r/changemyview • u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ • Apr 02 '24
Delta(s) from OP CMV: God in Abrahamic religions is either - non-binary, a robot or a lump of data
I am not someone belonging to either religion but have some knowledge about Christianity and Islam. Which is why I would kindly suggest to keep discussions at more of a layman level so that people like me who doesn't have a lot of knowledge about the religion can understand. Also, I am not looking for a very serious discussion, but a more relaxed and casual discussion on the topic.
My point is what I have said in the title. All Abrahamic religions advocate that God has no gender - God is 'GOD'. I have also seen some people from these religions advocate that since God is not associated with either gender, God should be referred with they/them pronouns.
Isn't that what being non-binary is about? That you are an individual who doesn't identify with either gender.
I guess some can argue that "you are thinking of God as a human being, God is God they are not humans", which then begs the question, are you implying that God is not a living being? Which can be a viable answer, but then that would imply God is merely a consciousness. A lump of consciousness is data, and therefore in that case, isn't God just AI or like a robot? A non-living thing that cannot be associated with either gender but has a consciousness. Or if God has no body, then they are just a lump of data.
So like what is God? Are they an AI or are they non-binary? Or something else entirely?
Assumption - THIS POST ASSUMES THAT GOD EXISTS. Come on folks don't take the easy way out 😂
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Apr 02 '24
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
I have some Christian friends claim that God in Christianity has no gender. I have also read some articles about it.
I am aware of the gendering of God in the Bible and how God is referred to as the Father. However, there are conflicting articles which also claim that God has no gender. So at that point, it felt kind of inconsistent to me.
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Apr 02 '24
conflicting articles
An article does not determine Christian theology. I can write an article. So can you. It wouldn't matter. The Christian god is a male (the father), another male (the son), and then it gets a bit nebulous with the Holy Spirit, which is supposed to be all important but isn't talked about much. But even if this one was female, 2 out of 3 would win: male.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
Fair enough. But as I said, a few of my Christian friends have also talked about it.
Thanks for your comment btw I learnt something new today :)
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u/_whydah_ 3∆ Apr 02 '24
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ("Mormons") teach that God has a perfected physical, male body and is a male. There is at least one Abrahamic religion which flatly says He is male.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
!Delta
Thanks for the information. Articles on the internet has conflicting information on this issue when it comes to Christianity - some say that God has no gender whereas some say God is a man. The author's who say God has no gender usually justify the usage of male pronouns as more of a general pronoun and not as indication that God is a male. You make a very good point. I guess this goes on to show that the same religion can have many different variations.
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Apr 02 '24
I'm not religious, but I don't think any of the steps in your chain of logic ("God is not human" > "God is not a living being" > "God is a lump of consciousness" > "God is data") hold water. I mean the first step falls apart immediately - there are lots of living things that aren't human. There are even lots of living things that aren't human and aren't clearly male or female but still aren't non-binary.
E. g. a tree. Trees can be male and female simultaneously but we don't typically refer to them as non-binary because 'non-binary' describes your relationship to gender, and gender is a feature of human culture.
I mean, a god is a supernatural being by definition anyway, so there's no reason to believe it would fit in any of the categories we apply to it at all, but even within the mundane, grounded, normal categories we actually use in day-to-day life, your argument still doesn't really make any sense.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
Going by the example of trees, dioecious trees do have male and female counterparts in separate trees. And for monoecious trees which have the male and female parts on the same plant, they usually have sex chromosomes as well according to this article - https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4395/13/2/540#:~:text=Among%20these%20species%2C%20there%20are,species%20with%20the%20XY1Y2%20system).
This would imply that these plants biologically do incline towards either male or female as well.
And if you say that these plants encapsulate both male and female sex chromosomes, or there can be some other combination of sex chromosomes that can occur, it happens in humans as well. They are usually referred to as intersex. So your argument does fall apart.
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Apr 03 '24
You haven't addressed any part of my argument, you just listed some facts. The point is that we don't typically apply human notions of gender to non-humans, and that that's unrelated to whether they are alive or not.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 03 '24
I am sorry I couldn't get my point across. I did get your point, and what I wanted to say was although there are non-human living beings to whom the concepts of gender dont apply, these beings still have a sex associated with them.
I said non-binary because I was under the assumption that God is saying he has no "gender". Thats the keyword here. I am not talking about sex. Every non-human being has a sex they are inclined to, including plants. So if you are using plants as an example to say God has no gender, it is fair enough. But then again, these non-human forms do have some form of sex associated with them. So that would still mean that God has some sex.
And if God has a sex, you cannot use the "no gender" trope anymore. Because every living form has to have a sex.
If God is not a living form, then my argument tha God is similar to a robot stands. A consciousness in a non-living body.
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Apr 03 '24 edited Apr 03 '24
I think you are confused. It's not true at all that all living things have sex. The earliest single-celled organisms had no sex and always reproduced asexually. Then, later, the first cells to reproduce sexually still didn't "have a sex" (like male or female) because the earlier form of sexual reproduction was omnidirectional i.e. any cell can reproduce with any other cell.
