Is God a person?

[BurtWorm]

Poll question: Is God a person?

In your opinion. Please explain in a post in this thread.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. God is everything

and as everything, is a "person" and also "every person" and also "no person".

[BurtWorm]

2. Is that what the Koran says?

I'm just curious. I thought Islam was clear that there is no God but Allah--a distinct entity. Does Sufism have a different concept, more like pantheism?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. It's all in intrepretation

"la illaha il Allah" translated literally means "there is nothing but God". Wahhabists and other conservative Muslims see it as only one God. Sufis have always, as far as I can tell from my studies, taken the more inclusive view.

[pingzing58]

43. God is the Uncreated Being of all Beings. We are contigent beings depend on God for our existence.

[pingzing58]

44. God is and we are not.

[pingzing58]

45. We are offered eternal life through apotheosis.

[stellanoir]

4. I believe god is a spirit and is manifested in the divine spark within each and

every one of us who expresses it through love and laughter.

I prefer to call that force the "creatrix" because it's generally presumed to be non gender specific, is playful, and has no antiquated dogma associated with it whatsoever.

The author of this book http://www.cosmosandpsyche.com/ says (paraphrasing) that the sickness in our culture finds its root in the fact that we have severed our direct relationship with spirit.

And I further that it can be found in nature.

-my two "sense"

[BurtWorm]

6. What is the difference between a "spirit" and a person?

[stellanoir]

8. physicality

IMHO

A person contains a spirit and some spirits can contain people. LOL

Some are more balanced and better integrated than others.

However, some people are not in touch with spirit so they rely on churches who subjugate them through guilt, fear of death, and the ruse of original sin and the myth of hell.

"You want to go to heaven. . .gimmee 50 bucks" is in various denominations, the oldest scam in the book.

It's a messy practice for sure.

[BurtWorm]

11. Actually, I don't think person is synonymous with "human" when people talk of a "personal" God.

Unless I'm mistaken, I think it means that that God is an identity or entity, with a mind or spirit and will, if not a body, all of which are divine. This is the God that supposedly conceived of and created the world, that has a plan for it, that is interested in human beings, that can be prayed to and can answer prayers. It is a person in the sense that it has a personality, if not a body to contain it, so people who believe in it say.

[stellanoir]

12. ". . . so people who believe in it say. . ."

I don't.

[BurtWorm]

15. Do you pray?

Out of curiosity.

[stellanoir]

16. One of my two spiritual teachers said something I'll never forget.

It was "Prayer is speaking to a higher force. Meditation is listening."

I do both and have for a long time. But not as much lately as I would like.

She said a lot of other cool stuff as well.

[BurtWorm]

18. Do you have a picture of God in mind when you pray?

Do you imagine God "listening" to you? Or when meditating, do imagine God "speaking" to you?

[stellanoir]

19. No I never care to see the "creatrix" in form though as I feel that would be an illusion.

I have seen various manifestations of Gaia over the years.

I've a fairly fickle cast of characters as spirit guides which are really quite entertaining and often quite cartoony.

I once saw a lugubrious oversoul who was really enormous who inspired 44 pages of prophetic writing about our passage into the new millennium. It was sort of an instruction manual.

I've really become more clair audiant than clair visual in recent years because of the nature of my work. But I never presume to be talking to god. It's just higher guidance or so it mostly seems to be.

I truly appreciate your sincerity in your inquiries.

[izquierdista]

5. He is both pasta AND meat

[stellanoir]

13. did you catch this one ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIBfNsPDw1I&feature=related

hysterical IMHO

[Stuckinthebush]

7. I guess "god" is whatever you want "god" to be

Isn't that usually the case in history?

We create our gods in our image to be what we want him/her to be. God as person may be a comforting thing to someone.

[emilyg]

9. God is everyone of us.

[silverweb]

10. I don't know.

I like the idea Greg Iles put forward in one of his books, The Footprints of God, in which one of his characters says, "Maybe God is the Universe becoming aware of Itself" (or something very close to that, in case I don't have the wording exactly correct).

That idea always stayed with me. It encompasses animism, pantheism, deism, agnosticism, and almost every other "ism" out there. The only concept it does not include is dogmatism.

