Who is God

I am moving towards the end of my life, quite a few years yet. …However I have always been fascinated by the cosmos and why we are here. I have also been an atheist since the age of 14...I believe organised western religions do more harm than good.
My current reading is Richard Dawkins (no doubt a devil word to you) and the bible ( Just bought a modern copy ) I was brought up in a Christian household so much of my current Bible reading is familiar.
My question is this- who or what is God? Is he as the bible says like man. ( God made man in his own image. Or what? I will have more questions to follow this is just the start of my search for an answer.
Also can you tell me how to post on the open forum.
May your God be with you.

Hi

He is first and foremost spirit, but He also came to us in the form of Jesus Christ (some disagree here),

"God is spirit, and those who worship must worship in spirit and in truth"

"In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. All things were in the beginning with God. (...) And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Welcome to Christian Chat, Convince.

I’ve never given much thought to that verse about God creating us in his image.

God is the fellow that created us. He is motivated entirely by love and is both all-knowing and all-powerful.

Here is what you do:

[34] But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sad'ducees, they came together.
[35] And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, to test him.
[36] "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"
[37] And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
[38] This is the great and first commandment.
[39] And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
[40] On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets." Matt 22:34-40 RSV

Nice to meet you and happy to have you here, good sir

God is, like resurection33 said he is the being that created the world and all of us. All knowing, all powerful, and filled with love and light. We were created in his image, yes, but He's perfect where we're not. God has a son, Jesus, who is basically him in the form of a man sent to earth to live a perfect life, die, and be resurrected. He did this so that every person regardless of who they are or what they'd done could have eternal life. We all sin (aka do things that are against God. Bad things), and he took the punishment for all the sins all humankind ever committed. Now we can go to him and seek his forgiveness and not only be able to go to Heaven but receive the Holy Spirit from God which is basically like God dwelling in us, helping us when we're tempted, when we're sad, or scared, and helping us to be good and do good by others. (I know that you didn't ask specifically about Jesus but I felt like I should talk about him two since they are completely immersed in each other) Knowing him, receiving this gift, it's healing to you. That's the beautiful thing. He wants to know you and he wants to help you through and heal you of whatever you're going through. We don't always understand what he's doing or are able to explain it, but that's just part of the awe of knowing God. There's great power and mystery. He's truly amazing

Sorry if I rambled on too long for you. If you ever have any questions there's plenty here who would be just itching to answer

He is the essence of love, the fulfillment of love the experience of love. God is love

My thanks to all who took the time to respond to my posting. I apologise if my questions and some of my responses are the same old same old. You will have heard much of it before but I am genuinely searching for serious answers. Consequently if I call into question your position/view it is only to elicit debate/support for what you believe. Quoting the laws of the prophets as resurrection33 does suggests to me a simple blind acceptance of the Bible. Not a reasoned attempt from a person who has thought the question “Who is God” through properly. No offence intended just challenging statements to move me towards my goal.
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So resurrection33 In response to your statements…

I’ve never given much thought about God creating us in his image.

This to me indicates a shallow mind of blind obedience.

God is the fellow that created us. He is motivated entirely by love and is both all-knowing and all-powerful.
Says who? And if he is why all the horror in the world.

Here is what you do:
　
Scripture. Please no. As I said I have just bought a Bible got scripture up to my arm pits. My question was who or what is God. Looks like you don’t have a reasoned answer so you go off into the long grass.

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Blubirdchaser.

Oh dear back to quoting the Bible…If he God is so filled with love and light how come there is so much suffering…and don’t give me the old potato that we have free will and that we must suffer in this life so that we can be happy in the next…So you are saying God looks like a human? Ok That is at least is a tangible point of view. What makes him so perfect, all this love and light. Where’s the love? In the middle east wars, in 9/11, in polio, in famine…and floods. Not a lot of love there lots of innocents dieing along with the sinful, depending on your view of what constitutes sin.
You actually believe in the Jesus story and in eternal life? Maybe you and I should just stop there.

God which is basically like God dwelling in us,
Now I can identify with that. God is to put it simply a state of mind based on goodness and for many like you a blind acceptance of what the Bible teaches.

Knowing him, receiving this gift, it's healing to you..
Now that’s condescending and presumptuous. Who said I need healing and even if I do which I don’t. No Jesus story will have a bearing.