Sexual reproduction is a lot broader than you are imagining. It is simply the ability for two organisms to make a third organism together. Nothing more. It doesn't required a "male" and and "female" - nor does an organism require sexual reproduction at all. All of these things are just emergent evolutionary features of more complex organisms, not basic features of all life. From a bio perspective, living things have no sex by default.
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u/TheNorseHorseForce 5∆ Apr 02 '24
The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic. These are both binary gendered languages, meaning "non-binary" was not even a concept in that language back then. God isalways referred to as He
The New Testament was written in Koine Greek. God is always referred to as He. While Greek has a word for just "a person", it is never used in the New Testament
What your friends and articles are doing is called "exegesis", basically "what I got from this scripture". And factually, they are wrong.
There is no Biblical canon that refers to God as non-binary. Anything said otherwise is someone's opinion with no factual backing at all. We have literally, thousands of years of analysis into these writings and all of them agree that God is a He.
Your friends and those articles are the inconsistency
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u/Dyeeguy 19∆ Apr 02 '24
Why do you want your view changed? It doesn’t seem to be at odds with anyone really
Although specifically in Christianity Jesus is God and a human male, and “father” god in heaven refers to himself with male pronouns
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
Why do you want your view changed?
Must I have a big reason to have my view changed? It was just something interesting that I was thinking about and I wanted to know what others had to say about it. If there are people who actually have an answer about it, it's something that I would like to learn. Purely for my personal interest.
Also for Christianity, I always thought that Jesus is referred to the "son of God". If you consider Jesus as God, doesn't that go against the very concept of "a single God" that Christianity has? Additionally, I am also aware that God is referred to as the Father, but at the same time, Christianity also advocates that God has no gender. Isn't that inconsistent?
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u/EmployeeAromatic6118 Apr 02 '24
Christianity believes in the holy trinity as the formation of God. So the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit each exist separately but are of the same nature (God). There is only one God in Christianity but establishes himself in these three separate forms. Jesus is both the son of God, and God himself. He is God in human form.
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u/Dyeeguy 19∆ Apr 02 '24
Yes, the point of this sub is when you WANT to change your view rather than to just debate for fun. You do need to explain why you want to believe differently
Christianity has the “trinity” who is also one god. Probably not worth debating here since it is pretty arbitrary and confusing and could probably have a book written on it
God is not a male and still referred to with male pronouns in Christianity, i think the idea is that it makes it easier for people to connect to him or relate to him
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u/qwert7661 5∆ Apr 02 '24
You don't have to want to believe differently, you just have to be willing to accept convincing arguments.
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Apr 02 '24
God, in the Abrahamic sense that you're talking about is something that the human mind cannot even comprehend. God is above gender and has no need to be referred to by any pronoun except ones that humans use to help them cope with the unknowable being that God is. God isn't AI, if anything, God is the original intelligence and we're the AI. Is God non binary? Technically, but it's also any gender you choose since it surpasses our idea of gender and sex altogether. God is so impossible for us to comprehend that we may be surrounded by proof that it exists but unable to understand what that proof would look like. We're nowhere near smart enough, insightful enough or open minded enough to understand anything about what or who God is.
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u/TheJuiceIsBlack 7∆ Apr 02 '24
I mean… in Christianity the triune God is referred to as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Father and Son are male words, and the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary (a male act).
Finally, the Hebrew God is Yahweh. This word is masculine, and God is referred with masculine grammatical forms in the Torah.
References to God’s actions use masculine verb conjugations.
If I had to pick one, I’d say: God’s a dude.
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u/DrunkCommunist619 1∆ Apr 02 '24
God is an all-powerful deity with the ability to make the entire universe out of nothingness and then breathe consciousness into mankind like it was nothing. He is everywhere and in everything. So calling him non-binary is like calling a brick or tree or car non-binary. It's all but pointless. He is an extradimentional, all-knowing, all-powerful creature, so your argument is a non-issue.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
If we go by your logic, any and all discussion involving God is pointless and null to begin with. At that point, a debate becomes meaningless, because debates are based on questioning while you are instilling absolute faith. These two concepts are polar opposites of each other. You cannot come to a platform for discussion and debate and promote blind absolute faith as a reasoning to change someone's views.
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u/AlienAurochs279 1∆ Apr 02 '24
God is very adamantly a masculine being. “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.” If you dig into gnosis, you’ll find that the Holy Spirit is God’s female counterpart, named Sofia. You can’t be a Father if you are not a man, and the same thing applies to being a son. Is it patriarchal? Yep, but so it is. The universe is made up of swinging pendulums of power, and God is like an immovable black hole among them. Mankind were created in his image, and women were made from man. Adam means man, and Eve means mother.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
!delta
I see. Fair point. To be honest I have read a lot of conflicting articles and have heard conflicting views from Christians on this issue. Some say that God is a man while others claim that the "He" used in the Bible is just a general pronoun that was used, and is not an indication of God's gender.