That works for me! :)

[RaleighNCDUer]

14. Does he have a social security number? nt

[cosmik debris]

17. If you make it up as you go along,

there is no limit on your imagination. God is whatever you imagine god to be.

[Ian David]

20. Other: god is a corporation. n/t

[moggie]

21. YHWH on Nasdaq

Do you believe in corporate personhood?

[TechBear_Seattle]

22. Do you mean "person" or "Person"?

The doctrine of the Trinity (ie, actual historic Christianity and not the heretical kinds) holds that God is three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That is not to say that God is a person, however.

[lips]

23. Soylent green...

aaahh forget it, the gist is there.

[JerseygirlCT]

24. Yes and no

God is all, which would include personhood, but would not be limited to that.

[edhopper]

25. The term "person"

is a little vague. Do you mean; "Is God an individual entity, with a self contained consciousness?" In other words, is God a unique being with individual thought and behavior?

[BurtWorm]

26. That is what the question is getting at.

[HumanBeast]

27. God = Nature

What Frank Wright Lloyd said,


"I believe in God only I spell it Nature".

[Exodus 3-14]

38. 'Thunder & Lightening'

I have 5 minutes to explain something which happened to me a bit over a year ago on Nov. 13, 2006, and I will not do too good, but......:

I had what some would call a profound religious/spiritual experience, and I thought I was the 'Messiah'(Mashiach) and had to literally 'Save the Planet'.
Somehow this 'Global Warming' issue intersected this experience I had.

Least to say, I never fully recovered from this, and till this day dread what I am certain is going to happen soon. All 'G-d' wanted was to get CO2 levels down to '358' by this past Nov. 13th.

Yes, 'G-d' is mostly evident within the Weather(Temperature, Sound, Light, etc).

I'll just say(time running short), I had 6 Prophecies come true that I made in Dec. 06.
I no longer can prophesize, and having literally been put thru mental hell(lost a 19 year job amongst a host of things), I only watch with dismay as us faithful 'watcher's of events, see what is actually happening.
I don't believe in miracles no longer, I think we failed as a specie.

[moggie]

39. You say you THOUGHT you were the Messiah

What do you now think your status is? Your DU username, chosen a few days ago, refers to a passage in which the OT god refers to his own nature, so do you still feel some greater-than-usual connection to that god?

[Exodus 3-14]

40. 'Messenger'

After someone experiences something so powerful, their lives are never the same(especially after having an almost total mental breakdown for the way I was treated, and compounded by other emotionally struggling issues).

I never would have believed an experience such as mine could happen to someone(used to laugh at the whole 'Bible thing'), but it was a most real thing that occured.

I still fascinate at the so-called 'believers' who by and large 'negate' my experience as not being legitimate, and also those who acknowledge 'precognition, clairvoyance, etc.', but the word 'Prophecy'(Revelation), doesn't seem accepted now-a-days.

The 'Messiah' thing is viewed as both 'person' and 'messenger', and a Shaman would understand this fully(especially someone with a background in how the endocrine and certain physiological systems operate with communication to cells and neurotransmitters).
The Planet is a living cell and is dying, and it basically communicates with the species most responsible for its condition(especially one who is concerned, and practicing a paticular discipline-
as I was).

I'll just say the experience somehow intersected the 'Climate Collapse/Eco-System' collapse issue, and if it were framed properly(not global warming/cooling), we could have Salvation.
That one issue will save us from the coming Global Economic Collapse too(let alone the War in the Middle East).
All attention must be put upon getting CO2 levels down to save sustainable levels.

[Ian David]

42. See: "Temporal Lobe Epilepsy"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbrain.shtml

http://meta-religion.com/Psychiatry/The_Paranormal/trascendent_experiences.htm


Also see:

Schizophrenia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia

Either way, please go get help.

[Meshuga]

28. I don't believe in a personal God

My approach is more in line with Mordechai Kaplan's theology.

[Silent3]

29. I believe god is a lawyer...

...not a person. :)

[More Than A Feeling]

30. "God" is a word. A very powerful and dangerous word,

considering all that has been done because of it.

