origins of god

housetypeb

I am curious about something,when christians believe in god do you ever wonder/question where he came from,how he came to be ,why he came to be?
what kind of answers are there for this ?

PDN

housetypeb wrote: »

I am curious about something,when christians believe in god do you ever wonder/question where he came from,how he came to be ,why he came to be?
what kind of answers are there for this ?

No, because Christians believe that God is Eternal and had no beginning. So, by definition, we don't think He came from anywhere or came to be.

Zombrex

housetypeb wrote: »

I am curious about something,when christians believe in god do you ever wonder/question where he came from,how he came to be ,why he came to be?
what kind of answers are there for this ?

The only relevant question is why does he exist rather than not existing, though I think the answer is he just does since God is seen as the source of everything and thus there was nothing that decided that God would exist.

housetypeb

PDN wrote: »

No, because Christians believe that God is Eternal and had no beginning. So, by definition, we don't think He came from anywhere or came to be.

Does that make sense? That he has always existed and had no beginning and will have no end.not sure i can wrap my head around that concept.
So christians dont really delve into the origins of God then as they just accept that he is eternal and they dont need to think any more about it.

PDN

housetypeb wrote: »

Does that make sense? That he has always existed and had no beginning and will have no end.not sure i can wrap my head around that concept.
So christians dont really delve into the origins of God then as they just accept that he is eternal and they dont need to think any more about it.

Yes, I think it makes sense. I doubt if reality is constrained to what you, or I, can wrap our heads around.

Zombrex

housetypeb wrote: »

So christians dont really delve into the origins of God then

This is what the Bible describes God as being, it isn't something Christians plucked out of the air to avoid "delving" into the origins of God. The Bible says God had no origin.

JimiTime

housetypeb wrote: »

Does that make sense? That he has always existed and had no beginning and will have no end.not sure i can wrap my head around that concept.
So christians dont really delve into the origins of God then as they just accept that he is eternal and they dont need to think any more about it.

TBH, it doesn't make sense in the context of our knowledge of space and time. It makes sense however, that if space and time are created, then the creator is outside of such concepts. The origins question, IMO must come to a point where you say, there is something that is not confined to our concept of time and space.

housetypeb

Wicknight wrote: »

This is what the Bible describes God as being, it isn't something Christians plucked out of the air to avoid "delving" into the origins of God. The Bible says God had no origin.

So no more need to think about it.Thats good to know.

housetypeb

JimiTime wrote: »

TBH, it doesn't make sense in the context of our knowledge of space and time. It makes sense however, that if space and time are created, then the creator is outside of such concepts. The origins question, IMO must come to a point where you say, there is something that is not confined to our concept of time and space.

So then God,who has no begining, existed outside space and time which does have a begining,the big bang, which he created.

housetypeb

PDN wrote: »

Yes, I think it makes sense. I doubt if reality is constrained to what you, or I, can wrap our heads around.

Ah but you said it makes sense so you can wrap your head around that concept,reality or not.

JimiTime

housetypeb wrote: »

So then God,who has no begining, exists outside space and time which does have a begining,the big bang, which he created.

Pretty much. If time is created, then we can comprehend that the creator of it, is not constrained by it. This does not however, help us understand the concept of eternity. Its very difficult to imagine something without time.

housetypeb

JimiTime wrote: »

Pretty much. If time is created, then we can comprehend that the creator of it, is not constrained by it. This does not however, help us understand the concept of eternity. Its very difficult to imagine something without time.

So the universe exists because of god, but god exists because he has always existed(and always will)and we are not expected to understand it.
Just accept it, because the bible says it,therefore it's true?
hmmmmm....

Fanny Cradock

Stop your trolling.

Up until the 60's people were happy to accept the stead state cosmological model as an explanation for our existence. This model described a universe without beginning and without end. More recently we have had hypothesis like Conformal Cyclic Cosmology which postulates that the begining and the eventual end of the universe is just one repeating cycle in a larger cycle of time. Again, some people are happy to accept this.

I wonder why you insist that something is true only if we understand it. For that matter, I wonder why you expect to be able to understand God when such a feat seems less likely than understanding creation.

