Remember that God is outside of time. Time is part of the creation. Without matter and energy, time does not exist. So what was BEFORE creation cannot be thought of in terms of time. God just was, time didn't pass, eternity can't be measured.
The existence of evil in the face of a loving God can only be explained as a necessary entity for a greater good. Like two sides of a coin, both are necessary to make a distinction between the two. Could love be experienced without evil? Could God have done it a different way, perhaps, but we must trust that this is the best way. No pain no gain. To suffer the existence of evil now is necessary to realize the glorification later.
I think you're barely scratching the surface when it comes to asking the hard "God" questions Dot.
But, those are a start.
The problem is that religion - despite what it's practitioners would have you believe, or even readily admit to themselves - is not primarily a logical pursuit, but rather an emotional one. Reason is not what's invoked to convert the unwashed heathen, but rather feelings, fears, longings, impressions, intuitions. Hence questions that could be handled in a logical manner - but call into question basic tenets of the faith - aren't answered openly and honestly but, almost universally get "spin-doctored" ( see your other two responses for example).
I could ask (and have) questions like "How can an all-loving, all powerful God allow a baby to die?" Or, "If God is so loving and all knowing, why did he set things up in such a way that He's have to kill off his own son to save mankind?" And such like, and mostly what I've gotten is stuff like "Well God would have to do it like that or He wouldn't be a just God" and other meaningless drivel.
I think if you really want to maintain a "Good, Christian lifestyle" you have to be willing to put reason and honest inquiry on a back burner - forever...
These are the answers I give people. That living "in time" we have no concept "of a place or life without it"
The Adam and Eve thing, I tell people maybe God in his all-kowingness, knew that Adam and Eve where the best. John and Jill may have mucked up worse....
As always what we believe to be true greatly impacts our state of being.
a) So, he was alone for umpteen gazillion years then decided to invent the earth. (?)
I beleive that Spirit is always creating. God is always Good. Creations of God are always good. As God is always creating so are we. Our Creative Spirit that is God in us is effected by our soul which has been influenced by all suggestion, and all exereinece of our life.
b) What was he doing before earth?
God is the God of NOW. Here and now is what matters. Here and now is where life is. There was never a time when God had nothing to do. God was always creating and is always present in the now..........just as we should live.
c) Wasn’t he bored?
Are you bored? You are like God.......in the now. God is always active in the now. In sleep we are not conscious of creation, yet it goes on.
If God is a loving God why did he allow sickness and death?
There is no death of Spirit. There is only death of the Body. Jesus healed the sick so there is in the will of God a way to heal sickness. This way of healing sickness has not changed since Jesus did His mighty deeds. The way of Healing is still with us. God allows man to experience less then prefection so that man can know perfection.
a) If sickness comes from the devil – why doesn’t God protect us?
There is no devil. There is just you and me and the rest of mankind who have belief in good and evil. As we drop the belief in good and evil, we start to see that we protect outselves by what we believe. Each soul is a creative medium on this earth and has potential to impact all others for good or for worse. As we take personal responsibility for this world we start to find answers for sickness. It took a long time for creative man to figure out the workings of the plegue, but in time with faith man did figure it out.
b) Is sickness from sin? If so, when we confess our sin, and ask for forgiveness, why are people still sick?
Sin is.........missing the mark. Error in belief, manifest by wrong action. Sickness can be healed with the "prayer of faith". To Jesus sickness MUST be healed with His word. His word was always lined up with the belief that it shall be done. We can attain this consciousness as well, but often just don't. The presence of Sickness does not negate the presence of healing. In reality the only thing that heals is love. As man grows toward this love, the healings take place. Often it seems to take action on our part to bring this things to pass.
In the mean time.......thank God for health.
Endure sickness by thanking God for healing and in faith, hope, and love.
Hope sees it already healed.
Faith seels it already healed.
Love always protects, always hopes, always trusts, always preserveres.
Some of these questions are what led me to become an atheist. There are plenty of others, but yours are some common ones that are unanswerable in any real sense. Still, I'll give the answers I can come up with just to help you see things from another perspective.
