How we can never know how God thinks...

Ok, this is likely to be a very touchy subject for many, however it has come up in the below thread what happened to my baby today

I'd like to put forward my (rather strong) opinion on comments that I hear constantly from non-believers and believers alike...

My beef is with people who think they understand the reasons why God does things...And then explain away why that reason is now defunct, and so they don't have to do it any longer.

There is no way any of us could ever understand the motivations of a being as different o us as God is.

Sure, he can communicate with us on our level if he chooses, but there is now way we could ever hope to understand an omnipresent being.

A human, as a linear entity, could never know what how or why a non-linear entity thinks. It just defys explanation to our causal view of the universe.

Do you agree? Disagree? don't know what the h*ll I'm talking about?

Indeed - how could we ever possibly hope to understand how any diety thinks, when we can't even understand how we think ourselves? As much as we like to ignore the fact, we're all ignorant beings.. In honesty, none of us know why we're here, what we're doing, or what the purpose of all this is. Sure, some choose to believe that they know the answers, but it is simply a choice, no more - which is fine. But the problems come when people believe that they 'know' the truth, rather than accept that they are merely making a choice.
I see life like our brain. We will never understand it, because we are using the very thing to attempt to understand itself - which is impossible. If it were easy to understand, we wouldn't have the capacity to understand it. we're always one step behind, so to speak.

Life will never be understood whilst you are alive.

(i think i detoured a bit, but i hope that still adds something to the discussion)

The assumption u are making is that God is a separate being to us.

All we know is that our thoughts exists. Decarte: "I think therefore I am".
No assumptions are needed for us to conclude this.

We can continue reasoning beyond this but as soon as we make an assumption the idea becomes flawed, BUT NOT INVALID AS AN ASSUMPTION IS NOT NECESSARILY FALSE.

I cant recall which philosopher came up with this reasoning but...
All people are capable of having the idea of a perfect entity/being/energy/god, ie perfection. An imperfect being can not come up with the idea of perfection (or even an imperfect being cannot be imperfect without perfection) therefore perfection must exist.
It is debatable wether this is a conclusion that can be made without any assumptions but its an idea I thought I'll put forward for the proof that god exists through pure rational reasoning.

We can include our experiences in life as proof to our reasoning but by doing so we are assuming that our experiences are an accurate description of what reality really is. By making this assumption our reasoning is then flawed but not invalid.

I have experienced "god" in many forms in my life but I do not know wether these experiences reflect what god actually is. This doesnt mean I disregard these perceptions of god, or invalidate other peoples perceptions. I suppose that this means that I believe that its ok for people to think they believe how god's "mind" works, their belief may be logically flawed but it is not invalid, all they are doing is making an assumption.

My personal "logically flawed" experiences of "god" is that god is infinate perfection ie infinate unconditional love, joy and creativity. My mind has a lot of trouble comprehending such a entity.

Peace, love and joy to you all

througout the ages, religion and God(s) have explained the unexplained - the weather, sickness, healing, which have not been fully understood, and explained as the caused by apsects of god(s)

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My beef is with people who think they understand the reasons why God does things...And then explain away why that reason is now defunct, and so they don't have to do it any longer.

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are you refering to aspects of the bible which many in current society beleive are irrelevant? - such as exorcism to cure epilepsy?

im uncertain to the true existance/non-existance/omnipotent/entirely-internal-spiritual perspective of God, as i dont believe it is possible to ever prove/disprove one version...but im not your typical fencesitter.

my studies of religous history seem to indicate that religion and beliefs needed will change with the culture, and it is those religions who do not change and adapt with the dynamic culture, who will gradually die out.
i dont think God is the unchanging permanent concrete figure the mainstreams religions believe, rather 'God' can fulfills our own needs for something to beleive in in the current day,age, and society. this is not the exactly the same God that fulfilled the lives of the early Jews, or Muslims in 600AD during Mohammed, or the spirits called by the Shaman in Papau New Guinea even today, or the Roman Catholic God, because we have different needs and values from the people of those ages and cultures.
if that multipurpose diety is the one and the same - it is beyond our logical comprension! but hey - the entire basis of faith isnt logical! im not convinced we can argue and justify a subjective matter as faith rationally!
although i seem to have started from a different perspective, i would have to say i agree with Charles.

however there is the risk that i have made no sense, and completely confused myself and everyone else and drifted off topic. my apologies if so.

take care all.