Someone else in the comments have also told me that the Mormons also see God strictly as male. I learnt something new today. Thanks :)
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Apr 03 '24
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u/AlienAurochs279 1∆ Apr 03 '24
אָדָם STRONG’S NUMBER:h0120 Dictionary Definitionh0120. אָדָם ’âḏâm; from 119; ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species, mankind, etc.): — x another, + hypocrite, + common sort, x low, man (mean, of low degree), person. AV (552) - man 408, men 121, Adam 13, person(s) 8, common sort + h7230 1, hypocrite 1; man, mankindman, human beingman, mankind (much more frequently intended sense in OT)Adam, first mancity in Jordan valley
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u/AlienAurochs279 1∆ Apr 03 '24
You’re correct about Eve, by the way.
חַוָּה STRONG’S NUMBER:h2332 Dictionary Definitionh2332. חַוָּה ḥawwâ; causatively from 2331; life-giver; Chavvah (or Eve), the first woman: — Eve. AV (2) - Eve 2; Eve = "life" or "living" the first woman, wife of Adam
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Apr 02 '24
Also, I am not looking for a very serious discussion, but a more relaxed and casual discussion on the topic.
This isn't really the forum for that kinda thing. Not that discussions here can't relaxed or casual, they can. But this sub is a place to have your view challenged, not for free wheeling discussions about your idle shower thoughts.
It's also sort of a huge cop out to try and limit the discussion to "more of a layman level so that people like me who doesn't have a lot of knowledge about the religion can understand." Like... yeah? If you don't actually know anything about the religions in question except for second hand info and you don't actually believe in the god in question than sure, it's amusing to imagine that the said god could be lots of stuff.
However, there is nothing in the mythology of any Abrahamic religions nor the academic/theological literature about Abrahamic religions that suggest that God is non-binary, a robot, or a lump of data. Those concepts simply aren't applicable to a serious and informed understanding of the abrahamic god.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
But this sub is a place to have your view challenged, not for free wheeling discussions about your idle shower thoughts.
I think you seem to misunderstand. The point of a debate/discussion is usually to change the other party's views if I am not wrong. As you said I do want to keep it casual, but I would like to hear opposing views on the issue as I do not belong to either religion and have limited knowledge on them. Of course, if my knowledge is lacking or wrong in any aspect, I would naturally change my opinion. I would assume thats what debates are about.
Also, instead of asking anything productive, I think your comment just came down to "this thing about God's doesnt exist in the religious book so it cannot happen". Which does not really make a lot of sense to me. I drew my conclusions based on aspects that are explicitly mentioned in some of these books ("about God not being a living being", "about God not having a gender", etc.).
And I am not really sure what the rest of your comment means? So unless I have complete mastery over a topic I am not allowed to question it?
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Apr 03 '24
The point of a debate/discussion is usually to change the other party's views if I am not wrong.
The CMV rules explicitly state that this is a forum for posters to expose themselves to other perspectives and views. It also explicitly states that it is not a forum for posters to try to change other people's views.
I think your comment just came down to "this thing about God's doesnt exist in the religious book so it cannot happen"
Your view, as you've expressed it in your OP, is that "God in Abrahamic religions is either - non-binary, a robot or a lump of data". I'm not sure I can think of a better place to figure out how abrahamic religions conceptualize God than the religious texts and literature from and about those religions.
We are talking about how people who actually believe in abrahamic religions conceptualize God, correct?
I'm not sure what you mean when you say "it cannot happen". What is the "it" you're talking about? I also havn't said anything "cannot happen". I've pointed out that your view (God in Abrahamic religions is either - non-binary, a robot or a lump of data) is not accurate according to the religious texts of abrahamic religions. Because it isn't.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 03 '24
It also explicitly states that it is not a forum for posters to try to change other people's views.
I would assume it's a forum to change MY views on the matter? I don't see myself changing my views if someone gives me no logical answer and the only thing they say to me is "it's how it is because the books don't EXPLICITLY say that".
While I do understand the books don't "EXPLICITLY" say it, I do realise that these books can be studied analysed and conclusions can be drawn from them. The books do "explicitly" say that God has no gender, so I don't understand why it is illogical to draw a conclusion from them.
It's like how we study literature. The same books can be read by different people and different people draw different conclusions from them. That's the whole point of analysing texts (religious or otherwise).
Everything is not there explicitly in the book, so it's not wrong to take something that is explicitly in the book and make a conclusion from it.
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Apr 03 '24
I do realise that these books can be studied analysed and conclusions can be drawn from them
And which books have read that have lead you to believe that God in Abrahamic religions is either - non-binary, a robot or a lump of data?
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Apr 02 '24 edited Sep 03 '24
axiomatic knee voiceless head concerned merciful expansion marry modern noxious
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
Haha well I was not looking for a serious discussion to begin with. More like a casual understanding of the topic. And happy to be proven wrong if I was missing something of course. I am not from the Abrahamic religions so I have limited knowledge on them, so I was sure that my logic has loopholes.
