Where does God live?

CooCooforCoCoPuffs said:
"God lives" in each of us in the form of love in our hearts and minds.

1) Love is a conscious positive desire to want good for others.
2) Love is exhibiting positive actions and responses.
3) Love is doing no intentional harm to anything or anyone.


Love is an energy. It is not created nor can it be destroyed. Energy is always positive.
It exists everywhere and flows freely between and about all people; anywhere in the universe; just like any other energy.
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Interesting philosophy, and I see some merit there. However, if God is love, and love is "doing no intentional harm to anything or anyone", then it doesn't follow that God would willingly flood the world and destroy everyone and everything, and propose to carry out the actions described in Revelations at some later date.

If however, the Bible isn't the basis for this belief, then it could be possible for it still to be true, but where does that belief come from that God is love? (Just exploring that philosophical tack).
 

God is an entity. He exist, he is there. The problem for us is our perceptions, beliefs and upbringing.
Your right in your statement. God does not live anywhere. He lives everywhere.
The problem is our finite mind. We want to nail it down. We want to know where God lives so we can go there. Sounds silly but it's the way we think.
We want explanations and reasons for all that goes on. We want to know someone is in charge or we will have to take charge if no one else can or will.
We want answers we can understand.
God wants only your belief in him and his sons sacrifice.
After that, you open your mind and listen.
Research what you think you are hearing, then follow, or disregard all and go your own way.
 
Brookswood said:
Understand the nature of God and where God lives? You gotta be kidding. I can‘t even understand Quantum Physics.
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Exactly!

I have chosen to put my faith in that which we call God and from the first moment I did this I was changed for the better but I freely admit that I have no understanding of what took place.

The best explanation I can offer is to say that before my conversion I was an angry young woman and afterwards I was the same woman but no longer filled with anger. This is when I understood what becoming a new creation refers to.

My best metaphor for what happened is that I had a hole, an emptiness inside me, that over time had become filled with anger. Where the anger was, I am now replete with something good, something spiritual.

When we begin to understand the concept of the immanence and the eminence of God, we stop thinking that God lives in the clouds, or in a church, or in nature, or even that God exists in some other dimension. God lives within and without everything that we know of. God is not like us, but in some ways we are creatures capable of connecting and interacting with whatever God is, because not only is God outside of time (eternal) and matter (spirit), God is within us all. To find God we sometimes have to look within ourselves and at our lives.
 
I think in antiquity, people probably had a better sense of where God lived -- or at least a sense within the confines of their own minds, if not in reality. Perhaps He (or She, or It, or They/Them -- the Trinity now upgraded to a Quintet+?) resided in or just beyond the Firmament. A mythical place, known only to people of the past who had no grasp of science.

I can’t help wondering, in these more modern times, whether God is being held captive. Perhaps somewhere like Area 51, or even Guantanamo. I’ve been made aware that significantly more beds will be installed at Guantanamo -- perhaps to house God’s entourage?

Or does God live in the vaguely British territory of Diego Garcia, leased from the British to the American military.

Alternatively, I sometimes wonder if God lives in Al-Aqsa. Or at least in that location at the top of an extremely tall ladder.
 
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rbtvgo said:
God is an entity. He exist, he is there. The problem for us is our perceptions, beliefs and upbringing.
Your right in your statement. God does not live anywhere. He lives everywhere.
The problem is our finite mind. We want to nail it down. We want to know where God lives so we can go there. Sounds silly but it's the way we think.
We want explanations and reasons for all that goes on. We want to know someone is in charge or we will have to take charge if no one else can or will.
We want answers we can understand.
God wants only your belief in him and his sons sacrifice.
After that, you open your mind and listen.
Research what you think you are hearing, then follow, or disregard all and go your own way.
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It seems that the position that there is absolutely nowhere that God is not, ultimately describes Pantheism. There isn't any particle of matter or energy that is devoid of God. If that is the case, then we must also accept that God is in the mind of all those who are evil (At least in the physical brain and body), and if so, then there is no need to seek what is already there.

On the other hand, if what you mean is that God is not omnipresent, but he could be if called on, then he is not in the minds and thoughts of those who haven't called on him. He is not there already, and must be invited in. It may be more accurate to say he is always near.

Perhaps the problem is in the concept of omnipresence. If it is used in a spatial sense, then God may be in everything if God is understood as matter and energy. If God is understood in a spiritual sense and is omnipresent, then he is in everyone's mind (Thoughts) already.

Some of these concepts come with their own set of problems. For instance, if one believes that God is omniscient, then he already knows what choices you will make in this life, so why wait around for it to happen.

I think many have concepts of what they believe God is, and I think if it helps you in life, then embrace it. If we substitute the word "God" with "Energy", then perhaps God does live everywhere. IDK
 
@bobcat You are not the first to contemplate this question. I have gone through all the possible answers in the past, but of course there is no evidence to support any of them.

My favorite is the luminiferous æther because I like the Greek spelling with the mysterious æ. This alerts me at once that in spite of the findings of scientists, Michelson-Morley, the æther must in fact be real, undiscovered, but known to the ancients as the last of the five elements of the universe, along with fire and water. A perfect place for God to hide, and well supported by the knowledge base of 2000 years ago.
 