JimiTime

housetypeb wrote: »

So the universe exists because of god, but god exists because he has always existed(and always will)and we are not expected to understand it.
Just accept it, because the bible says it,therefore it's true?
hmmmmm....

Waiting 12 posts before giving up pretending you actually were interested in the question. I think I'll call you 'patient troll'. Now why don't ye go back under the bridge with, 'annoying troll', 'idiot troll', 'just for a laugh troll' and wicknight. (Only coddin ye wickie, I love ye:) )

housetypeb

JimiTime wrote: »

Waiting 12 posts before giving up pretending you actually were interested in the question. I think I'll call you 'patient troll'. Now why don't ye go back under the bridge with, 'annoying troll', 'idiot troll', 'just for a laugh troll' and wicknight. (Only coddin ye wickie, I love ye:) )

Oh grow up. i'm not trolling, Where did i claim to be christian? i am really trying to figure what god means to christians and how they view him.
How else am i supposed to learn? You dont seem too interested in spreading the good word about him.
Its all very well saying the bible says he has always been-but do any of you stop and think what that means?.
Just because you think i'm trolling doesn't mean the question is without merit-just uncomfortable for you to ponder on,i guess.

Fanny Cradock

housetypeb wrote: »

Just because you think i'm trolling doesn't mean the question is without merit-just uncomfortable for you to ponder on,i guess.

No one said the question is without merit. You just seem to be of the opinion that Christians have never pondered the imponderable. It would be swell if you dropped the notion that your cunningly devised question is some faith shattering revelation that Christians can't possibly face up to. Will you next ask us can God create a weight that is too heavy to lift?

Augustine was hardly the first Christian to consider the question, and maybe he wasn't the best, but hey, he got there 1600 years before you.

housetypeb

housetypeb wrote: »

I am curious about something,when christians believe in god do you ever wonder/question where he came from,how he came to be ,why he came to be?
what kind of answers are there for this ?

Yeah,that question sure seems like trolling.

housetypeb

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

No one said the question is without merit. You just seem to be of the opinion that Christians have never pondered the imponderable. It would be swell if you dropped the notion that your cunningly devised question is some faith shattering revelation that Christians can't possibly face up to. Will you next ask us can God create a weight that is too heavy to lift?

Augustine was hardly the first Christian to consider the question, and maybe he wasn't the best, but hey, he got there 1600 years before you.[/QUOTE


He got there 1600 years before you too, unless you're eternal as well.

Fanny Cradock

Not only did I link to the wrong part of Summa Theologica, I was also confusing my Augustine with my Aquinas. Anyway, with that cleared up there is plenty to read from Aquinas here - written some 700 years ago. Of course, we can go back much further than Aquinas - back to the likes of Plato and Aristotle and to the notion of a First Cause, an unmoved mover.

I'm usually reminded of John 8:58 during these debates.

Fanny Cradock

housetypeb wrote: »

He got there 1600 years before you too

And the significance of that would be what? Or perhaps that was just you scrabbling for a rebuttal?

munsterdevil

I would ask the OP why he put this question to Christians?

I mean it's the basic principle for Jews, Muslim's, Hindus etc.

Even though I'm an atheist I'm often fascinated by world religions. I mean it is is one thing to claim there is a creator which has no beginning or end, it is quite another to arrive at one of the above "benevolent" gods. I mean why do people who believe in a creator, are convinced it is a benevolent god, why couldn't it be a 100% vindictive entity, perhaps even a half in half god (pardon the crude grammar), or what stops people who believe in the above religions from becoming Deists?

philologos

Habbakuk 1:12 wrote:

O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.

^^ The rest of the book (Habbakuk) is also really good, particularly for people with a big philosophical appetite. It talks about how God's aim and vision is higher than ours.

housetypeb

I put it to christians because i grew up in a catholic household,watching people pay lip service to god while never really thinking too deeply about what they were praying to.
So long as the priest and neighbors saw them at mass, that was the message i took away from it.

JimiTime

housetypeb wrote: »

Yeah,that question sure seems like trolling.