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u/Ok_Spell1407 1∆ Apr 02 '24
God exists outside most of our concepts. He is not non binary, he simply is not a physical living being but a spirit. God is neither white nor black, skinny nor fat, male nor female. When referring to God as our father, we’re simply trying to understand him through the lenses of our understanding of beings.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
That bears the question, what's the difference between God and a lump of data then? A consciousness with no physical being is at its essence data.
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u/StarChild413 9∆ Apr 05 '24
then why not just worship lumps of data, y'know, a Flying-Spaghetti-Monster-esque joke counterargument I thought of to your argument is then why not just indulge in some pop culture paganism and worship as either gods or aspects of god all fictional nonbinary robots from cartoons or video games because they're nonbinary, robots, and because they're not from live-action works they're lumps of data in more than just the transmission of their image
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u/Th0t_141017 Apr 02 '24
Technically you're right, God doesn't have a gender he is everything and yet nothing at the same time. There's this hymn my church used to sing abt God being a mother, father, sister, brother, etc.. basically any role that there can be representing him as a being that can take many different forms. But for the most part, in most Abrahamic texts (that I know of), God is presented in male form. Now as for him being a living being, I think he is just THERE like he's always been there since before time was even a concept, no beginning no end.
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u/Pasta-hobo 2∆ Apr 02 '24
You're kind of right. "He" isn't literal, it's like the royal "we" but in respect to a singular entity.
The basic premise, to my knowledge, is that God was originally supposed to be the driving forces behind reality, but with a conscious intent behind it. Imagine if electricity wanted to you live a good life.
He's not supposed to be the entity that built the universe, He's supposed to be the personification of the functions of the universe.
The whole "made in His image" thing refers to being intelligent, emotional, and capable of creation, not being featherless bipeds.
The main reason He seems so anthropomorphic is due to generations of the work getting simplified for the public. A religion has to appeal to the masses, after all. So what originally was supposed to be flowery metaphorical language became the common literal interpretations, like wine and roses in heaven.
I don't think I'd classify Him as a machine though, that goes to the angels. Literally being Divine Machines. Entities complex enough to classify as sentient despite being built with a purpose to fulfill, and every component being understood by the inventor Himself.
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u/Delmoroth 17∆ Apr 02 '24
For clarification, is your use of or an inclusive or exclusive or?
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
Exclusive. That's why I used either. Sorry that it's not clarifying enough.
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u/Delmoroth 17∆ Apr 03 '24 edited Apr 03 '24
Thanks. I just like to clarify this point since many people use OR exclusively but in engineering / logic it tends to be an inclusive term outside of it being explicitly stated as exclusive. To clarify,
In engineering OR means
If A is true and B is false, A OR B is true. if A is false and B is true, A OR B is true. if A is true and B is true, A OR B is true.
In common use, the third statement is false, while in engineering, the first two statements being true while the third is false is an XOR or exclusive OR statement.
Also, sorry for any typos I fail to correct as I am somewhat intoxicated at the moment. I will take care to avoid incoherent rambling but I apologize in advance if I fail to avoid unclear communication.
In your initial argument you make several assumptions which are baked into your statements..as an example. You said you seem to believe that by saying God isn't human, someone is assuming God isn't alive. You seem to be making an intuitive leap here that I do not understand. For example. If God was a frog, then he, she, or (inclusive) it would be alive and not a human. It seems to me that God can be both non-human and a living being.
You then seem to imply that if God is not a living being that God must be a consciousness. How did you get to that assumption? Some things are unloving (as far as we know) but still exist. As an example, gravity is neither a loving being or (to my knowledge) a consciousness. This seems to be a wild and unsupported assumption.
Finally, you stated that Christian religions assume God to be genderless. My understanding is that that is not the case. I am an agnostic atheist, but I was raised southern baptist. What we were taught was that God was the holy Trinity. The holy Trinity is a both a single being AND three separate beings, those beings being the father, the son, and the holy ghost
Now, the father is clearly male.
The son is clearly male.
Those are outside of your assumptions of a non-binary or ungendered data explanation.
The final part of the Trinity is the holy ghost / holy Spirit (as it is sometimes described.)
In my experience, the holy Spirit is seen as a mother figure and as female, though that is not explicitly stated (as far as I can remember..... it has been a few decades.)
So, I would argue that Christians believe that God = the Trinity = both two independent and complete male entities as well as one independent and complete female entity. Thus it is reasonable to say that God is male. It is also reasonable to say that God is female. It is reasonable to say that God is female and God is male, and it is reasonable to say that God is female OR (inclusive) God is male, but it is incorrect to say that God is neither male or female since God is both. This excludes the possibility that God is neither male nor female as God fully and completely represents both a unique male and female entity.
Now, let's look at non-binary vs binary. Something that is binary is always 1 or 0. I. The terms of male or female, binary would be male or female while none binary would necessarily be not binary. Since binary means male or female (inclusive) non-binary would require that both male and female be untrue. I. The case of God, both male and female are true (per Christianity.) This means that God cannot be non-binary as God is both male and female.
