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What does the term "god" mean to you?

swordpath

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How would you define it? When you hear the word, what kind of feelings does it evoke - contempt, peace, hope, despair etc.? Anything else you want to add?
 

ThatsWhatHeSaid

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God is reality. Completely bizarre, all-powerful, and worthy of respect and awe. One doesn't always feel connected or even appreciative of that, but when you do connect to it, it's humbling and inspiring.
 

rav3n

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The word "God" generates thoughts about an entity or entities that others believe in. When this entity/ies or its belief is pushed onto me through religious force feeding, it annoys me.
 

Beorn

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Westminster Larger Catechism
Question 7: What is God?

Answer: God is a Spirit, in and of himself infinite in being, glory, blessedness, and perfection; all-sufficient, eternal, unchangeable, incomprehensible, every where present, almighty, knowing all things, most wise, most holy, most just, most merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth.

Thinking about God brings about feelings of guilt at times, but more often feelings of joy and peace. My feelings of guilt go against my knowledge and beliefs about God.

I'll also mention that I think a very unique thing about the triune God that I believe in is that he is that it is possible to say that he is, will be and has always been love. That is before creation love existed because there were always three persons within the godhead engaged in a loving relationship. At no time was the triune God a solitary and loveless entity.

This is of course a great mystery and so while I'm likely to think of love when I think of God I'm also likely to get a headache trying to make sense of it all.
 

Zukram.

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The word "God" generates thoughts about an entity or entities that others believe in. When this entity/ies or its belief is pushed onto me through religious force feeding, it annoys me.

This. To add: God in my opinion isn't necessarily a being more than an ideal and a concept, one that gives Humanity something to aspire to. As human beings we are not perfect, but God is, and so, if we could be more like God we could become "more perfect" in our actions, thoughts, and behaviors, which I believe is the ultimate goal of religion and spirituality in general.
 

The_Liquid_Laser

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How would you define it? When you hear the word, what kind of feelings does it evoke - contempt, peace, hope, despair etc.? Anything else you want to add?

What I think about the word "god" can vary greatly depending on the context that the word is being used.

However if I am thinking about God myself then I think of things like: Creator, Redeemer, Almighty, my ultimate leader, my forever friend. Thinking about God gives me peace, security, hope and compassion for other people.
 

Stanton Moore

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god=sky father. See also: a notion you tend to believe if you are exposed to the idea at an early age.
 

nanook

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i use the word god like all words: as it pleases me. i am not a slave to any dictionary. meaning of language is context sensitive.

(and if anyone cares, i am one of those insane nonduality guys)
 

Such Irony

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I'm an agnostic so I honestly don't know if a god even exists.

I see God as the creator of the universe, someone who oversees the universe but I don't see God as good or bad. More as an onlooker who created the universe, then stepped back to observe what happens.
 

Moiety

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When I think of God is an entity that is omniscient and omnipresent and omnipotent. Or more than one of these entities (if we are talking "gods") that share those 3 traits between them or something.
 

Mole

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Ten Thousand Gods

How would you define it? When you hear the word, what kind of feelings does it evoke - contempt, peace, hope, despair etc.? Anything else you want to add?

There are ten thousand gods, a god for every mood and every occasion, a god for me and a god for you.

Hinduism best encapsulates the faces, the moods and the relationships of the gods.

Hinduism grew on the fertile plains and river valleys of Mother India, while the three monotheistic religions grew in the barren desserts of Arabia. And it shows.

Imagine trying to force all of humanity into one god. It can't be done peacefully and wasn't. And isn't even today. Today we are being suicide bombed, shoehorned into the One True God, the merciful. But the shoe pinches and we can't dance. So naturally the Taliban forbid music and dancing under pain of death.

Meanwhile the Bhagavad Gita dances on and we dance with it.
 

Coriolis

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God is reality. Completely bizarre, all-powerful, and worthy of respect and awe. One doesn't always feel connected or even appreciative of that, but when you do connect to it, it's humbling and inspiring.
I was going to try to express my own thoughts along these lines, but this is much more concise than what I would have come up with. I would add that one gets more done when one does not deny reality. Another way to see it is to live in harmony with the universe. This is my version of "following God's will", etc. etc.

What Victor said is good, too. As humans, it often helps to personify this bizarre, awe-inspiring reality. (Also makes for good ritual theatre.)

There are ten thousand gods, a god for every mood and every occasion, a god for me and a god for you..
 

Tamske

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God: a conscious being more powerful than humans, who is able to communicate with humans and influence their lives.

Humans pray to their gods, try to guess the will of those beings, obey the people who (say they) speak in the name of the gods, attribute wonders and miracles to them... In that regard, the Catholic saints are on par with eg. the Roman gods.

Feelings? Nostalgic memory; thankful for some nice priests and religion teachers who have taught me a lot, and a tremendous curiosity. I want to know how religion evolved through humanity, what people believe in and why. Also a sort of dissonance, at once I feel that belief is a tremendous force, shaking you and compelling you to act for good causes (I'm thinking about people like Bishop Romero), at the other hand I'm quite convinced it's false. Do we support a lie if the consequences are that people are happier? ARE people really happier that way? Some of them are. I was really happy as a Christian. I'm really happy as an atheist, too.
I don't know. That Ti of mine is screaming - but it's FALSE! and Fe says - Don't argue about it, people will hate you for that.
 

ajblaise

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I see God as humanities most enduring character.

People have outsized intelligence compared to other animals, and being all too aware and cognizant of our quality of life and inevitable death, we adopt realities where someone will let us live forever and in happiness, and then the anxiety subsides. It's bittersweet.
 

Mole

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Our Sacred Senses

God is our greatest creation. God enables us to see ourselves from the outside. God enables us to transcend ourselves. This is why we call God transcendent.

Fortunately God will never die for we will always need to see ourselves from the outside, we will always need to see ourselves from the God's eye view.

However although God will never die, God will change and God is changing as I write. So rather than seeing ourselves from the God's eye view, we are starting to listen to one another with God's ear.

Under literacy we borrowed God's eye; and under the telephone and the television we borrow all God's senses. Before long we will be saying, God created all our senses and found them good.

We are finally coming to all our senses and finding them sacred.
 

Mephistopheles

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How would you define it? When you hear the word, what kind of feelings does it evoke - contempt, peace, hope, despair etc.? Anything else you want to add?

A entinity with way more power, knowledge and lifetime than us. Depending on the context, it can even be infinite power, infinite knowledge and infinite lifetime.
Hearing the word doesn't evoke any feelings at all for me.
 

Trentham

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God is mankind's most ambitious attempt to explain the unexplainable.
 
P

Phantonym

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The word "god" is the word "dog" spelled backwards. As English is not my native language, that's the first thing that I think of. I'm not saying this with any disrespectful intent.

Thinking about what God represents...I would have to say that as a person with nearly nonexistent contact with organized religion...but still enough to be instilled with the reverence at least towards the significance the whole concept has on others around me...the idea of God as an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient "something"..."out there"...makes me feel slightly uncomfortable...and paranoid...

I simply cannot define God in any coherent manner...I've always resigned to the idea that it doesn't really matter if God exists or not...I have to follow what I believe is right at any given moment...take responsibility and face the consequences. If God exists, everything I do is between God and I and nobody else; if not...I still have to face myself. All in all, I don't think about God and it doesn't worry me, I don't sense a lack in my life in that respect.
 

Einnas

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In these dark times of my life 'god' gives me the creeps and he is cruel
 
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