Where does God live?

Rich said:
Bobcat, didn't we hear this in a move from the 70s... "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."
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Hmmm .... there is a bit of parallel there, and maybe even plagiarism. Unless of course you may be suggesting that George Lucas is God. I will have to ruminate on that possibility.
Gotta run ..... chores to do. Will check in later.
 

Rich said:
As a side question, and I apologize for digressing again but if god is all powerful why is he having such a problem dispatching the devil. Wouldn't he be able to uhhh, smite him?
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Doesn't want to. Company. Besides, there is no Devil, just the one we created.
 

Rich said:
speaking of the relationship between god and the devil, I have to say this short story ("Trace") by Jerome Bixby fascinated me. You may enjoy it as well. It gives one something to think about.

https://vendormouth.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F15361882662
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Ha ha ...... As Paul Harvey used to say: ".... and now for the rest of the story"
I guess it's only fair to hear from the defendant.
There may even be grounds for defamation of character.
 
Rich said:
Anyone who has ever participated in a game of "telephone" will understand the inherent weakness of verbal communication, information that's handed down. This method seems to fail within minutes, hard to imagine how much a story gets twisted over 2 thousand years.
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Much of the OT was passed down orally until the forced exile in Babylonia. At that point the stories started to be written down to preserve Jewish culture and religion. Genesis was not the first to be recorded. I forget which book was but I know that the order of the OT is not chronological.

The NT was mostly written within one life span, and for those times was that was lightning fast. The only thing faster would have been records like Julius Caesar's accounts of his military campaigns.
 
Pepper said:
The discussion God has with Satan re: Job. Friendly talk between two old mates.
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I first experienced the book of Job as an extended debate about suffering, using Job, his friends, God and Satan as metaphoric foils. I confess at that time, late at night, I was very sozzled, but even in that state the words seemed to jump off the page at me as if they were there specifically just for me.

I also remember an old movie that was about US soldiers who were prisoners of the Chinese in North Korea. They were very resourceful, and communicated using morse code tapped out on, I think, the water pipes. It helped them to resist the brain washing that they were being subjected to.

When they were eventually released, the first thing they did was form a circle and recite a passage from the bible, which I recognised as something I had read in Job. They gave thanks to God for their deliverance.

Perhaps it would be worth reading this book with the eyes of people who endure hardship and who suffer greatly.
 
Warrigal said:
Perhaps it would be worth reading this book with the eyes of people who endure hardship and who suffer greatly.
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All of us? Most of us? Many of us?
Seems there is no end to suffering. A club open for all members.

"Since we know this," my mother would say, "why aren't we good to each other?"
Or did she say "better?"
 
Pepper said:
The discussion God has with Satan re: Job. Friendly talk between two old mates.
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It goes without saying, if one has no belief in a God, then there is no belief in the Devil. There is simply no evidence for either, and their stories have been told so conformists think they're getting a benefit, and rebels from that get punished.

I have no worries about Satan - he's simply another story.
 
Warrigal said:
I first experienced the book of Job as an extended debate about suffering, using Job, his friends, God and Satan as metaphoric foils. I confess at that time, late at night, I was very sozzled, but even in that state the words seemed to jump off the page at me as if they were there specifically just for me.

I also remember an old movie that was about US soldiers who were prisoners of the Chinese in North Korea. They were very resourceful, and communicated using morse code tapped out on, I think, the water pipes. It helped them to resist the brain washing that they were being subjected to.

When they were eventually released, the first thing they did was form a circle and recite a passage from the bible, which I recognised as something I had read in Job. They gave thanks to God for their deliverance.

Perhaps it would be worth reading this book with the eyes of people who endure hardship and who suffer greatly.
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That whole story just made no sense to me. Why would an all powerful God be getting into a betting game with Satan. Was it to prove a point (Why), or to brag, or what? I thought God was supposed to be a spirit. Did he materialize just to have a contest with Satan? Were they just hanging out together? As I say, the story seemed strange.
 
Hopefully these youngsters will avoid the dervish traps too.
Talent has gods blessings! Mine, hopefully yours too!
 
David777 said:
The nature of the Holy Spirit is a difficult one for this person to speculate about. I've answered that in the past. Jesus and the Bible when relating God's nature, consistently makes a point of stating it has to do with special "spirit water". Rather strange since it rarely otherwise bothers to discuss physical science. I will speculate that the Holy Spirit per below as an electromagnetic energy field with special water molecules, is at least one intelligent entity of the "Trinity" that existed before the current universe.