If God was here forever – where did he come from?
a) So, he was alone for umpteen gazillion years then decided to invent the earth. (?)
b) What was he doing before earth?
c) Wasn’t he bored?
As others have mentioned, theoretically "God" would have to exist outside of time. In fact, all of our existence is based upon the dimensions we know, and there is no observable supernatural activity taking place within any of the known dimensions. For any gods to exist within the framework of time, they would also be observable in the first three dimensions too.
If he knew Lucifer was going to “blow it” why did he create him?
Not only that, but if he knew Lucifer was going to blow it, and still created him, does that mean that "God" and not Lucifer is truly responsible for all the evil in the world? If I build a time bomb and it explodes, as the creator it is my fault, not the bomb's fault.
If God is a loving God why did he allow sickness and death?
a) If sickness comes from the devil – why doesn’t God protect us?
b) Is sickness from sin? If so, when we confess our sin, and ask for forgiveness, why are people still sick?
Tying back in with the last question, "God" would have had to create sickness and death as no other beings have the power of creation according to Christianity. Additionally, since there are many imperfections in the universe, including sickness and death, it would be strange for a perfect being to create that much imperfection.
If he KNEW Adam and Eve were going to muck it up, then why not bypass them, and invent “Jill and John” ?
Or if he truly were all-knowing, all-powerful, and living outside of time, why didn't he just get it right the first time with Adam and Eve?
One of the biggest questions that can't be answered that ties in to all of your questions is, if any gods exist, why would they create so many problems? If I were omnipresent and omniscient, I wouldn't allow my "children" to suffer. What kind of sick "God" allows children to be born with horrible diseases that will cause them to suffer in extreme pain and die within months or years of their birth? What kind of "God" allows people to be blown up by suicide bombers but survive, being mangled for life? What kind of a "God" makes people die, causing their loved ones to suffer?
There are no clear answers and you won't get them from anyone. You have to decide what you want to believe. For me, the path was simply to admit that I see no reason to believe in gods. For you, perhaps you have answers to these questions that satisfy you and you continue believing. It's really all up to you.
a) So, he was alone for umpteen gazillion years then decided to invent the earth. (?)
b) What was he doing before earth?
c) Wasn’t he bored
b) Question b: Spent eternity which is now past doing whatever he wanted to. Had to have created beings which were capable of rejecting him, because he wanted love and companionship, not robots or plastic individuals. Was it a hard choice? Certianly looks like it was, because before the foundation of the earth he knew it would cost him his life on tree.
If he knew Lucifer was going to “blow it” why did he create him?
He was called the perfection of beauty. I believe also the covering cherub. Meaning he had it all. There were two cherubs I believe, perhaps the other one was Michael the Archangel. Satan, wasnt satisfied with being beatuful and having power, he wanted it all and wanted to slay you know who. Why did God create someone like that? He wasnt created like that, he made up his mind to do what he did.
If God is a loving God why did he allow sickness and death?
a) If sickness comes from the devil – why doesn’t God protect us?
b) Is sickness from sin? If so, when we confess our sin, and ask for forgiveness, why are people still sick?
Sickness isnt ONLY from sin. See the man born blind. Death is a consequence of sin. Sometimes sin is also. God never wanted sin for anyone.
If he KNEW Adam and Eve were going to muck it up, then why not bypass them, and invent “Jill and John” ? ?
The Bible says that ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Not just Adam and Eve.
Dunno. I'll take a stab at some thoughts of my own here -
I think the issue of time - as I understand it, time is relative to matter and is a way of measuing existence. To me, in the here and now, time is constant, pretty much. But the measurement itself can be subjective and not consistent from one measurement to the next. Imagine a "long' afternoon somewhere doing something you really enjoy. The time on the clock might say it was 4 1/2 hours, but to you it's much longer, or even "timeless". That difference in awareness and experience produces a different measurement of time passed than say someone who checks the clock every hour. Still the seconds roll off, one after the other.
