How did God come to be God?

[m1thr0s]

Every now and then I like to screw around with mind-shattering puzzles just to see if I can drive myself crazier than my surrounding environment...

The trick to this particular puzzle...the *rules* as it were...is to arrive at something reasonably logical...no *closed loop* logics allowed. It's not good enough to say that God was always God, end of story...cuz that's not a story at all...it cannot be proved (or more importantly, disproved) and generally tells us absolutely nothing.

So...with that in mind:
How did God come to be God? Did He/She/It come by this self-recognition by way of an epiphany of some kind or was it actually rooted in meritorious achievement?

Did God become God before or after inventing Humans? Is it intimately linked to Humans or would a gaggle of geese be sufficient to render God...well...Almighty?

Is God God because He/She/It invented DNA? Does He/She/It not have any DNA personally in that case? How could Humankind have been created in the image of God if God has no DNA? And if God does have DNA...how the Xst did He/She/It pull that one off?

Or was it perhaps the creation of the Universe? An impressive accomplishment no doubt...but be careful...If the universe is actually self-created, then isn't the universe itself God?

Is it aware of this fact and that its job title is being badly abused by a lot of self-esteeming assholes?

If we cannot come up with some rational means of explaining how God came to be God, how do we know that God even is God? Maybe God is mistaken about all of this!

Check it out...this should have you drooling on yourself in 30 minutes or less...:cool:

m1thr0s

[deviadah]

Everything is God... i.e. we are all gods if we want to be!

But in the spirit of this thread I would say that God was made God by his/her God...

...so there is a long line of Gods who create each other!

And at the very start, the first God simply materialized out of thin air - an event that was created out of pure chaos/chance!

:cool:

[Neshamah]

To borrow loosely from Teilhard de Chardin, humanity is part of a "noosphere," i.e., because of our sapience we participate in a "network of sapient beings" in the Universe. We are not aware of this network (consciously) because we haven't reached that level of insight, or discernment in our evolution (but at some point we will become a conscious part of this vast network of sapient beings).

This "noosphere" will continue to evolve over the next several millions of years until that "noosphere" becomes God. Once It / She / He has become God He / It / She will be beyond all space and time, thus able to influence our lives in the here and now.

Therefore, God is Us+ in the distant future, grown beyond space / time boundaries.

How'd I do ? :)

Light, Life, and Love.

Neshamah

Edit: I forgot to add, God, the end-point of all sapient evolution, is also the Creator, since She / He / It is beyond all concepts of space and time. Really messes with your head, doesn't it ?

[Carbon Class Six]

I have thought about the origin of God and the universe so many times...it never gets any clearer...interesting questions nonetheless.

It seems to me like God is almost the glue that holds things together, or permeates everything...like rebar through cement - you can't see it but if you smashed it, you would...and if you could sufficiently "smash" reality - voila!

Now I'm stuck trying to figure out where this "glue" came from :o_O: Actually it seems to fit in with what deviadah is saying... I would assume glue or an amalgamation of something/one is order and if God came from disorder I would think he would be homogenous or ordered.

This means, though, that there are Gods everywhere and what we think of god cannot be "All Mighty" by any means. Just as amino acids popped out of the stew of chance in the early earth the same thing is happening all over the universe. Is there a god for every galaxy? Is there one god for our observable universe? is our observable universe one of an infinite amount? Is there really a "God of Gods":confused:

As a side note, I was reading some Alan Watts the other day and he was explaining our flawed view of reality in terms of cause-and-effect or moment by moment events. I suspect the answer is somewhere in there since I can't ever figure out a logical cause-and-effect pathway for God to come into existence.

[m1thr0s]

ahhh...several votes for the daisy-chain method then, more or less. I especially like the Time wrinkle. I play with that one a lot myself...

although I am not so sure it defines the actual moment of God becoming God in such a way that He/She/It examines His/Her/Itself and says...well what d'ya know...I'm God! (or words to that effect...)

brave theories nevertheless...thanks for playing this silly game with me! :D

I am generally of the meritorious achievement school myself but I haven't quite perfected which among trillions of possibilities might actually render God God...

It probably has something to do with the notorious *event horizon/singularity* thingy...but based on the meritorious achievement model God would not technically be a person at all so much as a kind of Job Description...sort of like President of the United States with a prerequisite of an IQ vastly exceeding functional idiocy (not required in the former)...

m1

[m1thr0s]

a few tantric types have placed the determining criterion upon friction...a notion worth considering. The idea basically goes that consciousness is in a kind of constant battle with friction on all levels. Whenever any consciousness rises above the constraints of friction, it's first self-observation is one of *being God*...but of course...this is usually almost instantly followed by slumping back into the realm of friction again...:o

note: the Bardo Thodol (Tibetan Book of the Dead) also recognizes this as a defining characteristic of the "Clear Light" of the Void. Failure to hold this light is the principal cause of Rebirth into the earthly planes, or in other cases, some of its off-shoot hell-worlds. Apparently this all takes place in a kind of superconscious stupor of some kind to which imprinted (or normal) self consciousness is said to be completely unaware of its occurrence, even though all departed beings connect with this light at the moment of death...

