In this video, I discuss the very controversial subject of "God" and talk about a few examples of how this subject has been handled throughout history. Our Facebook page: / letstalkreligionchannel
The closer to Truth you get, the further from politics you will be, and the fewer viewers you will have. That's why I, a true prophet of GOD, have very, very few. It matters not. I share Truth unconditionally. And concerning "What is GOD?"... As the Rig Veda states: "The Reality is one, but sages call it by many names." And in Ashvagosha's "The Awakening of Faith" it is accurately stated: "The True Reality is originally only one, but the degrees of ignorance are infinite." GOD is ONE, ignorance is infinite. And if you want to go beyond ignorance, "The Book of GOD" can be read in 5 minutes at no cost at A Course in Truth.
An extremely impressive way of handling such a complex topic with such an ease. This speaks of the extent of your knowledge on the subject. I appreciate the sense of neutrality that you spread while talking about different religions. Simply great - keep it up.
A personal favourite description of God, in line with the Buddhist understanding, came to me from Eckhart Tolle: he described the Buddha's famous silence in response to the question of a Creator's existence, not to imply denial of such an entity, but rather to say that it exists in the silent gaps in between everything worldly that we come to know.
Oh. Look at the audience you bring. Oddly, enough it's only around a week your channel popped up on my recommendation. And I felt bless it did, it's a rare feeling. Especially, from RU-vid. Great job. Hope you well. Always.
Hey man, Just discovered your channel 2 days ago and been binge watching it heavily. Love your work, openness and neutrality and I find it very unfortunate that you don't have more subscribers. Regarding my position on the description of god, I was born muslim and I am slowly transitioning to more of a "Quranist" point of view, rejecting the hadiths that I believe got corrupted by the interest and fantasies of men. I would say my position is definetly closer to the one of the Mutazilites on the description of God. I do belive however, as stated in the Quran, that god has sent a messenger to every single community, but also that every messenger's message has been corrupted by "Satan" (as also stated in the Quran), which for me is just an allegory refering to human vices as dishonesty to fulfill their interests. This, to me, can explain why there is so many similarities between all the religions of the world (Description of God, Evil figure of "Satan", fasting and praying/meditation practices, ethical guidelines etc..), but also explains why there are differences as these usually tend to apear later in the history of the religion (as more time pass by, there is more chance for the original message to get corrupted by men). My question here is: is there something fundamentally wrong in my hypothesis? If so please do not hesitate to give counter examples as this would help me a lot in my personal researches and reasonings. Thanks a lot!
Hi! I am very flattered by what you say, and I'm happy that's the way I come across. I would say there is nothing fundamentally wrong about your idea. But it is primarily a theological theory, which is hard to prove or disprove. There are many similarities between religions, and therefore there are certainly arguments to be made like the one you propose. But we shouldn't forget that religions are often very different sometimes as well, and for various reasons. I love to discuss the subject of how religions began and was then changed by its early followers, which is natural because of how human beings work. So it's a decent hypothesis, but it also has some flaws. For example, when it comes to Islam which you use as an example, (And I don't mean to disregard or discredit the religion in any way) the theological claim is that Islam is the original Abrahamic/Mosaic religion which had been corrupted by later followers of Judaism and Christianity. However, when we compare them, we find that (according to our historical knowledge as of today) Islam has/had more elements similar to late antique/talmudic judaism (that was around by the time of Prophet Muhammad) than with the earliest forms of Judaism that we know of. This could be a counter-argument to the idea that you, and many others, present. But I wouldn't say it disproves it at all, we still need more research on that subject and I think your position is perfectly plausible.
@@LetsTalkReligion Thanks a lot for replying! Very intresting argument indeed. Would this observation still be true if we take the Hadiths influense on Islam out of the equation? As you said, there is a lot of similarities between Islam and late Judaism, but I found that most of these similarities tend to fade away when you take out the Hadiths regulations, which is why I believe that many Hadiths were actually inspired from Judaism practices and later advertised as Muhammad's words. I also didn't know many people supported this hypothesis, I would very much appreciate if you can point me towards any quality content that discuss this hypothesis (hopefully as neutral as you are).
@Baha El Fakir Some obstacles can be avoided by ignoring the Hadith, but others are also present in the Quran. Central themes like the Day of Judgement, Resurrection, Heaven and Hell are all later developments within Judaism. Also viewing people like David and Solomon as prophets rather than just exalted kings appear (as far as I know) in the Talmud for the first time (I could be wrong here, so take it with a grain of salt). Of course, these ideas are present (in some form) in Zoroastrianism, so one could argue that Zarathustra was another one of those original prophets and retain the original argument. One could also make the philosophical argument that they are all allegories that speak of realities in the "Afterlife" (without making them unreal) and take on different symbolic forms depending on the time, place and culture. This could explain why the Jews of late Antiquity used the same concepts (symbolic language) as the early Muslims while people of other periods and regions uses completely different concepts to explain it. In terms of your hypothesis, I was thinking partly about your fellow Muslims which generally hold a similar idea that you present. Although you add certain unique aspects to it which I think are very interesting. I will think about whether there is any other content in particular and get back to you if I come up with something! :)
@@LetsTalkReligion I agree with you. However, the idea of prophethood of Solomon and David is probably older; we don't really know since most of Judaism has been Talmudic ever since the Babylonian exile; with Karaite Judaism returning around the same time Mutazilism appeared.