I was brought up in christian family and went to church as a child for many years as that was what my parents had done.

As soon as I was old enough to intelligently question what it was I was attending every week, I was allowed to make my own decision on attending.

This is what it ultimatley comes down to, a persons' beliefs which they arrive at through their personal journey through life. The thought that one persons' belief tha God is an all encompassing being just dosent sit with me, does this make everyone elses beliefs wrong or were you just not quite right about your own.

The questions and answers are endless and will continue to be - for me it comes down to one simple thing - faith, either you have it or you don't. To have faith in anything, first it must be shown to me and proved to be valid/correct.

So far, no person or organisation had been able to prove to me the the bible or christianity is anything but fiction or at least mostly and outdated at that.

I do respect anyone who has strong beliefs in anything, especially religion as it can be such a powerfull and touchey subject but this comes down to faith - [U] strong belief in God or a particular religion:
Even in the bad times she never lost her faith.
Her faith in God was shattered when her baby died.
It's my faith that keeps me going.

This is belief and total unconditional unwavering faith of a without proof or rational scientific understanding.

Charles, in the circumcision thread you wrote:

"I could come up with hundreds of other reasons why God would want us to circumcise our sons. BUT, God is God, a being who is omnipresent and non-linear. He exists at all points of the universe and at all points of time in the same state.

I really don't think any human should pretend to be understand the motivations and logic used by a being like that."

Charles and anyone who can give me their opinions please -
If you don't understand the motivations of such a god, and can't prove religeous text to be true, how do you have this 'faith' and moreover, how do you continue to keep it?

I have spoken to a few people who have had 'moments' where they say to have been spoken to or been connected to God and even devout Christians who claim they speak to him everyday.

Am I just not responsive to these moments of contact or do you have to believe and have complete faith before this happens?

My appologies if this has taken the thread off topic or not answered you questions Charles but it is very rare that I get the chance to ask the opinion of so many culturally different people.

Lastly, I would like to state that I consider myself to be extremely open minded, I am not anti chritian or religious by any means - there just seems to be too many aspects that I am just expected to believe.

Liam

Charles what I find ineresting with your opinion (aside from you making the asuption of what god is as I am a firm believer in the group oriented deamon (group mind theory)) is this:

What makes you beleive that humans are linear? That is to say we have no soul...
To quote master yoda:

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Luminus beings we are, not this crude matter...

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is this what you meant to say? maybe I'm simply biased be reading texts of my religion but doesn't the soul ive on after the body dies?
A bit of Wiccan Belief:

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I am a witch. I am a keeper of the shadows and the old ways. I am older than my body, where in my soul resides. I have walked the line between light and dark, and found life is not but light and dark, but somewhere in between. I have kneeled before deities and found them to be not unkind. I have cast a magick circle, and chanted magick rhymes. And when I die, I will live again a witch - reincarnate.

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Anyways to the point I believe the God and Goddess are simply manifestations of all living energy. And work for neither good nor evil, and both at the same time. For all things have to sides: Light and dark, Male and Female, Positive Negitive, Good Evil, etc... Giving the dieties a will or another simply can't be done. And you can work with them for many goals, but in the end they will do as they will. As we all have an idea that trancendes all religions and in Wicca is put as 8 simple words (Wiccan Rede):
And Ye Harm None, Do As Thou Will
This applies to all beings.

DJ Dimples...

The linear versus non-linear is what made me realise the opnion i have which opened this thread.

God, apparently, though i do belive it, exists at every point in time in the same state. In the sam eway that he is omnipresent (existing at all points of the universe simultaneously) he also exists at every point of time as well.

The god of ten years ago has no new experiences or insights to the god of today, because his consciousness spans all periods of time.

Most of these terms are probably defunct and not accurate to describe his existence, but they are th eclosest we have to compare his existence with ours.

When i say the word non-linear, i don't mean he lives forever, I mean does he does not progress through life the way humans do.

does thta clarify things a little?

not for me, no

ditto.

Charles, do you REALLY think that God told people to cut off their foreskins?

If you do then why bother with all that research you said you did. From your post it sounds like you accept the Word of God as absolute truth...

Personally I wouldn't disagree with that. The Word of God is, by definition, about as absolute a truth as you are ever going to get.

However, show me a human being who can communicate that Word to another, without diluting it or twisting it or misunderstanding it. Again by definition, humans are flawed, there is no such person.

