What God isn't is what God is--isn't it?

by Terry 13 Replies latest watchtower bible

Terry

Telling you what something isn't is the opposite of telling you what it IS.
Identification consists of verifying language. Yet, those who speak of GOD have a tough time of it!
Are descriptions and information about God USEFUL or is it gibberish?
GOD is:
1.Someone the human mind cannot grasp.
2.Not human
3.Not earthly
4.Not "material body"
5. Not finite
Now hold on just a darn minute! The following isn't an answer to a genuine question.
Q: Where are my car keys?
A: Everywhere.
Some people explain God as having a location called OMNIPRESENT. That's not a location. That is EVERY location!
God is portrayed in a mode of being "superior" to existence itself: without beginning or end.
So far, without co-ordinates, the act of describing and identifying "god" is the emptying of CONCEPT and merely dumping meaninglessness into it.
Let us continue.
HOW LARGE is God?
God has no dimensions.
Why is God described as a "he"?
God has gender without sex.
God transcends the human mind--yet--we are expected to take in "knowledge" of Him.
? What kind of knowledge is anti-conceptual meaninglessness?
Let's go slowly. Basics first!
The word UNIVERSE contains "uni" which means one. Everything that there is all together in ONE category or set is UNIverse.
Does that leave "room" for things outside of ALL there IS?
We are told God is "outside" of space and time! Well now, is that helpful?
Nothing can be infinite because things which EXIST are limited to what they ARE in quality and quantity: (this much and no more.)
God is only infinite if He/she/it is MORE than what He/she/it IS. How so?
If you come to the end of God in any way, shape, form, description, quantity or definition you have LIMITED God to THAT ALONE.
So what? So, at that point....at that boundry....God ends and something else begins.
Perception of God is non-sensory.
Knowledge of God is non-reason.
God is Creator of the Universe? God created everything out of NO-THING?
There is NO nothing!
Creating everything out of nothing is creating everything out of "what there is none of."
God is omnipotent? Unlimited? Existing things can act only in accordance with their nature. Nature begins and ends in terms of what it IS.
Identity is a limit. Once you name and define this God you have destroyed the limitlessness!
It seems that any steps we take to create meaningful knowledge of God is a destructive act of identifcation.
God is the systematic contradiction of every valid metaphysical principle!
To get to God you must must abandon reason, referents, existence, identity, perception, knowledge, quantity and enter the world of
THE ANTI-CONCEPT.
The use of anti-concepts gives people a sense of approximate understanding. It is the deliberate suppression of fundamental principles.
We obliterate our mind without testing, processing, measuring or integrating our concepts with some REALITY.
The brain which merely accepts "as is" something declared to be TRUE but which cannot be understood, measured, identified meaningfully or placed somewhere as opposed to nowhere--is a useless piece of passive meat inside our skull.
No analysis.
Just faith.
Therefore....(drumroll please....) FAITH is the act of deliberately NOT-KNOWING God.
FAITH does not verify God...faith disconnects thinking from knowing.
Not knowing is ignorance.
Exercising faith is exercising ignorance AS THOUGH it were the same thing as KNOWLEDGE.
And that--my friends--is how an ANTI-CONCEPT works. It is a placebo for knowing something.
Bob_NC

I was about to say the same thing. :)
Seriously, all good points. I have come to, God is what you find within yourself. God is not an experience outside of oneself.
Terry

If we would not pretend we are actually SAYING SOMETHING when we talk about God we'd waste less time.
Why do we bother discussing a non-conceptual? We do we pretend we are holding an object of thought which is unthinkable?
I would offer that it is because we have been born into a world where it is perfectly acceptable to pretend to say something when saying nothing.
Otherwise, we'd move on to the things which can be defined, discussed (meaningfully) and assigned a location in time and space.
God isn't the only thing we assume to know without knowing--but, perhaps the most ubiquitous!
mP