I'm not promoting the idea necessarily...just logging it.

m1

[Wolfman]

This of course, assumes that a 'God', as you put it, even exists.

Wolfman

[Amur]

I think that in terms of Krishna or other sources depict that the universe is nothing but a play-field for Children... So perhaps those Children created the universe for them to play in?

But yeah I've been looking into the different constructs of God and so forth and found atleast in altered states of consciousness that God was only a word used for something abstract or something beneath the surface of everything and to reach it, the words themselves could become traps where one could be entrapped, which again goes very hand in hand with Tao teh Ching, and it's quite neat...

We are definately living in a multi-dimensional world where all kinds of things are possible and it might be that the next world is truly much more fantastic than this world of matter.

What I'm currently fighting with myself is to level out God-forms that have taken upon absurd proportions inside my own head and to bring it down to a human-physical level and relate to them in terms of emotions rather than odd feelings coming up...

I find the concept of 'The word of God' to be quite a ruse and actually tied to this world and the pollution of languange in the human brain, words in themselves are very limited and there is a multi-dimensional form of telepathy available where one can through a channel of love talk and share experiences and visual pictures of things, which by far transcends any concept of words. There are also places where one haven't even needed words at all and to even try to put it into a context of words seems like robbing the whole concept of it's true meaning (which I believe is true for many who experience NDE's).

But they say that God IS Love, so in this case, if love is a part of the human experience then God is perhaps the force behind the love in them, but then again if we take it into a bigger context, say the universe and if everything is manifested through this love then we might say that God is the very Source of the whole universe. But then again I'm not sure if Love is that a simple fashion even though it is the simplest of all, but yet I could imagine logically that there are VERY different forms of this Love explained throughout the whole universe and some forms of Love can seem quite violent and crude by their very definition, and if again logically looking at it, it might even be that Love is just something closely tied to our own multi-dimensional aspect or being. Though I would wish myself that the whole universe was filled with Love as it would be very beautiful but then again I'm not sure about it, though I'm completely sure that Love is a definite construction stone of the human experience and has the ability to rule out any other power / dominance and heal very efficiently, and tapping into that Source of Love seems to be very tranquilizing and peace giving and makes oneself converge towards Perfection...

But yet we are a small planet in a _VERY_ huge universe that is even possibly infinite by definitions of fractal dimensions. Then again the very definition boils down to the construction stones of the universe which is recursive but yet geometric in manner so perhaps some research into that area would yield something good...

It does seem however that the universe is actually designed in a way so that it has the ability to create complex organisms like us and those constants of nature are carefully planned to support this(Check John Barrow's book the Constants of Nature)....

Looking at how God has evolved from God's, it might be that it has been an abstract explanation on the workings of nature that later on evolved into a monotheistic type of worship, possibly spurted by Zoroaster / Abraham / Aten and others around the world who also promotes the Unity of the Self spawning everything...

Looking how it currently is, it seems that the definitions in themselves aren't that important but the important thing is how one approaches the whole thing and in what manner...

I think it was Baha'u'llah who wrote that the next world is that of approaching Unto God, and it is quite beautiful if we paint God being Love itself...

[m1thr0s]

This of course, assumes that a 'God', as you put it, even exists.hey, if the *devil is in the details* then God is hopelessly ambiguous by default, nes pas?

but yeah...this is fundamentally a dismantling operation of some kind I think...deconstruction, whatever...

m1

[MythMath]

Which came first...?

The God (= 1) or the God (= 0)... :p





{This is post # 1 0 ...}

[Raphael]

So...with that in mind:
How did God come to be God?

Fact: We see with our brains NOT with our eyes.
So why do we see the same stuff...but each observer seeing something altered?

Each of our brains are filled with 'archetypal' slides that are accessed at the speed of light.
Similar to a 'slide carousel' the appropriate slide is chosen based on experiences and knowledge, when the eyes open and the light enters.

Human beings tend to project images into the brain...the eyes do not see...they act more like shutters.
Humans have a flaw in their personalities called projection.
It is only a flaw because most people will not acknowledge they project onto others ... their ignorances, preferences, fears, bias etc ...

What if the archetypal god is a projection we each share in...we are each god...projecting a piece of the puzzling puzzle...each of us contributing to the holy hologram?
And the collective has the power to project a new hologram of a new archetypal god.
That was as brief as I could make it.

namaste

Ra

[m1thr0s]

yeah but...who projected humans?

were they like on acid at the time or something???

nevermind...rhetorical question.

m1

[wiz-oz]

It's like saying which came first the chicken, the egg or the Rooster?