So I don't believe you will hear the Word of God in a church, or read it in a book. It is something we must all find for ourselves and along the way we will probably get it very wrong.

Dentrassi makes a good point about the Bible containing twaddle like curing epilepsy with exorcism. However he's wrong that God is changing. As you say, God is infinite and unchanging. It is people's understanding of God that changes, from culture to culture and throughout history.

Human Beings were put on this Earth to do the one thing God can't do. Experience pain, suffering, and separation from God. Only then can we experience the joy of finding God.

That is all.

*Completely agrees with Magnus*

Will elaborate on my views when I'm home from work.

I agree that it is not the divine that changes, but peoples perception of it.

That is why religion has changed so much over the years. Even Charles’ Judaism has changed. Judaism of today is not the Judaism of 2000 years ago. And, even then, Judaism grew out of Mithraism and the teachings of Zoroaster – it did not just happen.

Religion is ever changing, as people and their culture change continually.

The problem in this is when people try to take it in a fundamentalist manor and claim that the laws of 2000 years ago still apply today. There is no way they could.

Do you think that a God that exists in all points in time, at the same time, would not understand societal changes of mankind – even better than we do?

The fact is the Torah was written over 2000 years ago. Most of its laws do not apply today.

If you think they do I would like to ask the last time your town got together to stone your neighbor to death because they did not keep the Sabbath holey? When was the last time you gave a bull as a burnt offering to God because smell makes him happy?

When the Torah was written there was good reason for a circumcision. Simply put people did not bath as they do today. The lack of personal hygiene led to nasty infections under the foreskin. This is not the case in most counties today. The continuation of the practice is nothing less than barbaric genital mutilation of males that have no choice.

Before I get jumped on for expressing that opinion let me give you (a bit too much) personal information about me. My father is a Cantor. There is no way as a baby that I could have escaped a circumcision. However, it was done wrong. I still have half of my foreskin. It still covers the part where I would get an infection.

Guess what… never got one, not once in 34 years. Why? Personal hygiene.

Claiming that a male child should be circumcised because of the possibility of infection in akin to claiming a woman should be sewed shut at birth because she might get pregnant.

The only argument left for circumcision would be the religious one. I personally would not mutilate my child because of a 2000 year old law based on the poor hygiene practices of the time, but then that’s me.

Tempest & Jon & Latex

Latex...I'm not an orthodox Jew... There is at least one other major religon that believes God wishes all men to be circumcised whenever possible...

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Guess what… never got one, not once in 34 years. Why? Personal hygiene.

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In your case, Latex, then no, for someone whose body, environment, clothes, social grooming and general situation, then personal hygiene may well prevent an infection.

But an argument using one human beings personal medical history as a basis for a species-wide statement is not one I can accept.

Theres a good possibility that without ANY personal hygiene in that area, you may never have got an infection either.

We all have different skin types, different bodies, different tap water, different soaps and even, different amount of time available for hygiene.

Using the same logic structure, if you had never had a brain tumour, you could also say it was becuase you washed yourself downstairs properly for all of your life.

but, this thread regresses back to the topic of the one linked to on the first post.

This thread is about how some people seem to think they can understand the reasons why god does things, and then base an argument on their assumption as if it was fact...

Tempest & Jon - Your confusion is exactly the reason i say no human on earth can understand god's thought processes (if they can be called such anyway).

You and I exist in the present, we experience things which change us. We are not the same person we were yesterday, but a progression (or regression) of that person with new experiences.

Do you agree with that?

If you do, or at least understand my meaning, then I'm trying to say that God is not supposed to exist in that way at all.

He is the same being He was in the past, and is the same being he will be in the future. In fact, he doesn't progress along a timeline in the way we do at all.

He actually exists in the same state at every point of time, past, future and present.

It's easier to understand the gulf between us and him with this concept than it is to understand the concept itself...

we dont understand ourselves yet, dont you think its a bit arrogant to assume that we can figure out something that we dont even know exists?

Okay, here's my own personal philosophy, and my views on this topic that stems from the philosophy. (please note: "Him" can be unsed interchangibly with "Her" or "It's"...whatever you prefer.)

MY PHILOSOPHY

I believe that God is the entity or force that created the laws and relations of energy that allowed our universe to spring forth from the big bang. These rules were created in such a manner that God knew they would give rise to matter, atoms, the process of evolution, and conscious systems.