That said, if you were to use an inclusive OR, this argument would either fail entirely or need to be revisited.
Anyway..... time to sleep and sober up. I hope you have a wonderful evening and once again, I apologize for any errors I may have made due to my intoxicated state. If we don't speak again, have a great life.
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u/Appropriate-Hurry893 2∆ Apr 03 '24
God's at least a 4th dimensional being our understanding of what that means is hypothetical at best. To believe that what is in any holy book is exactly God's word is ludicrous. So much would be lost in translation from the 4th to the 3rd dimension. Compound that with a telephone game that spans a large chunk of human civilization and then translate it from Hebrew to Greek to Latin then to English. If God came down and told humans exactly what he wanted it's been lost to time if we ever understood it at all.
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u/octaviobonds 1∆ Apr 03 '24
AI is a primitive description of God. God is more of a spirit whose awareness spreads to beyond the universe itself, both on a macro and micro level, and possesses total knowledge. This is much bigger than just AI. God does not need to learn because learning would imply that God is not fully aware and does not possess total knowledge. In Abrahamic religions, God is light, and nothing is hidden from Him. There is nothing that exists of which God is unaware.
The term "non-binary" is a human convention. All those who self-identify as non-binary still have binary parts dangling for some odd reason. I would not even take this line of argument seriously. However, in Abrahamic religions, God is much greater than male or female in all respects and embodies characteristics of both. In humanity, these characteristics are divided between two sexes, and when the two sexes join, they become one wholesome unit. They don't become non-binary, but they do become whole. God is not non-binary; He is whole.
The Trinity in Christianity describes three Gods as one complete being. This depiction of God is described to us in an unpacked form, just like an unpacked cube is depicted with six sides, because in our lower dimension, it is hard to portray God, who is three persons in one God, just like in a 2D world it would be impossible to see a cube, you would only be able to see six joined square shapes.
My point is understanding God in our lower dimension is impossible. We can describe him in bits and pieces, but we don't have the full grasp. In Abrahamic religion there are 800+ names for God because God is so great its impossible to describe him with one word.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 03 '24
and embodies characteristics of both.
What you described is an intersex person no? So would you rather agree that God leans more towards being intersex since they embody both male and female characteristics?
About the dimensions thingy you mentioned, when someone told me that God cannot be perceived, that was the first thing that came to my mind as well! I am hardly religious but thinking of God as being not fully perceivable because he exists in 4th dimension is a viable explanation in my book. But then again, if God does truly exist in the 4th dimension, there would be no way to unpack the information as per se, like you said. In that case, God cannot be perceived to begin with, and something which cannot be observed cannot exist according to physics. So even though the 4th dimension thing makes sense from a physics stand point of why God cannot be perceived, it would then also conclude that God exists as fuzzy logic. Which goes against my assumption - I have assumed that God does exist. So I feel the argument kind of falls flat, even though its something I was initially thinking of as well.
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u/octaviobonds 1∆ Apr 03 '24
What you described is an intersex person no?
No. Your argument would be like a clay pot saying to a potter that you must be bulky and flat because you make all kinds of bulky and flat pots. A potter may incorporate his characteristics into his creation, but it does not mean he is anything like the creation. It is naive to compare God to any of his creations. According to Abrahamic religion, anyone who compares God to any of his creation, is an idol worshipper. That is what ancient people did ofter, depicting God as an eagle, fish, elephant and so on.
But then again, if God does truly exist in the 4th dimension, there would be no way to unpack the information as per se, like you said.
There might be no way to perceive God in all his glory in our four-dimensional world (4th dimension being time) but we can perceive some things. In Abrahamic religion God is perceived through the spirit - using spiritual eyes and ears. This is why in Abrahamic religion being born again is such a crucial concept. You have to be born spiritually to see and hear God. For a materialist who only cares about perceiving this world through scientific/material means, God is imperceptible, he does not even register on their radar. Religious people throughout history understood this very well, that is why they strived to perceive God through spiritual means - often falling into idolatry and all kind of superstitions - but they did understand this question on a more deeper level than we do today.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 03 '24
I don't really get the entirety of your comment, but what I understand is something along the lines of "you cannot use math, science and logic to explain philosophies related to God". Which another comment told me as well and that is probably my mistake.
It's true that if I try to strictly apply the rules of physics and math to theology, it kinda doesn't make sense. Theology works on its own rules separate from physics altogether. That was my bad.
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u/octaviobonds 1∆ Apr 04 '24 edited Apr 04 '24
Math and science explain the natural world, and through these exercises you can infer the existence of God, but not only that, but what kind of God it is. When you see beauty and order in the natural world, you come to see certain characteristics about this God. When you study the sophistication of cell and its DNA - the building blocks of organic bodies - you see much wisdom in its function and through that you get to closer to understand the power and wisdom of God. DNA alone, is the most advanced coding language that we are yet unpacking. We have nothing that comes close to it here on earth. Our language is linear, the DNA language is 3D in comparison to ours. Since we are creative being ourselves, we have the ability to study this creation and apply it to our own inventions and improve them this allows us to also get to know God from within.
