Sunday, July 21, 2013

The All-important Definition of God

The definition of the entity that is God is all-important for any school of thought. The definition of God may be consolidated for any school from its core scriptures, commentaries and interpretations - whether the school of thought is based on the Vedas or not.

I've had people tell me that the definition didn't matter. Whoever, or whatever He was, they'd still pray to Him (or be indifferent). I'd urge that it does indeed matter, and is perhaps the most important topic there is to ponder over. Consider the following:

  1. If you pray to Him, do you think He is listening to you? 
  2. When you ask Him for something, and He doesn't give it to you, what does that tell you about Him?
    • If you believe what you are asking Him is just (let's say you are fighting a case against a criminal who stole money from you, and you pray to God to win the case), and your prayer does not yield any results, will you conclude that His sense of justice is perhaps flawed? What kind of system might He have going on? 
  3. Have you ever asked the question: "If He is all powerful, why does He not remove all the unhappiness and poverty in the world?"
    • If you do not belong to the group of people that became atheists without receiving a satisfactory answer to this question, what kind of system do you think He might have going on?
I urge you to think about these questions. Try to formulate your definition of God. 
A 'definition' may include attributes (material characteristics, physical form, etc), abilities (all-seeing and knowing, omnipresent) and qualities (kindness, sense of justice, etc). 

My next post will put forth a definition of God based on a school of thought I subscribe to. I'll also present some alternate definitions.