What is God and does it exist?

[Redchad]

In Westernized countries, the notion of "God" is now an amalgamation of beliefs that go back to the Sumerian sky god, Enlil. Like El/Ellil, "God" today is imagined as an old wise father figure who is king of the universe. This "God" has sons and daughters, and it just so happens that they're us humans (his beloved children). Like the YHWH of later Judaism and Christianity, he is both benevolent and wrathful (a mixture of the beautiful sky and terrifying storms). Like the Allah of Islam, he is the only deity in existence, but with helpers. Like a Greek Monad, he is an abstract Spirit who is superior to our carnal imaginations. Like the modern scientist, "God" is rational and knows all truth. But like the postmodern hippie, Enlil is associated with nature, pure love, and compassion.
 
For some believers in God, a medieval version of Enlil is still culturally viable. For those who have abandoned precritical notions of religion, however, more updated versions of the sky god are promoted (both rationalistic and relativistic). But make no mistake about it: whatever version of "God" you believe in, we can trace him back to the sky god, Enlil, of the ancient Sumerians

[Maxmars]

I think you're making it more complicated than it needs to be. Choosing not to believe in an imaginary thing is validated simply by the imaginary thing being imaginary. Substitute god with santa claus, maybe it'll make more sense then.

Atheists simply look at reality, see no evidence for the bearded manchild in the sky, and reject it.

Actually it's quite simple.

An "imaginary thing" as a subject is imaginary.
Santa Claus may or may not have been imaginary, certainly the children's tale is.

What is imaginary is the notion that one persons' assessment of reality is magically binding to any other.

I understand that atheists demand material evidence for anything they can only 'imagine.'

I suppose that means we should expect participation in discussions about god, gods, or God to be limited to 
those who find search for harmonious understanding to be meaningful... as opposed to some vocal atheists who often characterize faith as feeble weak-minded frippery.

So I have to ask... in the sense of not complicating things....

Can an atheist accept faith as anything other than a scam... do they not have faith in anything?
In the atheists dictionary, is the concept of faith, it's adoption... is it not a joke? Is it not characterized as a weakness?
Is the rejection of the existence anything we can't explain... passed onto any and all 'postures of faith' in society?'

What you call imagination seems to slide into the thing atheists need to declare as unreasoning.
But faith, by definition, is NOT a function of reason.

Unlike most I've run across, atheists seem to demand reason... and reject anything that can't oblige in a comprehensible way....  except... what one person 'comprehends' is never only about the information... it's about the person.

As an atheist, could you "imagine" not being an atheist?

Are "your" "imaginings" full of caricatures and tropes, are they exaltations of the defects you find in faith?
This same exercise is useful for "faithful" - regardless of which faith.)

My point there is that, although you state "make things more complicated" I feel it needs to be clear that which I infer...
It would make things more complicated for atheists.

PS - THANK YOU SO MUCH.

I long for this kind of exchange... no angst and anger, no agenda to convince, just a clear dialogue...

Frankly, I don't think the point of the discussion is  who is right and wrong... (and if you carry that baggage in your back pocket, you're missing a better experience.)
I think the idea is that as we dive into the boundaries of each conflicting idea, we find how and where they converge and how and where they repel each other.

I'd been terribly dissatisfied with most scripture-based arguments for the existence of God.
And for the scripture-committed... falling back onto  "scriptures" is not only ineffective and self-defeating - it makes as much sense towards "making a case" as the atheists' generalized claim that faith in God is erratic and a defect.



But we can imagine anything... so is all imagining to be cast aside as foolishness?  

Is "I believe in nothing" an axiom?  You know it has to be... since we're talking about believing.  Is that statement not as full of 'faith' as it's opposite...

[Bootless]

Living in the human community presents choices...

How we contort our reasoning to validate the choices we make is an endless mix of evaluations. 
When I say "personal," I mean exactly that - my own... it can be no other way. 

I disagree that atheism is a choice. 
I believe atheism is the specific negation of a choice, without theism it is nonextant;
Without the presence of a faith to object to, atheism dissolves into nothing... 