FYI, the trolling is not in the question, which is why posters originally engaged your question. The trolling commences in this post:

Originally Posted by housetypeb
So the universe exists because of god, but god exists because he has always existed(and always will)and we are not expected to understand it.
Just accept it, because the bible says it,therefore it's true?
hmmmmm....

That just totally ignores the comments made to your question, and gets to what you actually wanted to say from the start. It deals with a completely different question than your OP. You simply wanted to make the 'point' above, but pretended to be seeking a genuine discussion in your OP. THAT, is what is trollish.

Another thing, alluding to your earlier comment, I'm not here on these boards to spread the good news. I'm here to discuss things, and maybe get a bit more educated or simply have a bit of fun.

munsterdevil

housetypeb wrote: »

I put it to christians because i grew up in a catholic household,watching people pay lip service to god while never really thinking too deeply about what they were praying to.
So long as the priest and neighbors saw them at mass, that was the message i took away from it.

Fair enough, but it also applies to the vast majority of monotheistic faiths....

Zombrex

housetypeb wrote: »

So no more need to think about it.Thats good to know.

Well no, since you pose a question that doesn't apply to Christians. The question only applies to religions that believe their god had an origin.

Its like asking a person pushing a bike "Where did you get that car". It isn't that there is anything wrong with the question per say, it is that the question is nonsensical to the guy pushing a bike. Equally the questions you pose are nonsensical when asked to a person who follows a god that was not created and didn't come from anywhere.

Zombrex

housetypeb wrote: »

I put it to christians because i grew up in a catholic household,watching people pay lip service to god while never really thinking too deeply about what they were praying to.
So long as the priest and neighbors saw them at mass, that was the message i took away from it.

That seems to be more of an issue with your lack of understanding of the religion you were being raised in than a problem with Christianity. If you don't know that Christianity teaches that God has no origin and is eternal then you really mustn't have been paying attention at all.

Blueboyd

Hi

I hope this not considered trolloing as it seems very easily be the case here if ones opinions differs from others

Anyways - I'd say the concept of time is really hard to understand. One thinks of it as a linear thing. But I remember how one astrophysicist tried to explain the Einstein's theory of relativity and the concept of time in simplified terms like this:

If you think that you move on the surface of the globe and moving southwards equaled moving forward in time and moving northwards was moving backwards in time. Then if you travelled north all the way to the northpole you would have reached the beginning of time. And like the question: What is north of northpole is irrelevant - in the same waw the question "what was before the beginning" is irrelevant too. The question: "What was before?" only comes to our mind because we see time as linear.

I don't know if this applies to God too - I guess it depends how you define God to yourself - but it most certainly makes sense about the universe. However one must remember Einstein's theory is still a theory.

philologos

^^ Some philosophers, say Immanuel Kant for example would regard time as a construct in the mind, I.E - as a human cognitive means for determining one event from another, but that it needn't actually exist in the world at large.

Of course others differ and say that time is about as material as space or matter.

I don't think there is any 100% concrete view on what time is or isn't, and what certainly isn't concrete is whether or not constants whether cognitive or not are truly applicable outside of the universe.

If God created the universe, it doesn't seem logical to say that He was a part of the Creation Himself.

As for trolling Blueboyd, you know as well as we do how your previous thread was considered such, we needn't get into it again!

JimiTime

Blueboyd wrote: »

Hi

I hope this not considered trolloing as it seems very easily be the case here if ones opinions differs from others

No, differring opinions are welcome. If you actually read the thread you would see what the issue was and where it arose. (Assuming you have the smarts of course) Gobshítery is what people have a problem with. Gobshítery like the slur you've just made.

Zombrex

Blueboyd wrote: »

Hi

I hope this not considered trolloing as it seems very easily be the case here if ones opinions differs from others

The accusation of troll came in response to the charge by the OP that Christians here were simply burying their heads in the sand and not attempting to deal with his "problem" as if he had uncovered real issue with Christianity.

In reality the only problem was his understanding of Christianity, but he seemed not at all interested in listening to the actual responses, even from non-Christians like myself. This would suggest the OP was not interested in discussion merely making a point (a bad one at that).

