So What are our Ideas of God and Divinity? How does it affect our lives and art?

[Leonardo Boher]

Yes, I know it's off topic, but is it necessary to be always on the topic? I think it's not, so I will make a question to both, hope Fahim get the message.

What's God for you Fashim/Asher? I would love a huge explaniation saying it all, explaining every single statement. If you say God is yellow, then explaining why is yellow; if you say is yellow because X motive, I want that X motive to be explained and the X motive that may be attached to another X, etc, etc, etc. I want it all explained. What's God for you and why. I will put my explaniation of what is God for me.

God is for me the whole known and unknown, the sum off all what we know and what we don't know because God is infinite and omnipressent, because He's the creation. God is to me the sum of every single consciusness, from the most simple one till the most complex. Meaning that every single form of life has at least a very little portion of consciusness, such the instincts (a primitive consciusness) and that sum makes a big consciusness or a Meta Consciusness. However, God is even bigger than all the consciusness together. For the other hand, God is the first movement or energy that moves everything else, or gives the hability to everything else to be in movement, so God is Movement and Energy, therefore, Vibrations/waves, therefore, Light then Sound, in that order, and Quantz. All the material world is composed fisrtly by energy/vibration/chords and quantz (which are all the same thing), then vibrations/waves so God is Omnipresent because of these qualities, the same than this elements which are part of God. God is for me a wave/vibration of energy glowing in the emptyness and it's symbol is Ø3. The Ø represents the Divine Golden Proportions of everything (the same as the circle, idilic perfect form/shape in geometry) and the 3 is a number I always liked because it also represents the absolute perfection since every state of things pass over 3 basic states such the time is past, present and future or the combination between 3 elements such as ABC gives lot of results being very similar to the Fractal Geometry, the same as nature, such the pinapple, ocmposed by an almost reppeated pattern, creating an individual object that can be patterned as well in order to create another individual and bigger object or the same like the CO2 molecule or the subatomical <-> Macro-Cosmos Universe that from a mere and simple basic shape/form creates all the variety we know and we don't know (cells of God or Ø3) . So the God's name is Øauntum3, like Quantum3, which represetns all this stuff.

This is my own defintion of God, but few months ago I found that Einstein also thought in a God composed by these impersonal characteristics, the same as Buddism, some hindus and other some of oriental religions except the vaishnabism.

I would like to know your own definitions of what's God for you. Or what's God for your respective religions.

Thanks!

Mart

 

[Prateek Dubey]

Yes, I know it's off topic, but is it necessary to be always on the topic? I think it's not, so I will make a question to both, hope Fahim get the message.

What's God for you Fashim/Asher? I would love a huge explaniation saying it all, explaining every single statement. If you say God is yellow, then explaining why is yellow; if you say is yellow because X motive, I want that X motive to be explained and the X motive that may be attached to another X, etc, etc, etc. I want it all explained. What's God for you and why. I will put my explaniation of what is God for me.

God is for me the whole known and unknown, the sum off all what we know and what we don't know because God is infinite and omnipressent, because He's the creation. God is to me the sum of every single consciusness, from the most simple one till the most complex. Meaning that every single form of life has at least a very little portion of consciusness, such the instincts (a primitive consciusness) and that sum makes a big consciusness or a Meta Consciusness. However, God is even bigger than all the consciusness together. For the other hand, God is the first movement or energy that moves everything else, or gives the hability to everything else to be in movement, so God is Movement and Energy, therefore, Vibrations/waves, therefore, Light then Sound, in that order, and Quantz. All the material world is composed fisrtly by energy/vibration/chords and quantz (which are all the same thing), then vibrations/waves so God is Omnipresent because of these qualities, the same than this elements which are part of God. God is for me a wave/vibration of energy glowing in the emptyness and it's symbol is Ø3. The Ø represents the Divine Golden Proportions of everything (the same as the circle, idilic perfect form/shape in geometry) and the 3 is a number I always liked because it also represents the absolute perfection since every state of things pass over 3 basic states such the time is past, present and future or the combination between 3 elements such as ABC gives lot of results being very similar to the Fractal Geometry, the same as nature, such the pinapple, ocmposed by an almost reppeated pattern, creating an individual object that can be patterned as well in order to create another individual and bigger object or the same like the CO2 molecule or the subatomical <-> Macro-Cosmos Universe that from a mere and simple basic shape/form creates all the variety we know and we don't know (cells of God or Ø3) . So the God's name is Øauntum3, like Quantum3, which represetns all this stuff.