As such it could easily exist within the electrolyte fluids of our human bodies. It may be that the "special water" contains a kind of matter from before our universe that has much smaller structural elements than atoms but above the Planck size and into which when attached to that water, provides a kind of intelligent global field control.

Jhn 3:4>7
Nicodemus *said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” 3:5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 3:6 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 3:7 “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 3:8 “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

I created this February 2022 thread that members ignored with more from the above:

What might the Christian god and spirit be physically?

...One thing that Jesus talks about in verses with the Samaritan woman is special water that he gives where one will never again be thirsty. That may indeed be something about the physical nature of a spirit container. After all water is the major base component of our nervous system. Water is a simple very small yet incredible molecule with unusual properties in sum unlike any other elemental molecules.

One most important facet is bipolar polarization, due to its electron fields, that allows it to dissolve many other chemicals by opening bonds between atoms in molecules. Another is the fact frozen water floats instead of sinking like almost every other element. Yet another is it is abundant in the universe. The incredible properties of water as though they are fine tuned, are one of the most compelling arguments for intelligent design...
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a quietly eloquent and truth bound delivery - another master on the site! - when the scientist can sometimes meet his God!
 
bobcat said:
That whole story just made no sense to me. Why would an all powerful God be getting into a betting game with Satan. Was it to prove a point (Why), or to brag, or what? I thought God was supposed to be a spirit. Did he materialize just to have a contest with Satan? Were they just hanging out together? As I say, the story seemed strange.
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maybe they are "scene deliveries" as in Shakespeare to illustrate a mystery - it doesn't have to be either all science and no God or God without his science?
 
Rich said:
As a side question, and I apologize for digressing again but if god is all powerful why is he having such a problem dispatching the devil. Wouldn't he be able to uhhh, smite him?
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oh my goodness ; clarification ; clarification ; clarification - maybe he /she / them etc want "us" us wee humans to be the ones to dispatch our own devils - why ?? - well think about it and then remember I don't have all the answers but hope I have an open mind?
 
bobcat said:
That whole story just made no sense to me. Why would an all powerful God be getting into a betting game with Satan. Was it to prove a point (Why), or to brag, or what? I thought God was supposed to be a spirit. Did he materialize just to have a contest with Satan? Were they just hanging out together? As I say, the story seemed strange.
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Clearly, my reading and yours picked up different messages. I don't go along with the omnipresent, omnipotent and all knowing representation of God. I long ago moved past the white bearded man in the clouds. To grow in faith we must do a lot of letting go of our childish ideas and other ideas we pick up along the way.

As to suffering, you only have to read Huxley's Brave New World to begin to realise that a world without suffering is not paradise - it is dystopian, and unfit for homo sapiens. Pain and suffering both have purpose and function in life. The dead experience neither.
 
Pepper said:
All of us? Most of us? Many of us?
Seems there is no end to suffering. A club open for all members.

"Since we know this," my mother would say, "why aren't we good to each other?"
Or did she say "better?"
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Your mother was onto something. We all have free will and could be better to one another if we but choose to be. I'm not saying that it is always easy but if we practise kindness, we do get better at it. I love that the Dalai Lama says that his religion is kindness. I also love that in spite of all that is bad or wrong in this world he can still laugh, and does so freely.
 
omnipresent and omnipotent don't necessary equate to white bearded old man in the clouds? Pain and suffering in life?? - often go along with bad choices along the way either relationships or drugs or bad food??
 
Created by a God or evolved as a species with or without a God - take ya choice?
 
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Another question that never seems to have an answer

Who are the "our image" in this bible verse.

Genesis 1:26-27 NIV - Then God said, “Let us make mankind

Bible Gateway
https://www.biblegateway.com › passage › search=Gene...
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock ...

How many? what powers if any do they have? Are the "our" still alive after the billions of years our universe began? Since mankind has evolved into a variety of images are the "our" the models for the variety?

If fossils are any indication of how humans began as one butt ugly life form.

The earliest documented representative of the genus Homo is Homo habilis, which evolved around 2.8 million years ago,[34] and is arguably the earliest species for which there is positive evidence of the use of stone tools.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human...nted representative of,the use of stone tools.
 
Joey said:
short story??
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Well, it was published in a book titled "100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories." It's only 3 pages long in the book.I'm open to suggestions as to what else I could call it. Perhaps I should have called it a short short story? :unsure::)

Short Stories.jpg
 

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