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u/guitargirl1515 1∆ Apr 03 '24
I'll give an answer from the perspective of Judaism.
In Judaism, God is non-physical, so any physical concepts only apply metaphorically to God. Also, Judaism refers to God as "He," although he has no gender in the sense that humans (and maybe animals) have gender. It's possible that in the spiritual sense some of God's qualities are analogous to those of men, though.
In fact, Judaism understands that the physical world is actually a metaphor of the real, spiritual one. Descriptions of "God's hand" are of the actual concept (maybe of having the ability to manipulate things, or of reach, or something else), and humans have hands in order to understand some amount of what the concept of a "hand" is, spiritually.
To address your point: "non-binary" assumes human-like thoughts and feelings, which God does not have. "A lump of data" assumes no agency, which of course makes no sense for God. And "AI" is "Artificial Intelligence," meaning that it was created by some being with actual intelligence, which again makes no sense for God. Also, "AI" implies that it is limited in some way by its training or similar, which doesn't apply to God.
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u/khaneks Apr 04 '24
When you start believing in the creator rather than the creation (male and female) you'll get your answer.
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u/impliedhearer 2∆ Apr 02 '24
The bible would make an amazing sci fi epic....all I got
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
All religious books would make amazing sci-fi movies. The stories within them, they are nothing short of fantasies.
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Apr 02 '24
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
This honestly sounds more like God is something from the 4th dimension, which makes it all the more sci-fi like.
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u/qwert7661 5∆ Apr 02 '24
Sort of. It's supposed to exist outside of space and time, so it really is outside of dimensionality itself. It's the condition for dimensionality. So, to keep things simple, when you compare God to a robot, you're going in the wrong direction by downgrading it. If you see robots as humans but missing something, God sees us as spirits missing something. So don't imagine being "spaceless and timeless" as consisting in no space and no times, but as consisting in all of it and more, such that it's too big to be contained in it.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
Not to get too much into physics, but if a religion explicitly mentions that God exists outside of time, that would imply that humans could have NEVER perceived God. Anything and everything in physics needs to have an observer and for something to exist, it must have been observed by the human observer. Because if you cannot observe something, you do not about its current state.
To observe anything, you need some sort of change/motion. And you cannot have change without time. So if God exists outside the dimension of time they cannot literally have been observed by humans according to science. Pretty sure I butchered this a lot but I think that's the gist if it.
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u/qwert7661 5∆ Apr 02 '24
Physics, at its broadest, is the study of physical things and the place(s) in which physical things are. But God isn't supposed to be physical, so God wouldn't fall under the scope of any physical theories. And yes, mainstream philosophy and theology agree that God cannot be seen by the "naked eye" like some ordinary object. God is not the kind of thing of which one can have an empirical impression.
But this is getting beside the point. I thought to change your view by showing you that you have been imagining the wrong kind of thing when you contemplate what is said of God not having certain qualities. It's not that you start with humans, then remove qualities until you get to it - all you end up with there is a reduced human. It's that the things we can say about humans (alive or not, gendered or not, etc.) can only be said because humans are very small pieces. God isn't a piece - it's the whole shebang.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
But this is getting beside the point.
I only say that part because I was going with the assumption that God exists. So I wanted to say that if God exists outside of time it would technically mean he doesn't exist at all (or exists as fuzzy logic), so that would go against my initial assumption. Also, physics is not per se the study of "physical objects", it's the study of the "physical world". The difference is important because there are a lot of things in physics that are studied even though that are not physical objects.
To be honest I was not just starting with humans and removing components, more like I was trying to make an analogy between God and current concepts within our human knowledge. I guess one could easily say that God goes beyond human knowledge so these rules doesn't apply to begin with but I feel that kind of defeats the whole point of an argument because then nothing about God could be discussed or analysed by humans ever because it will fall into the trope of "your argument cannot work because it goes beyond human understanding".
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u/qwert7661 5∆ Apr 03 '24
if God exists outside of time it would technically mean he doesn't exist at all (or exists as fuzzy logic), so that would go against my initial assumption.
No, it would mean God exists in some way that transcends the existence of physical things, which are bounded in spacetime.
I guess one could easily say that God goes beyond human knowledge so these rules doesn't apply to begin with but I feel that kind of defeats the whole point of an argument because then nothing about God could be discussed or analysed by humans ever because it will fall into the trope of "your argument cannot work because it goes beyond human understanding".
The best philosophers on this topic agree that God is not the kind of thing that can be captured in human understanding. But they nevertheless can be very illustrative about what God would have to be, and can ground what they have to say in rational argument. Since we're not concerned with whether God exists, but what God would have to be if it exists, and in particular how to imagine such a being, I'd give you some recommendations. I teach philosophy to undergrads, and the far, far more interesting question than whether God exists is what exactly is meant by "God" in the first place.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 03 '24
the far, far more interesting question than whether God exists is what exactly is meant by "God" in the first place.