This is my own defintion of God, but few months ago I found that Einstein also thought in a God composed by these impersonal characteristics, the same as Buddism, some hindus and other some of oriental religions except the vaishnabism.

I would like to know your own definitions of what's God for you. Or what's God for your respective religions.

Thanks!

Mart

Hello Leonardo,
What is Vashnabism? I hope you meant Vaishnavism, for it is a sect devoted to the worship of Vishnu ( He is one of the Holy trinities of hinduism. The preserver. The other two being the creator (Brahma) and the destroyer ( Shiva)).
Vaishnavites are strictly vegetarians and worship Vishnu in any one of his avatars ( incarnations). He takes a form to save the earth from many problems. Buddha is considered to be Vishnu's ninth avataar. The tenth and the last would be a man on a white horse. He's yet to come. But at the end of the day Visnu is the one and only God of hinduism. He's worshipped in another 33 million forms, displaying every concievable aspect of existence. The creator and destroyer are also Vishnu.
Now a question I've asked many 'learned' men of all religions which goes like this " Why are there animals in this world?" Animals is a very broad term here. It includes flies , mosquitoes and dung beetles, not to mention squids and a variety of sea and land creatures. Contemplate on this question and you'll begin to find your answer. Out of experience I'll tell you that none of these learned men came up with a sound explaination and their answer was 'borrowed', which revealed that they'd left their brains in their holy books.

 

[Leonardo Boher]

Hello Leonardo,
What is Vashnabism? I hope you meant Vaishnavism, for it is a sect devoted to the worship of Vishnu ( He is one of the Holy trinities of hinduism. The preserver. The other two being the creator (Brahma) and the destroyer ( Shiva)).
Vaishnavites are strictly vegetarians and worship Vishnu in any one of his avatars ( incarnations). He takes a form to save the earth from many problems. Buddha is considered to be Vishnu's ninth avataar. The tenth and the last would be a man on a white horse. He's yet to come. But at the end of the day Visnu is the one and only God of hinduism. He's worshipped in another 33 million forms, displaying every concievable aspect of existence. The creator and destroyer are also Vishnu.
Now a question I've asked many 'learned' men of all religions which goes like this " Why are there animals in this world?" Animals is a very broad term here. It includes flies , mosquitoes and dung beetles, not to mention squids and a variety of sea and land creatures. Contemplate on this question and you'll begin to find your answer. Out of experience I'll tell you that none of these learned men came up with a sound explaination and their answer was 'borrowed', which revealed that they'd left their brains in their holy books.

Hi Prateek,

Well... the definition of Sect is quite large and unclear but these guys are not a sect in the common and modern use of the word 'sect'. They follow Krshna. In India there are many types of religions but most important are the followers of Shivá and Bramahn. The guys I know follow Krshna, not Shivá or Bramhan (being the last one more into the Budism) but I'm reading that Krshna is a manifestation of Vishnú.

What these learnt men left was their ego, not their brains. What's written in those Holy Books is the truth, so why not to do that? The Holy Books of any religion cannot be interpreted capriciously because it's the word of God, whatever you believe or not in God, when that's the words of God they cannot be interpreted in other ways than what God wanted. You see for example that many chatolics had re-interpreted the Bible in so many ways while other religions keep it quite straight foward. However, chatolics always were touching up their religion, who knows doing what (!) when God's words are untocheable.

I don't know why there are animals here, but I guess the same there are bacterias, viruses and other inferior organism there are animals as there are also people who behaves like them and others just not. The same as there are other universes in the whole thing. Why you need to know why there are animals here?

Leo

 

[Asher Kelman]

So now, this subject, wisely or not, has it's own place. Please be aware of the diverse backgrounds of photographers from around the globe spanning diverse. We can look for commonalities. So good manners and etiquette is expected. By stating what you yourself believe, not what others should follow, then you are on sincere ground.

We'd like this to be an opportunity to build bridges and where you can show photographs, that will be appreciaited.

Asher

 

[Rachel Foster]

How about this? I'm strongly Spinozan on the question, myself.

 

[Asher Kelman]

How about this? I'm strongly Spinozan on the question, myself.

Excellent survey of thought. However, it's compacted. It also does not go beyond Semetic concepts.

Asher

 

[Rachel Foster]

True, but it's a start.

 

[Jim Galli]

God is the creator. Sin has removed Him from us. He rescued us by eliminating the consequence of sin through the death of His Son, Jesus who was sinless and offers us a trade. We put our sin on Him. He puts his Righteousness on us. Other than this arrangement, we are bankrupts before a Holy God. Was that succinct enough?