Very well done. What a huge topic to unload. I’m glad I found your channel. Theology and philosophy are my favorite subjects and you got a good way of laying it out there. Thanks for the knowledge
Thank you for excellence in presenting each and every subject with outmost clarity, justice, and honesty. In my humble and young life, God is not an idea to comprehend, that mystics and prophets try to correspond, but rather an experience. When experienced, words cannot do justice and de-scribe it. God is a personal union with the whole body person and mind existence on a complete level, with mutual understanding that takes time to unravel, that’s why it’s called a re-birth. The rebirth has its own growth, joys and pains and maturity levels. So when we know this, we can merely hint about a different state of being with god to others, show it, transmit the experience of god felt through presence and action. Anyone is born destined to achieve that union and meet others who live the truth before them. Truth is not exclusive to any being. An omnipresence that is bestowed by grace to any who seeks know thyself. Truth unites all in presence and content, and mirrors the growth and journey of the onlooker. God presence can be achieved daily, at any moment, with ethernal silence, inwardly. We all know it, we are all ethernal candles ready to be re-lit Now is the time
This was a very thought provoking video, thanks! I think the most Orthodox understanding of the concept of God in Islam is based on the principle “There is none comparable to Him” as in (Quran 112:4). Everything which can seem anthropomorphic such as the hand of God, and other parts mentioned in Quran are to be interpreted that God does have a hand, unlike any of His creation. The hand could be interpreted as his power and majesty because His form is unknown.
well, that’s in the Quran, but other books says other things :) mormons believe that god is actually anthropomorphic and tangible. neither has to be true by itself, it is whatever you want in your mind.
just found your channel, love your perspectives and these videos are a great learning tool! I did want you to know that Jews don't call God "Yaweh". This name is never spoken by Jews, instead we use place holders like HaShem (meaning the name) and Adonai (meaning Lord).
Yeah I don't like them putting a placeholder of hashem. To me personal opinion, it's like saying "hey you...what's your name." Seems like an insult, wiping out the name of their god. The way they used to worship him as Yahweh and his Ashurah. Once again they got rid of the feminine and just scrubbed her on out. Somebody was mad and it wasn't God It's definitely a human construct. Only humans can be mad at humans to that point of saying I don't know you any longer. LOL 🤣
It is like having a great mountain rising out of the plains. Well, everywhere you look at the mountain, it looks slightly different, depending on where you are looking. If you are up close, if you are far away, if you are to the north, the south, the east or the west-it all looks different, you see. But it is the same mountain. It has not changed with your perspective. You may debate with others about the appearance of the mountain. You are looking from the north and they are looking from the south. Oh, the mountain looks so very different. You argue about its features and its manifestations. To someone up close, it is huge and monumental. To someone at a distance, it is just something out on the horizon. The experience is different. The perspectives are different. But the mountain has not changed. It has not adapted itself to people’s perspective or people’s position around it. ~Marshall Vian Summers
*I have always thought that with the moon example.* There's one moon in the sky, made or rock, illuminating all the Earth. Multiple peoples on the Earth will look at the moon, creating different Moon Gods or Goddesses, mythologies about dragons, bunnies or dragon hunters in the moon, myths about its creation and age, stories about it being made of crystals, cheese or pure light... But that doesn't mean the moon does not exist: *Just that there's one moon with different stories and folklores about it.* One God/Reality, many mythologies and explanations.
All these religions, in my humble opinion cloud our visions and remove our clarity when it comes to this topic of God. I think the best way to know God is to be an "athiest" in the sense that you clear your mind about every conception there is about God. And just live with child like curiousity about the world, and be comfortable with saying, I know nothing about God, but I enjoy the mystery not knowing what is on top of the mountain
This is a really intriguing topic. I've definitely seen my perception of God change over the years from a more anthropomorphic Being to something far more ethereal and incomprehensible, almost like God exists not only on a different plane of reality but that we are unable to comprehend God fully because our reality is a part of God's essence. The old idea of the Divine Paradox fits well into this. Really enjoying your videos, I'm looking forward to learning more from them.
I was raised as an Anglican ( was an altar boy etc..) but stopped believing in a God before I hit my teenage years. I still find the subject of religion (primarily its origins) very interesting so I'm glad I found your videos. Thanks 😊👍
I see two gods, the Santa clause, Easter bunny god that is my childlike understanding. Then there is the God I confront in meditation, that is the external and internal reality I perceive until they become one, and I, for a fleeting moment, cease to exist. That God is incomprehensible, and therefore pointless to describe or discuss except as a subjective experience, but then I’m describing the experience and not the source.
Well done! I like to study religions and have conversations regarding them, about their similarities and differences and how we can learn so much about ourselves when we open our minds to the differences in other people's opinions
Thank you for this video. I am enjoying the videos on your channel on different religions. I appreciate how you are being respectful of all beliefs that you mentioned.
Maybe there's a connection between the "word" as refer in "the word was god" and the tao. Since word refers to logos, and logos to order, tao means the way, which in the texts of taoism imply also order. I think there may be an interesting thing there.
There is. Look up Christ the Eternal Tao by Hieromonk Damascene. Lao Tsu came very close to Orthodox Christian theology; some would say as close as you can get without the aid of divine revelation. In Chinese translations of the Bible "logos" is translated as "tao"
Sure, there might be a connection. Even Jesus said about himself in the same gospel: “I am THE WAY and the truth and the life” (John 14:6). That, in Chinese, is traduced as: “我就是道路，真理，生命”. It’s interesting that the character “道” (Tao) is also used. Thanks for your comment, very clever. I wouldn’t have noticed it by myself.
Very well put , good narration, thank you. I read the vedas and particularly the Upanishads which I believe are the perfect guide to life. The similarities between Hindus and Buddhist are so obvious and that’s the way I lean, it would be nice to know the way you personally lean
Similarity? Buddhadharma is an anātmakavāda Siddhānta, that's means Buddhist cannot belive in the real existence of Ātman, while in the Upanisad it is stated very clearly that only Ātman-Brahman exist. Buddhist also dosent belive in Īśvara, while most of the Darśana of Sanātanadharma do belive in it. In Sanātanadharma we belive that is the Jīvatman who transmigrates, while Buddhist are not in tune with this idea. Etc., etc., etc. If you really study the ten major Upanisad, you could not have miss the Bhāsya from Śamkara, were He dismiss the position of Buddhist anātmakavādin.. He says that you cannot dismiss Ātman, because who dismiss it is always the Ātman, because Ātman is existence-counciosness, and you need it in order to prove something. Are you sure that you read Veda? Wich section? About what? And which Upanisad?
