[mkirkpatrick]

Originally Posted by Robert

The question of whether the God/Goddess is male/female seems to not apply since male/female is likely a property of the brain. Assuming we have non-physical bodies (e.g. spirit/astral body/mind), our non-physical body would merge with our human host and only then become male or female. Our true selves, our spirit (if it exists) would be gender neutral so God (if he/she exists) would be gender neutral also. To want God to be male or want God to be female seems to be a psychological issue. God must be neutral should he not? Sorry about the 'he' reference. One problem is that English does not have a good gender-neutral reference, and 'it' certainly seems inappropriate. Buddism suggests that we reincarnate in multiple bodies, both male and female, for the purpose of experiencing life from different perspectives. But this is getting off track...

Why a God? I think the idea of God is hard-wired into us where the strength of it's influence on us can be plotted in a bell-curve distribution. I'm not quite sure why this would have evolved in us, but it must increase our survivability somehow.

Well said Robert,I agree entirely,take an extra weeks vacation on me!
kind regards michael.

[harmonygirl]

Absolutely agree Robert. Certainly the creator would not limit herself to a gender. I refer to Goddess, as I have explained in other threads because this is how I experience the divine and also to counter the almost universal (and seemingly unquestioned!) reference to her as male. I think that there must have been something written on this point, the ability to identify with the divine along gender lines must have some impact on us....
As to your point that it may simply be hardwiring of our brain, could be, I think there are many psychological and sociological reasons for the acknowledgment of the existence of the Goddess, but for me it comes back to the question: Where did it all come from?

[Tesla]

Hey guys! Check out my why? post and give some feedback. But before you do that, chew on this!

A HELP IN UNDERSTANDING WHAT GOD IS
To help the reader comprehend the nature of God, I would like to borrow an analogy from the book Flatland by Edwin Abbott.1 Abbott was a mathematician and the model is geometric in nature. It was originally written in the 19th century for the purposes we are using it for here. Flatland is the story of a man who lives in a two dimensional world--like a sheet of paper. In the surface of the paper there is only length and width-there is no such thing as thickness. You and I are three-dimensional beings-we have length and width and frequently considerable thickness. You cannot get me, a three-dimensional being, into a two-dimensional sheet of paper. You can draw a front view of me (a portrait), but that is not the whole me. You can draw a top view of me which because I am bald, ends up being three concentric circles, but that is not the whole me. If you and I were to look at the man in Flatland, we would see him as a profile (see figure 1). He would be outlined but have no thickness.

Figure 1: The man in Flatland.
One day the man in Flatland is visited by a sphere. The sphere is a three-dimensional object just as we are, and it just so happens that it crosses Flatland right in the man's living room. Now if you will think about that for a moment, you will realize that for the man in Flatland a rather incredible thing has happened. A dot appears on the man's floor with no cause that the man in Flatland can understand. A dot in Flatland is matter! In figure 1, the man, himself, is made up of a series of dots. Just as a tennis ball dipped in paint and touched to a sheet of paper would produce a dot on the paper, so too has our dot which the man in Flatland calls matter appeared out of nothing (see figure 2). As the man in Flatland watches, the dot becomes a circle which continuously grows in size (see figure 3). You will see if a plane truncates (or slices) a sphere, it will produce a circle; and the deeper the sphere sinks into the plane, the larger the circle will become.

Figure 2: A sphere tangent to a plane produces a dot on the plane. The man in Flatland sees only the dot.