 

[Asher Kelman]

God is the creator. Sin has removed Him from us. He rescued us by eliminating the consequence of sin through the death of His Son, Jesus who was sinless and offers us a trade. We put our sin on Him. He puts his Righteousness on us. Other than this arrangement, we are bankrupts before a Holy God. Was that succinct enough?

Jim,

That's succinct and I believe it represents what I've heard from today's Christians in the USA. However, I don't remember hearing this in this way in England. It seems that instead of focus on sin, it was on the fulfillment of prophesies of an expected messiah person of the royal line of King David. I wonder if the Evangelical movements have shifted religious concepts of divinity?

Is this how Christian thought considered God in the year 100 or the Middle Ages?

Certainly, this view of an exchange is absent from either Islam or Judaism. Is it present in any other cultures?

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

My own Judaic belief holds that the dominion of God is not knowable to us. We can wonder about it. Meanwhile, on this planet, Earth, we have to be accountable and good to each other and not cruel. Our job is to do good deeds and set a fine example. There's no concept of any forgiveness for sins by priests only by restitution to people wronged and prayer and charity to cover the sins towards God.

In art, I believe that works do not bring us closer to God but we can open there eyes of men.

Asher

 

[Jim Galli]

Jim,

That's succinct and I believe it represents what I've heard from today's Christians in the USA. However, I don't remember hearing this in this way in England. It seems that instead of focus on sin, it was on the fulfillment of prophesies of an expected messiah person of the royal line of King David. I wonder if the Evangelical movements have shifted religious concepts of divinity?

Is this how Christian thought considered God in the year 100 or the Middle Ages?

Certainly, this view of an exchange is absent from either Islam or Judaism. Is it present in any other cultures?

Asher

My own Judaic belief holds that the dominion of God is not knowable to us. We can wonder about it. Meanwhile, on this planet, Earth, we have to be accountable and good to each other and not cruel. Our job is to do good deeds and set a fine example. There's no concept of any forgiveness for sins by priests only by restitution to people wronged and prayer and charity to cover the sins towards God.

In art, I believe that works do not bring us closer to God but we can open there eyes of men.

Asher

Probably beyond the constraints of this discussion area, but yes, those simple beliefs are based in first century writings and have had remnants large and small who understood in every age since Jesus death. And yes, you have stated well that every other religious system has men doing good works trying to get to God. Only historic christianity has a God who reached out to men. Jesus and Paul were both jews. As were Peter, John, James, etc. I embrace your historic Judaism, but Jesus completed it.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Probably beyond the constraints of this discussion area, but yes, those simple beliefs are based in first century writings and have had remnants large and small who understood in every age since Jesus death. And yes, you have stated well that every other religious system has men doing good works trying to get to God. Only historic christianity has a God who reached out to men. Jesus and Paul were both jews. As were Peter, John, James, etc. I embrace your historic Judaism, but Jesus completed it.

It makes us content that others share in our values and history and we look at the good and celebrate that. We do not believe Christians or anyone else have any lesser route to heaven than Jews. The Jewish concept is that there are many, many doors and windows to God's mansion! We therefore see no permission, need or point in converting anyone else. We just have to do right, ourselves to everyone else in the tour bus!

Asher

 

[Maris Rusis]

Men make gods in their own image.

A man is more than the physical body. There are hopes, ideals, perplexities, ambitions, and anxieties. Thus the gods men fashion reflect all those things as well.

An ancient quotation, but apt, follows:

“It seems to me, Usbek, that all our judgements are made with reference covertly to ourselves. I do not find it surprising that the negroes paint the devil sparkling white, and their gods black as coal, or that certain tribes have a Venus with her breasts hanging down to her thighs, or in brief that all the idolatrous peoples represent their gods with human faces, and endow them with all their own impulses. It has been well said that if triangles had a god, they would give him three sides.”

—Montesquieu, Persian Letters, 1721, translated by C.J.Betts, 1973.

 

[Rachel Foster]

I am reminded of what Karl Marx (loosely translated) said: Religion is the opiate of the masses. It's worth thinking about.

 

[Asher Kelman]

I am reminded of what Karl Marx (loosely translated) said: Religion is the opiate of the masses. It's worth thinking about.

But then the communists made their own state religion with their leaders the new prophets! When these prophets profit, then we have the worst of both worlds!

Asher

 

[Rachel Foster]

Just playing devil's advocate.

 

[Nigel Allan]

I've no idea.

Is that even more succinct?

