Serious Questions About God
There are many religions on this planet and many of their believers strongly trust that their particular creed is the one and only true faith. As far as I understand it, they all (or at least the vast majority) seem to believe that there is only one God. Setting aside the issue of how many different ways there are of worshipping this singularity, there are a lot of God related questions which always seem to go unanswered. This article is a serious and sincere attempt to outline some outstanding unanswered questions about God.
1. God appears to be unique, one of a kind, a genuine singularity, but is there really only one?
2. If, as all the current religious writings seem to say, there is only one entity of this omnipotent genre, it lives alone. Sure, it has all of us, and possibly all the known universe, its creations, to care for, but is s/he lonely?
3. One of the problems doubters have is the absence of any physical manifestation. Let's face it, if God turned up in all their terrifying glory, it would instantly squash all questions of existence. If God is alone and possibly lonely, why doesn't s/he hang out more?
4. On the other hand, perhaps God is not alone, but one of a whole species or race of beings simply way more advanced and evolved than we are. If there are more, where are they? And what are they doing?
5. If God is actually a physical being, s/he must actually be somewhere, even if they are omnipresent and all-knowing. Where is God physically located?
6. As far as we can tell, with our limited understanding, all living things need regular inputs of fuel, what we call food. Does this universal rule also apply to God? And if so, what does s/he eat?
7. As a follow on question, all living things also produce byproducts of the refueling process. If God eats, do they also have waste products and what does s/he do with them?
8. Similarly, all energetic systems produce heat as another byproduct of existence. If s/he consumes, why can't we detect a heat signature?
9. And whilst pondering these issues, there seems to be certain universal laws of nature. Does God also obey the laws of nature?
10. I, for one, would prefer a universe with active gods that one could call upon for guidance and support - and not only because it would completely change the mostly predictable world in which we live. Does God's infinite patience and indulgence of us, its creations according to dogma, go to such lengths that if it came to it, s/he would actually allow us to blow ourselves out of existence through the development of ever more terrible weapons?
PLEASE NOTE: This is intended as a serious attempt to have a focussed and intelligent dialogue about the nature of God. It is meant respectfully and not as an attempt to be provocative and/or offensive to anybody's beliefs. Please respond in a similar spirit and resist the impulse to attack a simple enquiring mind.
This article is also cross-posted here on BlogCritics.
posted by alienboy @ 11:07
12 comments
12 Comments:
For whatever reason, I came across your blog and felt that I have had many of the same questions that you have had and feel that I have decent answers to 8 out of 10 of the questions you posed. I would be glad to discuss them with you in more detail if you are seriously interested.
1. God appears to be unique, one of a kind, a genuine singularity, but is there really only one?
ANWER: Yes, there is only one God as far as we are concerned (Our Father in Heaven) but there are many exalted beings who possess His same omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, and can be considered as Gods, but they are not "our" God. Our God, was once as a man, and we too have the potential to become like God, (not in this life, but after we die, are resurrected, and continue to progress over what may take thousands of years).
2. If, as all the current religious writings seem to say, there is only one entity of this omnipotent genre, it lives alone. Sure, it has all of us, and possibly all the known universe, its creations, to care for, but is s/he lonely?
ANSER: He does not live alone, he lives with all those who also share in his exalted state and he is able to visit all those who don't share his exalted state. He has a wife, who is also perfected, yet we do not worship her. His work and glory is to bring to pass the eternal life and immortality of his children (us people on earth). Just as a father, I wish for my children to grow up and be happy, our Heavenly Father works for the same thing and has provided for us a path to return to live with him.
3. One of the problems doubters have is the absence of any physical manifestation. Let's face it, if God turned up in all their terrifying glory, it would instantly squash all questions of existence. If God is alone and possibly lonely, why doesn't s/he hang out more?
ANSWER: The plan/path that he has laid out for us to be able to return to his presence requires us to live on this earth by faith. In this life, we are in a probationary state without direct revelation (God showing himself to each of us) of his existence to each one of us, we are required to search, inquire, and live in such a way that we learn of his existence through the power of the Holy Ghost. He separates his physical self from us because the glory of his body would disintegrate our mortal bodies without our bodies going under special preparation. If he showed himself to the world now, people would no longer be required to live by faith, they would have a sure knowledge, and our ability to continue to be tested as to our faithfulness would be hindered. His plan which places us in a probationary state where we do not have a sure knowledge of his existence would be thwarted.