I will grant that it is embraced publicly almost as if it were a religion (sans fellowship) ...
but in the end, most of its activist proponents simply make a show of not choosing to believe....
which is an option anyone can take.

Atheism is a valid and important concept, in it, there is a lesson which may validate faith...

I don't know what 'validates' atheism... other than the media.

Yes. Living within human society presents choices.

I grew up in a Christian bubble. I believed in a Christian God just because.

It didn't take long for me to see that not all God is the same God. I chose from a menu of options what I thought God was, wanted, offered, demanded, could do, would do, and etc. That defined my personal God.

In the '70s I was in college as pre-ministerial major. On my own time, I compared various Creeds and Confessions of Christianity. Those codify various definitions of the "One" God. I can trace the beginning of my deconstruction from Christianity to when I was reading The Canons of Dort. My immediate reaction was "This is not the same God!"

I chose my personal God which was more a synthesis of the God codified in the Reformed Belgic Confession of Faith and the Lutheran Formula of Concord.

That personal God of mine no longer exists to me.

Atheism needs no validation. That which does not exist cannot be validated.
---------
Of the hundreds of hours I've spent watching atheist and deconstruction videos, Darante’ LaMar's is the best simple explanation I've seen. That's why I posted it.

[Sirius]

Lots of proof for what?

why do you think I say these two things "say the lords prayer and repent"

[AlroyFarms]

God is Love and it exists.

It really is that simple when you remove all the filters and trappings of the ego. It's not some big, complex, mysterious answer.

God is Love and life is a gift; it is a relationship that keeps reality in perpetual balance and continuance. 

If you can love and laugh and breathe when everything around you is going to hell, even in the face of your enemy, then you have found the right attunement.

[Maxmars]

Yes. Living within human society presents choices.

I grew up in a Christian bubble. I believed in a Christian God just because.

It didn't take long for me to see that not all God is the same God. I chose from a menu of options what I thought God was, wanted, offered, demanded, could do, would do, and etc. That defined my personal God.

In the '70s I was in college as pre-ministerial major. On my own time, I compared various Creeds and Confessions of Christianity. Those codify various definitions of the "One" God. I can trace the beginning of my deconstruction from Christianity to when I was reading The Canons of Dort. My immediate reaction was "This is not the same God!"

I chose my personal God which was more a synthesis of the God codified in the Reformed Belgic Confession of Faith and the Lutheran Formula of Concord.

That personal God of mine no longer exists to me.

Atheism needs no validation. That which does not exist cannot be validated.
---------
Of the hundreds of hours I've spent watching atheist and deconstruction videos, Darante’ LaMar's is the best simple explanation I've seen. That's why I posted it.

I imagine most children's introduction to faith is first presented by their family, and community... there's little choice as children, who must be indoctrinated into life... and a flavor of religion, by the by.  How we each generate 

I was truly surprised at how many seminary attendees I met who rationally expounded their decision that God does not exist.  Whether is was sincere, a form of social manifestation, something theatrical or dramatic, I can't say... but nearly all of them took their "vows" of service to their "order" anyway.  Disquieting to a layman like me, but perhaps it's like how most medical students pass through a "hypochondria" phase, at some point; some stay there.

Each of us must respond to the human world, whether we want to or not. 
In a world where faith is "labeled"... faith is obscured behind the label...
...even the 'labels' diminish each other in a bid for supremacy.

What 'organizers' of religious people do, confounds me, and rarely serves anything other than the organization...
although that is always elevated (by them) as "serving God."  Conversely, many organizations "consume" their faithful, send them to die (and kill)...

The ill-will that religious organizations generated over the centuries is their own doing... the organization's doing... it was almost never the religion...

But to many "faith" carries the guilt-burden of being the mask behind which evil people to evil things....
As with "politics" and "government," (and maybe "trust," and "honor"

[AlroyFarms]

For those who want answers, 

Have you genuinely tried to seek them? For years even? Is it a lifetime spent in a growing and nurturing relationship?

Or did you get impatient, frustrated, doubtful, and give up?

If you truly seek, passionately and persistently, the answers will come to you in a way that makes sense within the context of your life.