Its funny in an ironical evil kind of way how God helps real arseholes like Hitler, King David, King Solomon, Stalin become successful.
tec

Hi Terry!!
Yet, those who speak of GOD have a tough time of it!
Some do.
Sometimes also, since we do not yet have the proper words yet, it can be hard to describe something. We invent words as we discover and measure things, right? There was no word for DNA (don't ask me to spell out what that stands for please, lol) before we had advanced enough to physically test and measure that which we came to call DNA. So describing it would have been impossible until such a time. Same with the word germ.
This is why we have analogies, parables, examples from the physical universe... that can give us a sense of the spiritual.
Are descriptions and information about God USEFUL or is it gibberish?
Depends... but I think that some of your descriptions below HAVE a positive connotation, but you are focusing on the negative.
GOD is:
1.Someone the human mind cannot grasp.
Well, this is just untrue... so lets call that gibberish and false.
Putting that into the positive: God is shown through Christ. See Christ, see God. Know Christ, know God. Seems like something we can grasp to me.
2.Not human
Putting that into the positive:
Spirit, energy (as we all are), creator.
3.Not earthly
Positive:
Spiritual.
4.Not "material body"
These are kind of all the same, but again, positive is:
Spirit.
5. Not finite
Positive:
Infinite; eternal.
Now hold on just a darn minute! The following isn't an answer to a genuine question.
Q: Where are my car keys?
A: Everywhere.
Some people explain God as having a location called OMNIPRESENT. That's not a location. That is EVERY location!
Well, it would be an answer if it were true.
Omnipresent is not a word that I like either, though. As you say, it does not really describe a location.
HOW LARGE is God?
God has no dimensions.
Well, He certainly does not have dimensions that we can physically measure. He is spirit.

Why is God described as a "he"?
God has gender without sex.
Perhaps becaues He identified as a HE, perhaps because a patriarchal society would be able to recieve HIM, over a being the engenders both male and female attributes. (spirtual attributes; not phyiscal ones... God is spirit)

God transcends the human mind--yet--we are expected to take in "knowledge" of Him.
Well, He does not do so... and we are expected to KNOW (not take in knowledge as the wts translates that verse) Christ, so as to KNOW God. (being known BY them first)
The word UNIVERSE contains "uni" which means one. Everything that there is all together in ONE category or set is UNIverse.

Does that leave "room" for things outside of ALL there IS?
We are told God is "outside" of space and time! Well now, is that helpful?
The flaw lies in calling the universe all that there is. As if we could know something like that through the physical measuring tools that we have.
We do not know what we do not know, yet. Right?
More accurate would be to say that God is outside what we know of space and time.
Nothing can be infinite because things which EXIST are limited to what they ARE in quality and quantity: (this much and no more.)
Or what we know them as being. We are the ones limited in our knowledge though.
God is only infinite if He/she/it is MORE than what He/she/it IS. How so?
If you come to the end of God in any way, shape, form, description, quantity or definition you have LIMITED God to THAT ALONE.
So what? So, at that point....at that boundry....God ends and something else begins.
But there is no end of God. So if what God IS, is infinite, then how can God be more than He is?

Perception of God is non-sensory.
Oh no, that is definitely sensory.
Knowledge of God is non-reason.
Knowledge of God is in Christ, and in love. But if you do not know Him, then I do not know how one can state what knowledge of Him is or is not?
God is Creator of the Universe? God created everything out of NO-THING?
No. God created out of Himself... and through Christ (the light, the life)... who came from Him. (born out of God, the rest of everything coming through Christ)
There is NO nothing!
Gotta agree with you on that one.

The brain which merely accepts "as is" something declared to be TRUE but which cannot be understood, measured, identified meaningfully or placed somewhere as opposed to nowhere--is a useless piece of passive meat inside our skull.
I did not respond to everything you wrote leading to this, because the premise is that God is unknowable. That premise is false. One CAN know God, by knowing Christ.. the Image we were given so as to see God. Therefore, the following statement is false:
Therefore....(drumroll please....) FAITH is the act of deliberately NOT-KNOWING God.