To step in and outside the blblical/"Christian" lingo for a sec -
Not knowing where God come from, His origins, could assume that God is an "it", an entity with some kind of boundaries that identify Him. In the bible God expresses Himself through actions, words, intentions. Those form a view of identity - God "speaks", "listens", "moves", "creates", "desires". So while I can't see Who's speaking or doing those things, I get the sense of who's there and an understanding of what they're like. Kind of like posting on GS - posters write words but are never seen. They're words form an image in the mind of the reader of who they are. Which....may or may not be exactly who they ere.
Still, I know "what" they are, they're another person of the same species. I hope.
With "God", we don't have that same assumption, in fact if we look at something like the bible we know he's not the same species. But He's drawn with some similarities in identity as us. We speak, listen, move, etc. We can't do all the things that God is written He does of course, but the manner in which God reaches out is in a way we can use.
So inside that there's a chicken/egg question - is God that way to begin with, or do we have something entirely different working in a way that is usable by us?
The bible talks about two hmmm...realms, worlds. Physical and spiritual. The physi side of things only seems to be aware of the spiritual, left to it's own devices. A human may look at the world around them and think any number of different things about their world and life and what it's all about. But the contact with anything spiritual, if there is anything, is elusive for many of us.
It appears to be that the one has to reach out to the other. The person prays and feels a "presence", gains understanding, seems to know what something means, feels "led". That line of pursuit may take clearer form and fashion, but may be different that someone else's, and both would vouch for the validity of their own experience. I think there's a reason for that.
Whatever the ways that a person's awareness comes into play it's not completely measurable by the same kind of tools we use for our own physical stuff. Which drives people buggy who would look at this topic and want that. It's like trying to make a fish be a fish by measuring it as a bird. The fish will come up short as the scales of measurement aren't the same. IOW, rather than looking at "God" and wanting God to be what I want Him to be, I think I have to accept that God is the way He is, something different, and add those differences as best they can be known into the mix rather than eliminating them because they don't fit with what I already know or want to assume.
I guess the short/long answer/postulation I've come up with is that God may or may not have been alone throughout what I'd call "eternity", I have no way of completely knowing what's going on in the spritual realm. But if He was, He was/is the only thing like Himself. He could always have "been", if time isn't the measurement of His existence. God's other creations that are "spiritual", that is of His own environment and products - like the "angels" and whatever else I don't know about now, probably don't function by the same rules as we do. This sort of makes God the center of everything, existence as we know it and can imagine it now. Everything else is a product of this one "God", everything. It isn't a perposterous proposition, at all.
I think you're barely scratching the surface when it comes to asking the hard "God" questions Dot.
But, those are a start.
The problem is that religion - despite what it's practitioners would have you believe, or even readily admit to themselves - is not primarily a logical pursuit, but rather an emotional one. Reason is not what's invoked to convert the unwashed heathen, but rather feelings, fears, longings, impressions, intuitions. Hence questions that could be handled in a logical manner - but call into question basic tenets of the faith - aren't answered openly and honestly but, almost universally get "spin-doctored" ( see your other two responses for example).
I could ask (and have) questions like "How can an all-loving, all powerful God allow a baby to die?" Or, "If God is so loving and all knowing, why did he set things up in such a way that He's have to kill off his own son to save mankind?" And such like, and mostly what I've gotten is stuff like "Well God would have to do it like that or He wouldn't be a just God" and other meaningless drivel.
I think if you really want to maintain a "Good, Christian lifestyle" you have to be willing to put reason and honest inquiry on a back burner - forever...
Aar
What do you lose if you follow the Christian lifestyle?
Atheism imho requires a lot more faith and trust in a series of blind luck than any faith system outside of LDS.
Nowhere in the Bible are we told to blindly follow God. He invites us to come and reason with him. For me Chrisitanity is a logical and reasoned faith.
Remember that God is outside of time. Time is part of the creation. Without matter and energy, time does not exist. So what was BEFORE creation cannot be thought of in terms of time. God just was, time didn't pass, eternity can't be measured.
The existence of evil in the face of a loving God can only be explained as a necessary entity for a greater good. Like two sides of a coin, both are necessary to make a distinction between the two. Could love be experienced without evil? Could God have done it a different way, perhaps, but we must trust that this is the best way. No pain no gain. To suffer the existence of evil now is necessary to realize the glorification later.