[Sirius]

I imagine most children's introduction to faith is first presented by their family, and community... there's little choice as children, who must be indoctrinated into life... and a flavor of religion, by the by.  How we each generate 

I was truly surprised at how many seminary attendees I met who rationally expounded their decision that God does not exist.  Whether is was sincere, a form of social manifestation, something theatrical or dramatic, I can't say... but nearly all of them took their "vows" of service to their "order" anyway.  Disquieting to a layman like me, but perhaps it's like how most medical students pass through a "hypochondria" phase, at some point; some stay there.

Each of us must respond to the human world, whether we want to or not. 
In a world where faith is "labeled"... faith is obscured behind the label...
...even the 'labels' diminish each other in a bid for supremacy.

What 'organizers' of religious people do, confounds me, and rarely serves anything other than the organization...
although that is always elevated (by them) as "serving God."  Conversely, many organizations "consume" their faithful, send them to die (and kill)...

The ill will that religious organizations generated over the centuries is their own doing... the organization's doing... it was almost never the religion...

But to many "faith" carries the guilt-burden of being the mask behind which evil people to evil things....

"expounded their decision that God does not exist"

"I believe in facts and evidence"

What happens here is searching in books and looking under rocks and finding bugs. Two other things is never talking to God, or not liking the answers given

"What 'organizers' of religious people do, confounds me, and rarely serves anything other than the organization..."

so..you need a community and you need authority and then after that everything else happens. When you plan for the future do you plan for a community of 10 people or a million..yes you start serving the organization and there will be agendas

When there is no authority there is chaos...orders.. a bell curve for hydras. The peak keeps getting higher and the sides narrower that contains society, eventually you get the Tower of Babel and it falls over from all the hydras, they all congeal into one mass and the tower starts growing all over.

[Bootless]

I was truly surprised at how many seminary attendees I met who rationally expounded their decision that God does not exist.  Whether is was sincere, a form of social manifestation, something theatrical or dramatic, I can't say... but nearly all of them took their "vows" of service to their "order" anyway.  Disquieting to a layman like me, but perhaps it's like how most medical students pass through a "hypochondria" phase, at some point; some stay there.

Each of us must respond to the human world, whether we want to or not. 
In a world where faith is "labeled"... faith is obscured behind the label...
...even the 'labels' diminish each other in a bid for supremacy.

What 'organizers' of religious people do, confounds me, and rarely serves anything other than the organization...
although that is always elevated (by them) as "serving God."  Conversely, many organizations "consume" their faithful, send them to die (and kill)...

The ill-will that religious organizations generated over the centuries is their own doing... the organization's doing... it was almost never the religion...

But to many "faith" carries the guilt-burden of being the mask behind which evil people to evil things....
As with "politics" and "government," (and maybe "trust," and "honor"

Take the word faith.
Defined by Christians in Hebrews 11:1
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." KJV
There is no testing of that. No formal theory can be postulated. It's hope.

That's how a seminarian may reconcile lack of belief with "faith", they don't have to reconcile it. It's faith. Separate from perceived realty.

I have always considered being paid to tell people what God is offering for free to be immoral. I'm not saying all preachers are immoral, some actually do real physical pastoral duties, visiting the sick, comforting the grieving, giving guidance, and etc. That takes time. Time not available for other money making pursuits. I must be thinking of Liberal Christian pastors, some of whom have degrees in Psychology and/or Counselling.     

Speaking of labels: I sometimes mislabel things, a lot. I sometimes define words by their primitive roots rather than by common usage. 

The ill-will that religious organizations generated over the centuries is their own doing... the organization's doing... it was almost never the religion...

Religion, to me, is "the tie that binds", not a creed or confession, but what we actually live, how we treat each other. See James 1:27.

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

The God and Father would be the author's personal God, but the actions of the religion are physical manifestations of his belief in his personal God. Most people's personal God is much nicer and caring about people's well being than say the God of the Bible myths, who isn't nice at all.

Greedy, predatory, overbearing, wanna be dictators suck big time no matter what "god" they are selling, or claim to believe in as a sort of aside.

[Ignorant]

I suppose that means we should expect participation in discussions about god, gods, or God to be limited to those who find search for harmonious understanding to be meaningful... as opposed to some vocal atheists who often characterize faith as feeble weak-minded frippery.

