# Describe God
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [February 5, 2011, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319 "2011-02-05T22:44:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)
#### Post date: [February 7, 2011, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/101 "2011-02-07T21:38:41Z")
Will any believers tell us if they still define their God as all of the big O’s: Omnipotence, Omniscient, Omni-Benevolent, Omnipresent, and I would also add Sentience to that. That was pretty much all of the traits I remember believers telling me God was. And likewise, I’m not interesting in debating it here on this thread.
> [@scamartistry](#):
>
> Well… my GOD (my sweet lord) does NOT believe in evolution, That is a fact
[You’ve been busted on this before](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12593391#post12593391), so what is wrong with [you?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=596077)
---
### Author:  [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/102 "2011-02-08T00:00:13Z")
Well this is set up but I will bite.
God is felt in the moment between the noise when one feels connected to the universe.
God is not a being but is the power behind and within the universe.
God is the sum of the universe. Everything that is and shall be is God.
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### Author:  [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2011, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/103 "2011-02-08T00:14:35Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#):
>
> Damn, but that sounds beautiful.
>
> But I’d have a lot easier time believing in a God who was a drill instructor.
Yep so would a lot of people, we as humans like to cast god [or whatever we call it] in the likeness of man.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2011, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/104 "2011-02-08T01:18:12Z")
> [@sisu](#):
>
> Well this is set up but I will bite.
I wonder if you could answer the questions in the OP, or at least explain why they’re unanswerable for you.
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### Author:  [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2011, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/105 "2011-02-08T03:13:47Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#):
>
> I wonder if you could answer the questions in the OP, or at least explain why they’re unanswerable for you.
I did to the best of my abilities. I think the comment I make about motorcycles is appropriate here. If I have to explain it to you then you will never get it.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2011, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/106 "2011-02-08T03:29:05Z")
> [@razncain](#):
>
> Will any believers tell us if they still define their God as all of the big O’s: Omnipotence, Omniscient, Omni-Benevolent, Omnipresent, and I would also add Sentience to that.
There was a recent IMHO thread asking something like that:
[Theists: Do any of you believe God is NOT omnipotent, omniscient, or omnibenovelent?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=595742)
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### Author:  [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2011, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/107 "2011-02-08T04:57:39Z")
Omnipotence
No
Omniscient
No
Omni-Benevolent
No
Omnipresent
Well yeah, god is all and all is god.
Sentience
No
So I do not see god as a separate being but as the all.
Ephesians 4:6 ("[God] is over all and through all and in all")
Romans 11:36 (“from [God] and through him and to him are all things”)
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### Author:  [@Light\_of\_Marduk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Light_of_Marduk)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2011, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/108 "2011-02-08T05:23:52Z")
I believe in the eternal, omniabsent God.
Prove that my God isn’t not there, I dare you!
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### Author:  [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2011, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/109 "2011-02-08T05:36:22Z")
> [@razncain](#):
>
> Will any believers tell us if they still define their God as all of the big O’s: Omnipotence, Omniscient, Omni-Benevolent, Omnipresent, and I would also add Sentience to that. That was pretty much all of the traits I remember believers telling me God was. And likewise, I’m not interesting in debating it here on this thread.
Yes, me.
I did it in my description.
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### Author:  [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2011, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/110 "2011-02-08T13:24:40Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> As per the OP, describe God as you believe him to be.
I believe that God is a word that’s meaning has changed through the history of human kind! Since God is unknowable it cannot be described. No human knows what god is like, it is just their belief there are many descriptions and there is no way of knowing. The attributes of some if used by rhe Bible could mean a cruel, selfish,egotist. or some a loving father, but it doesn’t act like a loving father, because he has certain people he chooses to treat with kindness, and some he treats badly, like Job,just to prove a point with Satan, and Satan shouldn’t need to have an answer, so why a loving supreme being would bother to allow a monster to attack the child he is said to love, to suffer just to make a point with the monster makes no sense.
The psalmist says all are gods! One cannot describe the undescrible!
