Mental images of God

[kowalskil]

What is God? According to our ancestors, who recorded their beliefs in the Bible, God is an all-powerful and all-knowing entity, living somewhere outside of our world, who created the world and controls what happens in it. My definition of God is slightly different; I tend to think that God is not an entity outside nature, but nature itself, as postulated by a 17th century Jewish theologian, Baruch Spinoza, in Holland.

Our very distant ancestors were polytheists; they invented the idea of multiple gods. Our less distant ancestors replaced this idea with the mental image of a personal--omnipotent and omniscient--ruler. Most people on earth still believe in a personal God, but some try to develop a more recent mental image of the ruler, formulated by Spinoza. All three descriptions refer to the same everlasting entity, no matter how it is called. It is not a sin to think that laws of Nature are equivalent to God's laws, while praying. Do you agree?

An interesting article about Spinoza appeared in The New York Times, written by a professor of philosophy, Steven Nadler:
http://opinionator blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/judging-spinoza/

It generated many interesting online comments. A reader, RMC, wrote: "I know many Christians and Jews who practice their religious traditions although their own beliefs are secular. They make no secret of their sentiments. Spinoza was excommunicated during a time of religious orthodoxy and in that respect his experience is much like Galileo's. When the Catholic Church repudiated its treatment of Galileo, it was not merely saying that the earth revolves around the sun. It was saying that punishing the members of its congregation for thinking for themselves, including about church dogma, was parochial and destructive."  With regard to independent thinking, several readers emphasized that traditional religious ceremonies, and respect for legends, do help to keep social groups together, even when people know that biblical legends do not represent historical truth.

Ludwik Kowalski (see Wikipedia)

[aitm]

My 3 yr old granddaughter has reached the point where she attaches human emotion and actions to her toys and believes that things can feel that cannot. Simple animism that humanity had tens of thousands of years ago. In time she will start to imagine imaginary characters can exist outside of her sight and physical contact. Thus begins and began the idea of a god in many people. Imaginary characters that have absolutely no evidence are imaginary characters.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

If I had a mental image of a god I suppose it would be of a real grumpy old fuck who abuses everyone who is alive, probably shits himself and blames it on others and is never happy with anything or anyone, all problems he creates himself..

[frozenframe]

If I had a mental image of a god I suppose it would be of a real grumpy old fuck who abuses everyone who is alive, probably shits himself and blames it on others and is never happy with anything or anyone, all problems he creates himself..

Pretty much the same image I would have.

[stromboli]

God is this creature that lives everywhere, knows everything and even knows the past and future. Boring as fuck, seriously. Like the old dude that sits in his Barcalounger with a fly swatter killing flies because it is the only thing left to do, and even then he knows they will all die. Sad. No wonder he's pissed.

[Atheon]

My mental image of this supposed god-thingy:

[Hijiri Byakuren]

I have many mental images of the one true God.

[stromboli]

[Munch]

I've always had this image of God in my head, of the typical long bearded white guy, turning round, lifting his white robe to reveal his hairy ass, and then he craps out the entire universe, which carries on for a seven day period.

[Solitary]

Here is my mental image of God:

[Mike Cl]

Here is my mental image of God:

Yeah, that pretty well is what my image is, too.

[the_antithesis]

... I tend to think that God is not an entity outside nature, but nature itself,...

Why call nature god?

You already have a perfectly good word for nature. The word is "nature."

Why call it something else, especially a loaded term like "god" which people believe all kinds of crazy shit is entailed with the use of that term and will think you mean crazy shit?