A few years ago I was very agnostic. I grew up meditating and going to church but never related to anything. Then I got really into yoga and had a vision of a glowing bright green/blue mandala. That is now what I think of when I visualize God. However, I also follow Jesus to the best of my abilities. I consider myself panentheistic.
In Yoga the 7nth chakra is above the head and leads to Nirvana and the goal is to reach it by training your mind to control the body to the point that to be able to stop the heart from beating. In other words to commit suicide by the power of your own mind, believing that you'll reach Nirvana, is the final goal in Yoga !
@@LAGoff Pls Google info about The Crown Chakra, or the 7th chakra in Yoga. They never say that their goal is to commit suicide but that their goal is to be able to reach the 7th chakra that is above the Crown, and to reach the unity with universe they are training themselves physically and mentally to reach that level of the feeling leaving the body. I was told a story about how a yog publicly performed the ability to expire. I'll quote a few sentences for you. "The Crowd Chakra, aka sahasrara ( the 1000 petaled lotus, is where the masculine and feminine forces, Shiva and Shaktu , are said to unite and imbue the meditator with tremendous clarity and awakening . The Crown chakra is described as being just above the Crown of the head, BEYOND the PHYSICAL body itself. Sahasrara , the crown chakra, represents a kind of RISING OUT OF OUR embodied existence UNTIL that physical energy JOINS WITH UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS . This Crown chakra sequence is designed to open the side channels ( ida and pingala in order to steer prana toward the central channel, so that the body can be stabilized and PERHAPS ONE DAY TRANSCENDED. Though if to separate the philosophy from the physical exercises i do recognize their physical exercises are one of the best .
@@dand1260 Thanks. Interesting how in Kabbalah there is a central channel (aka head and torso of Adam Kadmon) topped by the Crown (Keter) attribute of God and two side channels. (aka arms and legs of Adam Kadmon)
Recently discovered your channel and loving watching as many interesting topics as I can! I wish I had been a religion major. ;) Thank you for your awesome content and unbiased information with well explained research. Much love to you.
Very Valuable: depth of addressing subjects, choices od terms and definitions, mode of expressing and languages. The cultural background makes the presentations a reliable source. Thank you.
That's interesting because Jesus said He was the Cloud Rider to the High Priest : God always appears hidden in Storm Clouds and the High Priest understood what Jesus was saying! Jesus also had power over storms as the true Storm God. God is personal but his person holds everything ( Universe )together .
I was a Christian for 18 years and eventually became Atheist for the last 4.5 years but I am changing my mind towards Spinoza's Concept of God. While that still would leave me without a personal God and it can be debated on whether or not we should just call it reality or whether or not it is conscious (with the exception of islands of consciousness awaking such as you and I and other forms of life in the cosmos). It nonetheless would correctly be given the name of God as it fits the description perfectly. It would be the very essence or substance of reality itself, the cause of it's own being and the creator of all things. It would of necessity hold all power that is not contradictory to its essence and hence all potentiality (omnipotence) and all available knowledge (Information) and hence would be omniscient. In my view of reality (the Cosmos) as well as Spinoza's as far as I can tell it would be eternal and infinite. It is nature or reality. It is pure existence or the substance of infinite attributes. In creating the universe (whether consciously or not) it would only change the form of its substance and not creating a new substance and hence our universe is only a mode of itself or else there would be 2 substances with the same attributes which is absurd. Hence this God would be one (as the Jewish religion teaches). However, it would not have a choice in how it created the universe as that would be determined by its very essence. It couldn't not be what it is. Or as Einstein put it "Did God have a choice in creating the universe?" Hence a will and action of the God is absurdity. For example, Omniscience presupposes that all future happenings are already unalterably determined. If there is omniscience, omnipotence is inconceivable. Impotence to change anything in the predetermined course of events would restrict the power of any agent. If God knows the future as it really is (not just how it might be, or how he wants it, but how it will turn out) then God is impotent to affect any change to the future. These two attributes are directly contradictory the one to the other and the law of non-contradiction demands that two contradictory things cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time. Or put plainly, If God knows how the future will occur then he cannot change how the future will occur. However, if this God (Cosmos) created some beings with Limited knowledge or limited power then they would not create the paradox and hence we as humans can act to change our future. In this sense the Modes of God could act without a contradiction occurring. Such a God could not do miracles as they would violate his/her/it's own being in the same way (hence, no violation of the Laws of nature could occur as the God would itself be the Laws of nature). Whether it can even hear your prayers or think is highly unlikely. For example, there appears to be no medium over which thought can propagate outside of a physical mind. However, consciousness is not found in any parts of our brain or any cells. It is in the interactions of the various parts and cells. Just like learning at Uni does not occur in this or that class or by this or that teacher but rather as an interaction of all phenomenon. In the Same way there may be interactions which would make the God conscious. For example, interactions of fields, or in light, or electromagnetic waves, or in gravity, or possibly in the Quantum mechanics, etc... This may provide the interactions on a large scale that might make thought possible to this God. However, thought would still be a Mode and not the essence or substance that it is. Hence thought would not be fundamental to the God. It would exist with or without it. If thought can arise then it is not within it's will (which it could not have a will) nor would it have any power over it. This is where we run into so many problems by trying to make the God think and act as you and me. We miss the fundamental nature of it in order to put our self in it's shoes. To make God in our image.
Very interesting ideas, thanks for sharing! I want to poke a bit at your concept. I understand the proof of non-omnipotence when assuming omniscience and going from there by using the law of non-contradiction. However if we assume omnipotence we can easily get omniscience as well because such a god would be completely outside the confines of human logic, since it is by definition not bound in it's abilities by anything, which means that you can not restrict it by using principles of human logic. Such a god would have omnipotence and omniscience.