4. On the other hand, perhaps God is not alone, but one of a whole species or race of beings simply way more advanced and evolved than we are. If there are more, where are they? And what are they doing?
ANSWER: He is not alone, he is with a race of exalted Human Beings who are more advanced and evolved that we are in our current condition. God's physical presence is located close to the star Kolob as revealed by his prophets. Prophets are special witnesses who God chooses. He speaks with these witnesses and then charges them to teach his other children on earth about him. This has always been his pattern for speaking and leading his children. We do not know where Kolob is in our current universe/Galaxy as it has not yet been revealed but it is in a definite place in our Universe.
5. If God is actually a physical being, s/he must actually be somewhere, even if they are omnipresent and all-knowing. Where is God physically located?
ANSWER: Answered in the questions above. Someday we will learn exactly where Kolob along with the Physical location of God is located. God has created more than just this earth. He has created other worlds (planets) without number where he also has his children.
6. As far as we can tell, with our limited understanding, all living things need regular inputs of fuel, what we call food. Does this universal rule also apply to God? And if so, what does s/he eat?
ANSWER: Heavenly father can eat but does not require food to survive. Jesus Christ, his son, demonstrated this ability when he returned to the earth after his resurrection (in which he received an immortal, godlike perfect body, of flesh and bone, not flesh and blood) and ate fish with his disciples on the road to Amaeus as written in the New Testament.
7. As a follow on question, all living things also produce by-products of the refueling process. If God eats, do they also have waste products and what does s/he do with them?
ANSWER: I assume this would be possible but have no information to answer this question.
8. Similarly, all energetic systems produce heat as another by-product of existence. If s/he consumes, why can't we detect a heat signature?
ANSWER: This makes sense but I do not have an answer to this question.
9. And whilst pondering these issues, there seems to be certain universal laws of nature. Does God also obey the laws of nature?
ANSWER: Yes, God obeys the universal laws of nature and he understands them better than we do so his ability to do things within their framework surpasses our understanding. Whether or not he made the laws or not, I do not know.
10. I, for one, would prefer a universe with active gods that one could call upon for guidance and support - and not only because it would completely change the mostly predictable world in which we live. Does God's infinite patience and indulgence of us, its creations according to dogma, go to such lengths that if it came to it, s/he would actually allow us to blow ourselves out of existence through the development of ever more terrible weapons?
ANSWER: We can call upon him for guidance and he will answer us. Understanding the true nature of God is one of the most important things we can do in this life. I have received assurance through the power of the holy ghost and prayer that the things I have shared with you are true.
God has given agency to his children, and as part of the desire to allow us to walk the path of faith, he interferes with the agency he has given us only rarely. He allows men such as Hitler, to come into the world and lead his children astray without intervening. He does promise appropriate judgement justice for these individuals in the next life.
In certain instances, he does choose to intervene to keep his plan on progress. I imagine, he would intervene if a weapon of enough mass destruction to wipe every living being off the planet were triggered. This is just speculation on my part, but I do know that his prophesied plan will go forward and so the complete destruction of our planet would thwart the ability for his plan to be executed and this would then make him a liar, which if it were true, would mean that he would not be God. Therefore, intervention is likely.
Firstly, apologies for not posting sooner, some real world stuff had to be taken care of.
It wsn't all bad cos I needed a bit of time to absorb your long comments. I must admit to being a bit taken aback.
Here's me trying to get my head round the already difficult subject of God, and now there's all this other stuff to consider.
I must confess to having an instinctive hard time with some of the ideas laid out here but, as always, and as you have reassuringly done several times in their writing, I will always follow the evidence. Please feel free to flesh out these ideas if you don't mind.
Actually, I have dumped a large amount of information on you so I am not surprised that you are haveing challenges digesting it. The evidence you seek to follow will be difficult to pinpoint as ultimately your belief in God and and understanding of his nature is something that one can't prove.
As I stated above, God wants his children to undertand his intentions regarding them and has chosen a to share these intentions with us. The way he has always used since the beginning, has been by choosing special witnesses/represenatives called prophets, (Abraham, Moses,John the Baptist, Buddah? Confusius?). These prophets have direct interaction with God, unlike the rest of us, and they teach us about God's plan. The way that we can know whether or not the words of the prophets are true or not is through the power of the holy ghost. The Holy Ghost will personally manifest to us when we are hearing truth so that we can know of its veracity. Heavenly Father did not stop calling Prophets with the death of the Apostles. He has a modern Prophet on the earth today who provides us guidance from God that is specific to our day, just as ancient prophets did for the people of their time.