 

[Tom Robbins]

I've no idea.

Is that even more succinct?

Nigel, epistemologically so!

 

[Asher Kelman]

Men make gods in their own image.

So Maris,

How should we face differences>? Do we go out an evangelize to our faith or dismissal of it? Or, do we celebrate diversity and the joy each person has in their own tent?

Asher

 

[Duke Beattie]

I'm agnostic........ I have to forever explain that it's not the same as an atheist .. I believe there was a guy called Jesus and that he did have his stuff together... Son of God... nope.. Good PR, a rebel, not really in it for himself, trying to help folks,
yes. I don't like organized religions. I have made my more believing friends angry by presenting the idea of a God starting with two amoeba and saying 'watch this'... sitting back and watching, with a big grin... and here we are.. kind of covers the whole evolution thing. with some plan... My religious friends believe I am going to hell because I have not excepted Jesus as the (or my) savior. and no matter how good of person I am/was/were I'm doomed because of this. I can't buy that. I would rather go out in the woods on Sunday (or your day of worship) and look around and say this is really nice.. good job on the trees..
I did have a friend who I could make cry because I didn't believe in the 'proper' fashion. She has since become more secure in her faith and I can't do that anymore.. good for her..
I had a boss who was a Conclavist... actually is credited with starting the movement, interesting person.. believed the present pope is the anti-christ and if you are a modern catholic you are doomed. Interesting to talk to as long as he didn't get pushy with his choice of beliefs.
My dog tag from the USAF says I am a 'Methocist' so since it is an official US government thing, I'll go with that.
As far as my photography.. I like to take pictures of nice landscapes, neat animals, well built mechanical things, sometimes people and anything else that wanders in front of my lens.........

 

[Rachel Foster]

Great post, Duke.

 

[Asher Kelman]

.
I had a boss who was a Conclavist... actually is credited with starting the movement, interesting person.. believed the present pope is the anti-christ and if you are a modern catholic you are doomed. Interesting to talk to as long as he didn't get pushy with his choice of beliefs.

Duke,

I had a patient who's husband was a contract killer for the Mafia! He's ordained as a priest for the opposition Catholic Church that has it's own Pope in Long Beach California, I believe! I'm not sure if that's the same Church as Mel Gibson's fiery angry sect belongs to, rejecting the encyclicals of Pacem in Terris and Nostra Aetate wherein Jews are considered brothers, the idea of "Deicide", killing Christ, is removed from Jews and the idea that God's covenant with Jews was revoked with the birth of Christianity was wiped out. All these revolutionary ideas startled a small group of 88 Bishops within the massive Catholic Church and also Gibson senior and that splinter group of the Catholic Church, (hence his film, "The Passion", of torture and suffering at the hands of the culpable Jews)!

It's interesting how things evolve. Beauty in art was considered in the highest form as the route to God. Now it's seen on it's own, devoid of necessary connection to any purpose. Still, when I photograph things, I like to connect the work with some social purpose, making people's outlook better. When we show pictures of wildlife, hopefully, we come to respect them more too.

Asher

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Asher,

Some information and thoughts about a related matter in The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion can be found here among all the cosines, entrance pupils, and MIDI syntactic elements, "The Episcopal Civil War":

http://doug.kerr.home.att.net/pumpkin/index.htm#EpiscopalCivilWar

It has evidently made me quite infamous among some of the combatants, some of whom think they are fighting a real war, the outcome of which will be of real consequence to humanity.

As you probably know, Carla and I are quite active in a local Episcopal church (that is to say, a parish of The Episcopal Church), and do a lot of IT work, photography, music arranging, transcription, and publishing, and so forth for it.

When we are done with a big project, we often say, "Well, that takes care of the work of man [meaning organized religion]. Now back to the work of God" [by which we mean physics, mathematics, horticulture, wonders of nature worthy of being photographed, concern with family members and pet animals, and so forth].

Best regards,

Doug

 

[leonardobarreto.com]

hi guys

my Dog, I have not posted in some time, but I think that this is a good door to come back to OPF.

I am positive that we have created all our gods, ant the question remaining is why do we -humans- need to keep creating gods -and continue worshiping them- ? It probably began 50k years ago when our first brain operating system began mixing different programs in a creative way. For example: tool making, nature and society awareness, past and present awareness tactic and strategies related to hunting in groups ... -huge and dangerous beasts --. All of this produced human activity that has no apparent "mission" purpose, or not related to survival of the species: art, fashion and religion. Do we need cave paintings for survival? why do we want to spend time manufacturing accessories -I remember reading about one burial that had something like five thousand bits for accessories. Why we began burying our dead?