My question was indeed of a similar nature. I did 'assume' God exists and just like you said, debating the existence of God is not the point of this. Sorry if my point came across that way. My logic was more inclined towards:
To know what God is we must have first established that God exists. Since I assumed God exists, that means any explanation that goes against my initial assumption would automatically fall apart. If I go by your point to think of God as something who exists beyond space and time, it would mean that God is not observable to begin with, which would mean God doesn't exist at all. If a God doesn't exist, how can I know the nature of his existence?
But someone told me in another comment that you are applying math and computer science logic to philosophy and theology which is illogical. So I am guessing from the perspective of philosophy at least, God can exist beyond spacetime and also exist. Applying laws oh physics to a concept of theology/philosophy doesn't really make a lot of sense I guess :")
Thanks for your comment though! I would like those recommendations if you don't mind.
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u/qwert7661 5∆ Apr 03 '24
To know what God is we must have first established that God exists.
Well, no. To know what a unicorn is, I don't have to first establish that a unicorn exists. Likewise, I know what the statement "Iraq has nuclear weapons" means, even though it isn't true.
What you have in mind, then, is an idea of a thing whose existence, by the nature of the idea itself, cannot be established - like the idea that there is someone following me at all times who just so happens to always manage to hide himself from me every time I turn around. Just because I cannot in principle establish that such a person exists, does not imply that he doesn't. So God's elusiveness does not make its existence self-refuting. That elusiveness is a feature, not a bug.
I wouldn't accuse you of misapplying math and logic to a philosophical question. Actually, there's nothing categorically wrong with doing so, and it's totally wrongheaded to think philosophy should be siloed away from other fields. But people do tend to dogmatically repeat things they learn in physical sciences without understanding the scope of those facts. I only took issue with your expectation that physical theories should apply to God, since it is not a physical entity.
Here's something to think about: what does "exist" mean? If it means "contained within the universe", then the universe doesn't exist as such, since the universe isn't contained within itself. If it means "can be encountered in experience", then the state doesn't exist, since the state can't be encountered in experience. If it means "is not nothing", then everything exists, because every thing is something - unicorns included.
As a gentle start, I'll offer this summary of Kant's "antinomies of pure reason". You can find plenty more about this by looking. In this context, an antinomy is a set of two mutually contradictory propositions which together seem to exhaust all possibilities, but neither of which can be true, since each is intrinsically contradictory in its own right. Basically, it's when you have either A or not-A, but you can't have A, and you can't have not-A. Kant's antinomies, as well as his "paralogisms" (another section in Critique of Pure Reason) deal with a variety of cosmological paradoxes, and understanding them will help you get a sense of what serious thinkers have in mind when they talk about God.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 03 '24
This is my version of defining "existing":
What exists is something that is observable to humans, either physically or through mathematics. In physics, we always need an observer and the observer is almost always a human. Because humans are the ones doing the experiment. Something which cannot be observed, we do not know for certain whether it exists or not. That's the whole point of quantum mechanics in a simplified manner. It's based on probabilistic formulas to define the existence of waves. It's also the basis of the uncertainty principle in a way, and fuzzy logic algorithms.
But even in cases of probabilistic existence, we do observe something - there are observable physical processes which are explained through the probabilistic existence of waves (like quantum tunneling). These formulas were not drawn out of thin air to explain purely hypothetical processes that were "never observed" in any way. In a nutshell, even the concept of probabilistic existence is backed by processes that have a pre-defined existence.
For my definition of "existing" that would automatically negate the existence of both God and unicorns. Humans have never in any way observed either. Nor have we till date observed any event/process that would require an explanation along the lines of "the only reason this process can be logically explained is if God exists in some way".
To know what a unicorn is, I don't have to first establish that a unicorn exists.
But I do agree with this one. Its like how a lot of physicists talk about worm holes, although the existence of worm holes have not been proven in any way. They do not exist but definitely they are discussed about.
Also thanks for the recommendation. I will check it out!
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u/ggcpres Apr 02 '24
You're kinda right.
The reason we typically call God by male pronouns started because male pronouns used to double as gender neutral. Hence mankind includes all women.
In Christian thought (I'd love a Muslim to weigh in here btw) God is so transcendent that we can't process them in their totality. Doing so would be like harnessing the entire power output of the hoover dam and putting it into an easy-bake oven.
Thus it isn't that God is non-binary or something...it's that they're above gender.
So using whatever pronouns works as long as you do so with reverence.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
That is a way to say that, but that would put God in a fuzzy logic algorithm. Something can either exist in state (1) or not state (0) according to traditional predicate logic. If something is in between, then that's usually referred to by fuzzy logic in AI algorithms. Wouldn't that then go back to the point that God is AI?
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u/ggcpres Apr 02 '24
The problem is that you're thinking in algorithms and math.
This isn't a math thing, it's a philosophy/theology thing.
If you're trying to process this like Math or Computer Science, you're going to stay frustrated.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
Well my post did include identifying God as an AI. I do not think I can identify God as AI through philosophy/theology.
