# Questions for believers: Is God a person and does he communicate? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 21, 2008, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760 "2008-11-21T01:10:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/1 "2008-11-21T01:10:26Z")
It’s my strong preference that non-believers don’t attempt to hijack this thread. There are lots of threads where non-believers can make their cases, but in this one I’d just like some feedback from believers. All religions welcome. **Believers: Do you consider God a person and does God communicate with the world/believers/everyone?** ---
**Author:** ![diggleblop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac91a4/32.png) [@diggleblop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diggleblop)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/2 "2008-11-21T01:28:00Z")
God is everywhere and everything to me. God is not some man with a beard and flowing white robe hanging out up in space. To me, the way God communicates is by giving you what you need, not what you want in life. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/3 "2008-11-21T02:30:53Z")
Er, was that a yes or a no? ---
**Author:** ![bobthebuilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c67d28/32.png) [@bobthebuilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobthebuilder)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/4 "2008-11-21T02:43:59Z")
God communicates to people in a variety of ways. Many Christians (me included) believe that God has used many people to speak to us for him, and that that has been recorded in the Bible. The Bible is Gods communication to us through human authors, hence why many Christians attempt to have a greater understanding of the Bible. God is a person in the sense that he is not an it, and that he has a personality, he is not just a force. ---
**Author:** ![grimpixie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@grimpixie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grimpixie)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/5 "2008-11-21T06:49:50Z")
1. Depends on how you define “person” 2. Yes God is not a person as in a human, but we are “created in [his] image”, so therefore there is something of our nature that is similar to God’s nature - as **bobthebuilder** says, God is not an it, but what He is is impossible to say with any certainty. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/6 "2008-11-21T08:11:28Z")
> [@diggleblop](#): > > To me, the way God communicates is by giving you what you need, not what you want in life. Can you give an example of when God has done this? If God gives people what they need, then why does anyone ever die? Or does a need to not get killed by a hurricane not count? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/7 "2008-11-21T08:11:42Z")
God is not anthropomorphic, but God is intelligent and has a will, and is separate and distinct from nature. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 9:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/8 "2008-11-21T09:00:00Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > **Believers: Do you consider God a person and does God communicate with the world/believers/everyone?** Yes, I do. And yes, He does. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/9 "2008-11-21T12:37:59Z")
Yes and yes. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/10 "2008-11-21T13:25:22Z")
Yes, and he says he needs a starship. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/11 "2008-11-21T14:06:13Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > If God gives people what they need, then why does anyone ever die? Or does a need to not get killed by a hurricane not count? Want and need are not the same thing. And if you have belief in an afterlife, than death isn’t nearly such a horrific outcome; sometimes it is a blessing. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/12 "2008-11-21T14:11:00Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > Want and need are not the same thing. And if you have belief in an afterlife, than death isn’t nearly such a horrific outcome; sometimes it is a blessing. What _does_ count as a need, then? ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/13 "2008-11-21T14:28:09Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > What _does_ count as a need, then? I think the idea is that god is supposed to know what you need, regardless of what he’s allowed you to THINK you need. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/14 "2008-11-21T14:35:38Z")
Apparently, a couple of people know what the OP needs despite what she wants. “It’s my strong preference that non-believers don’t attempt to hijack this thread. There are lots of threads where non-believers can make their cases, but in this one I’d just like some feedback from believers.” ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/15 "2008-11-21T14:50:57Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Apparently, a couple of people know what the OP needs despite what she wants. “It’s my strong preference that non-believers don’t attempt to hijack this thread. There are lots of threads where non-believers can make their cases, but in this one I’d just like some feedback from believers.” When someone says God gives you “what you need”, I don’t think it unreasonable to ask him to elaborate on what fits into his idea of “what you need”. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/16 "2008-11-21T14:52:56Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > **Believers: Do you consider God a person and does God communicate with the world/believers/everyone?** God is God. God created men and women in the image of God. Since the Fall, each person is an imperfect image of God, not the other way around. God has communicated with humanity through the prophets, the scriptures, his Son Jesus Christ, and through revelations that have occured throughout history up to the present day. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/17 "2008-11-21T14:57:35Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Apparently, a couple of people know what the OP needs despite what she wants. “It’s my strong preference that non-believers don’t attempt to hijack this thread. There are lots of threads where non-believers can make their cases, but in this one I’d just like some feedback from believers.” I’m sure you weren’t referring to my post, but I have to ask, why can’t a person ask questions regarding another person’s beliefs? He didn’t dispute the poster’s claim. He asked him how he came to that belief and to provide some detail. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/18 "2008-11-21T15:06:08Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Do you consider God a person Yes, in the sense that **bobthebuilder** described. When I pray, I pray to a Person. > [@](#): > > and does God communicate with the world/believers/everyone? Indirectly? Absolutely yes. Does God communicate with people today, directly (as opposed to, say, through the Bible or through circumstances or through other people)? Quite a few people (not all of them loonies) say yes, and who am I to say that they have not experienced what they have experienced? though I am more skeptical in some cases than in others. Speaking from personal experience, I believe I have been guided by God, but there is nothing I can point to and say, “I know for sure that that was a clear communication from God.” ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/19 "2008-11-21T18:36:46Z")
I do not believe God is a person, or even an ‘entity’, not in the sense of being a consciousness that on Friday at 1:20 PM is having a train of thought, mulling things over, reaching conclusions, formulating opinions, deriving understandings from observations, and so on. That is not God. That is us, and other cognizant creatures. God is not a creature. And God is certainly not a ‘he’. It should not strike anyone in this day & age as an unusual concept to assert that God does not have feet, tonsils, armpits, or a schlong. That being embodied, being _limited_ to a body, is for creatures once again. The artwork portraying God as a semi-translucent fellow has been regarded by most folks (or so I assume) as a metaphor. I dunno, maybe some folks _do_ think of God that way, but that’s hard for me to relate to at all. If God were simple to understand, Great Debates would be empty of all those theist/atheist debates. Once we establish that we are speaking of a subject matter that has no physical body (or at least none that can be distinguished from what it is not or where it is not), and that, if “consciousness” is even the right word for it does not experience the passage of time and do the thought-process thing that is our own experience of being conscious, it becomes obvious, or _should_ be obvious (I would think) that the subject matter to which one is referring when one says “God” is an abstraction; that “if God is real please take a photo of God” and similar concrete-reductionalisms are inappropriate responses to the use of the word or the belief that one is using the word to refer to something that isn’t nonreal. Anyone sophisticated enough to understand that the definition of “abstraction” is _not_ “things that ain’t real” should be as least provisionally tolerant of the assertion that God is an abstraction. So I will make that assertion now. Onward to the fun part: yes, I communicate with God. Uh huh, yeah, I just said I communicate with an abstraction. That should indeed require a revision of the worldview of anyone who does not harbor or entertain a belief or an awareness of God. One communicates, after all, with consciousnesses, with creatures. How does one communicate with an abstraction? Aah, but if it were _not_ a concept that would provoke a revision of something in your worldview it would not be a particularly useful or interesting concept, now would it? And not just the “it” part of “how can one communicate with it if it is an abstraction” but the “you” part, that which is doing the communicating, the self… that, too, turns out to be subject to some serious conceptual revision. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2008, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760/20 "2008-11-21T19:16:34Z")
I do believe that G-d is a singular, independent being. If that is your definition of “person”, then yes. I believe G-d communicates directly to human beings who have been spiritually developed enough to be worthy of prophecy. To ordinary individuals (except on the unique occasion at Mount Sinai), I do believe that G-d does not communicate clearly and directly, but I do still believe that he subtly guides people. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-for-believers-is-god-a-person-and-does-he-communicate/473760.md?page=2)