FAith IS knowing.
FAITH does not verify God...faith disconnects thinking from knowing.
Agreed that faith does not verify God. Faith is based on evidence. Christ verifies and shows us God... and we may put our faith in Him and what He says as being true.
Not knowing is ignorance.
That would be the definition ; )
Exercising faith is exercising ignorance AS THOUGH it were the same thing as KNOWLEDGE.
Exercising faith is hearing... and DOING. Faith allows one to hear the Spirit of Christ... exercising that faith is doing, according to what He has taught, asked of you.
Peace Terry!!
tammy
Terry

HI TAMMY!!
Tammy:
The flaw lies in calling the universe all that there is. As if we could know something like that through the physical measuring tools that we have.
We do not know what we do not know, yet. Right?
More accurate would be to say that God is outside what we know of space and time.
Let's make up a word for ALL THERE IS. Let's call it ATI. (All There Is.)
Don't we have to include GOD if He...um...IS?
How does ATI differ meaningfully from the Universe of my definition?
When we make the effort of ...removing...God from our definitions of anything at all.....aren't we creating a dodge or deflection and avoiding
the discussion altogether?
We can use the word gee oh dee G.O.D. to REPRESENT deity but we cannot pretend to fill that word with meaning unless...well...we FILL that word with meaning.
Is GOD what god IS? That constrains god to ONLY that and nothing more.
How is god transcendent if constrained in that way?
Or, let's go about it backwards. God is NOT what god isn't.
What would that be? Could god BE what he isn't if HE WILLED IT?
Not trying to be silly. Simply demonstrating the construct called: GOD only works as an anti-concept.
It satisfy the need to feel like we have information when we really don't have any.
We seem to want to eat our cake and still have it.
Terry

Tammy:
GOD is:
1.Someone the human mind cannot grasp.
Well, this is just untrue... so lets call that gibberish and false.
Putting that into the positive: God is shown through Christ. See Christ, see God. Know Christ, know God. Seems like something we can grasp to me.
1. Neither you nor me nor anybody we've ever known has SEEN Christ (or god).
2.We all read the stories in the bible. Those are words and not people.
3. I've seen Moby Dick in my imagination, in movies and in book illustrations. Jesus too. But, that isn't real.
4. In what way isn't Jesus actually His own father? Are we going to say we "see" that meaningfully?
5. When I say "grasp" and when you say "grasp" I can't imagine it is the same "grasp"!
Terry

Tammy:
2.Not human
Putting that into the positive:

Spirit, energy (as we all are), creator.
1. Spirit is a metaphor and not a "thing" to be defined. Are we talking Plato here? The bible gives us Plato's "spirit".
2. Energy is, as far as any physicist can offer: the movement of particles or the potential movement of particles
3. Creator? That is assuming into evidence something science itself has never detected and only those who play fast with words can claim.
Terry

TAMMY:
God is Creator of the Universe? God created everything out of NO-THING?
No. God created out of Himself... and through Christ (the light, the life)... who came from Him. (born out of God, the rest of everything coming through Christ)
There is NO nothing!
Gotta agree with you on that one.
I thought you said God was spirit? If God created everything out of himself---the universe is spirit. Is it?
God created using Christ? We are back to Plato and the demi-urge! Recycled Greek philosophy.
Wiki: The demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe.
Terry

Plato wrote a dialogue in which he offered a "conversation" between Socrates and Timaeus. Plato offers his ideas on creation:
Timaeus continues with an explanation of the creation of the universe, which he ascribes to the handiwork of a divine craftsman. The demiurge, being good, wanted there to be as much good as was the world. The demiurge is said to bring order out of substance by imitating an unchanging and eternal model (paradigm).

What God isn't is what God is--isn't it?

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