Fanny Cradock

Well said.

Blueboyd

JimiTime wrote: »

Gobshítery like the slur you've just made.

Guess it is just not Christianity but also the word slur that we define differently then.

bluecatmorgana

I think God exists outside time and space and so was always there but I do wonder how he and she came into existence but then I thiink he and she dont exist in the same way we do and so the same rules of creation and existence dont apply to him and her.( Im not Christian)

munsterdevil

bluecatmorgana wrote: »

I think God exists outside time and space and so was always there but I do wonder how he and she came into existence but then I thiink he and she dont exist in the same way we do and so the same rules of creation and existence dont apply to him and her.( Im not Christian)

I'm not mocking you or any monotheistic faith, but that explanation is one of the many reason why I became atheist, the idea that a god falls outside the realms of science is just too convenient. I once put this to a Christian and they replied that convenience was the very nature of god, a rather weak argument in my opinion, and I think she got it off Frank Turek.

I don't know how the universe started, no one does, no one knows what went on before the theorized Big Bang, it's very possible the human race never will. But I am not going to jump to a conclusion that a benevolent god, or a deist entity for that matter, started it, moreover, as I previously stated, it is one thing to believe in a creator, it is quite another to make a jump to a monotheistic religion.

Fanny Cradock

munsterdevil wrote: »

as I previously stated, it is one thing to believe in a creator, it is quite another to make a jump to a monotheistic religion.

Than no religion is true - at least in so far as the proposition that there is a creator(s) God - could also be called a jump.

housetypeb

Wicknight wrote: »

The accusation of troll came in response to the charge by the OP that Christians here were simply burying their heads in the sand and not attempting to deal with his "problem" as if he had uncovered real issue with Christianity.

In reality the only problem was his understanding of Christianity, but he seemed not at all interested in listening to the actual responses, even from non-Christians like myself. This would suggest the OP was not interested in discussion merely making a point (a bad one at that).

Thank you ,uncle tom , for explaining my lil ol problem, as you saw it.

housetypeb

JimiTime wrote: »

FYI, the trolling is not in the question, which is why posters originally engaged your question. The trolling commences in this post:

Originally Posted by housetypeb
So the universe exists because of god, but god exists because he has always existed(and always will)and we are not expected to understand it.
Just accept it, because the bible says it,therefore it's true?
hmmmmm....

That just totally ignores the comments made to your question, and gets to what you actually wanted to say from the start. It deals with a completely different question than your OP. You simply wanted to make the 'point' above, but pretended to be seeking a genuine discussion in your OP. THAT, is what is trollish.

Another thing, alluding to your earlier comment, I'm not here on these boards to spread the good news. I'm here to discuss things, and maybe get a bit more educated or simply have a bit of fun.

you're not here to talk to non christians either,according to some of your posts. but why not take the time to read the posts above mine and see what other conclusion could be drawn.

housetypeb

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

No one said the question is without merit. You just seem to be of the opinion that Christians have never pondered the imponderable. It would be swell if you dropped the notion that your cunningly devised question is some faith shattering revelation that Christians can't possibly face up to. Will you next ask us can God create a weight that is too heavy to lift?

Augustine was hardly the first Christian to consider the question, and maybe he wasn't the best, but hey, he got there 1600 years before you.

Try not to be so condescending,
not every question by unbelievers is trolling-even if some are.

JimiTime

housetypeb wrote: »

Thank you ,uncle tom , for explaining my lil ol problem, as you saw it.

housetypeb wrote: »

you're not here to talk to non christians either,according to some of your posts. but why not take the time to read the posts above mine and see what other conclusion could be drawn.

housetypeb wrote: »

Try not to be so condescending,
not every question by unbelievers is trolling-even if some are.

When words fail, theres always pictures.

housetypeb

JimiTime wrote: »

When words fail, theres always pictures.

Thats it jimi-drag everyone else into your reply
thank you, you are so kind.
right back at ya.

Fanny Cradock

OK, this thread has run it's course. To reiterate, while your question was a perfectly acceptable one to ask, your guiding behaviour throughout this thread was not appropriate.