@@MIbra96 Thank you for a kind and respectful approach, often on RU-vid people are ready to battle it out and I do not like those discussions. It isn't human logic alone that makes this impossible. For example, a square circle cannot exist as it results in a contradiction and by definition it is impossible. It isn't our logic that makes it impossible, it is impossible because the two things cannot both be true at the same time. In the exact same sense an omnipotent and omniscient acting agent is self contradictory and makes it's own existence impossible, such a God is a square circle. Whether or not humans or human logic existed this would still be a brute fact of reality. In such an infinity if something is possible then it is inevitable an infinite number of times. In the same sense for something not to be (exist) in such an infinity then there must be a reason stopping it from existing, hence something like a contradiction must be given which makes the thing impossible to exist. Again, think of the square circle. The only way I can reconcile Omnipotence and Omniscience is if the God does not act. It only creates the paradox when it comes to intentional action or will. Which I have already shown is impossible in other ways.
@@MIbra96 Even most religious people make exemption to the Omnipotence of God by saying he can do all things as long as they are not contradictory. It is beyond the faculties of the human mind to think the concept of almightiness consistently to its ultimate logical consequences, the paradoxes are insoluble. Does the almighty have the power to achieve something which is immune to his later interference? If he has this power then there are limits to his might and he is no longer almighty. If he lacks this power he is by virtue of this fact alone not almighty.
@@skwozies3083 Ah ok I think I understand where our fundamental disagreement lies. I think it is two things. When I say omnipotent god I mean a god that is truly beyond any bounds including whatever laws we assume to hold for reality. Meaning whatever system we can think of to confine any possible entity within it, god is even beyond that. This basically takes the word "omnipotent" to its extreme (or just literal) meaning of being able to actually do anything which means also things that appear contradictory and paradoxical to us. Assuming the existence of such a being would then allow for anything to be possible for it, including omniscience (and other things like omnipresence). With this I just wanted to demonstrate that an acting entity with omnipotence and omniscience could exist (i.e. probability not 0). The second thing is the claim that the law of non-contradiction is not just human logic but holds for all of reality. It seems to me that you think that that is an indisputable "fact" but it isn't. It actually boils down to your philosophical views of objective reality and the human mind. For example one view is to say that all of reality reveals itself to us through our perception of the world and our ideas are formed within our brains which means that all of our ideas are thus constrained by our human nature and therefore necessarily human, i.e. the only thing we can be certain about is the appearance of the world to us. This allows for a being that is outside such confines and could possibly do things that appear contradictory to us. Then there is the more fundamental discussion about the existence of a independent objective reality etc. etc. I'm just mentioning all this to show that it can definitely be "just human logic" depending on your philosophical views.
@@MIbra96 Yes, I would define Omnipotence as possessing all possible power or potentiality. Anything that is not possible would not be included within that by the definition. There are certainly things in which we may not know how it can be done but it would not necessarily be outside the realm of possibility. For example, there was a time in which human flight could have been considered impossible, we now know this to be false and an error in human judgement because flight is indeed possible through mechanical means. However, I am admitting there are things the God cannot possibly do since they are impossible not because of a limit of our thought but because they are self contradictory and hence have no chance but to be impossible. I would think you also must admit this about the God. But to prove that let me ask you a question, Is there anything that God cannot do? Anything? Can God nullify his own existence and nature? The New Testament clearly says that God cannot deny himself so admits of something the deity cannot do. Or again, can God be divided? Hence can God become two Gods, or can the God divide himself into feet and inches? If so then one infinity would be twelve times larger than the other infinity. This is an absurdity. Can the God be anything other than what it is? Hence it would not be itself? Can the God (setting aside the logical absurdity for a moment) create itself from non existence? If it didn't exist then it couldn't create itself into being. Is there any world in which the God could make it that a triangle is not composed of 3 angles? Such absurdities cannot be done by the deity and hence including all power (including those things which are impossible) cannot be an accurate depiction of the omnipotence of the divine. It cannot be that the Omnipotence of God includes things which cannot occur as they result in contradictions with themselves. As I gave earlier a square circle is impossible as it results in a self contradiction, an omnipotent and omniscient actor cannot occur as it results in a self contradiction, an object that is made entirely from gold and entirely from silver cannot occur as it is a self contradiction. A married bachelor cannot occur as it is by definition a self contradiction. Such self contradictions cannot be possible in any possible reality as they nullify their own existence since one proposition excludes the other proposition from being. Hence, they are not real and they do not actually exist within reality, they can only exist as a confused concept in the mind. I also gave you a self contradiction that cannot be resolved in my last post. Since there are only two possible answers it either is or it is not. There is no 3rd possibility. When we examine the only two possible answers both prove that such an actor cannot be omnipotent. I said, "Does the almighty have the power to achieve something which is immune to his later interference? If he has this power then there are limits to his might and he is no longer almighty. If he lacks this power he is by virtue of this fact alone not almighty." Either of the two possible answers both show the deity cannot be omnipotent (as far as purposeful action is concerned). Will or action is the one thing which repeatedly is problematic with the conception of God and this should tell us something. If that is gone then no such contradictions occur, they all vanish. Given no willful action there is no paradox with an omnipotent and omniscient God. However, this has major theological implications that many of the religious might not like.
Hey, man! Been hooked on your channel of late and really appreciate your work. I consider myself an atheist, but I would be okay with referring to the universe as god, so long as we’re talking about Spinoza’s impersonal one. Physics teaches us that there is no empty space as particles burst into and out of existence continuously in what we think of as “empty” space, and we are, after all, made of elements forged in and ejected from ancient stars, so one way in which the universe is aware of itself. I find this view to be good bedfellows, as far as I can see, with Buddhism, physics, and psychology. Meaning is the next question, so if you could address that with some finality, I’d appreciate it. 🤣🤣🤣
Dear brother, light in ignorance I am very very happy to hear your videos. Can you please bring your videos into a book form. I am from india, I wish I would support you financially . I will grasp what you are saying slowly by reading. Also I can share with my intellectual friends. Due to poor english i may not express what I learnt but thank you dear thank you
You could try to listen to the same sentence 2 or 3 times or whatever it takes for you to grasp every word, your english is perfectly understandable. Regards from Portugal
New viewer here and I enjoyed this video. I've added many of your videos to my list and look forward to watching them. Personally to me "god" is a force that's sole function and purpose is to maintain balance in all things. Nature to me is god not the fused war god of the Abrahamists.