JustDave said:
@bobcat You are not the first to contemplate this question. I have gone through all the possible answers in the past, but of course there is no evidence to support any of them.

My favorite is the luminiferous æther because I like the Greek spelling with the mysterious æ. This alerts me at once that in spite of the findings of scientists, Michelson-Morley, the æther must in fact be real, undiscovered, but known to the ancients as the last of the five elements of the universe, along with fire and water. A perfect place for God to hide, and well supported by the knowledge base of 2000 years ago.
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Thanks Dave. I guess my reason for asking the question in the way I did was because, most often you get the typical general answer that he lives in the heart of the believer. But that's as far as most thinking goes, and it ends there. I think it's safe to assume that they believe he lives in the mind and not the actual heart, but where (In the neurons, a special compartment, or ???). Are the brains of a believer physiologically different from those of non-believers. If not, then where is God in there, other than a concept.

From what I can uncover, the brains aren't physiologically different, but may be different in the way they process information. Here's a short article. The Brains of Believers and Non-Believers Work Differently

As for the aether, although it's not been validated, science still has a lot to learn about the strangeness of the quantum word and how traditional thinking may need some revision. My knowledge of such is extremely limited, but I think it's entirely possible there may be other dimensions we are not privy to. Could some sort of energy or beings occupy that domain, who knows. It's certainly something to ponder though.
 
bobcat said:
Thanks Dave. I guess my reason for asking the question in the way I did was because, most often you get the typical general answer that he lives in the heart of the believer. But that's as far as most thinking goes, and it ends there. I think it's safe to assume that they believe he lives in the mind and not the actual heart, but where (In the neurons, a special compartment, or ???). Are the brains of a believer physiologically different from those of non-believers. If not, then where is God in there, other than a concept.

From what I can uncover, the brains aren't physiologically different, but may be different in the way they process information. Here's a short article. The Brains of Believers and Non-Believers Work Differently

As for the aether, although it's not been validated, science still has a lot to learn about the strangeness of the quantum word and how traditional thinking may need some revision. My knowledge of such is extremely limited, but I think it's entirely possible there may be other dimensions we are not privy to. Could some sort of energy or beings occupy that domain, who knows. It's certainly something to ponder though.
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Another dimension, if it's possible, would account for a god's physical absence, and indeed in my playful search, it was a thought I entertained.

Your observations about the heart resonated strongly. Feelings of the heart have been taught to us for centuries by the poets so often that people have come to accept the poetry as reality. And absolutely, when someone expresses something from their heart, it is coming from the brain, most often connoting sincerity. The heart is incapable of thought and sincerity. It's a blood pumping machine vital to a person's existence, but if man is expected to think and ponder the depths of imagination, the brain is the central organ for that.

Not to say there is no interplay between the heart and brain in that the brain sends signals to bodily organs that release hormones that speed or slow the heart, but the heart does not consciously respond with a little man inside pushing an acceleration lever up or down because the boss man told him to do it. Poetry is great at metaphors, but is much to heady to explain physics and chemistry in logical down to Earth way.

And yes, I would guess that the heart is a popular location for God with many people.
 
I dropped mescaline with a buddy in my early 20s, and we walked around in the unfamiliar city of Spokane, Washington and ended up sitting and talking in the lobby of a university dormitory where we plumbed the depths of philosophical thought all night long. After exhausting a topic, but before moving on to the next, in a moment of exquisite clarity, we would conclude with, "But none of this makes any difference." Still today that understanding is part of my fundamental view of philosophy.

True, the logic of science is a branch of philosophy, and we wouldn't have science if a few philosophers had not suggested that we look at things by separating what we actually know from what we do not. Philosophy is a mixed bag and covers a lot of ground, even if much of it a barren.
 
JustDave said:
I dropped mescaline with a buddy in my early 20s, and we walked around in the unfamiliar city of Spokane, Washington and ended up sitting and talking in the lobby of a university dormitory where we plumbed the depths of philosophical thought all night long. After exhausting a topic, but before moving on to the next, in a moment of exquisite clarity, we would conclude with, "But none of this makes any difference." Still today that understanding is part of my fundamental view of philosophy.

True, the logic of science is a branch of philosophy, and we wouldn't have science if a few philosophers had not suggested that we look at things by separating what we actually know from what we do not. Philosophy is a mixed bag and covers a lot of ground, even if much of it a barren.
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Yes, I had those days in highschool where we would trip and discuss everything on strawberry mesc.😆
 
JustDave said:
I dropped mescaline with a buddy in my early 20s, and we walked around in the unfamiliar city of Spokane, Washington and ended up sitting and talking in the lobby of a university dormitory where we plumbed the depths of philosophical thought all night long. After exhausting a topic, but before moving on to the next, in a moment of exquisite clarity, we would conclude with, "But none of this makes any difference." Still today that understanding is part of my fundamental view of philosophy.

True, the logic of science is a branch of philosophy, and we wouldn't have science if a few philosophers had not suggested that we look at things by separating what we actually know from what we do not. Philosophy is a mixed bag and covers a lot of ground, even if much of it a barren.
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I would agree Dave that pondering these things often doesn't make any difference, at least in the big picture, since one almost always hits that brick wall of the unknowable. However, I think I would say that it could make a difference on the individual level though. At least it did for me.
 

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