Figure 3: A plane truncating a sphere. The man in Flatland sees a circle.
The circle becomes so large it is about to fill the living room of the man in Flatland. He is terrified because he does not understand what is happening. All of the laws of science which state that matter cannot be created nor destroyed are being violated. What he sees is for him a true miracle. Just as he is about to run in panic from the room, the sphere reaches its equator, passes its equator, and gradually sinks out of the plane. So what happens to the circle in Flatland? It begins to shrink, and it becomes smaller and smaller until finally it is just a dot on his floor and then it is gone! Another violation of the laws of science! Matter cannot be destroyed and yet the man in Flatland has seen it happen. The man in Flatland is being confronted with miraculous and ghost-like events which violates his science and his common sense.
Let us suppose now that the man in Flatland begins talking to the sphere, and he says to the sphere: "What is it like to be a sphere? The sphere says, "I'll tell you what it's like; draw a circle on your floor." This is not easy for the man in Flatland to do. His perception of a circle is a constantly curving line that returns to its origin, but he cannot see all of the circle at once. He can only see the side of the circle facing him. The only way he could see a whole circle would be to be inside the circle, and if he got inside he could never get out. People in Flatland commit suicide by drawing circles around themselves that they can never get out of. Because of this it takes along time for him to draw the circle. The sphere is most impatient with all this because he could have done it instantly. Finally the circle is completed and the sphere says, "Now what I want you to do is to rotate the circle! What he has in mind is that the man in Flatland will rotate the circle about its diameter producing a sphere, but what the man in Flatland does is to rotate the circle about its circumference, spinning it like a record on a record player. "No, no--rotate it the third way,' says the sphere. "There is no third way you fool," cries out the man in Flatland, and for him this is true. There is no third way, no up and down in a thickness direction, and absolutely no way for him to comprehend what the sphere is talking about or what the sphere is. The only thing that he can understand is the world or dimension in which he lives.
Now the reason that I have told you this little story is to give you a foundation by which you can understand God. When you read, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Genesis 1:1), you are reading a description analogous to Flatland. The concept is that, a God, who is in a higher dimension than are we, a God who has the same kind of relationship to us which the sphere had to Flatland, that, this kind of being touched our little "Flatland," so to speak, and in violation of all of our laws of science created matter out of nothing. God is so superior to us, he exists in such a higher dimension than do we that what is natural and ordinary to him is miraculous to us. The Bible recognizes this concept and uses it in every single description of God.

1.Edwin Abbott, Flatland, (Dover Pub. Inc., 1952).

Thanks!

[Tesla]

Oh I almost forgot. I'm open minded to the fact (opinion) that finding a true T.O.E. can be compared to asking a man in flatland to draw a sphere. I'm just trying to stir things up a bit!

Thanks.

[dogmatorium]

Originally Posted by bobbyd2

Hi, I'm bobbyd2, from up state ny. I don't remember how I came to this site, but was interested in the views expressed from the first time I read them. I became interested in T.O.E when I retired several years ago. I am most interested in religion. I can understand the allure of religion but cannot understand what is the need for a single all powerful mystic being, so I would like to pose the question. Why a god?

Great question bobbyd2. I copied most of your intro thread here since this forum seems more appropriate.

--Robert

I'll give you an answer ...


while there's a minimum there's a maximum too
while there's life there's death too
while there's a winning there's a losing too
never,forever
heaven,hell
angel,devil
creatures of God and otherside God the Almighty [i mean God = Absolute Power and God's creators = un-force ]
smiling,crying,
abstract,concrete
fire,water
male,female
there's negative and positive side too


tell me do you believe that feelings,spirit and mind do exist ?

[dogmatorium]

Originally Posted by Telsa

Oh I almost forgot. I'm open minded to the fact (opinion) that finding a true T.O.E. can be compared to asking a man in flatland to draw a sphere. I'm just trying to stir things up a bit!

Thanks.

tell me who is God ?
and do you know the God as we [muslims] do ? While we believe in same God of Abraham,Jesus,David,Ishmael till Mohammed [the last pophet]

who is God ?

[mkirkpatrick]

Originally Posted by dogmatorium

tell me who is God ?
and do you know the God as we [muslims] do ? While we believe in same God of Abraham,Jesus,David,Ishmael till Mohammed [the last pophet]

who is God ?

Dogmatorium,The answer to your question is no!Only a muslim knows God as
a muslim,I would of thought that was kind of obvious,dont you agree!
I know of an absolute Being,in whom I live and move and have my Being?
May Allah lighten your load,my friend!
regards michael.

[dogmatorium]

tell me do you believe that feelings,spirit and mind do exist ?

[mkirkpatrick]

Originally Posted by dogmatorium

tell me do you believe that feelings,spirit and mind do exist ?

Yes all things exist for as long as we need them??
Then they phase out of existance,as though they have never been!
All that is left is life,in the very end,and that is as a dark flame to us all?

[HappytheStripper]

For those of you who are asking the question about God .. may I suggest you read A Case For Faith by Lee Strobel

The author is a journalist who decided to investigate Christ .. (in A Case For Christ) and later decided to probe the main questions asked by skeptics. Those questions are ones You All have asked and stated .. Is there any reasonable explanation .. for this argument .. ??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Christ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Faith

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_a_Creator

Enjoy Ashley xxx