What do you mean by the search for harmonious understanding? Is it the search for ways to make sense of (harmonize) a world that seems chaotic at first glance? All humans are wired to do this. It's not unique to theists, and in fact I would say researchers (physicists and biologists in particular), who are often atheists, are prime examples of people who have, as far as is possible, dedicated their lives to it.
 

Can an atheist accept faith as anything other than a scam... do they not have faith in anything?

In the atheists dictionary, is the concept of faith, it's adoption... is it not a joke? Is it not characterized as a weakness?

I'll assume for now that faith is defined as a belief in something when there is no evidence for it. In that case, I personally don't have faith in anything and I would indeed argue (I don't mean to offend anyone when I say this) that faith is for the weak-minded. Its purpose is not understanding, but comfort. After all, there is no reason to have faith in anything except that it makes one feel better about the world and/or about oneself. Faith is the decision, usually subconscious, to turn one's back on the search for real knowledge because it's uncomfortable to face the truth, and to put in its place something that is comfortable.

Note that atheists can and do believe things that aren't scientifically proven. I believe, for example, that the universe is deterministic. It can never be fully proven but the evidence for it is strong enough for me to believe it; it's my best guess.
 

Is the rejection of the existence anything we can't explain... passed onto any and all 'postures of faith' in society?'

It's hard to decipher what you're asking here. One thing I'll say is that atheism isn't the rejection of things we can't explain. It's the rejection of one specific explanation (the god hypothesis). Atheists are more comfortable saying "I don't know" when something can't be explained, instead of reaching for explanations for which there is no evidence.
 

What you call imagination seems to slide into the thing atheists need to declare as unreasoning.
But faith, by definition, is NOT a function of reason.

Unlike most I've run across, atheists seem to demand reason... and reject anything that can't oblige in a comprehensible way.... 

In other words, it's taking the position that we shouldn't believe things because they make us feel good, rather we should believe things because they are likely to be true. And we figure out what's likely to be true by observing the world and, using reason, organizing these observations into a body of knowledge (science).
 

except... what one person 'comprehends' is never only about the information... it's about the person.

Well, I strive to have it be about the information as much as possible. It's all anyone can do. It's why science has developed methods that remove subjectivity as much as possible. Studies are (ideally) based on observable and reproducible facts, peer reviewed, etcetera.

Theists like bringing up that we can't know anything for certain. Sure. But we all constantly and instinctively reject things based on lack of evidence. What if I said the next thing you'll eat will kill you? You'd reject it out of hand, as you should. You decide what to believe based on evidence, like everyone else.
 

As an atheist, could you "imagine" not being an atheist?

I can imagine being in a state of mind where the truth becomes so uncomfortable that my brain will be forced to reject it in favor of a belief that makes me feel better. For example, maybe on the brink of death I could change my mind just so I don't have to face the uncomfortable but nonetheless true fact that this is the end.
 

Are "your" "imaginings" full of caricatures and tropes, are they exaltations of the defects you find in faith?
This same exercise is useful for "faithful" - regardless of which faith.)

Not sure what you're asking here. Rephrase?
 

Frankly, I don't think the point of the discussion is  who is right and wrong... (and if you carry that baggage in your back pocket, you're missing a better experience.)
I think the idea is that as we dive into the boundaries of each conflicting idea, we find how and where they converge and how and where they repel each other.

I agree. This isn't debate club. We're here to exchange ideas, and to try to understand each other. Still, I will challenge things you say that I think are inaccurate, and I hope you'll do the same for me. Expressing one's thoughts and having them scrutinized is the best way to flesh them out, in my experience.
 

But we can imagine anything... so is all imagining to be cast aside as foolishness?

Imagining things helps us explore possible truths in our heads. But the next step is to test these possible truths either by direct experiment or by reviewing existing evidence. If we imagine something and believe it to be true without testing it, that is indeed foolishness. To people who believe things so readily, I say: Imagine there's an omnipotent flying spaghetti monster and it wants you to give me all of your money, or it will torture you forever. (Crypto addresses available on request).