Jerry
Right on Jerry
For us to experience a loving, mericiful, forgiving God, there must be something out there opposite those qualities to allow us a chance to compare.
Re:"For me Chrisitanity is a logical and reasoned faith."
I would respectfully submit then, that you haven't really honestly considered it very deeply. I can think of numerous horrendously illogical and utterly unreasonable aspects of Christianity without even working up a sweat (a couple of 'em I mentioned already)...
Do you look at a painting you like and not also look to see who signed it? Do you look at a rainbow, a sunset, the stars on a velvet sky, and not look to see who painted these things? Perhaps there aren't answers for everything, but who said there was supposed to be?
We see through a glass darkly.
The way I see it, we have nothing to lose by believing in God and everything to gain. Vice versa on that. I'd rather err on the side that might make me a winner.
I shall say "I don't know" where applicable, and offer speculation and opinion
as it is relevant.
I lack any information from before "in the beginning", so I can't even make a guess
or a speculation.
It's often said God created so that He'd have someone to love, or to love Him back.
I think the answer to "why" is along these lines.
I don't think He was bored, but there's something like "lonely" that may apply.
Then again, I'm speculating crudely about a being wildly more intelligent than me
and transcendant, so my best guesses are the vaguest ones.
For myself, I have one answer to all those questions together.
It involves two concepts.
1) Free will. I believe God considers His gift to us of free will to be far more important than most
people ever consider. I saw a man illustrate this. He played a recording that said what a great
guy he was. However, it was MEANINGLESS because the thing had no FREE WILL.
It was programmed to say that and had NO CHOICE in the matter.
Does God want machines that are PROGRAMMED to claim to love Him?
I don't think so-even though the alternative is grossly inefficient.
Then again, I think any parent who's on speaking terms with their child can understand
the feelings of frustration and pride, and receive the love FROM that child.
2) TIME.
God operates on a scale that is inconceivable to the rest of us.
Decisions made in one decade (show Joseph visions of him ruling over his brothers)
have consequences decades later (Joseph saves Israel from the famine.)
Decisions made in one century (Daniel teaches the precursors to the Magi)
have consequences centuries later (their successors appear, give Joseph and Mary valuable
gifts just in time for Joseph to grab Mary and Jesus, then leave.
I see the allowing of suffering to be the result of 2 things.
A) God allows free-will decisions to have their results.
Poor drivers will hit things-and people.
B) In the long run, the sum of ALL the results will be what God wants.
I see that in how Joseph responded to everything that happened to him.
He said his brothers meant their actions for evil, but God meant their actions
for good.
My opinion, make of it what you will.
Back to enjoying my morning tea! Word Wolf, really, I was expecting so much more on this subject from you! I’m sure I remember all this being taught at the “Advanced” class! <_<
It’s obvious, that to find ALL the answers, some of you need to go back to your Way syllabuses, put on your name tags, and “Study” to show yourselves approved unto God...
Otherwise I don’t see any way of answering this rather ordinary existential question, other than moving to New York City!!
Hey WW, I appreciated your answers. I thought about the topic a lot these last couple days and realized that even though I don't have all the answers, I wouldn't feel right, comfortable in my skin, sane, if I didn't believe there was a God. Sometimes simplicity is the best answer....
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DrtyDzn
Remember that God is outside of time. Time is part of the creation. Without matter and energy, time does not exist. So what was BEFORE creation cannot be thought of in terms of time. God just was, time didn't pass, eternity can't be measured.
The existence of evil in the face of a loving God can only be explained as a necessary entity for a greater good. Like two sides of a coin, both are necessary to make a distinction between the two. Could love be experienced without evil? Could God have done it a different way, perhaps, but we must trust that this is the best way. No pain no gain. To suffer the existence of evil now is necessary to realize the glorification later.
Jerry
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Shifra
Dot,
I think you already know the answer, because you chose the perfect title to this thread: "The God Questions".
If anyone actually knew the answers to these questions, they would be God.
His thoughts are higher than ours, remember? And it's a good thing they are!
Love ya.
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George Aar
I think you're barely scratching the surface when it comes to asking the hard "God" questions Dot.
But, those are a start.