[Meshuga]

35. It can be a dangerous word indeed

But no one can say that the word "God" has always had a single, fixed meaning. We cannot deny that there are some nasty uses for the word (anyone can read them in history books and see them in the news headlines) but I wouldn't say that they are all bad.

I would rather discuss the word with my kids, of what the word might mean to me an to them. I don't want to see them fall into an undesirable pattern of accepting some of the simple-minded notions about "God" we see out there, notions which I consider inaccurate, intellectually compromising, and psychologically harmful simply to fill a vacuum.

[More Than A Feeling]

36. No, it hasn't had a fixed meaning. That's the first part of the danger, and the second is

the strong emotional response it evokes in many. That's a very unpredictable combination.

I wouldn't say that all meanings behind it are inherently bad either. If someone uses it to mean "the totality of natural processes of the universe," well, I like the natural processes of the universe.

Where I have issues is when the culture supports and even promotes such a dangerous word as an outlet for emotional response. It may validate the more reactionary, authoritarian uses, in the sense that the terms of the discussion are now entirely in a word with the baggage that "god" has.

Therefore, I'd recommend, if someone wanted a suggestion for a religious word of significance to use for "the totality of natural processes", that they use "Tao." It's in the same general area of meaning, it has a cool, exotic mystique, with much less baggage in this culture.

[Meshuga]

37. It is a shame there is so much baggage but changing terminology now might...

...require another change for a future generation because changing the word is not going to help solve the problem, in my opinion.
But I might be wrong.

In my culture and tradition (and I mean outside of the mainstream culture), this word has been used as an English translation to the power that gives meaning to our ethical tradition. It is a word we use in a system we use in order to better ourselves as human beings. Our tradition teaches that creating and adding to the baggage is the most serious sin one can commit because of the obvious problems it creates. :-)

I would not get rid of the word just because of baggage from the mainstream culture. The best I can do is make sure my children understand the purpose of the word in the context of their own heritage and learn to reject the notions that contributes to the baggage.

You need to understand that what matters in this tradition is not so much deciding on any one meaning for the word "god" but knowing in what sense the word is being used.

And BTW, the Tao has no expectations. The Tao demands nothing of others. The Tao does not speak. The Tao does not blame. The Tao does not take sides. The Tao is not Jewish. :-)

[John Gauger]

31. This is one of the problems that the idea of a god creates.

Since god isn't real, there is no answer to this question. I mean, "Is god a person?" is a totally straightforward question. Once you have a definition for a person, god either is one or isn't one. It shouldn't be a matter of opinion. It's the same thing as with the Trinity. Theologians have spent countless hours debating the nature of the Trinity, and how one entity could in actuality be three people. But there is no answer to that question because there is no Trinity. They always say "It's a great mystery." No, it's not a great mystery. The reason why you can't come up with an answer is because there is no god.

I have been reading the book of Job lately, and there's that dreadful bit in the middle where Job's drinking buddies wax theological for thirty pages telling their boy Job that god doesn't punish the righteous (even though that's clearly what they're seeing happen right in front of them.) This question dates back the ancient Persians, asking "Why do bad things happen to good people?" The reason why the only answer they can come up with is that god works in mysterious ways and that it will all make sense in the end is that there isn't any reason for it. No, it won't all make sense in the end. There is no god that is making these things happen. That's why there's no justice. That's why there's no proportion. It's so much simpler than people make it out to be, because they're starting out with this assumption that there is a god. That's where all their flaws are coming from.

[BurtWorm]

32. Very well said.

:toast:

[John Gauger]

33. Thank you.

[smoogatz]

34. Is Santa Claus a person?

Is the Easter Bunny a bunny?

[Lost-in-FL]

41. Who's god u talking about? n/t

[Lou Queb]

46. Is God a person ? I haven't found out the nature of God.

I would say He is not and He is depending on what you become aware of, of what you start feeling within yourself.

My intuition is that it is not a being alone, distinct from the rest of the world. It is either the absolute everything (which would not be a person given that it doesn't have a mind in itself but is rather the addition of all things)or it is one's personification of the divine which means anyone's own take of a God-person.