>There’s a chicken and egg paradox between the questions ‘What is God?’ and ‘Does God exist?’ One can’t be answered without the other, yet you have to start somewhere.
>There are and almost always have been many different views. Even the question ‘What is God?’ is biased toward one view. It assumes God is single, yet many religions have multiple Gods. The only things that all people agree on are that God(s) is a power and that it can use that power to control our lives. The other similarity is that most people draws similarities between themselves and God. We say God has Earthling, and usually human traits. The Bible says that humans were made in God’s own image. Yet in this one statement a radical proposition is made. It states that all things are part of a hierarchy with God at the top and us directly underneath!It seems hard to believe this story. I propose that God is instead unalike to life as we know it, without human feelings. It (for it would not have a sex) is a powerful force that acts as a regulator within everything, keeping it balanced. It is not devoid from all things, but connected and is not therefore immune to change!
>Well each has the right to believe what he likes. I like to think of it like so:If there is such thing as some power or being as "God" (in the context of however it is presented within all religions) "he/she" or it can have no impact on the universe since the point of the big bang. Perhaps God chose the fundamental properties of nature then, but he has no control now.Make no mistake, life on Earth is simply an Oasis in a large desert of uninhabitable regions. I'm sure there are billions of other Oasis's of life out there, but none we're created by god. Only the conditions we're provided by God so that there existence could come about.In this context the existence of God becomes irrelevant. Read a brief history of time, by stephen hawkings. Some think Einstein believed in God, but he repeatedly denied this, stating that in respect to his admiration for nature and the universe he was deeply religious. This means he respected the awesomeness of the universe. For him the Universe is God in a way.
>I am going to try to make this brief. I am a committed Christian but for the purpose of clarity i shall simply take a deist perspective in order to address some of the issues which have been raised here.Rob you infer from the Biblical passage that God put us on some sort of hierarchy. I am intrigued by this inference. There is a difference between creator and created that is true however a hierarchy after this does not seem to exist in the Biblical texts, for example bar a few isolated passages which are sometimes seen taken out of context there does not seem to be a difference between man and angels other than the closeness of angelic beings to God. The texts also state that barriers are crossed by love.To say that God is not like us is correct in fact we are like God. Would it not stand to reason that an almighty creator would chose to create beings which could identify with the God figure? Surely a created thing would have to be similar to the God who created it or they would not be able to worship it as they could have no concept of what it is.James first even if God only created the universe then left it to its own devices then it is still not irrelevant the fact that a God exists and created everything would be still amazing however not as amazing as a god who is actively working in time and space. it stands to logical reason that if God created the Big bang then God set up and designed the fundamental properties of nature then God would either have been able to plan them so that he could exert an external affect on them or have the ability to suspend them in order to work within time and space. Just because we don’t know how something happens does not remove the possibility that it does.Stating that particular figures doesn’t believe in God is irrelevant regardless of there credentials as it can so easily be argued both ways there are two scientists who spring straight to mind. You don’t get much bigger scientific hitters than Francis Collins (Headed up the Human Genome project) also wrote a book called the language of God a Scientist presents evidence for belief. Similarly Alistair Mc Grath a man with PhD’s in molecular biophysics and Divinity (apparently he actually did both of these at the same time) who has written extensively about the nature of God and also two direct responses to Dawkins books.Tom
>I am going to try to make this brief. I am a committed Christian but for the purpose of clarity i shall simply take a deist perspective in order to address some of the issues which have been raised here.Rob you infer from the Biblical passage that God put us on some sort of hierarchy. I am intrigued by this inference. There is a difference between creator and created that is true however a hierarchy after this does not seem to exist in the Biblical texts, for example bar a few isolated passages which are sometimes seen taken out of context there does not seem to be a difference between man and angels other than the closeness of angelic beings to God. The texts also state that barriers are crossed by love.To say that God is not like us is correct in fact we are like God. Would it not stand to reason that an almighty creator would chose to create beings which could identify with the God figure? Surely a created thing would have to be similar to the God who created it or they would not be able to worship it as they could have no concept of what it is.James first even if God only created the universe then left it to its own devices then it is still not irrelevant the fact that a God exists and created everything would be still amazing however not as amazing as a god who is actively working in time and space. it stands to logical reason that if God created the Big bang then God set up and designed the fundamental properties of nature then God would either have been able to plan them so that he could exert an external affect on them or have the ability to suspend them in order to work within time and space. Just because we don’t know how something happens does not remove the possibility that it does.Stating that particular figures doesn’t believe in God is irrelevant regardless of there credentials as it can so easily be argued both ways there are two scientists who spring straight to mind. You don’t get much bigger scientific hitters than Francis Collins (Headed up the Human Genome project) also wrote a book called the language of God a Scientist presents evidence for belief. Similarly Alistair Mc Grath a man with PhD’s in molecular biophysics and Divinity (apparently he actually did both of these at the same time) who has written extensively about the nature of God and also two direct responses to Dawkins books.Tom
>Thomas, I respect your opinion but the statement that hierarchy does not exist is simply not true. Would a Christian honestly ever say they were equal with God? Was not Abraham prepared to murder his own son on God's commands? You yourself refer to worship as a fundamental part of religion. If God does exist, and is worthy of worship then I can see no reason why it would want to be worshipped. And yes I know that just because I can see no reason does not say there is none. But this is how humans debate and learn about divine matters. I could not say that the universe rests on the back of an infinite column of turtles without some reason to believe it.