The problem is that religion - despite what it's practitioners would have you believe, or even readily admit to themselves - is not primarily a logical pursuit, but rather an emotional one. Reason is not what's invoked to convert the unwashed heathen, but rather feelings, fears, longings, impressions, intuitions. Hence questions that could be handled in a logical manner - but call into question basic tenets of the faith - aren't answered openly and honestly but, almost universally get "spin-doctored" ( see your other two responses for example).
I could ask (and have) questions like "How can an all-loving, all powerful God allow a baby to die?" Or, "If God is so loving and all knowing, why did he set things up in such a way that He's have to kill off his own son to save mankind?" And such like, and mostly what I've gotten is stuff like "Well God would have to do it like that or He wouldn't be a just God" and other meaningless drivel.
I think if you really want to maintain a "Good, Christian lifestyle" you have to be willing to put reason and honest inquiry on a back burner - forever...
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cman
Can't tell ya a thing...
Can't trust in man Jer 17
And a third was cast to the earth....
Cursed be the ground...dust shalt thou eat Of it all thy days
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground
Work that Garden Adam...and he walks out of it
Out of the Garden of God-a flaming sword turning every way
I baptize you with water but you will be baptized with fire
into the Garden of God the tree of life
As in Adam all die
you must die or no life
Give yourself away to have it return again
Even so in Christ shall all be made alive
He shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation...........
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Shifra
Mr. C-
I like that line of "Give yourself away to have it return again". Where did that come from?
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cman
From all the parables Shifra.
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Dot Matrix
These are the answers I give people. That living "in time" we have no concept "of a place or life without it"
The Adam and Eve thing, I tell people maybe God in his all-kowingness, knew that Adam and Eve where the best. John and Jill may have mucked up worse....
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cman
A place and people where everyone dies....hmmmmmm
yeah lets do it.
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Patrick and Sarah
As always what we believe to be true greatly impacts our state of being.
a) So, he was alone for umpteen gazillion years then decided to invent the earth. (?)
I beleive that Spirit is always creating. God is always Good. Creations of God are always good. As God is always creating so are we. Our Creative Spirit that is God in us is effected by our soul which has been influenced by all suggestion, and all exereinece of our life.
b) What was he doing before earth?
God is the God of NOW. Here and now is what matters. Here and now is where life is. There was never a time when God had nothing to do. God was always creating and is always present in the now..........just as we should live.
c) Wasn’t he bored?
Are you bored? You are like God.......in the now. God is always active in the now. In sleep we are not conscious of creation, yet it goes on.
If God is a loving God why did he allow sickness and death?
There is no death of Spirit. There is only death of the Body. Jesus healed the sick so there is in the will of God a way to heal sickness. This way of healing sickness has not changed since Jesus did His mighty deeds. The way of Healing is still with us. God allows man to experience less then prefection so that man can know perfection.
a) If sickness comes from the devil – why doesn’t God protect us?
There is no devil. There is just you and me and the rest of mankind who have belief in good and evil. As we drop the belief in good and evil, we start to see that we protect outselves by what we believe. Each soul is a creative medium on this earth and has potential to impact all others for good or for worse. As we take personal responsibility for this world we start to find answers for sickness. It took a long time for creative man to figure out the workings of the plegue, but in time with faith man did figure it out.
b) Is sickness from sin? If so, when we confess our sin, and ask for forgiveness, why are people still sick?
Sin is.........missing the mark. Error in belief, manifest by wrong action. Sickness can be healed with the "prayer of faith". To Jesus sickness MUST be healed with His word. His word was always lined up with the belief that it shall be done. We can attain this consciousness as well, but often just don't. The presence of Sickness does not negate the presence of healing. In reality the only thing that heals is love. As man grows toward this love, the healings take place. Often it seems to take action on our part to bring this things to pass.
In the mean time.......thank God for health.
Endure sickness by thanking God for healing and in faith, hope, and love.
Hope sees it already healed.
Faith seels it already healed.
Love always protects, always hopes, always trusts, always preserveres.
Just some stabs at it.