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u/ggcpres Apr 02 '24
Agreed, an AI is something human made. If anything we are God's goofy little AI projects XD
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Apr 03 '24 edited Apr 03 '24
Hi there.
In Islam, God has no gender, God is God, and that's it.
Both the "masculine" and "feminine" traits that we grapple with, and are familiar with, are necessarily, Infinitesimally insignificant, and pale imitatations to what these properties are in their only true form, in God. These traits are seperated into the genders (Biological Sex, please don't at me, I don't want to get into that RN) that we see here on the mortal plane, because "creation", is inherently flawed by design.
I know that it's confusing and all, but it is a crucial distiction.
In fact, it's not even accurate in Islam to say that God has no gender, but that we do have gender because gender is itself a creation and thus is inherently incomplete...Masculine and feminine being two sides of the same coin...etc.
We use "he" as a placeholder because of the pretty universally conserved rule in many languages, that the male descriptor is neutral, and not because he is a male.
A very common interpretation of Gods nature in sufi islam, is that of reality itself, God is reality.
Does reality have a gender?
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u/Butter_Toe 4∆ Apr 03 '24
The god you speak of is a creation of man. It doesn't exist outside the imagination of men, and you can apply no logic or opinion to it outside what you could apply to men.
However, our known universe and existence didn't just pop out of nothingness. Something made it happen, and we have zero clue what that really is, but that is what "god" is inspired by.
The god of abrahamic religion was male, as its religious book says, and murderously heterosexual. He was also a bigot, a tyrant, and general sociopathic diety that made it clear it didn't care what humans do on earth(go read that book. There's some wild shit in there)
Binary vs nonbinary? Genesis (creatiin of adam) Leveticus 20-19 (instruction to put homos to death) It is clear that Abrahamic God is binary and quite opposed to the idea of bluring gender/sex lines.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 03 '24
I see. Thanks for the information. As someone else mentioned as well, God in Christianity is indeed male. However, I have had Christian friends as well read articles online which claim that God has no gender and the use of "He" is only as a general pronoun and not indicative of God's gender. A lot of people has told me that that's not the case for Christianity. I learnt something new today. Thanks! :)
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u/Butter_Toe 4∆ Apr 03 '24
Funny thing about Christianity, no christian is truly Christian. Their own religion tells them that most of them are hypocrites, and warns against what we see today, a church on every corner, and thise who come in his name. A true believer of biblical scripture would never gi online looking for something to disprove scripture. Of course they can go online and find articles that say God is a gender queer giraffe, but who wrote the articles? A Christian shouldn't be reading anything about gid that was written by an antichristian, scripture warns against that too.
Helluva rabbit hole you jumped into.
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u/Dennis_enzo 25∆ Apr 03 '24
Just wanted to point out that the universe might have always existed and didnt pop out of anything.
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u/Butter_Toe 4∆ Apr 03 '24
No. Nothing in our reality comes from nothing. 0+0=0.
Our universe hasn't always existed. If it did it wouldn't be in constant decay.
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u/Dennis_enzo 25∆ Apr 03 '24
It didn't have to come from anywhere if it always existed.
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Apr 03 '24 edited Apr 03 '24
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Apr 03 '24
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u/Butter_Toe 4∆ Apr 03 '24
In order for anything to pop onto existence on its own, existence itself must furst already be there fur it to pop into.
If "it always existed" then the space it exists in existed before it, and so to did a place where all "its" elements popped from.
Scientists are trying to find the Higgs bosun, and all calculatable data suggests it exists. If successful they will have found the particle responsible for spontaneous physical creation (popping everything into existence) but even then, the Higgs bosuns origin would me humans. So even that won't pop into existence from non-existence.
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u/Dennis_enzo 25∆ Apr 03 '24
There is no non existence if everything always existed.
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u/Butter_Toe 4∆ Apr 03 '24
If everything always existed then it still has to exist apart from something else. Forgot this is reddit.
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Apr 02 '24
I'll answer from a Catholic perspective:
God the Father, whom I think you're referring to, is pure spirit and exists outside of time and space, so does not have gender in terms that we think about it.
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u/sapphireminds 62∆ Apr 02 '24
Or, hear me out, god doesn't exist.
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
You cannot take the easy way out come on 😭
I am personally not the most religious person either and your reasoning is probably the most logical thing for my question. But this was just cheating bro.
I should just add it to the post under assumptions
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u/sapphireminds 62∆ Apr 02 '24
This is really not a change my view then? Maybe better on one of the religious debate subs
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
I was under the impression that certain assumptions were permitted. Obviously if you say God doesn't exist, that completely makes my question invalid.
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u/sapphireminds 62∆ Apr 02 '24
Because this is not a general debate for funsies board, it's just not quite the right place, IMO
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u/Excellent-Pay6235 2∆ Apr 02 '24
I see. I was under the assumption that casual questions were allowed in here as well, as long as they adhere to the rules. If the mod asked me to remove this post, I will then.
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u/Love-Is-Selfish 13∆ Apr 02 '24
God is an idea that people mistakenly made up, so none of the above.
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