What real thing in this world do Christians believe "God" is

[Mutcer]

What real thing in this world do Christians believe "God" is?

Christians speak as if God is some real thing in this world. But when confronted about what God really is, Christians are often fairly ambiguous or evasive. Thus, it is difficult to get a clear understanding of what real thing in this world Christians purport God to be. Or could it be that God isn't real?

[omar]

A sign is taken as a re-presentation, a stand-in for something else. This is how you are approaching the word God. Therefore you ask what in this world does it mean, what "it" is, or is thought to be.

A symbol instead does not represent, more importantly does not explain, but they signal, they point beyond themselves, to a transcendent signified, unknowable, darkly intuited, which the words of our all too practical language would not be able to express.
As a symbol, God cannot be reduced to just an article or force within the universe, but stands forever just outside our grasp, not so far that it cannot be intuited, but not close enough where it can count as understood.

[Frankenstein]

What real thing in this world do Christians believe "God" is?

Christians speak as if God is some real thing in this world. But when confronted about what God really is, Christians are often fairly ambiguous or evasive. Thus, it is difficult to get a clear understanding of what real thing in this world Christians purport God to be. Or could it be that God isn't real?

What a question, indeed! I find myself, when asked "who am I essentially", answering this question in elusive terms, which may well be empty illusions! If there is a God, the same problems, of proving ourselves, is then projecting on proving what is real about God. Fortunately, we can always recline on commonsense as one of our cords of last recall-- when attempting to proving ourselves. Nevertheless, when attempting to prove what is real about a God, It's far more difficult to discern what is real or essential, I think.

What may be "real" about God is what is essentially to it. The spirit, the zeitgeist, or sometimes called the "mind" are all one way of putting it. We might see evident instances of this mind in work through the design and patterns of plants, and through the prudent evolutionary pruning in nature. Sure, evolution may just play out as empty functions, like how a computers processes information; however, those functions were put there for a reason by programmers. A piece of wood might not turn into a ship overnight, but over a long period of time, with just the right conditions, with just the right materials, people may start to build ships, and colonies, and governments, and cars, and computers. Until, through the wisdom of nature, by way of the spirit or "mind" of God, we find ourselves here, in front of a computer, reading these very words. (Socratic irony; a serious joke)

Is there a God? I certainly haven't proved anything. I believe, one method a person can use is to point, empirically, to patterns and designs, in history and Nature, which might point to some rational entity beyond the world of mere physical existence. Just like a person claiming what is real about himself or herself is one's mind; a christian, similarly, might claim that was is essential or real about God is "the" mind. Proving God may be so difficult that it may once again call upon the cord of last recall, calling upon a pragmatic decision. When a problem can't be answered indefinitely, and it could go either way, what is in our highest interest to believe? As we weigh the consequences of this decisiion, what of Truth, Beauty, and Justice?

[Flannel Jesus]

A symbol instead does not represent

That's precisely what a symbol does.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/symbol

1. Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible. See Synonyms at sign.
2. A printed or written sign used to represent an operation, element, quantity, quality, or relation, as in mathematics or music.
3. Psychology An object or image that an individual unconsciously uses to represent repressed thoughts, feelings, or impulses: a phallic symbol.

That's 3 for 3.

[omar]

A symbol instead does not represent

That's precisely what a symbol does.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/symbol

1. Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible. See Synonyms at sign.
2. A printed or written sign used to represent an operation, element, quantity, quality, or relation, as in mathematics or music.
3. Psychology An object or image that an individual unconsciously uses to represent repressed thoughts, feelings, or impulses: a phallic symbol.

That's 3 for 3.

Flannel, check out Carl Jung.

[James S Saint]

Christians believe, as do the Jews, and Muslims, that the real thing in this world that God is, is the Real Cause of it all.

Tethered by reality;

There is the ongoing cause of all that is. (aka. "The Real God")
There is the order and chaos brought about by that cause.
There is the adversary to every life.
And there is you.. an instance of life.

The rest is just noise…

_______________

Amongst all the noise there are many entities great and small, all vying for attention and ultimate influence – “God wannabes”. Some are mindless formations propagating through their circumstances. Some are forms of life, temporarily struggling to survive, not really knowing why and certainly not how, but merely presuming a purpose, need, and desire. Most all merely adding their bit to the noise.

And a pic borrowed from Jayson;

[Moreno]

A sign is taken as a re-presentation, a stand-in for something else. This is how you are approaching the word God. Therefore you ask what in this world does it mean, what "it" is, or is thought to be.