Peace,
Patrick
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Mister P-Mosh
Dot,
Some of these questions are what led me to become an atheist. There are plenty of others, but yours are some common ones that are unanswerable in any real sense. Still, I'll give the answers I can come up with just to help you see things from another perspective.
As others have mentioned, theoretically "God" would have to exist outside of time. In fact, all of our existence is based upon the dimensions we know, and there is no observable supernatural activity taking place within any of the known dimensions. For any gods to exist within the framework of time, they would also be observable in the first three dimensions too.
Not only that, but if he knew Lucifer was going to blow it, and still created him, does that mean that "God" and not Lucifer is truly responsible for all the evil in the world? If I build a time bomb and it explodes, as the creator it is my fault, not the bomb's fault.
Tying back in with the last question, "God" would have had to create sickness and death as no other beings have the power of creation according to Christianity. Additionally, since there are many imperfections in the universe, including sickness and death, it would be strange for a perfect being to create that much imperfection.
Or if he truly were all-knowing, all-powerful, and living outside of time, why didn't he just get it right the first time with Adam and Eve?
One of the biggest questions that can't be answered that ties in to all of your questions is, if any gods exist, why would they create so many problems? If I were omnipresent and omniscient, I wouldn't allow my "children" to suffer. What kind of sick "God" allows children to be born with horrible diseases that will cause them to suffer in extreme pain and die within months or years of their birth? What kind of "God" allows people to be blown up by suicide bombers but survive, being mangled for life? What kind of a "God" makes people die, causing their loved ones to suffer?
There are no clear answers and you won't get them from anyone. You have to decide what you want to believe. For me, the path was simply to admit that I see no reason to believe in gods. For you, perhaps you have answers to these questions that satisfy you and you continue believing. It's really all up to you.
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cman
Not knowing who god lucifer adam and eve are is a major problem for most.
The questions are valid, with a surface look at what the bible says.
Not that a surface look is not needed, but a place to start.
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sirguessalot
to add...and this may sting a bit
i have to agree that Dot has barely scratched the surface
...though even a scratch can be a lot
but i have to disagree that the road ends with merely rational logic
...although it certainly moves through rational logic
it seems that the God questions have already been answered so long ago
that we think that they have not been answered yet
...or go even further to say that they cannot be answered now..or any time soon
saints, sages, and other wise fools (such as abraham) have long ago answered the old questions
although new questions sure do keep coming
to restate what ive been restating here for years now...life is a journey of leaping from faith to faith to faith
and that space between rungs is always a challenge...and may even stop us cold for long periods of time
very very very basically, we move through the spectrum kinda like this...
- "God" is a magic wishgranter (self-centered)
- "God" is a shared myth (culture-centered)
- "God" is a rational logic (human-centered)
- "God" is a lover of all (life-centered)
- "God" is none of the above (spirit-centered)
- "God" is all of the above (non-dual)
- "God" is none of the above...again (mystery)
how we interpret our experience of the imperfection of life
how we interpret our experience of the suffering of life
how we interpret the characters of scriptures
how we interpret art and literature
is going to change with each movement
each movement is described as a new, necessary and profound inner humiliation
and each movement is best if it carries forward vital lessons of previous rungs
of course, this very simple map does not take into account the very unique ways we make this journey
where there are also radical horizontal differences possible at each step
for what its worth...if yer standing on the ledge of a pot that is leaking
its time to shatter the pottery and return to the potter's house
knowing those shards are always useful for new pottery
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sky4it
b) Question b: Spent eternity which is now past doing whatever he wanted to. Had to have created beings which were capable of rejecting him, because he wanted love and companionship, not robots or plastic individuals. Was it a hard choice? Certianly looks like it was, because before the foundation of the earth he knew it would cost him his life on tree.
He was called the perfection of beauty. I believe also the covering cherub. Meaning he had it all. There were two cherubs I believe, perhaps the other one was Michael the Archangel. Satan, wasnt satisfied with being beatuful and having power, he wanted it all and wanted to slay you know who. Why did God create someone like that? He wasnt created like that, he made up his mind to do what he did.
Sickness isnt ONLY from sin. See the man born blind. Death is a consequence of sin. Sometimes sin is also. God never wanted sin for anyone.