I don't believe that He now has the power to break His own rules and randomly changes the universe. He is an entity that exists outside of time and could see the consequenses of his laws before they were put into place. Thus, what happens is meant to happen. There is no reason for Him to intervene or communicate with the contents of the universe.

I don't believe in a soul. The human brain is so complex and beautiful that there is no reason to make up something intangible to define us as separate from nonliving things. The brain simply doesn't have the same mystical appeal that a soul has because it is possible to hold a brain in your hand.

Thus, everything exists because of God and God is in everything, as lots of religions argue. And, as mentioned by Charles, God exists at all points in the same state...His laws are universal everywhere, at everytime.

SO, CAN WE KNOW THE MIND OF GOD?

No. I believe that we ARE the mind of God. We are probablistic, deterministic phsycial entities that operate according to the relations of matter and energy that God has set. We are all like neurons in a brain...no neuron is capable of understanding what the brain is doing. But by doing the best job it can under whatever circumstances it may find itself, it can help the brain achieve its goal, despite the fact that it does not know what that goal is.

Thus, by doing the best we can to further life, consciousness, and the sharing of information, we will help God acheive His plan...whatever it might be.

EXAMPLE

I will now relate this to circumsicion. (Sorry to take my points back to circumscision when another thread exists for that discussion, but it can serve as a concrete example of what I mean by my former statements).

I completely agree with Magnus that God did not tell mankind to cut off foreskins. I think that the God of 2000-some years ago was a construct of the human mind. It served its purpose by uniting humans into cooperative bands, helping ensure survival, and creating goodwill between humans in a given band. In parallel, I think that God's "command" to circumsise was a useful, human-imposed practice that helped people survive a dry, hot climate. It served its purpose by ensuring more conscious entities survived to further the development of the universe.

Nowadays, we have outlived the need for that practice. *However*, continuing to do it does not do anything to affect the consciouness of the beings invloved...as Lightning mentioned in the other thread, the benefits/drawbacks are 50/50. Thus, I think that in the grand scheme of universal order, consciousness development and information flow, the matter is entriely irrelevant.

(Female circumcision differs because the act reduces the emotional cabilities of a conscious being, and is performed for the purpose of making that being more docile, thus stopping the consciousness from contributing all it can to the universe.)

Humanity has only been around for some 30,000 (or was is 300,000?) years, and will likely only be around for 200-300 years more before our minds escape our bodies into more abstract physical realities. I find it hard to believe that one of the eternal, timeless commands of God is that male humans cut skin from their penises.

Anyways, that's plenty for now...I will post more if anyone has any comments on my views.

As humans every perception about how anything from a cat to a diety thinks is intrinsically based on how we think. Even from human to human how we think other people think is never completely accurate. So for anyone to believe they know the 'thoughts' of God is naive at best and arrogant at worst. However, I'm arrogant, so I'll tell you how I think he thinks.

Religious texts claim to be the word of gods, but they were written, updated and edited by humans at various times in history when what they wrote was relevant to how they thought people should be living at that time. And often written to control people. So even if a religious text is channeled through a god who's opinion and knowledge is timeless, the mechanism of transfer has only a certain reference. Therefore all religious texts are dated and no longer relevant.

If God exists then it is an immense being, and is above all the petty human emotions that we daily attribute to them. Religious texts are full of tales of a vengeful God, a demanding God, a God who reeks of low self esteem and petty jealously. A God that requires you to fulfill a covenant generation after generation because he's scared you'll lose faith. This is how most religious people see God, a God so afraid of the beings he created and gave free will to that he then decided to impose bizarre laws upon them? A god of fear, not a god of Love?

I believe that any supreme being would have no reason or desire to ask or require anything from another being. I simply cannot see how God would ever require you to do anything like circumcision or even pray to them. Not unless they are selfish, jealous and domineering, in which case I wouldn't consider that being supreme or godlike.

A supreme being would look upon us, their creation, with Love. So, make every decision based on the Love, Truth and Joy you feel from within, not from those thoughts planted by books and preachers, and maybe then you'll begin to think how God thinks.

My only response is a quote:

"I mistrust those who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice how it always coincides with their own desires."
--Susan B. Anthony responding to an argument that women should be denied anesthetics during childbirth because the Bible says that women should bear their children with pain.