A symbol instead does not represent, more importantly does not explain, but they signal, they point beyond themselves, to a transcendent signified, unknowable, darkly intuited, which the words of our all too practical language would not be able to express.
As a symbol, God cannot be reduced to just an article or force within the universe, but stands forever just outside our grasp, not so far that it cannot be intuited, but not close enough where it can count as understood.

I'd have to go generally along with FJ's difficult to refute dictionary response. to me a sign is empty. The letters making up 'chair' and the sound, they don't have any particular chairness. In a sense they do not represent, they simply refer. An iconic image of Mary and Jesus or The Buddha represents. It is a sign and more. It does present a generally non-realistic image of what it signifies. So sign, plus representation, pluss....... It elicts an experience that is intended to be somewhere in between not experiencing the represented at all and directly experiencing. You get a feel for, possibly a metaphorical sense of, whatever is symbolized. it is more than an name - though some names can also be symbols like some of the cliche native american names. You could say that a symbol is a sign that represents and, in the eyes of some, potentially elicits an experience of what it represents.

[omar]

I guess it depends on what you have in mind. For example a lion can be a symbol of courage, but what is courage, what is courageous? Lighting is a sign of a storm. It announces it unequivocally. But a symbol is quite arbitrary. While it is often considered that a lion is a symbol of courage, so are many other animals.
Signs, in my opinion, offer less degree of play and are more practical. Symbols are more uncertain in their meaning but broad in referring to something in the human condition. Symbols of justice, courage, beauty, are all dealing with ideas that change from culture to culture, yet form a part of the universal human experience, while signs are pretty much straight forward. Lion, as a sign, changes from language to language, but it's value, the signified, is always the big cat.

[James S Saint]

..is always the sign of the "King of the Jungle".

[omar]

..is always the sign of the "King of the Jungle".

So long as Tarzan is not around...

[felix dakat]

Right Omar. Jung and Tillich and Jaspers and others make a distinction between sign and symbol wherein a sign is a strict representation and a symbol points to a broader sphere. So the word flag would be a sign while the American flag would be a symbol. Tillich goes on to define the word God as a symbol in this sense as distinct from a sign.

I see a problem with defining God as a thing in this world. To be ultimate God must be being itself not merely A THING. As being itself God would have to be the infinite being of every finite thing. Also God cannot be IN the world. That would make God a finite being in the phenomenal world as we know it. Expecting God to be a thing among things is a recurring problem that you present in thread after thread, Mutcer. You are correct in asserting that some statements Christians make sound as if that is what they believe. Maybe it is what they believe. But it seems to be a category error from my POV.

[omar]

Well put. Bet you had to read quite a bit of those guys.
I guess my never-exhausted advice to Mutcer is to stop trying to "apprehend" God like a common criminal, to catch it and then punish it for being irrational, illogical...human, all too human.
What's in a name?
Mutcer is like a man found in a distant planet alone with a humanoid robot he calls "Peggy" and who he sees as a fellow human. Finally he is rescued but an invitation is extended to him, not Peggy who everyone else sees as a robot. He cannot understand it and is taken aboard under restraints. While he leaves behind his love, the others tell him that he merely leaves behind his loneliness.

What is behind a word? Ourselves.

[felix dakat]

Well put. Bet you had to read quite a bit of those guys.
I guess my never-exhausted advice to Mutcer is to stop trying to "apprehend" God like a common criminal, to catch it and then punish it for being irrational, illogical...human, all too human.
What's in a name?
Mutcer is like a man found in a distant planet alone with a humanoid robot he calls "Peggy" and who he sees as a fellow human. Finally he is rescued but an invitation is extended to him, not Peggy who everyone else sees as a robot. He cannot understand it and is taken aboard under restraints. While he leaves behind his love, the others tell him that he merely leaves behind his loneliness.

What is behind a word? Ourselves.

Well the concept of God is obviously a problem for Mutcer and he apparently is on an evangelical mission to persuade others to reject the concept. I don't see it that way, but then, it's not my mission. I find some of his arguments are thought provoking others not so much. I think there are other alternatives then to be dogmatically for one side or the other in the controversy, but he doesn't see it that way. Such is life in the Religion Forum.

[Moreno]

del

[Mutcer]

Christians believe, as do the Jews, and Muslims, that the real thing in this world that God is, is the Real Cause of it all.

Are you speaking direct cause or indirect cause?

If indirect cause, then there is nothing to indicate such an indirect cause still exists in this world.