Is There a God?
Answer: Yes.
That was easy, but it gives out nothing new on the subject. For the good stuff, let us go to the next question.
What is God?
There are a lot of different views on this subject and many of them are subjects of great ridicule from unbelievers. They will often poke fun by saying something like:
"You believe in the great Santa Claus (or man) in the sky."
"You believe in an angry old man on a throne who just barks out crazy commands as well as the talking snake in the Bible."
"Your God must hate us since he lets us all suffer so much with wars, hurricanes and disease."
Actually, the critics would have some justification in their attacks if God were really a being as believed by most. If He could just snap his fingers and make this world perfect, or speak the word and create world peace and end all suffering, then it does seem strange that He would allow so many innocent ones to suffer while others who are tyrants sleep peacefully at night in their luxurious mansions. It also seems strange that He would command Israel to kill the Canaanites, take their land and then punish gays, witches and rebel children with death.
Yet no matter how odd the actions of God are in the Bible or the sacred books of other religions, people still believe in a Higher Intelligence and see it as benevolent.
Perhaps if we just knew the mystery of this Being everything would just fall in place.
The resolution to this whole conundrum is found in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible which tells us:
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Gen 1:27
Humans are thus in the image of God, or projections, or more precisely reflections of Him. If we therefore want to understand God we must look at ourselves. If we are reflections in the image of God then this tells us that God is a lot like us.
When we create a thing, whether it be a car, a television or a computer program it is not perfect at first but has many flaws. But, over time our creations improve until they function almost flawlessly.
The same thing happens with God and his creations. The Universe started out as a disorganized mass and has now evolved into a creation of beauty as revealed by the Hubble Telescope. This earth started out as an inferno, far from perfect, but is now a beautiful planet. Humans have a history of being savages and killing their enemies for sport as many tribes did in Old Testament times, but are now learning to treat each other with respect, though they are still far from perfect.
Higher Intelligence, which we call God, has to work with humans through other humans. When one has a life-saving operation that saves his life, what does the patient say? He usually says, “Thank God!” But the one who saved his life was a reflection of God, a being who is one of the hands of God on the earth.
God is intelligence in matter and His body is the universe.
“There’s no such thing as intelligence in matter,” says the skeptic. Well, think again. I’m sure you consider yourself intelligent and you exist in a body composed in matter, do you not?
It is indeed an undeniable fact that intelligence does exist in matter and it is not that big of a leap to consider that larger bodies than humans also have intelligence dwelling in them.
But, contrary to popular belief about God, this Greater Intelligence is merely trying to bring his creations to perfection just as His reflections, or humans, are attempting to do with theirs. There are lots of problems to solve that manifest on the way.
Copyright by J J Dewey
NOTICE: Although posted here with permission of the author, I am not the originator of this content and should the originator eventually see fit to begin posting here, I will leave it to him.
I forgot to clarify my stance. Something created us and certainly it did not happen how the way we think it did. The definition of God as well as the perception of God are inconsistent with actual ongoing world events. The monotheist religious perception of God is the worst of all.
Conclusion: Something started our existence. All Gods may be creators but certainly not all creators are Gods. In terms of perception, it easy to come to realise that man created God, and not the other way around.
Thanks for clarifying. If you feel like it and have the time I would like you to consider and respond to my other reply to you below: https://steemit.com/metaphysics/@n1mr0d/is-there-a-god-what-is-god#@n1mr0d/re-cryptonfused-re-n1mr0d-re-cryptonfused-re-n1mr0d-re-cryptonfused-re-n1mr0d-re-cryptonfused-re-n1mr0d-is-there-a-god-what-is-god-20170902t183258231z
I'm a big fan of " Conversations with God " series of books.
I've never had a Deity but if I did would be just as explained by this Author.
Life is Good
Are you independently wealthy or how did you manage to escape to Panama?
I'm independently poor LOL. Well no, I now have a Panamanian wife to share that with :-)
I was just backpacking around Panama for the winter, First 2 months was at a Rainbow gathering then I was going to crew on a sailboat across the Pacific but got stalled out looking for land and fixing a sailboat that someone gave me, then meeting my to be wife etc...
Its been a struggle at times, no different than anywhere else but life is good :-)
Hmmm, I'm already married, so that avenue is probably out unless polygamy practiced there :-)
Getting married is not an easy in here, It's very scrutinized for obvious reasons.
Cost about $1,200 to become a resident when retired with guaranteed pension. And investor visas are pretty easy with 100K invested in a business with 3 employees.
This is an interesting piece but lacking analysis and thought. What i'm getting from this article is a certain concept of God from basic observation and an incooperation of some religious knowledge from one specific religion. Not good enough. This in a way states that God isn't perfect.
While this makes sense it contradicts with the bible's perception of God.
My thoughts: We could have been created by a super know-it-all being or by a series of events and not directly but indirectly. Some event or /spontaneous forces may have created the earth and slowly with the right conditions life slowly began to form. Eventually after many years,.......human beings!
you said: This in a way states that God isn't perfect.
I say: Yup
you said: While this makes sense it contradicts with the bible's perception of God.
I say: how so?
you said: We could have been created by a super know-it-all being or by a series of events and not directly but indirectly.
I say: Possibly, but are any of those as likely as that the underlying principle of the Universe is Intelligence?
God can intervene directly through miracles.
But thinking further about it, it does make sense as the bible/torah/koran are made up of rules and commands by God, even in times of war. Those commands (To Kill) were issued rather than God just doing it himself.
Well , in a way , we are part of the universe but intelligence may have been something developed from learning and repetition; not that it existed from the beginning but eitherway the possibilities are endless. This may be a bit off but I would want to hope that there is other life out there in the univ or maybe they have already died out and we (plants and animals) are the last surviving species.
I think I got it now. God is Energy, that is all there is to it, the entire universe, everything is Energy. But I'd call it something else rather than the already establised God.
How do you know god is "perfect and all knowing"? If god was perfect and all-knowing, why did he create imperfection?
Doesn't "learning and repetition" require intelligence?
I'm just going off the conception of God from Monotheist religions, and not of my own perception. In fact, I have no perception. God is a non factor and because we have free will, we can not be used by God. We either follow the teachings/commandments in the religious books which were all crafted from a men thoughts.-or we don't. So helping each other remains our choice.
I'm not sure really, but I don't consider learning through repetition intelligence. Intelligence should be the ability to solve a problem without trial and error. The ability from already acquired trials and errors. It may be stored in our genetic code from our past ancestors. They may have had to start from 0. (No intelligence). Or life could have started from 0 intelligence and develop through trial and error each time, then problem solving information get stored and passed on as we learn.
It has to start at -infinity (not living/unable to learn), to neutral (0) (simple instructions acquired but unable to process information) to
Living(+infinity)(able to adapt, process, analyse, store and reproduce information)
Ps: I just made this up. ;-)
Same here. Not only that their is no evidence but belief systems do not correspond at all with reality. It is highly flawed which is why doctrines relating to a belief system change over time.
Intellgence started from nothing , built from scratch, like a computer programmed to follow instruction and now have evolved (not on their own ofcourse) to self-learning.
They are the building block of intelligence ;-)
90% of Everything I said above is mostly theoretical and should not be taken as factual ;-)
If you and me talk about God, then we bouth form a church
Steemit church of God :-)