The Concept of God

One of my biggest frustrations with religious discussion is the unestablished baseline for the concept of God. Each individual has his own concept of what God is. More times than not, these do not align. What follows is a point/counterpoint argument to what attributes God has, what ones he does not have, and how God does or does not interact in the lives of individuals.

The problem here is that each individual has a different understanding about what God is. To many, God is the Creator. He is the beginning. Since his creating the universe and life he has been intimately involved in the everyday happenings of humanity, providing guidance, righting wrongs, protecting believers, and punishing wrongdoers. To others, however, God’s interaction ceased at the moment of creation. To some, God has never existed and in time science will answer all of the questions we have about existence without invoking the superstitions of religion and theology. To others, God is not a singularity, but multiple dieties make up the divine.

Based on my experience with talking about religion with a variety of people, it seems most people’s beliefs are not necessarily their own. Religious beliefs stem from an identity which has been established through social interaction, upbringing, economic status, and other factors, most of which required little to no critical thought. Being born and raised in a particular region of the world in most cases makes you a member of that region’s religion by default. Therefore one inherits those ideas about God through no effort of his own. If you can’t verbally lay out your idea of what God is or is not, you haven’t thought about it enough to argue a claim about God.

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