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us, your hard work is appreciated. I don't subscribe to any particular religion but I do believe in God, I practice love kindness and understanding also acceptance, I am all religions but none at the same time. To myself personally, God is an energy or entity that is all loving and wants us to love, I'm not sure if that's correct, I'm still on my journey to find out as I don't have the complete answer, I will always practice what my essence tells me, or be guided by it. I practice love and kindness because that's the way I'm wired. Much love to all.
I agree. Early on in my youth I determined that love is what sustains the universe, so as far as God is that very essence of being which sustains the universe, I would say that God is love.
Stimulating mental matter! God is a concept. The moment the word is uttered, a concept is evoked. This is why Jesus said that god is spirit, and that those who worship god must do so in spirit and in truth. Know Thyself, and you will know god. Religion confines the unconfinable. Know Thyself, and you will know the unconfinable.
I like to think of myself as a scientific pantheist. I believe we are all looking directly at God and therefore God is open to scientific examination. I also believe that no one anywhere knows everything about anything. The God I'm referring to can be understood incrementally, bit by bit, via the mystical experience. Some will know more than others because they have chosen to do so. Love your work. Thx so much.
Some of the most intelligent discussion of comparative religion on the web. I didn't hear the term nondualism. It is definitely related to transcend view of god.
As an atheist agnostic, I enjoy your catholic approach to religions, and I admit, because of how well, and far ranging you study and present on the topics, I’m afraid you inadvertently underscore Western perspectives. I do not mean offense, but your talks though cause me to want to hear you do similar explorations of African and Indigenous religions, whether Aboriginal, Maori, Polynesian, or Indigenous American peoples. I believe though, you will get around to these not well shared, yet equally serious ways of contemplating these underlying human questions of existence, that in the end, all try to explain the same ideas. I look forward to those observations and studies you will do one of these days!✌️
Well researched lecture. Love your enthusiast while speaking. 💖💓 Now, we see since the dawn of humanity concept of God has been going through a continuous process of evolution. It might got a start from animism then spiritism ruled for centuries. Researches reveal the concept of One Supreme Reality or God is very much new. It do not criticise as for the previous civilizations their concepts were quite apt because those concepts fulfilled their SPIRITUAL NEEDS. (For reference THE GOLDEN BOUGH by James Frazzer) Now, TODAY the modern man is aghast before the formidable onslaught of scientific revelations. Many previous religious dogmas are cracking and shattering. But very interestingly the concept of God is perched there and getting another kind of evolutionary notion. Physics at nano level is opening up new vistas to peep in the universe BUT a unifying force among material beings is still unexplainable. The force which is binding the galaxies(though it seems galaxies and clusters are racing away at tremendous speed from one an other, still there is some cohernt force. From galaxies to we humans or at atomic level the arrangement on nano particles is MAKING and dis arrangent is destroying the physical phenomenon. Modern man's yearning for eternal life is now at peak and race against time. What the modern biologist are trying? ONLY TO KEEP INTACT A SPEC OF ENERGY(soul) within the body! May be God needs another term to be recognized! Whatever it will be CONSCIENCENESS OR SPEC OF ENERGY! It will be God And A Sufi's God. 🙏
Hey everyone! What a wonderful channel and what a good community surrounding it! As response to your question: I have a Muslim background (passionate but very philosophical, universal and Quranic), but have lately been in a lot of internal turmoil about God and Islam. This video touches the core of some of the things I struggle with. The anthropomorphic themes of God being angry with humans, wanting humans to prove their faith, jealousy (?) about other Gods being worshipped, potential preferentiak treatment to certain groups of people, are themes that make me really uncomfortable and make me want to distance myself from religion. I therefore much prefer believing in Ibn Arabi's or Spinoza's impersonal, tramscendental, above-all-humanness kind of God. But I weirdly still ..believe... that God may have a bir of both, and may after all have some antropomorphic characteristics I don't like, appreciate or understand. My biggest fear therefore is there being a strict and angry God and us having no choice but to submit to him.
i personally believe that “God” does not experience human emotions apart from love i’ve seen and learnt little pieces of information about different religions and the most common thing is see is the love of “God”.I believe we see “God” as being jealous or angry because humans have an inferiority complex .I also believe that “God” is energy,the atoms,the particles,the elements,the people,the insects ,the plants etc i believe God is a made up concept that has satisfied humans need for unders over the years but i believe we are reaching the age of intelligence and thus there is deeper knowledge seeking so deeper and more personal concepts of “God” are being created
Allah doesn't get jealous and is far beyond human traits ....whatever even Muslim teaches that Allah has human traits are incorrect....I do like how 🕉 Hinduism teaches that God is beyond, gender, name, attributes, doesn't have a body or form, no parents, no similar, wasn't born and doesnt give birth....islam teaches the same thing about these triats except they say Allah has a name....and a face, which is to me similar to everything else that has a face and name unless we look at it in a metaphorical since ....and I have a Muslim ahki that says Allah has no form or shape but as I pondered about that I also have questions like if we are granted Jannah paradise and the greatest gift is to SEE ALLAH how can we see something that has no form or no shape ?? I also have questions too like you brother ....but one thing that is not a question is that There's most definitely a creator something that is beyond our senses that put all of this into being ....Quran, Bible, and vedas agree HE CANT BE SEEN ....and another thing that I wonder about is how all major religious teaching teach that God is neither male or female so why does those books refer to IT as HE,HIM,HIS....THESE are good questions as we ponder over our creator, maker , fashioner who has NO EQUAL
Don't worry about an angry or jealous God. Such God is created to keep u enslaved and in fear. Know God the way you know yourself. See God like the eyes see themselves. Once u find yourself you will find God.
