“God Is Whatever You Want It To Be”
To find out how other Ticklers and readers responded to these questions click here. If you would like to take this interview as well, mail us your answers at interview@tickledbylife.com. (we will publish only the best responses)
What is God?
Andre: I agree with Gabrielle Teare. God is whatever you want It to be. It is the controlling force of your life. Atheists believe God is their own mind.The religious people believe that God is as an external controlling entity that has control over their minds. Agnostics, well they are not sure. Religious people unfortunately each create their own God who is (most of the time) not compatible with another person’s god, even in the same religion. I myself subscribe to rationalism.
God or the Big Bang (or both)?
Andre: Well I don’t belief in creationism as it is too much a fairy story. The Big Bang is probable. There is another theory: the Flux Theory which postulates that the universe keeps getting created and destroyed over and over. Another interesting theory I recently read about in Calculating God by R J Sawyer is that God may have been created every time the universe gets created. So He first tries to sort himself out and then tries to put order into things but may also make mistakes. He might even have different choices each time; for example He can get something to change in the universe that does great good but it comes with side effects like a disease or environmental destruction. Interesting theory but it is as all the things mentioned in response to the question – just a theory. Also don’t forget the parallel universes theory. I do think as soon as we get to understand quantum physics we might get closer to the truth though.
God or Darwin (or both)?
Andre: Darwin seems more rational. We still need a lot more proof though. But I’d rather teach my kids something more rational than creationism.
God or Darfur ? (How can Darfur happen if there is God?)
Andre: Pain and injustice have been a reality with us from day one. Until man can stop his ignorance and self-righteousness we will have to be content to dwell in our own misery forever. Unfortunately the people who need to realize it won’t do so.
Who is God’s God?
Andre: It is a circular reference …. well for me there is no proven God. So if I can’t prove the first one I can’t even begin to theorize further. But interestingly enough I have observed too that most things in life follow a cycle including animals, plants, the planets etc. This makes me think that existence must be cyclical too. It is only human beings who see everything to have a beginning and an end; maybe we are finite-focused and not able to understand anything else ?
Will the real God please stand up? (Why do we have so many religions?)
Andre: Again, I agree with Gabrielle. Even existing cults/religions keep splitting up. There is no proven God.
Is this just a big lab and are we just guinea pigs and God just a researcher?
Andre: Interesting theory but once again just a theory, with no proof. One can theorize the same thing about aliens – and – it is not even so far fetched if you start reading the ancient Sumerian scripts as Zecharia Sitchin has done. The gods of the ancients may have been aliens, but still no proof except strange scriptures.
Unexplained phenomena = God?
Andre: Nope we just don’t yet have the ability to understand our surroundings. If you look, for example, at the way animals and insects observe the world, you would know that they see the world completely different than humans. This changes how they react to things in life and how they understand it. I believe the same is true for us as humans, that is why science is so important – it is the only way we will be able to find out what we can’t see with our normal senses and begin to understand it.
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God is! And that is all we meager humans need to know. Anything else is self righteous pursuit for knowledge and understanding. As we gain knowledge we gain the mentality that we can know all. Wisdom is understanding what you know and accepting divinity. Don’t take the stand of, “If I don’t understand it than it can’t be” – or – “Only what I understand can be”.
When we say God is anything we want him to be, we do nothing but chop the magnitude of God off at the knees (in our own minds, of course). If we accept this then nothing is god.
When we say creationism is a fairy tale or just too farfetched we again elevate ourselves to a level where we have a right or capacity to know and understand how the universe was created. Let your kids learn the truth, regardless of how the world will treat them. Popular belief is not the definition of truth. Don’t be the person that has to have all the answers.
We are taught at an early age that for a ball to roll, it needs to be acted upon. We are also taught that the universe was created by a spontaneous big bang. Connect the dots, they can’t both be true.
If the flux theory is true, we see God’s creation over and over, not the absence of God’s power.
The question about Darfur… God has given mankind freewill. Mankind has chosen sin which is contagious and effects those around us. Hideous sin results in Darfur.
True that many religions explain God differently. What a great deception the devil has created. The ability to choose religions does not in itself legitimize all choices. There is only one God and he has sent his Son to die for us. This is the one only way to heaven. This is not an exclusive structure but inclusive, as it is available for every human.
god is not an hypothesis. the existence or nonexistence of god per se cannot be shown to have any consequence either way. it is a meaningless speculation whose answer in any way bears no consequence of any kind. incidentally, hypothesized god documents pretty much say so much the same thing in that god documents virtually universally are concerned with interpersonal action within community, and between community and the world around us. it’s not what we say about god, but what we do for each other and the livability of the society we create around us, and the integrity with which we maintain self in community.
Subhan Allah,
I will write (almost) what Nagas has said 14 centuries ago: “the only difference between you and us is this thin line”. I do not agree with the title or the contents of this artile, I agree with Glenn’s response more than 90%.
There is only One God that exist, we refer to Him depending on what we believe to be true. We Muslims believe we have same God as Christians and Jews, with very slight differences. In Arabic He is referred to as “Allah”. In Torrah he often address “Elohim”, in Bible Jesus called upon him “Ellai!” (pardon the spelling) and In Arabic we have words similar to both “Allahuma” and “Elahi”.
If we ignore the few differences, We believe in that The God is Almight, has power over all, living and dead, bodies with spirits or without spirites, heavens and earth, good and evil, day and night. He is just, merciful, gets angry when disobeyed, shows pleasure and forgiveness when we repent etc etc. He created everything and “Be and it is!” enough for him. He is all-wise and knows everything, even controls times. We cannot get to a level to understand Him fully, yet we are not forbidden to try to seek Him. Although He cannot be comprehended completely thats where the belief comes in, there are lots of things we cannot understand in life but we accept and belief in those.
When you consider that God is doing a trial and error thing by creating universes again and again. You are questioning God’s ability to the right things. We believe He is perfect and does not make any error, everything is in His knowledge, from the beginning of times to the end of it.
We believe in rewards and punishment, paradise and hell. I am not going to take sides that Muslims are the only ones going to heaven and no other religion and “others” are wrong etc. Because thats a completely seperate issue, as far as God is concerned, He does not even need our acknowledgement, approval or understand; we need it for ourselves to understand and know. Once you know God and realize how important He is in your life, then you will be guided.
Once Moses asked God, what if all your creation disobeyed you, God said: “I will order one of my cattle (animal) to eat and finish this whole universe in one bite”. Moses then asked: “Where is such a huge animal” God said: “It is grazing in one of my meadows with other like it”. Moses then asked where are those meadows, God replied it only for Me to know.
Mind is not sufficient to understand God or His existance, it needs belief and proper guidance to comprehend what God is.
The existence of God can be shown to those who seek him.
The interpersonal actions with community and what we do for each other to make the world a better place is what God desires. “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Pray for your enemies”. But that has nothing to do with eternal salvation. He says our work are filthy rags, without love. Having the love of God in us will by default result in helping our neighbors whether we like them or not and making the world an even better place. It cannot happen without God. We see daily the results in our society of removing God from our lives. Removing God from our federal buildings and schools only breeds the ever increasingly Godless nation we live in today. How’s that working for us? divorce rates are up, criminal violence is up, drug usage it up, pornography and sexual immorality are up, poverty is up, greed and corruption are up… I don’t see the society of Godless people really working to make this a better place. This is because the desire to serve God is replaced with serving self. Serving others to serve self is far different than serving others to honor God.