Battison's Blog 
>There’s a chicken and egg paradox between the questions ‘What is God?’ and ‘Does God exist?’ One can’t be answered without the other, yet you have to start somewhere.
>There are and almost always have been many different views. Even the question ‘What is God?’ is biased toward one view. It assumes God is single, yet many religions have multiple Gods. The only things that all people agree on are that God(s) is a power and that it can use that power to control our lives. The other similarity is that most people draws similarities between themselves and God. We say God has Earthling, and usually human traits. The Bible says that humans were made in God’s own image. Yet in this one statement a radical proposition is made. It states that all things are part of a hierarchy with God at the top and us directly underneath!It seems hard to believe this story. I propose that God is instead unalike to life as we know it, without human feelings. It (for it would not have a sex) is a powerful force that acts as a regulator within everything, keeping it balanced. It is not devoid from all things, but connected and is not therefore immune to change!
>See Ross’s article on this subject by opening the Theology page and then clicking on the link.
>Well each has the right to believe what he likes. I like to think of it like so:If there is such thing as some power or being as "God" (in the context of however it is presented within all religions) "he/she" or it can have no impact on the universe since the point of the big bang. Perhaps God chose the fundamental properties of nature then, but he has no control now.Make no mistake, life on Earth is simply an Oasis in a large desert of uninhabitable regions. I'm sure there are billions of other Oasis's of life out there, but none we're created by god. Only the conditions we're provided by God so that there existence could come about.In this context the existence of God becomes irrelevant. Read a brief history of time, by stephen hawkings. Some think Einstein believed in God, but he repeatedly denied this, stating that in respect to his admiration for nature and the universe he was deeply religious. This means he respected the awesomeness of the universe. For him the Universe is God in a way.
>I am going to try to make this brief. I am a committed Christian but for the purpose of clarity i shall simply take a deist perspective in order to address some of the issues which have been raised here.Rob you infer from the Biblical passage that God put us on some sort of hierarchy. I am intrigued by this inference. There is a difference between creator and created that is true however a hierarchy after this does not seem to exist in the Biblical texts, for example bar a few isolated passages which are sometimes seen taken out of context there does not seem to be a difference between man and angels other than the closeness of angelic beings to God. The texts also state that barriers are crossed by love.To say that God is not like us is correct in fact we are like God. Would it not stand to reason that an almighty creator would chose to create beings which could identify with the God figure? Surely a created thing would have to be similar to the God who created it or they would not be able to worship it as they could have no concept of what it is.James first even if God only created the universe then left it to its own devices then it is still not irrelevant the fact that a God exists and created everything would be still amazing however not as amazing as a god who is actively working in time and space. it stands to logical reason that if God created the Big bang then God set up and designed the fundamental properties of nature then God would either have been able to plan them so that he could exert an external affect on them or have the ability to suspend them in order to work within time and space. Just because we don’t know how something happens does not remove the possibility that it does.Stating that particular figures doesn’t believe in God is irrelevant regardless of there credentials as it can so easily be argued both ways there are two scientists who spring straight to mind. You don’t get much bigger scientific hitters than Francis Collins (Headed up the Human Genome project) also wrote a book called the language of God a Scientist presents evidence for belief. Similarly Alistair Mc Grath a man with PhD’s in molecular biophysics and Divinity (apparently he actually did both of these at the same time) who has written extensively about the nature of God and also two direct responses to Dawkins books.Tom
>I am going to try to make this brief. I am a committed Christian but for the purpose of clarity i shall simply take a deist perspective in order to address some of the issues which have been raised here.Rob you infer from the Biblical passage that God put us on some sort of hierarchy. I am intrigued by this inference. There is a difference between creator and created that is true however a hierarchy after this does not seem to exist in the Biblical texts, for example bar a few isolated passages which are sometimes seen taken out of context there does not seem to be a difference between man and angels other than the closeness of angelic beings to God. The texts also state that barriers are crossed by love.To say that God is not like us is correct in fact we are like God. Would it not stand to reason that an almighty creator would chose to create beings which could identify with the God figure? Surely a created thing would have to be similar to the God who created it or they would not be able to worship it as they could have no concept of what it is.James first even if God only created the universe then left it to its own devices then it is still not irrelevant the fact that a God exists and created everything would be still amazing however not as amazing as a god who is actively working in time and space. it stands to logical reason that if God created the Big bang then God set up and designed the fundamental properties of nature then God would either have been able to plan them so that he could exert an external affect on them or have the ability to suspend them in order to work within time and space. Just because we don’t know how something happens does not remove the possibility that it does.Stating that particular figures doesn’t believe in God is irrelevant regardless of there credentials as it can so easily be argued both ways there are two scientists who spring straight to mind. You don’t get much bigger scientific hitters than Francis Collins (Headed up the Human Genome project) also wrote a book called the language of God a Scientist presents evidence for belief. Similarly Alistair Mc Grath a man with PhD’s in molecular biophysics and Divinity (apparently he actually did both of these at the same time) who has written extensively about the nature of God and also two direct responses to Dawkins books.Tom
>Thomas, I respect your opinion but the statement that hierarchy does not exist is simply not true. Would a Christian honestly ever say they were equal with God? Was not Abraham prepared to murder his own son on God's commands? You yourself refer to worship as a fundamental part of religion. If God does exist, and is worthy of worship then I can see no reason why it would want to be worshipped. And yes I know that just because I can see no reason does not say there is none. But this is how humans debate and learn about divine matters. I could not say that the universe rests on the back of an infinite column of turtles without some reason to believe it.