The Bible says that ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Not just Adam and Eve.
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cman
There is quite a few 'what ifs' not even considered.
Rather then the standard stories that are thrown about.
One can look at a few 'valid' approaches that are still easily entreated.
They are not that hard to find if one is free to look.
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cman
I think this is stated well Dot.
Which would include what is 'here' and what is 'forever'.
You also have 'where', which is a primer for sure.
Just breaking it down to a small chunk of your post.
Forever for instance, could only be now.
The past is not, neither is the future, but now is.
Now is forever, if you can follow that line of thought.
There is always now...forever....
Even if one was to think back or forward it would still be now.
So it kind of answers the question.
God comes from now.
Simplistic perhaps, but certainly more to ponder in it.
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socks
Dot,
"where did God come from?"
Dunno. I'll take a stab at some thoughts of my own here -
I think the issue of time - as I understand it, time is relative to matter and is a way of measuing existence. To me, in the here and now, time is constant, pretty much. But the measurement itself can be subjective and not consistent from one measurement to the next. Imagine a "long' afternoon somewhere doing something you really enjoy. The time on the clock might say it was 4 1/2 hours, but to you it's much longer, or even "timeless". That difference in awareness and experience produces a different measurement of time passed than say someone who checks the clock every hour. Still the seconds roll off, one after the other.
To step in and outside the blblical/"Christian" lingo for a sec -
Not knowing where God come from, His origins, could assume that God is an "it", an entity with some kind of boundaries that identify Him. In the bible God expresses Himself through actions, words, intentions. Those form a view of identity - God "speaks", "listens", "moves", "creates", "desires". So while I can't see Who's speaking or doing those things, I get the sense of who's there and an understanding of what they're like. Kind of like posting on GS - posters write words but are never seen. They're words form an image in the mind of the reader of who they are. Which....may or may not be exactly who they ere.
Still, I know "what" they are, they're another person of the same species. I hope.
With "God", we don't have that same assumption, in fact if we look at something like the bible we know he's not the same species. But He's drawn with some similarities in identity as us. We speak, listen, move, etc. We can't do all the things that God is written He does of course, but the manner in which God reaches out is in a way we can use.
So inside that there's a chicken/egg question - is God that way to begin with, or do we have something entirely different working in a way that is usable by us?
The bible talks about two hmmm...realms, worlds. Physical and spiritual. The physi side of things only seems to be aware of the spiritual, left to it's own devices. A human may look at the world around them and think any number of different things about their world and life and what it's all about. But the contact with anything spiritual, if there is anything, is elusive for many of us.
It appears to be that the one has to reach out to the other. The person prays and feels a "presence", gains understanding, seems to know what something means, feels "led". That line of pursuit may take clearer form and fashion, but may be different that someone else's, and both would vouch for the validity of their own experience. I think there's a reason for that.
Whatever the ways that a person's awareness comes into play it's not completely measurable by the same kind of tools we use for our own physical stuff. Which drives people buggy who would look at this topic and want that. It's like trying to make a fish be a fish by measuring it as a bird. The fish will come up short as the scales of measurement aren't the same. IOW, rather than looking at "God" and wanting God to be what I want Him to be, I think I have to accept that God is the way He is, something different, and add those differences as best they can be known into the mix rather than eliminating them because they don't fit with what I already know or want to assume.
I guess the short/long answer/postulation I've come up with is that God may or may not have been alone throughout what I'd call "eternity", I have no way of completely knowing what's going on in the spritual realm. But if He was, He was/is the only thing like Himself. He could always have "been", if time isn't the measurement of His existence. God's other creations that are "spiritual", that is of His own environment and products - like the "angels" and whatever else I don't know about now, probably don't function by the same rules as we do. This sort of makes God the center of everything, existence as we know it and can imagine it now. Everything else is a product of this one "God", everything. It isn't a perposterous proposition, at all.
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def59
Aar
What do you lose if you follow the Christian lifestyle?
Atheism imho requires a lot more faith and trust in a series of blind luck than any faith system outside of LDS.
Nowhere in the Bible are we told to blindly follow God. He invites us to come and reason with him. For me Chrisitanity is a logical and reasoned faith.