This was fascinating and I found the insights really compelling and I respect the deep scholastic foundations of all of these video essays. So refreshing on RU-vid. I think it was a kind of error to approach this question starting from.abrahamic monotheism without first placing the roots of that concept of "the one god" emerging out of classical polytheistic concepts of many gods. Its not my field (I'm a dumbass English major) but my impression is that a lot of discourse of "god" in the Abrahamic sense must at least emerge out of attempts to explain that concept to polytheistic believers- so the concept of multitudinous anthropomorphic gods seems like an important distinction to begin with. The defining feature of all Abrahamic faiths is, as you say, the statement "there is but one god"- which suggests that the concept is emerging out of a polytheistic notion of anthropomorphic deities and not, for example, a broader shaministic animism. I feel like this is really shown up by your attempt to include Shintoism in the comparison and leaves the discussion of Kami feeling out of place and under theorised.
Many modern polytheists (like me) don't see the Gods as anthropomorphic. A statue or paining is not the essence of a Deity, but is just a pretty piece of art. It gives you a focus for your devotions end it reminds you of certain aspects of the divine that are important to you. And I doubt if the ancient polytheists saw it differently.
I'm not an expert but I think that early polytheists probably didn't have the kind of abstract concept of "the devine" that you suggest. I think that this is a construction projected back on anthropomorphic spiritual ideas to make them more closely resemble "religions" as we understand them in the modern sense. I think that in animism and shamanic folk-faiths if I can call them that you don't have this clear distinction between matter and spirit that is necessary for that kind of consciousness- between the divine and the profane.
just discovered this channel recently. for me, god is a universal energy that contains opposite aspects. femenin - masculine. light - dark. war-peace. etc. this universal energy is in constant movement but at the same time in balance. this energy is endless, it has no beginning or no end. We as humans can be drown to one of its aspects and this is why we try to define ourselves in this reality. Yes i mean this reality because our minds are not able to grasp the reality of this universal energy and in order to explain things to our mind we need to place words, forms, and actions, but in the end, there is only this one - universal energy and its flow through us all.
Ask all those who've had NDE s what is God .Non others can better describe. God is PURE LIGHT , God is PURE LOVE. The soul inside us is a tiny spark of his LIGHT. So much can be said....
Okay ... You asked, so I'm biting, first disclaiming my background: that I was raised Presbyterian but the whole idea of religion never made much sense to me; peer pressure made me "saved" for a while during college; for intellectual reasons, got my BA in Religion (Western); after some conflicted wrestling, returned to my original agnostic position; in my mid-thirties, consciously started from scratch & ended up basically Taoist; but over time have gradually become atheist & mostly antitheist. So by now, I understand these concepts of "religion" and "deity" from many different paradigms at once. I'm also a master's-degreed, state-certified librarian and general knowledge junkie, having grown up watching PBS and documentaries of all varieties. I'm a thinker & synthesizer, and I think about this stuff A. Lot. It seems to me that all humans come to social adulthood with some relative metric of "uncertainty tolerance" - how much uncertainty a sentient organism can emotionally tolerate before it has to give up trying to make sense, either lying down to die or succumbing to permanent panic, losing the ability to decide and trust in any reality. So - a person can either tolerate relatively more or less uncertainty, and this correlates to a tendency to be less or more religious. As a fledgling species, our advantage was a positive feedback loop putting our brain evolution on hyperspeed. We moved historically from having very little objective understanding, control, or certainty of our evolutionary environment to having arguably more than we can handle. The problems of surviving naked in the world as a human are divided between solvable & unsolvable, which depends on known vs. unknown. The spectrum from known to unknown is the spectrum from science (literally "knowing") to religion (literally "relying on, placing faith in; believing regardless of knowledge"). What we figure out how to measure, understand, and control becomes the known, which with communication cumulatively advances and increases over time, meanwhile (for practical purposes - theoretical is different) decreasing the unknown. But even the solution of problems opens up new problematic vistas. And remember, we can only tolerate so much uncertainty without losing it. So everyone, each individual, has their own maximum of tolerable uncertainty, where a choice is required between going mad or using our tools at hand to invent a new "kind of 'knowledge'" to rely on that helps us feel less uncertain than measurable knowledge implies we should feel. The brain is a pattern-seeking algorithm. It's the biggest tool we have. When our primitive brain is scared, it reaches into the toolbox & out comes the cerebral cortex to "make sense of things," - anything, everything, whatever the problem is, including those that we aren't yet able to metrically understand. We have a problem: All the food around us is dying or fleeing because there's no water. Observation: It hasn't rained in a really long time. Problem question: Why hasn't it rained? Where are the rainclouds? Belief emerges when (1) measurable ("scientific," testable/reproducible) knowledge fails *and* (2) uncertainty cannot be tolerated. (When knowledge fails but some uncertainty can be tolerated, observation, logic, testing & reason are more likely to stay in charge.) The pattern-seeking algorithm finds a pattern & identifies a correlation, and correlation permits superstition. Deity can be extrapolated from belief because, as agents ourselves, we default to seeing events as driven by agency. There must be something in the sky that does the thing - that brings rainclouds & makes that noise & flashes those lights. Maybe something in the sky can bring the rain back. WE NEED THE RAIN TO COME BACK. What else is up there? What's the agent? All those lights & things: sun, moon, stars, wind. How can we change this, solve this problem? Anthropomorphize the powers we can see & make guesses about, develop superstitions (storytelling about observed patterns), & the principles of classical & operant conditioning start to take over. To the degree the actions taken statistically happen to help solve the problems, belief emerges: reliance, ritual, confirmation/disconfirmation. Belief is plan B. Knowledge is plan A, but when knowledge fails, it's know-in-a-different-way or go mad/give up. Testable observation & reason are the best problem-solving tools we have, but they always reach some limit. At that limit, those who cannot psychologically tolerate the remaining uncertainty need something to know, so they adopt or invent it. Even so, it seems the invented "knowledge" has its own limit - the infinitude of the invented agent. Those who can tolerate the uncertainty can be okay with not knowing, enjoy the swimming around in ideas, are okay for a while feeling humbled by how much more there always is to know. Both ways end at unknowables. There are as many ways of getting there as there are minds that have ever existed or exist now or ever will exist.
