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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]there are some believers who do think of god as their invisible friend.  They pray  to him and think that he listens and does them special favors.  What's more, they were taught that in church.

Would they be classified as not serious believers?

Another question - how can a god that is not a being but is being itself send his son down to die for our sins?[/quote]

Agreed. This is a dodge. Most believers *do* believe in a personal god who is interventionist, etc, etc... The tortuous arguments of "real believers" are basically a way to avoid cognitive dissonance; they need to keep jumping through more and more hoops to define god downward as scientific knowledge makes such beliefs more ridiculous from a rational POV. Of course, this exquisitely constructed nonsense about God as a "quintessentialism of being" or somesuch is completely alien to the vast number of believers.[/quote]

New poster here. We are mixing a bunch of issues here, and I think this conversation would benefit from separating them out.

First, the question about how a God that is not a separate being can have a son (the Trinity question that's been going around). I don't find this idea challenging at all. The God who is not a separate being is all-powerful (I think we can agree that this power is still part of this concept of God), to the point that God created the heavens. the earth, and all the creatures in it including humans. So this idea of an all-powerful God-being is consistent with the idea that God can create another human, a very special human, to give his message to us. (As opposed to the proverbial bolt of lightening and voice from the sky, in the old testament, which works for me too as a way of God giving us his message.) You can believe it or not (I believe it) but I don't think the concept is very challenging from an intellectual standpoint.

It's a separate issue to ask whether this "being" can intervene in our daily lives. I think it's possible for God-being (as opposed to God the guy with a white beard) to intervene in my daily life [i]if he wanted to.  [/i]Again, this is consistent with my conception of God as an essence is consistent with a God who is endowed with many powers. But I think this is sort of besides the point. This is really a question along the lines of, does God care if the high school football team wins, if they pray before the big game?  To me, the answer is, no. God doesn't care if the football team wins; we can't know what God wants, but to me he wants people to love each other, be kind to the poor, et cetera. To me, "walking with God" is more like partaking of the goodness and faith that is his essence, trying to figure out what the Christian response would be in a given situation, and generally trying (not necessarily succeeding, but trying) to share in God's goodness.[/quote]

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