Still getting nowhere. It's an "impossible" question. It depends on "context." A "universal idea" unconnected with religion.

And yet, I have been told all my life that there are things that "god wants." There are things that god doesn't want -- or even hates (me, for example, according to quite a few Jews, Muslims, Christians and Hindus).

For most people in the world, (even it is not the sophisticated theologians anymore) there is an afterlife provided by god, and which is divided generally into reward and punishment streams.

I have been told that morality is impossible without god (which surprises me, since the idea of behaving correctly only out of fear strikes me as particularly ignoble). That implies that there are rules set out by god.

So let's ask a few simpler questions:

1. Is god a "being" that exists in this or any other reality?
2. Does god have intentions and purposes?
3. Does god make those intentions and purposes known? If so, how?
4. Does god expect and/or care about belief in him?

Those will be enough for now. Surely, they should be simple enough to answer.

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

I dont think so


I dont think in the way we understand things....there is a flow to the universe that takes place ...regardless if you believe it or not...or understand it or not.....

I dont know if you have ever taken some what i think would be harmless time and set some ideas in motion with true believing and when there not what we think they should look like trying to find a mind set that says it is okay...and not allowing thought to get to carried away with negative..and once you start to take situations that make you crazy from little things to big things...breath and see it or what ever ...take action if need be and just move on and try to keep your mind in redirect if it trys to get angry and feeling crazed by expectations not being what you think they should be...now i for one dont think any human has anything that another does not have...talking ability that we are born with...not stuff gained in life....now if you practice this with sincerity for a bit...if it does nothing for you...i would not think you have lost anything other then angry moments and more negative...and should you do this ...you may or may not i understand ....but if you try this ( perhaps you already have)...and then can look back and reflect over a period of time and see if there is not change...see if you dont feel different.....we look at things or peole or what ever with what we know and think....try to see things with out what you know...if you see someone that you have been told many things about ....we have a way of addressing them in a certain manner...we have flags up or down according to what we think we know...when we learn to treat others just as if each time were meeting them for the first time...that alone would bring great change...but what happens the negative rears its head...and people are sure some should not be treated good..that they should be treated according to there rights or wrongs....why???....i know..i know...derailed again..okay...next..


for me..i ...thinking....i do think yes...by natural consequence...


I think not...not passed the utmost respect we should all hold for all..........

Yes.
Yes.
Yes...but not in the form of a singing telegram.
No.

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Grassaf, Eolas

...the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For me, Jesus is the key to knowing God. As he told his disciples "The one who has seen me has seen the Father."

Have you seen him?....if so please share your experience....

I have been saved more then once by ...well...what i know as God for me..who i think is the God for all.....

Yes, I have seen him in the lives of his followers who most closely pattern their lives on the person described in the NT. Their names would mean nothing to you for they are personal acquaintances of mine and those I count as mentors.

this i think is where we run into trouble..we try to use this time where we are to understand how a message or lesson...or need or a whatever it might be...what seems simple or un sensible....is not un doable ...is it...is not most of where we are today ...un-doable from years ago...would not most of those in history not be in awe of what is here today....my goodness there are things in most our short life times that had someone told us it would be doable we would have gulfed and said what ever....yet look out there in this world where we are...so you might listen careful to a singing telegram...it might just be a clue for you... ...you know i think we miss most of them...you look back over your life...do you not see simple things that we missed...had we not been headed 90 on the high way...one might have seen the stop sign they went through.....true...my silly ramblings are i am in the mood to talk.....and i am not saying i am not saying a singing telegram has some kinda answer..just..that i for one would rule nothing out...nothing..nothing..nothing do i think for a minute is as we think we know it..it is but a life of growth ever changing with all possibilities...my brother designed one of the first GPS systems...he designs x-rays...i am telling you..any and all is possible...

you said yes to God being a being...what kind of being...is there a look..something graspable...what could you say about your God that would wow someone....and understand..i dont think anyone needs to wow anyone nor prove any God...i am just asking for converstation for shareing of opinions...for i know of no one with what would be scientific proof of a God...we all have what we have and how we see it is just individual....

to pull a EH here...you skirted the answer...i would have thought that particular answer would have been...yes i have....or no..i have not...

but i relate to your answer....and can claim the sighting myself in this aspect....

Actually, behaving correctly out of fear, would, according to Jewish and Christian theology, be useless. So is behaving correctly out of hope of reward.

At Easter Vigil tonight we read the passage from Ezekiel where he speaks of God taking away our hearts of stone and giving us hearts of flesh, so "so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them." Jeremiah speaks similarly of the law of God being written, not on stone but on our hearts. In the New Testament, Paul speaks of goodness as a fruit of the Spirit.

All ways of saying that if right behaviour does not flow out of your very being, out of who you are, it means nothing in terms of a right relationship with God. God's rewards are for those who do right because it is right, not out of a selfish desire to gain reward or evade punishment.


God is Being.

Yes

Yes. Mostly through people. Or through the hard facts of reality.

Depends on the meaning given to "belief". It may be more important to commit oneself to living as if God existed than to be sure that God exists.

I think that God exists in some reality

Yes, God has intentions and purposes

Yes, God makes them known, to those who need to know them.

I don't know if it really matters if you believe or not. If God wants something, it will be done.

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"Philosophy is a walk on a slippery rock
Religion is a smile on a dog."