One thing that would add a lot to this conversation, is the meaning and origins of the words which describe divinity: the English “God/god” vs Deus vs Theos vs Elohim, as well as non-Abrahamic terms that get translated as “God/god”. Also, the relation between the Islamic Allah and the Hebrew El.
The brahmin in hinduism reminds of plato and platonic influence in christianity. Plato's world of forms from which all else is imperfect reflections sounds like the brahmin and christian god as logos.
I think we can debate and argue all day on what constitutes a deity, personally I don't think we'll ever know and that's okay. Some questions aren't meant to be answered. Live your life to the best of your abilities and be respectful.
I think you are the coolest 🙏❤️ i just started my arabistique and islam studies and your vids help me understand some of the concepts better. Thankyou 🙏 i wish there were more people open to religious discussion :p
Basically the idea of God is truly complex and beyond our understanding. Honestly despite the differences of opinions, most would agree that 1. It is all ever present omnipresent and all knowing omniscience 2. We will never be able to comprehend God whether we assume to understand it literally or symbolically, in the Holy Text 3. God is always One, whether it is literally one or on several arguements, exists in Triune but still as One, or in many different forms, but still as One encompassing. 4. It is all wise, perfect, powerful and in all goodness and holiness 5. The creator of all things and the universe The only danger is that many who is in the religious circles tends to attibute everything to the gods eventhough we actually will never know. They speak as if they can read god's mind... For example, if an unfortunate incident or illness fell upon one who is considered bad or evil, then they would quickly conclude that it is the judgement and punishment of god; wheres if it befalls on a holy and pious god fearing individual, many would sympathise that god is just merely testing our patience....well how do they know that??? What bias thoughts! Honestly, it is just part of a natural cycle of life, that we all will surely die one day or another and the only causes are either naturally in our sleep, or due to a fatal accident or critial illness, due to chemicals in our food, bad lifestyle and pollusion! It can happen to anyone! Just like the good old days...a volcanic eruption is a sign that the gods must be angry... If we can transcent beyond the common perception and see the bigger picture, then one would not be severely effected by the differences in religions but they are like the many different approaches to the same divine being. This may not be easily accepted by all as many would feel that their respective religion is more true, and they are worshipping the right God versus the others....
Above the feeling and the thinking parts of everyone of us, there is a Silent Presence, more glorious ,majestic ,and beautiful than anything we have ever seen or heard. Silence your bubbles of feelings and thoughts, and you will That glorious Presence.
I am Catholic and teach sacramental preparation. Lumen Gentium speaks about how God reveals himself to the peoples within their respective cultures. I do find that humanity latches on to the same things and way down in the very essence is light/enlightenment. My God is ineffable. Our Holy Scripture is a collection of texts of people sharing their own experience of God. My view is that God is an analogy of the universe (incomprehensible too), a zero sum system tending to improve. As a human, I am a reflection of that universe. My microcosm is really no different, so I am "in the image and likeness of God." I am Catholic because I can profit from the millennia (starting from the Old Testament) people have invested thinking about this, and I have ready access to it, part if who I am. No need to start from scratch. I do think that essentially they are the same (very respectfully).
Great video. And, since I'm not an academic of religion, I can say it: all of those gods refer to just one thing (in reality). Like, all interpretations being derived from the same real entity. All of the world's different cultures describing and interpreting this all-encompassing and unfathomable entity in their particular way, due to their great ancient mystics' different experiences... Makes sense to me.
Can you do a video about Ralph Waldo Emerson's writings? He quoted a lot from North African Sufis and the Quran and is the only Western writer in my opinion that expresses these ideas properly
Speaking from a Catholic tradition informed by SoG Hans Urs von Balthasar, St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, and St. Augustine of Hippo, my conception of God isn't a bearded old man in the sky, but an eternal mind that remembers. loves and understands the universe into existence as simple and pure act. Human beings do not physically resemble God (qua Godhead, the Incarnation adds a wrinkle here), but psychologically resemble and reflect God in the action of our minds: "remembering" the "Beautiful" (ton kolon), knowing the True, and willing the Good. The Beautiful begets the True, and the Good proceeds from the Beautiful through the True...but all three terms are coterminous with "Being," "I am that am."
All these religions, in my humble opinion cloud our visions and remove our clarity when it comes to this topic of God. I think the best way to know God is to be an "athiest" in the sense that you clear your mind about every conception there is about God. And just live with child like curiousity about the world, and be comfortable with saying, I know nothing about God, but I enjoy the mystery.
Thank you for your video(s). I have seen many of them. And thank you for your effort! I like them! And today, well, you are looking only to a God as an outside entity. Why not having the view and understanding that God is something inside. Inside of every human being. And for sure the psyche and the mind in general are inner activities of each and every single individual. So, let's try for God the following views: "It is a positive impulse a person gets", i.e. you see a mountain with a certain shape, or a certain beautiful landscape, or a tree blossoming, or migratory birds coming back in spring, or a nice smile, or you hear a certain voice - and you get a positive impulse with that - God. Or: the nature of something. I mean it like the expression "what is the nature of this or that?" - this inner nature = God. You can also say: "What is the nature of this person?" - so it's his or her God or Goddess. This nature I mean. The Dao can very well be understood as this inside nature - so similar to the idea before - which shows itself in different manifestations. It can even be a variety of manifestations a certain nature expresses itself (see also Daodejing for that). And when the 3 Abrahamic religions always focus to an outside God, to whom one is at the mercy - they take the focus away from the inner God. Way too much and way too often - with fatal consequences, just too often. The more the focus is on the inside God that each and every single individual has to find and even to create himself&herself, and if it's then a positive inner creation (sure, we can do that!), the better the world will be and we shall see it in its manifestations everywhere. So, the outside God will improve through the inside God and very rarely does it happen the other way around.
