What is a God?

[flobadob]

How would you define a God?

[naomi24]

Flobadob, If your question is asked in that context, do you mean that if extraterrestrials had ever visited earth in the past, people may have mistaken them for supernatural Gods? Is that what you're trying to get at?

[joggerjayne]

God is a being who allows the most ghastly, sickening tragedies and injustices to happen to those who are most innocent ...

... who creates injustice, pain, famine, disease, and hunger ...

... and yet somehow persuades quite a few prople to worship and adore him.

[naomi24]

Jayne, now you know it's only because loves and protects them all - and he's going to send them to hell if they don't. ;o)

[joggerjayne]

Oh, yes ... I keep forgetting, Naomi.

Boy, life is just one big bundle of fun with God, isn't it.

[naomi24]

Yep! He's a laugh a minute. What a guy!! No surprise everyone wants to be his friend. Err ... well maybe not quite everyone. ;o)

[flobadob]

Naomi, I suppose what I'm saying is, that according to creationism, God created humans, so if aliens showed up with the proof that they set our existence in motion in the past, does that make them our God, or would there be another God who created the aliens, who is also our God? I think I've lost the run of myself there.

[naomi24]

Flobadob. I know what you mean. If aliens showed up with proof that they set our existence in motion then those who believe in the God of Abraham would be in a bit of a hole, to put it mildly. Their religions would be proven wrong and would be no more. However, the appearance of extraterrestrials would not automatically preclude the possible existence of a genuine almighty creator of the universe, although it would have to be something other than, and rather different to, the nasty chap most believers around here choose to worship.

Actually your alien scenario is perfectly feasible - in fact I think that’s where the stories of all gods, including the Abrahamic god originated - but since we now understand that the wonders of science are not magic, I doubt we would consider extraterrestrials to be gods these days. However, with human beings being what they are, some may well make up fanciful stories about the real creator and take to worshipping him - even though, since he has no history, no one can possibly tell them he professes to love them, or that he will send them to hell for their misdemeanours. Some people just need religion.

Naomi sits back and waits for the howls of derision. :o)

[flobadob]

The thing is, the way science is moving at the minute, the way we have extracted DNA and apparently are able to clone animals, then why is it shocking to claim that perhaps an alien race were able to do this a few thousand years ago. Then furthermore to suggest that they experimented with it here. I'm not saying I believe it but it seems feasible.

[naomi24]

Flobadob, to anyone who really thinks about it, it seems feasible because it is feasible - except I would say that if it happened, it happened more than a few thousand years ago. :o)

[tweaker]

joggerjane keep on jogging, your time will come.............

[tweaker]

Naomi24
On the origins of the world, and the holy book of the great invisible spirit, plus others - let them be unknown, unless one seeks they will not find.

[naomi24]

How very enigmatic, Tweaker, but since you don't say what you've found and where you found it, it adds nothing to the discussion.

[tweaker]

Naomi24

Sorry, these I found in Nag Hammadi Codex XIII, and Coptic texts of NH III3-V.

I didn't mean to use your name as a header, I thought the 'jogger' was unsound considering if one reads Genesis - that God decides after the flood that the world is left up-to its own desire and faults.

[Rev Sermon]

If a scientist in a laboratory succeeded in creating life in a test tube would he not be "god" to that life?

I doubt that as a scientist he would want the life he'd created to worship him. Furthermore I suspect at the end of the experiment he would callously dispose of the life he'd created.

Just a few abstract thoughts on our much loved hypothetical friend.

[naomi24]

Tweaker, no problem, but I have to say Jayne has a valid point. If God created everything, then it follows he created human nature, and the misery that causes, and disease, and the suffering that causes. You can hardly claim that God left the world to its own desire and faults. He interfered incessantly, and even though he is long gone, people still allow him to control their lives.

Rev, //If a scientist in a laboratory succeeded in creating life in a test tube would he not be "god" to that life? //

Only if that life had no understanding of the way in which it was created.

[tweaker]

Morning Naomi,

I agree there are valid points in all posts, and this thread could without doubt go on for a very long time. But a point about human race - (and apart from no-one knows the answer to this) is that God did not not intend our world to end up how it is now. And I believe that in Genesis 7:1-4 on wards is why the flood came to wipe the earth of sin and clean it up. And from that point on - and this it is human to cause error - is that humans continued to sin hence, Lot took his own path and ended in Sodom and Gomorrah for example.

So, God has left us to face our own difficulties we created our own misery, disease, famine, greed etc... How we (as one) deal with life, well we'll find out on the day of judgement.

There is a better place than what we know now. A place of rest.

[bibblebub]

a god = an excuse for organised religion

organised religion = an excuse for hypocrisy and tyranny

[joggerjayne]

Children believe in the Tooth Fairy.

There in no evidence for her, except for the money under the pillow (for which there is a proper explanation).

Some grown ups believe in a supernatural divine creator.

Again, there is no evidence, other than things for which there is also a simple explanation.

But some people are happy to believe things without the need for any evidence whatsoever ...

... Italian juries, for example.

[tamborine]

God is in your mind therefore you are your god.

Blame yourself for life's good & bad if blame is apported.