God = 9 contains all and nothing.

There's a saying that one cannot know GOD unless you are one. So when you become one, then you'll have your answer.

cheers from OZ

[m1thr0s]

I like the idea of *God* as a localized sort of definition personally. I don't think the human brain can actually fathom absolute *God*...try as it might. And I am not at all convinced that anything the size of the Universe has any actual need for any such constructs since it seems to me that at that altitude there are no discrepancies anyway and *God* has something to do with discrepancies, or perceived discrepancies between Man and Nature both at the Microcosmic and Macrocosmic levels...

So the *daisy-chain* theory (as I am calling it) makes pretty good practical sense I think.

m1

[fr.novumorganum]

god becomes God by getting everyone else to buy into the game..."hey you--I'll take care of everything, just realize I am the only GOD":no:

we exist in a universe of probablity (in the quantum sense) yet some probablities are more certain and more evident than others...my current sense of god lays somewhere 'around' those probabalisitic moments...gods can predict those better than others...God can influence them.:confused:

[Kuroyagi]

m1: Asking such questions shows me the "religious" craving, a certain "need", the very human side of you [or: transhuman if you prefer to hear that word ;) ]. You know that neither you- nor anyone else- can answer them satisfactorily. Actually you WANT these questions to be answered in the way that: Yes, God exists and he hath created us and you can find him here and there. But you also (intuitively) know that thats impossible...so you play around with the possible (logical and worldly) answers: "There is no God", "Humans created their God who in reaction to former deed has then created part of us humans"..."How much suffering has been caused in the name of God?" "How can He allow it if he exists? And if: then maybe we have to rephrase our conceptions of Him: yes, hes a nasty fucker...we have to kill him...what did they tell us?: that there's a spark of God in everyone of us? NO: WE are not the spark we (want to be) are the FLAME.." etc...in all those speculations only one thing is certain: you are not alone with these thoughts.


god becomes God by getting everyone else to buy into the game..."hey you--I'll take care of everything, just realize I am the only GOD"*
(Thanks for the inspiring sentence)...I being R.C. only can see God coming from below so to speak, (as) something that I can imagine to be "greatest" in every sense and from that I can draw consolation, or rebuke or actually: whatever "Fits" (yet its certainly not accidental or arbitrary or whimsical: ppl who make it that easy for themselves belie themselves and attain nothing=have no faith)- I dont see that as a weakness at all btw, but as something intrinsically human and enriching- for me devotion and faith in God has nothing to do with subjugation under any worldly power. For me the person with the greater imagination would have a "stronger" god than the trite or boring one: "non-inspired" and unawakened such a one would be..without any mystery, without depth, without love...normal mediocre ppl would never struggle with such questions like this as the OP (m1.) and the participants of this thread maybe (have done)..only someone who is tender who has depth who is able to suffer and show love "has not fallen from God" as the true xtians would call it (unfortunately there are nearly no true believers around, these days), only such a one is even able and ready to ask them in the first place...

To merely personify God is a dated concept that was never valid in the strict sense of the word, anyway- simply because imagination doesnt work like e.g. a mere film or a picture- not even on the most primitive levels, not even when one looks at a picture does one see it and nothing but see it: one always "sees" it, too [if the word werent that burdened one should call it: sees it with ones "soul"]...(but I must admit that also "area"- or localized gods have much uses: mainly to make borders around otherwise very fuzzy and inexpressible conceptions...something that the I Ching also does very well, yet only more technically and thereby more palatable to the mind of the moderns: it also tries to "connect" and hook up with the "users'" imagination...yet IMO the monotheistic God seems to constitute another attmept at somehting bigger and even more complicated and I personally dont like it to be simplified or "ridiculed" (nothing against blasphemy etc., if succinct) as done today when high art or philosophical speculation is dragged down to a kindergarten level for the sake of self gratification: "look how modern and enlightened and reasonable I am". (esp. by ppl. who arent even familiar with having faith in such a religion recur to the most idiotic argumentations- and its no wonder: they babble about something they know nothing about.)

[Dragon]

Um, I think that m1 has a pretty wide scope on concepts of consciousness; and isn't limited to the Western view on the patriarchal image of diety. Perhaps this has more to do with how Being came into being at or just before Prime Mobile. Beyond gender, and most certainly beyond anthropomorphic form. To wit -

When did the Self of the universal structure recognize that it was, what was possible - and what to do to spin the whole thing into existence and institute governing principles of matter, change, time, dimension, et al. For us groundings, micro-cosmically we have sparks that beget ideas, inventions, and innovations; for It/Us-In-The-Beginning that same behavior sparked nothing less then the Big Bang out of the quantum potential.