We probably created our gods for one reason first. We had the computing capacity to do it since our brains grew a surplus of MHz and RAM to spare. We could explain or figure out a lot of things, but the more we did it the more we also found out was "unknown". This unknown we called god.

It is much easier to live calling this unknown "our God". For example, I keep asking questions like the one on this thread on my Facebook wall. I never ever get a comment. It is a taboo to go against the accepted wisdom of calling the unknown God. And it may be our survival instinct that explains to us: If there is no God and I did not believed, then no harm done, but. What if there IS? I will be burning in hell for eternity.

What I allays say is that "I believe that other people believe", or that I accept religion as I accept art.

It would be absurd to declare oneself a a-artist (trying unsuccessfully to construct a word similar to atheist but with art instead of theos=god) you can't say that the art idea "doesn't exist"... it does.

.... goto go ... to be continued...

 

[Rachel Foster]

My husband is Jewish and though I was raised fundamentalist Christian, I had a Jewish grandfather (Francis Cohen -- miss him to this day although he's been gone near 37 years). We attend the Unitarian church. It works for us.

 

[Asher Kelman]

All of this produced human activity that has no apparent "mission" purpose, or not related to survival of the species: art, fashion and religion. Do we need cave paintings for survival? why do we want to spend time manufacturing accessories -I remember reading about one burial that had something like five thousand bits for accessories. Why we began burying our dead?

Hi Leonardo,

The art of the caves is likely related to discussions or initiating hunting, to make boys brave. Imagine being in a dark cave with candles flickering, lighting the bison with multiple sets of legs so they appear to be moving.

Fashion is related to rank. Apes want to walk with a ranking member of the peer group, as high in status as possible. This relates to feeding rank and also mating opportunity. Fashion is the custom of those of that rank the highest. We just have mechanized and exploited these rituals.

The big puzzle of man, is death and the origin of everything. So yes, the unkown is God. But that doesn't prove that we created God. After all, logically, whether or not God exists has nothing to do with our understanding of that issue.

Asher

 

[leonardobarreto.com]

everything points to the notion of a a god created by human culture, for example. Why is it that one concept of god was present in a particular part of the world isolated from other cultures when there was no communication possible.

For example: Huitzilopitchli, the god of the sun and war was not heard of in Europe before Hernan Cortes discovered it. At the same time there was absolutely no notion of Jesus anywhere in America before that time.
?
This works in the direction of my hypothesis since if the idea of god was coming TO us humans it had not to be restrained by geographical barriers.

case number two:

The Neanderthal.

Since we create our own idea of the beginning of humanity we look at ourselves and assume that we looked like we look today from the start, --after all Darwin was yet to be born--, but what about this half men, half monkeys? why are they not accounted for in The Bible? did the neanderthal have Adam and Eva in their ascendancy?

Of course this is not proof of nonexistence of god, but it is highly suspicious in the way all notions or descriptions of how god looks or doesn't look like originate.

While the motive to come up with the idea of god is very easy to explain --fears, desires, need etc-- the idea of faith is based in ... faith. Intrinsically if we had any proof we, I mean, the entire humanity, would loose faith, since we would "know" instead of "believe we know" which is totally different.

 

[Doug Kerr]

Hi, Leonardo,

Some years ago my eldest daughter, a journeyman humanities and mathematics teacher, was applying for a faculty position with a private academy, operated by a church denomination.

She told me that as part of her application process, she was asked to write a brief essay on her views of the controversy between Darwinian evolution as the premise for the existence of the various lifeforms vs. the concept that God had created the entire repertoire.

She said, "Dad, you would have been proud of me. I wrote:

'I believe that the existence of the various species of life is a result of the working of Darwinian evolution. But I believe God created Darwinian evolution.' "

She got the job.

Best regards,

Doug

 

[leonardobarreto.com]

"But I believe God created Darwinian evolution" is a clever answer and I am happy she got the job, but, can she -and all of us- not say we believe that God created Darwinian evolution and not "we know". Of course not. We can say we believe in whatever we want, same as the Astecs believed in Huitzilopitchli. Mabe he, Huitzilopitchli created the Darwinian evolution. We say so because it makes us feel good, and I am not against it at all. Some people may feel good in beleaving that we all humans where created by a Flying Spaghetti, and I'm also happy for them. If they get hired for believing in it/him, good for them.

 

[Duke Beattie]

maybe I'm a Pastafanarian..........