problem

[tmvngocdung99]

What is God? According to our ancestors, who recorded their beliefs in the Bible, God is an all-powerful and all-knowing entity, living somewhere outside of our world, who created the world and controls what happens in it. My definition of God is slightly different; I tend to think that God is not an entity outside nature, but nature itself, as postulated by a 17th century Jewish theologian, Baruch Spinoza, in Holland.

Our very distant ancestors were polytheists; they invented the idea of multiple gods. Our less distant ancestors replaced this idea with the mental image of a personal--omnipotent and omniscient--ruler. Most people on earth still believe in a personal God, but some try to develop a more recent mental image of the ruler, formulated by Spinoza. All three descriptions refer to the same everlasting entity, no matter how it is called. It is not a sin to think that laws of Nature are equivalent to God's laws, while praying. Do you agree?

[Philip]

Welcome to the forum, TMV!

I tend to think that God is not an entity outside nature, but nature itself, as postulated by a 17th century Jewish theologian, Baruch Spinoza, in Holland.

But there was a moment in which all physical things did not yet exist, in which nature and life did not yet exist. This was the moment before the Big Bang's beginning, where nothing physical yet existed - not even time yet existed. And a second later, it did! And yet, it is totally illogical to think that anything could self create itself. As if God IS nature, and as nature nor anything else once did not exist, it is illogical to not need a Creator before ANYTHING else existed. As there would have been nothing yet existing to create that beginning. So, the Beginner HAD to be eternal. NOTHING comes from nothing! Everything we know of came from some other previously existing thing or processes.

And mere seconds after the Big Bang began, we see extraordinary, massively complex physical things of incredible designs suddenly bursting into existence, INSTANTLY showing, not disorder and chaos, but unbelievable precision and consistency, as these many things functioned and interacted on a scale we cannot fathom. And we also see just the RIGHT and NECESSARY things, with just the right designs and functionalities, in just the right complementary juxtapositions and proximities, all comprehensively working together as a galactic orchestra - with every dimension, component and building block necessary to create the universe as it now exists. And so, these many incredible things were created and organized by some Agent producing and harnessing awesome power and showing vast intelligence - the Cause of the universe HAD to be unbelievably powerful, intelligent, and ETERNAL. And blind, random, non-intelligent things do not think, strategize, recognize advantages, organize, or have ambition or purpose. As these are all things only inherent in a thinking and extraordinary INTELLIGENCE!

[RickD]

Are you saying that:

1) God is nature

2) God created nature

3) Therefore God created Himself

[RockyMidnight]

What is God? According to our ancestors, who recorded their beliefs in the Bible, God is an all-powerful and all-knowing entity, living somewhere outside of our world, who created the world and controls what happens in it. My definition of God is slightly different; I tend to think that God is not an entity outside nature, but nature itself, as postulated by a 17th century Jewish theologian, Baruch Spinoza, in Holland.

Our very distant ancestors were polytheists; they invented the idea of multiple gods. Our less distant ancestors replaced this idea with the mental image of a personal--omnipotent and omniscient--ruler. Most people on earth still believe in a personal God, but some try to develop a more recent mental image of the ruler, formulated by Spinoza. All three descriptions refer to the same everlasting entity, no matter how it is called. It is not a sin to think that laws of Nature are equivalent to God's laws, while praying. Do you agree?

The laws of nature ARE God's laws Tmvngocdung99. Many scriptures attest to this. Example, Jeremiah 33:25 Thus says the Lord: ‘If My covenant is not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth, Appointed the or dances of Heaven and Earth" God's ordinances ARE the laws that govern these.
Colossians 1:15-17 New King James Version (NKJV) 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or [a]principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. 17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

We do not pray to or worship that which God has created; we thank Him for His creations.

As for prayer itself, and who you pray to:

1 Chronicles 16:11 Seek the Lord and His strength; Seek His face evermore!

Matthew 26:41 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

From Jesus's own words; Luke 11:1-4 The Model Prayer
11 Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

2 So He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Our[a] Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
[c]Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
3 Give us day by day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
[d]But deliver us from the evil one.”
Cheers and

[DavidHenson]

I think that the problem is that you have to look at what the word god means. I don't think that the primitive ancestors, as you call them, i.e. the writers of the Bible, the ancient Israelite and the Christians, were polytheistic as much as they were henotheistic. The Hebrew word El and it's variations, translated god, gods, or goddesses mean simply mighty, or venerated. So Jehovah, Jesus, the angels, the judges of Israel, Moses, Satan, Dagon, Molech, Baal, etc. are called gods, which mean they are mighty or venerated.

The Creator, Jehovah, was a spirit being, a distinctive individual, conscious sentient being who communicated with earthling men through a mediator. Not an unconscious natural phenomenon.

[PaulSacramento]

What is God? According to our ancestors, who recorded their beliefs in the Bible, God is an all-powerful and all-knowing entity, living somewhere outside of our world, who created the world and controls what happens in it. My definition of God is slightly different; I tend to think that God is not an entity outside nature, but nature itself, as postulated by a 17th century Jewish theologian, Baruch Spinoza, in Holland.

Our very distant ancestors were polytheists; they invented the idea of multiple gods. Our less distant ancestors replaced this idea with the mental image of a personal--omnipotent and omniscient--ruler. Most people on earth still believe in a personal God, but some try to develop a more recent mental image of the ruler, formulated by Spinoza. All three descriptions refer to the same everlasting entity, no matter how it is called. It is not a sin to think that laws of Nature are equivalent to God's laws, while praying. Do you agree?

The notion of "god" has changed over the millennium.
God was a term used for all supernatural beings in the past, any being that was not of THIS world, was a "god".
Yes our ancestors were polytheists in the sense that they believed in many gods, BUT the Hebrew believed in only ONE creator God ( though many lesser gods).
Now, depending on how ones defines god NOW, it can be the same thing BUT for the classical Theist underdtanding of God, there CAN ONLY be ONE God and that is because God, as defined by classical Theism is:
ALL Powerful
ALL knowing
ALL Present and Eternal

As such only ONE God like this can exist.

Creator AND sustainer of all that was and all that IS.

Without God there would NOT exist anything, ever.

God doesn't control, God sustains and that is a very big difference.

God IS existence God as God IS Being.

To say that God is nature is too vague and misleading since nature is NOT eternal nor is nature all knowing or all powerful.

God sustains nature as God sustains ALL the exists.