I was raised to think God was a He, with a long white beard to boot, almost like Father Xmas, but without the joviality and pudginess. (p.s.: I don't think that anymore).
I doubt something so great, so powerful, would label itself when it created everything that is and everything that isn't, when it is beyond those things, when those things are from it.
Do you think God really is a He? Does God have a gender?
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I've wondered about that too, Onwem. All the pictures I've ever seen depicted God as a male with a long brown beard, but of course nobody knows what God really looks like, or if there really is a God. It's possible too, that "God" is just a spirit, not in human forum.
Of course it has no gender. God is not what people think it is at all. God is a force, a force way too powerful to be understood by us, It does not look after us. It's way beyond the feelings of worry and love. Those are human emotions.
well said my friend. From an atheist to a christian, you are possibly the only believer i've heard who has not tried to describe god out as though it's just a bigger version of us.
Thank you, I actually pretty much agree with you. I wouldn't label it a god though - it's more just the laws of physics at work on a tremendously grand scale, imo. Try explaining the concept of preservation of energy to a bunch of Ancient Mesopotamian villagers, and they for some reason assume it has to be an actual huge being doing all that work and balancing things out.
I don't think there is anything that specifics the gender of God in the bible.
I'M A BELIEVER 2: oh, well at least you've seen him with a brown beard! Mine was white! | I don't think God looks like anything (that's if, like you mentioned, there is a God). | TREVOR: Though I agree with you, some people will probably have difficulty entertaining the idea. God? Not a He? | GLADSOCC: Interesting. Are you sure about that? I haven't read the Bible in years, but from what I recall, God's gender's referred to in there. Doesn't Jesus refer to his father? Isn't the Lord's Prayer in the Bible ("Our Father who art in Heaven")? Hmm.
I've always thought about God not like a person, but like an entity, an 'it' (I believe in some kind of God but not like described in the Bible)
Mirta, when you're in convo with someone or a group of people, and the topic's about God, how do you refer to God? (I'm just curious as I find myself saying He a lot - out of habit. I once said She though, and the amount of interest I got was erm interesting.)
If when you don't say 'He', what kind of response do you tend to get?
When I speak with someone about God, I often use he, I think because of christian tradition.But I figure God like a being,not necessary human being...
This is really more about the limitations of mans perception of a supreme Deity rather than about the gender of God. We are not capable of understanding beyond our means, because of this we give God a gender in order to understand and categorise as best as we can. If the society we live in holds men above women then that society would think of God in a male sense, regardless of what the true gender was.
I don't think God looks the way we see him on pictures. His human form is just our interpretation.
Mirta, thanks. So it's not just me then. | Paw42UK, yes, I hear you on that - I see your reasoning. It's human nature to classify things in order to understand it. So God could easily have been regarded a She if the gender table was turned, if the world was predominantly matriarchal. That would have been interesting (or maybe not as we would have been none the wiser as we would have always known God as a She). | DTommy79: God created us in His image (as some say) and we seem to have created Him in ours.
I'm not worrying about the gender of God, b/c I know there is no such a thing exists, but accidentally there is such a being, it should be a woman. Women are very charming.
"I'm not worrying about the gender of God, b/c I know there is no such a thing exists"
How do you know that??
Because evidence of an alternative is abundant, and evidence of a god, is nowhere.
I don't believe there is a god because there is absolutely no evidence that one exists. The real question is how do you believe something for which there is no evidence.
Then again there is no evidence that God does not exist.
The system we have for uncovering truths, require evidence for something be presented to validate it. Not the other way around. How could any progress be made if we believed everything on the premise that no evidence is available to disprove it??? It is the weight of the person who makes assertions something is true, to provide adequate evidence of it.
God do exist and from the definition of God, we see He is a Spirit Being. He is He because we naturally tends to use the Masculine gender for things related to power and head and grammatically, He is used because its correct.
You should start providing evidence for your claims, because all I see here is conjecture. "He" is used because Christianity, like the rest of the Abrahamic religions, is patriarchal.
I refer to God as a He, because that's what I grew up calling Him. That's what I've been taught. However, I don't really think that God has a gender. I don't think he looks like any of us. Everything is just a representation.
The bible refers to God as a "He," I generally use the it pronoun though. It is more inclusive and fits with any god, from pantheism to Christianity.
I also agree that god has no human emotions. I believe god is a force that is indeed out of our understandable reach. Our brains are not equiped to think at that level.
Why are we incapable of understanding god? Are you capable of understanding physics when Brian Greene is explaining it? If god is intervening and all powerful, could it not make itself understood?
I do not buy the theocity that humans just cannot understand god's plan. It would either mean god chooses to keep us ignorant, or created us so inferior that we are incapable of understanding ontology/epistemology. Not to mention, if we are talking about the Christian God, the Bible mentions knowing the mind of god, behaving like god, and seeking knowledge of god.
The bible reffering to god as a he only shows the male chauvinistic flaws of a book made by human beings without divine intervention.
So man created god in his own image and the true givers of life (woman) were condemned to submission...
He -part makes it obviously man made mythology and a primitive one. If you mention old man in the sky, christians are quick to say how it's not like that. As if it makes it /them more sophisticated. I don't have to reduce it to penis-erection-pee, to make banility of ''He'' more obvious. I think muslims have more sophisticated notion of god in some aspects. Allthough they often refer to ''Him'' as He (merciful) as I understand it's closer to ''IT'' then christian god
The reason why Christians and many other religions call god "he", is because most religions are patriarchal meaning that they hold males as the superior sex and makes them have supremacy.
The probable reason why many religions label god a "he" is mainly because many religions especially Christianity is based on a patriarchal system, which is basically making males the boss. Which is also why many religions don't like having women religious leaders, because they think males are superior than females.
Wiccan religion value the supremacy of their female gods compared to their female gods and that they have a lot of deities.
As for me, god is beyond any gender as what I read from a blog of a humanist: "you cannot contain the infinite to the finite".
Each gender have their own limitations so god don't deserve to be known as he nor she because he is limitless.
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