Is God a Person or a Force?

[Cheerful Charlie]

http://www.prri.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/AAPOR-2014-Final.pdf

I Know What You Did Last Sunday:
Measuring Social Desirability Bias in Self Reported Religious
Behavior, Belief, and Identity

Daniel Cox, Robert P. Jones, Ph.D., and Juhem Navarro ‐ Rivera

....
Belief in God

Similar to religious affiliation, belief in God seems immune to social pressure.

The patterns of responses about belief in God are nearly identical across survey modes. Roughly 6 in 10 (62%) Americans completing telephone surveys say that they believe God is a person with whom one can have a relationship, 25% say God is an impersonal force, and 8% say they do not believe in God. Among online respondents 61% say that they believe God is a person, 25% say God is an impersonal force, and 10% do not believe in the existence of God. Among different political, religious and demographic subgroups there are no significant mode differences with one exception: the religiously unaffiliated.



God is an impersonal force? This agrees with a Baylor finding that a survey taken some years ago noted. (Piety in the 21st Century)

 

[jonJ]

God is an impersonal force? This agrees with a Baylor finding that a survey taken some years ago noted. (Piety in the 21st Century)

I'll bet $100 that if you ask ten of those people who said God is an 'impersonal force' what their God wants, at least eight of them will regard it as a meaningful question. 'Impersonal force' is just what people say to strangers when they're embarrassed to admit they believe in a Sky Daddy.

 

[Keith&Co.]

'Impersonal force' is just what people say to strangers when they're embarrassed to admit they believe in a Sky Daddy.

Or when they're trying to Wedge their god into a secular argument. Like my relatives who claim that the Big Bang theory is just Genesis, with math.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

God always seems to be whatever it needs to be to fit into the current claim it's being applied to. Then its nature can change if you move onto a different claim five minutes later.

It's like when you have a pot hole in the middle of a street. A puddle of water inside that pot hole is always perfectly fitted to whatever the make up of that pot hole happens to be. Similarly, God adapts its nature to fit into whatever claim he needs to be fitted in to.

Also, if you drink God, you're going to get cholera or something - that's an aspect of religion that the churches always try to gloss over.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Don't the trinity types have that covered? To them this god is a sky man, an earth man, and a ghost man. The ghost man is the force, the spirit that fills people. And of course you have the standard OT god along with a cuddly human who does good things.

 

[Syed]

Is God a Person or a Force?

Quran
1. “Say: He, Allah, is One,"
2. “Allah, the Eternal,"
3. “He begets not, nor is He begotten,"
4. “And there is none like unto Him.”

 

[Keith&Co.]

Is God a Person or a Force?

Quran
1. “Say: He, Allah, is One,"
2. “Allah, the Eternal,"
3. “He begets not, nor is He begotten,"
4. “And there is none like unto Him.”

At any point does the Quran have anything that answers the question you quoted?

 

[Syed]

Quran
1. “Say: He, Allah, is One,"
2. “Allah, the Eternal,"
3. “He begets not, nor is He begotten,"
4. “And there is none like unto Him.”

At any point does the Quran have anything that answers the question you quoted?

yes, god is nothing like anything on earth or in the universe

 

[zorq]

At any point does the Quran have anything that answers the question you quoted?

yes, god is nothing like anything on earth or in the universe

Lol. There's something so satisfying about a theist accidentally admitting that God doesn't exist.

 

[Keith&Co.]

At any point does the Quran have anything that answers the question you quoted?

yes, god is nothing like anything on earth or in the universe

So, wait:

Quran
1. “Say: He, Allah, is One,"

Why can't we describe The Universe as 'One?' I mean, what the fuck does that even mean?

2. “Allah, the Eternal,"

Why can't we say the Universe is Eternal?

3. “He begets not, nor is He begotten,"

If the universe IS eternal, it certainly was not begotten. And I've never seen a baby universe, so it begets not.

4. “And there is none like unto Him.”

If 'universe' is the totality of all that exists, then there probably can't be another one... I mean, what would you put in it? Everything that exists is aleady in the first one.


So, in summation, given a multiple choice test, your answer is a short essay, and it's wrong.

Thanks for playing, Syed.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Lol. There's something so satisfying about a theist accidentally admitting that God doesn't exist.

It exists in their imaginations. It's just not real otherwise.

There's something about a magic space creature losing its mysterious luster.

 

[Valjean]

"God" is clearly a personage. He/She/Them -- invariably personifications of something.

 

[skepticalbip]

Is God a Person or a Force?

NO.