. Which, by the way, you are beginning to assimilate as well.

You were right the first time James, when you said that you thought that you knew me better than that. You do!