I recommend making a distinction between local deities and the Original Being.
It might help to facilitate a clearer answer for him.

~D~


Edit: Terms I suppose. What I am alluding to is a state of pure form and energy. Being the "mind" and the "body"of the universal being within eternity. If we are attempting to divine when life first became self aware then I think we do have to look at the rise of consciousness itself well into the cycle of changes this side of the birth of the galaxies. But even if an awareness of being in the universe erupted later, it would still be rooted in the potential for that event in the original pattern. and that foundation already programmed into the fiber of reality reveals the existence of awareness/potential awareness in the primordial state.


ergo - erg one.

[Kuroyagi]

Terms I suppose.I thought so too when reading your post already this morning. You presented it in the more modern technical jargon (I used more classical words there)...For some reason your post reminded me of something Freud whom I normally dont dig that much, has written in a little essay from 1920: namely that all instinct (e.g. also for destruction and violence) is the urge to recur to the "primal" state (which is death actually, or non-life)...just as ones life itself is one brief flaring up and then becoming extinguished again. Just like- on a larger scale- I heard that the time-frame in that (carbon based- higher) life is possible in this cosmos is very narrow too (first it was too hot and then it will be too cold)...so I very well do know what m1. (and you) are talking about when saying: "we dont have much time" (e.g. to make us "free and independant" also on the larger scale)- we are on a tight margin here, I realize that. Thanks for your thoughful post Dragon.

[Neshamah]

I like the idea of *God* as a localized sort of definition personally.


As do we all. I think one can only grasp the concept of God in a "localized" sense. To try to grasp God on the Cosmic Scale is akin to attempting to grasp Ouranos -- The Great Fool -- it just CAN'T be done.

Ah, but then there's that old saying: As above, so below.

Light, Life, and Love.

For a Peace Profound,

Neshamah

[m1thr0s]

m1: Asking such questions shows me the "religious" craving, a certain "need", the very human side of you [or: transhuman if you prefer to hear that word ;) ].bah...sometimes a game is just a game K...is our hour up yet? :laugh:

some great answers thus far though...

on a grander scale, even after many years, I find myself still being mostly in accord with the greek philosopher Strato, who argued that the universe was sufficient *first cause* unto itself and thus required no *god* for its part.

which would seem to return us to the axiom "there is no god but man", ultimately.

Phenomenology introduces another important wrinkle that formal philosophy cannot ignore...whatever *god* might or might not be, so long as people keep experiencing this *phenomena* it must necessarily be *real*, so our above axiom cannot be construed to mean *there is no god* per se...

m1

[m1thr0s]

Ah, but then there's that old saying: As above, so below.I always get a sense of progression with that one...not entirely unlike the phrase Do What Thou Wilt shall be the whole of the law...

Pardon the belaboring of one who is almost certainly over-quoted relative to his merits, but the phrasing was close at hand...

The Chinese sages look to Heaven as the ignition principle in nature and Earth as that which responds to and nourishes that principle, so that Heaven is always portrayed as the strong/stable of the two cosms. Earth is mutable, adaptable, but also somewhat *iffy* relative to Heaven...Looking about to other cultures on this, it would seem there is a lot of consensus on that whole idea...Heaven sets the standard. Earth adapts to it, but not all at once and not without a struggle...

The paradox (of course) is that everything we really know of Heaven is ultimately defined through the prism of Earth, so long as we are earth-bound critters...so in many ways, what we really know of Heaven is about the same as what we know of God...If the saying As Above, So Below is correct (and I believe it is), the ramifications are actually a little staggering since we cannot properly shape the Below without first comprehending the Above...and how the hell are we supposed to do that?

Enter *God*...the construct that serves as a kind of makeshift pipeline to Macrocosm itself...albeit at quite some risk, owing to this *prism* complication. My guess then, is that *God* has always existed as a point of necessity for human beings so long as they are locked into this As Above, So Below criterion...there might be many ways to adjust this construct, and indeed, the ways it can be crafted would seem to be nearly infinite. But the compulsion to raise the construct at all may have never been much of an option for people, who, unlike animals, are stuck with the burden of defining and maintaining the *Below*, for better or for worse. They cannot not shape the Below no matter what they do, and they also cannot rely upon animal instinct to do this correctly. They must understand what is right (with Heaven) to transmit that right to Earth.

Kind of a rock vs Hard Place situation, all in all...and many people have frankly given up...or so they think. Giving up is not likely to be an option technically available to human beings, unfortunately. They are much too intelligent and much too dangerous for that to work. It is an emotional complaint, moreover, and not unjustified (in my view) at all...it just doesn't happen to work...it's too late for giving up...this thing goes the distance at this point...we either make the (Above) connection or we don't.

m1