He's truly amazing.
Well thanks, but he may amaze you I’m as I’m sure you can guessed remain to be convinced.
PS: rambling is not a problem we must all express our views in what ever manner we choose and being verbose is not a sin. Or is it? I do appreciate your time.
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Savas. …
Yes! So God is simply yourself being a good person believing in right and wrong, good and evil. This is where I am going I think.. There is no God as an entity contrary to what resurection33 and others appear to be saying.

Once again could someone spell out how I get into a forum and find my old postings.

Thank you.

Understandable. We all have to do some wrestling with it, though I have to say I'm not always good at it. I'll do my best though!

The question of suffering is one that even Christians question sometimes. Where is God? Why doesn't he do anything? The answer is we don't always know. He doesn't promise that everything is going to happy in our lives, he even says that we'll have trouble. He also says that he is close to the brokenhearted and the hurting and will be with them when they cry out to him. It doesn't always make the hurt go away when you see all the destruction and pain going on in the world, but it gives you hope. You can cling to him knowing that he's overcome it all already. There are a lot of people who it seems like the world forgot, but God hasn't forgotten a single one of them.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound presumptuous or condescending. I meant if a person has been hurt or is hurting in any way. A broken spirit is a painful thing and a great number of people have been hurt and are hurting and need healing in that way. It's not weakness to have been hurt. It's not shameful. And healing in this way can happen and does daily. When you know God and come to him he gives you his spirit, which is more than just a state of mind, though it could very well change one's state of mind. It's a powerful thing.

Oh, thanks too about the rambling. No, verbose isn't considered a sin. Haha. I just don't want to make your eyes bleed by being to garrulous.

I"m not sure how to find old posts other than going to the thread and clicking backwards until you found it either. Or going on your own profile and clicking on the part under "Convince's Activity" where it says "Convnice". That shows all your old posts. You could scroll through there too I suppose. Sorry if that's not much help :/

The reason for the suffering in the world is sin. (Sin might be a biblical word, but we all know we "should not do so- and so", in many contexts),

jack kills pete and susie suffers.
the gang bullies joan and she suffers
we destroy our planet and we suffer

all pain is caused by sin, whether it is our own personal sin or a "side - effect" of the general presense of sin the the world.
I too struggle to understand why God does not intervene more, but what I know is that we cannot blame him for what we do. It is not Gods fault that people are cruel towards each other.

It is said that sin separates us from God, so if God is love, sin causes us to be separated from God. not by his choise, but by our choice to sin. We scale sin "a is worse than b", but to God, all sin is bad. His solution was to send Jesus as a sacrifice for our sin, but as long as we keep sinning, though that will save us, it will not make our lives on earth any easier, because the world we live in is still "fallen",

Am I making any sense to you? ;/

@Wwjd_kilden It is because there is no God. If there was a God, who was all-loving, and all-caring, there wouldn't even BE sin. See? God is an illusion that we can pray to to make things feel better in extreme depression. God would intervene when a man goes in to kill a family, or when a kamakaze hijacks a plane, and flies it into a building. If God cared, which he doesn't, because he's not REAL, he wouldn't side with the person committing the explicit "sin." I could go on all day about how there isn't a God, but instead, I'm going to leave you with this paradox. If God is all good and all knowing, why doesn't he know what lust feels like?

I was not quoting the prophets. I was quoting Jesus Christ. Jesus was God in flesh.

Why is it that God creating us in his own image is so important to you, that you consider me a man with a "shallow mind of blind obedience" simply because it never seemed so important to me?

Certainly the Lord is motivated entirely by love. Even when he disciplines us, it is for our own good. That is why we worship him. He has solved every problem I've had for sixty years.

Convince, it sounds like you have a broken heart?! That's a good place to start, welcome to the cc!

There is sin because God gave us free will, and we (ab)use it to do evil. Just like children will test the limits of their parents. You would not accuse parents for being evil just because their child got into a rough crowd, that would be the choice of the child, not the parent. You could lock the kid up, but that is not love. God could remove our free will to keep us from messing up, but that would make us slaves... and the bible tells us we are not servants, but friends.

At the end of the day,God cannot control us like robots. He gave us free will. To believe or not to believe. Saying that you do not believe in God is acknowledging His very existence. We have reasons why we believe,however,your reason for not believing are based on another man's actions...logical? I think not.

Hi Convince, I am an Agnostic, but I have read lots about Jesus. I think that Jesus had a very unique view of God. I've put my thoughts into a website, Welcome
Feel free to have a read
All the best
Paul