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### Author:  [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2011, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/111 "2011-02-08T13:31:50Z")
> [@monavis](#):
>
> I believe that God is a word that’s meaning has changed through the history of human kind! Since God is unknowable it cannot be described. No human knows what god is like, it is just their belief there are many descriptions and there is no way of knowing. The attributes of some if used by rhe Bible could mean a cruel, selfish,egotist. or some a loving father, but it doesn’t act like a loving father, because he has certain people he chooses to treat with kindness, and some he treats badly, like Job,just to prove a point with Satan, and Satan shouldn’t need to have an answer, so why a loving supreme being would bother to allow a monster to attack the child he is said to love, to suffer just to make a point with the monster makes no sense.
>
> The psalmist says all are gods! One cannot describe the undescrible!
To add my personal belief, The word God means existence, more than the universe, but all that will or can exist.
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### Author:  [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)
#### Post date: [February 8, 2011, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/112 "2011-02-08T13:53:45Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#):
>
> Yes, me.
> I did it in my description.
I went back to your post #73 where you did just that. Thanks.
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#):
>
> There was a recent IMHO thread asking something like that:
> [Theists: Do any of you believe God is NOT omnipotent, omniscient, or omnibenovelent?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=595742)
I appreciate the poll, looks like the only O left out was Omnipresent. I think the four O’s along with adding Sentience probably is the best definition that defines a God that believers want. IOW, by having all of those traits, it logically contradicts itself, so therefore this god certainly doesn’t exist. We’ll leave the debating points to other threads. This poll shows God has lost quite a bit of his power with SD posters, but I think we all suspected that is what we’d get here.
I thought this poll interesting on MSNBC when others were asked if there was a Big Bang, did God have something to do with it as the pope stated. The majority of 80,000 votes didn’t agree with him, and felt like there was [no god](http://msnbc.newsvine.com/_question/2011/01/06/5777073-the-pope-says-god-was-behind-the-big-bang-which-scientists-believe-created-the-universe-what-do-you-think) that was behind the Big Bang. Would love to see this same exact poll done on Fox.
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### Author:  [@Walmarticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walmarticus)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2011, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/113 "2011-03-03T00:30:58Z")
Why doesn’t the adjective _ineffable_ conform to the weird parameters established for answering the OP? I’m sure the most devout theists would attest to God’s ineffability. I consider myself as well versed in scripture as anybody. Still I can’t claim the ability to describe my God, [Lord Sheogorath](http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Sheogorath), to any vague degree of accuracy with concrete adjectives.
Weird thread is weird.
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2011, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/114 "2011-03-03T03:11:47Z")
If I were a theist, I’d say the personalization of the pinnacle of positive human characteristics. Resiliency, compassion, mercy, empathy, forgiveness, competence, fearlessness, etc. With the devil being the opposite. Objectification of self/others, fearfulness, hate, inability to cope, etc.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [March 3, 2011, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/115 "2011-03-03T03:35:29Z")
God is a very mysterious and powerful being whose mystery is only exceeded by his power.
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### Author:  [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2011, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/116 "2011-03-04T13:04:09Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> As per the OP, describe God as you believe him to be.
That is my belief!
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2011, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/117 "2011-03-04T13:05:26Z")
> [@monavis](#):
>
> That is my belief!
Existence is God?
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### Author:  [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2011, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/118 "2011-03-04T13:10:00Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> Existence is God?
In a way yes! The totality of what is.
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### Author:  [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2011, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/119 "2011-03-09T13:02:51Z")
God has always existed and will always exist.
God is everywhere simalteneously in time, space and the infinity of dimensions as god is infinite.
God knows everything, is an It, not a he or a she, and is neither good nor evil, but contains all elements of both(contadictory though that is)plus other completely alien thinking .
Only another being of the same omnicience and omnipotence could ever understand god, and as there is only one god, only god understands itself.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2011, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/describe-god/570319/120 "2011-03-09T13:05:30Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#):
>
> God has always existed and will always exist.
>
> God is everywhere simalteneously in time, space and the infinity of dimensions as god is infinite.
>
> God knows everything, is an It, not a he or a she, and is neither good nor evil, but contains all elements of both(contadictory though that is)plus other completely alien thinking .
>
> Only another being of the same omnicience and omnipotence could ever understand god, and as there is only one god, only god understands itself.
Thank you.
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