Most everything I shared with you regarding the nature of God in the above post was revealed to us in modern times through prophets who have actually conversed with God. These Prophets have seen Heavenly Father, and his Resurrected and Perfected Son, Jesus Christ, both heavenly beings, glorified, having bodies like you and me but perfected, with white hair, and white beards. When Heavenly father revealed himself to the modern prophets in our day, he explained that most people have lost their concept of God and do not understand his true nature. He has revealed many truths to us beyond what can be found in the Bible.
The evidence you have is that you can examine the teachings/writings of these modern day prophets, and you can examine it along with the teachings of all the previoius prophets who have been consistent for thousands of years in teaching us about Heavenly Father. With all these eyewitnesses, you can begin to increase your own faith in God and find out whether or not the things I have written are true.
Let me know if you want to know more. B
Thanks B,
Without wanting to disrespect your sincere belief, I do find this all rather difficult to accept.
I wanted to try and establish some kind of consensus as to what type of being a "god" might be, to add some clarity to what is often ignored or confused in our current thinking on the topic.
Your input, whilst illuminating, is really not helping the original thrust of my curiosity and the claims you make are simply unsubstantiated. I thank you for them but would prefer to focus on my original line of enquiry...
Thank you for your willingness to consider my assertions. In terms of a desire to establish a "concensus" regarding the nature of god, I would have thought that rather than believing that what the majority can agree upon as being helpful, one may consider that the majority may be far from an having an accurate understanding and you would look better to examine the what the direct sources (witnesses) have said about God. B
I agree with what you say about the majority knowledge/views but I have never encountered a credible direct source.
I am sorry for the unrelated comment, but I just wanted to pop over to "your territory" and say thanks for the comment and encouragement on my first article at Blogcritics. :)
Hi Nukapai,
Thanks for visiting and welcome to the weird world of the alienboy.
What are you doing in London?
Fun stuff Christopher! Ow, my brain! Keep up the great work.
Bennett
Hey Bennett,
Thanks for stopping by. Some stuff here, like this thing, was written for BlogCritics and cross-posted here.
Other stuff is and will be about what this blog is trying to be but what with BlogCritics,
About Manchester United and All I Ate Today, I'm struggling to find time to do my actual work! Damn internet!
I think a distinction needs to be made between the ways in which different religions handle the issue of exclusivity.
One one side of the map (we'll place Judaism, Christianity, and Islam here), the religions make an exclusive claim -- that their particular vision of God is the correct one.
On the other side of the map (Buddhism and Hinduism), there is a basic monotheistic idea (yes, Hinduism is basically monotheistic despite all those representations of God, and there are a lot of them), but there is no claim that everyone else is wrong. Depending on the branch of Buddhism, Buddha himself may be an enlightened mortal or something else, and God may be simply within yourself (or perhaps it would be more accurate from the Buddhist perspective to say that we are all one with God and do not really exist outside of him). The Hindus worship the various deities side by side without any sense that one group is right and the other is wrong, and they tend to extend this view to other religions as well.
The Judaic, Christian, and Islamic visions of God are perhaps the easier ones for the Western mind to grasp. The Buddhist and Hindu visions are a bit trickier for us to get a handle on.
Another piece of this is the idea of duality. Whereas the Judeo-Christian-Islam vision of things sees a heaven and a hell, God and satan, the Hindu and Buddhist visions don't split things out quite like that.
Finally, there is the idea in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic vision that life is a one-shot proposition followed by some form of eternity, whereas the Buddhist and Hindu visions see things more in cycles.
you've answered your own questions before you even ask them .. " God appears to be unique, one of a kind, a genuine singularity" .. all the questions that you've asked describes a human and not a God .. where is the uniqueness in having mortal properties .. does eating, hanging out, feeling lonely or having a physical location makes a God? if it does, then we're all Gods!!!
" On the other hand, perhaps God is not alone, but one of a whole species or race of beings simply way more advanced and evolved than we are." .... Hello.. you said he's one of a kind, that's really the answer!
"Does this universal rule also apply to God?". Rules are made for us who lack the perfection. Rules puts us on the right way to living in this world and help building it. If God is so perfect that he created a fascinating life with living creatures and all these stuff, then why would he need to obey the rules that he made himself for un perfect life?
i didn't completely understand your last questions.. so =S..
anyway, i hape i succeded in clearing what i wanted to say.. thank you
Post a Comment
<< Home