I'm Catholic and if asked to visually depict God, I elude the challenge, suggesting many Catholic artists have done that during our 2000 year history. Rather I prefer to audiate God as a sound or a melody or a three part counterpoint. There's one song and three melodies? God begins with a sound in the silence and a relationship between sound and silence; Father, Son and Holy Spirit; fully man and fully God; the Word and the start and Gabriel's horn at the end; community and care for one another and creation, etc. Or perhaps taste would better depict God, with the ritual of communion being so central to Christianity. Or perhaps our sense of feeling, with both a parents hold and baptism being our first experiences of God in Catholicism.
God is a word humans use to describe something the human mind can not totally comprehend. Also the Tao is older than God in my recollection of studying Taoism in my journey to find a common thread in belief systems. Mr. Cloud Sage Of The Eternal Moment Over and out
The more I know about religions the more I think of God as a reflection of my culture, feelings or personal experience of life. Every religion has brought a renewed understanding of what may be felt as God to me. I would compare God to a language for the sake of simplicity. It is like a language because it takes many forms of communication and expression but remains fundamentally the same in its aim to place meaning at the heart of human life. Still, I have two favourite 'languages' of God: one is my cultural language, my mother tongue if you like and it is Christianity and the second is Daoism with the Tao The Ching as a second language which often feels like my real and personal language. I found myself in some of the verses of the Tao, an experience similar to that described by Jesus when he said that one has to be born again in order to understand him.
Well this is about three years too late, but anyway, as regards Buddhism, it might be good for a scholar such as yourself to use either the Sanskrit terms ("anātman" and "śūnyatā") or the Pāli terms ("anattā" and "suññyatā"), rather than mixing the two. As a long-ago academic, myself, I still enjoy those details... 🙏
I am agnostic on the existence of god but I definitely believe in the interconnectedness of existence, and that there are certain metaphysical laws that govern it. I like to speculate that somewhere deep inside of us we are aware of these truths, and that psychedelic experiences can somehow help us access this information. The fact that DMT (the so called “spirit molecule”) occurs both in nature as well as in human biology makes me wonder if it exists as a medium for encoding and then revealing these truths to those who may partake
I enjoy listening to your videos, one of the few people who are learned on their subject matter. What is God? Nobody knows what God is, what God does or even if God exists. If God does exist, he doesn't care if we acknowledge him or not otherwise he would make himself clearly known and express that. Anything written or discussed about God's nature is blasphemy, which is ironic for religions.
Could you please send references to helpful texts on Muhriddin Ibn al’Arabi? His philosophy sounds much like that of Heraclitus and Hegel (everything is Spirit/Absolute Spirit, all existing under the same substance, etc). I’m a philosophy student and his theology/cosmology sounds extremely interesting! Thanks and love the videos
God is the perfect defining mother/ father principle. It’s the field of all. We are born of this and have no limits. We are the creative force manifest from nothing. God doesn’t speak, only his manifestations do. God is greater and more complex than we are currently able to comprehend. We must attain the rainbow body and ascend to continue our learning and development to greater and greater levels.
In sikhism we cannot describe God because he’s hairy thing everywhere you don’t have gender is outside the timeline. Everything everything belong to God God is the light energy he’s inside each one of us. We call him Waheguru that means God bring us from darkness to the light for us God is the same for all religion God don’t care about religion. So that’s why for us we are human before to be Muslim Christian sikh hindu etc. All our sacred scripture sri Guru Granth Sahib teach us how to experiment the divine and reach God and for us to success this is to do the recitation of the gun name the simran. Sikhi is well unknown but ill gain to be know more #Waheguru Ji
As the Rig Veda states: "The Reality is one, but sages call it by many names." And in Ashvagosha's "The Awakening of Faith" it is accurately stated: "The True Reality is originally only one, but the degrees of ignorance are infinite." GOD is ONE, ignorance is infinite. And if you want to go beyond ignorance, "The Book of GOD" can be read in 5 minutes at no cost at A Course in Truth.
God is all. All is one. Omnipresent (all awareness) omnipotent (moving as energy) omniscient (in-formation) all are thought forces of one great mind. Master your mind and you master all forces. Discover yourself. Expand your senses. Move past all limits
If God was or is anything, then God is love. We are God. God is consciousness. .... God isn't easy to explain. A decent question is what does God think it is...?
As someone who believes in God these similarities are interesting. I would say they are all trying to understand the same cosmic essence. Though, to a secular minded person this would require more evidence than I could ever produce.
Very,very good channel. I love the way you put things across in a pretty neutral way. To the question posed at the end. I subscribe to Convocationism. More God specific, I do believe that people believe in their concept of God as manufactured by those souls that wish to grab the miniscule amount of power attained through the enslavement of the belief of other souls. ...anyway. Great channel! 😁
I love your videos. They are very informative. But I wonder why Native American beliefs are not even mentioned at all as casual examples to support generalities or differences when you are talking about religion in a universal way, like in this video. It is like the more than 100 million people who lived in the Americas before Europeans arrived, or their ancestors or descendants, had or have no spiritual life at all. The same goes for belief systems of Australian Natives, and African people... Specially considering some of those areas, like Mesoamerica or Andean region had a great number of cultures and civilization with rich spiritual visions, and theories about the cosmos.
I believe in a god and a goddess that created the universe and all that exists, they represent masculine and feminine energy, which is the energy that created life and created the universe. They are a balance. I worship them.
@ZebraZ I don’t really prescribe to religions. It seems like following a religion is about following a group and I personally feel like my spirituality is between me and my god and goddess. I don’t need all the extra stuff that comes with religion.
@ZebraZ hello, I know very little about chakras, my friends have talked to me about it but I haven’t done my own studies on it. I will some day! And as for my goddess, I don’t really know her by any name. If she goes by one then I haven’t had the privilege to learn it yet. I don’t know how, but I can just feel her presence. She manifests to me through my daily experiences. I feel like she tries to test me a lot, but only so she can teach me lessons. I am more patient and understanding and loving because of her. I don’t know her name, I don’t know who she is, I just feel her and I love her. I don’t know if that even makes sense.
God is the generation of experience and giver of life, or, a new opportunity to enjoy existence. Going on infinity, what has been created, cannot be destroyed when time is illusory. Life ends but awareness goes on to fill another void.