Right on Jerry
For us to experience a loving, mericiful, forgiving God, there must be something out there opposite those qualities to allow us a chance to compare.
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George Aar
Mr. Def,
Re:"For me Chrisitanity is a logical and reasoned faith."
I would respectfully submit then, that you haven't really honestly considered it very deeply. I can think of numerous horrendously illogical and utterly unreasonable aspects of Christianity without even working up a sweat (a couple of 'em I mentioned already)...
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irisheyes
Do you look at a painting you like and not also look to see who signed it? Do you look at a rainbow, a sunset, the stars on a velvet sky, and not look to see who painted these things? Perhaps there aren't answers for everything, but who said there was supposed to be?
We see through a glass darkly.
The way I see it, we have nothing to lose by believing in God and everything to gain. Vice versa on that. I'd rather err on the side that might make me a winner.
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George Aar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager
These are some well-worn arguments. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
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WordWolf
I'll offer my own attempts, humble as they are.
I shall say "I don't know" where applicable, and offer speculation and opinion
as it is relevant.
I lack any information from before "in the beginning", so I can't even make a guess
or a speculation.
It's often said God created so that He'd have someone to love, or to love Him back.
I think the answer to "why" is along these lines.
I don't think He was bored, but there's something like "lonely" that may apply.
Then again, I'm speculating crudely about a being wildly more intelligent than me
and transcendant, so my best guesses are the vaguest ones.
For myself, I have one answer to all those questions together.It involves two concepts.
1) Free will. I believe God considers His gift to us of free will to be far more important than most
people ever consider. I saw a man illustrate this. He played a recording that said what a great
guy he was. However, it was MEANINGLESS because the thing had no FREE WILL.
It was programmed to say that and had NO CHOICE in the matter.
Does God want machines that are PROGRAMMED to claim to love Him?
I don't think so-even though the alternative is grossly inefficient.
Then again, I think any parent who's on speaking terms with their child can understand
the feelings of frustration and pride, and receive the love FROM that child.
2) TIME.
God operates on a scale that is inconceivable to the rest of us.
Decisions made in one decade (show Joseph visions of him ruling over his brothers)
have consequences decades later (Joseph saves Israel from the famine.)
Decisions made in one century (Daniel teaches the precursors to the Magi)
have consequences centuries later (their successors appear, give Joseph and Mary valuable
gifts just in time for Joseph to grab Mary and Jesus, then leave.
I see the allowing of suffering to be the result of 2 things.
A) God allows free-will decisions to have their results.
Poor drivers will hit things-and people.
B) In the long run, the sum of ALL the results will be what God wants.
I see that in how Joseph responded to everything that happened to him.
He said his brothers meant their actions for evil, but God meant their actions
for good.
My opinion, make of it what you will.
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Bumpy
Back to enjoying my morning tea! Word Wolf, really, I was expecting so much more on this subject from you! I’m sure I remember all this being taught at the “Advanced” class! <_<
It’s obvious, that to find ALL the answers, some of you need to go back to your Way syllabuses, put on your name tags, and “Study” to show yourselves approved unto God...
Otherwise I don’t see any way of answering this rather ordinary existential question, other than moving to New York City!!
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cman
You can slap anyone you want with a christian label but that don't change nothing.
True it seems to have a bad rep these days, and rightfully so, with all the crap around.
If you want to get into deeper things of God then you have to be ready to go deeper.
Without fear of judgment or burning in hell and all these things that turn people away.
To see what this God is and why.
To know what are the things that believers do speak of in tongues of angels.
Does anyone think they can handle the Lord showing them?
Can one actually go with the Christ and see without fear?
Might want to tighten your shoelaces a bit and be sure you are with those that love you.
Cause once it really gets started you will not want to stop, but it will......
Can one let the Lord's will be done on earth even as it is in heaven?
Is it possible that when the Lord comes, he will show you?
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irisheyes
Hey WW, I appreciated your answers. I thought about the topic a lot these last couple days and realized that even though I don't have all the answers, I wouldn't feel right, comfortable in my skin, sane, if I didn't believe there was a God. Sometimes simplicity is the best answer....
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