Well I suppose since I can't physically see God then yes imaginary friend works. Even in a child the imaginary friend is real to the child in question eventually the child outgrows the friend. In the case of God I sure don't plan on  outgrowing this friend.

Did you mean at the end "If people who are deeply theological find an imaginary friend in God, is this a bad thing?"?  But to respond generally, if only to console, I'd guess not.  But to create laws around said imaginary friend to affect all humankind (for just one point of many possible), absolutely it's 'a bad thing'.  Wouldn't you think?

This is a fair description of what I think God is to many believers, though God is not my imaginary friend.  His name is Fred.

Depends on what they do or say because they know Him so well.

For example, you can say certain people "will have to answer big-time ... on Judgement day", essentially telling people they will go to hell and suffer in perpetuity, and you can offer these empty threats openly if you believe God is your friend and you know exactly what He wants.  Most of us can laugh off these threats, but you can scare children and some adults with them.  People who wouldn't dream of telling children that there is a monster under their bed, have no problem relating stories of hell and the devil, causing them to worry for themselves or their recently-departed loved ones.

I accept the reality of God.  I see nothing wrong with "doing justice and loving compassion."

Shalom

Mate

I accept the reality of no 'God(s)' and likewise see nothing wrong with "doing justice and loving compassion" (and much more, of course).

Ciao,  Brett.

I agree with both Mate and Brett.

I regard and experience God as the self-generative cosmos, in a unitive state of synthesis, which we expereince in the pure, unconceptualized or undifferentiated experience, an experience that results in an upwelling of powerfully unitive feelings, particularly unitive love.

Those who don't want to call IT God don't have to, they can just call IT the self-creative cosmos, in a state of synthesis, but I would recommend everyone to experience IT. We can experience IT in the pure, unconceptualized experience, when we turn away from the incessant chatter of our thoughts and turn inward in quiet contemplation, meditation or prayer, or we can attempt to apprehend it directly with our imagination or intuition.

As I said, the unitive experience removes us from our fragmented world of concepts and lets us experience reality as IT really is, as a unitive whole in a state of synthesis, an experience which some Christian mystics have described as "All things in God, and God in all things." Those who don't want to call IT "God" can call IT the "Unitive Cosmic Whole," or any other name, or no name at all.

I prefer to call IT "IT."

Yes, Imaginary Friend fits. My goddesses were that. If only the fundies would realize that, there would be a lot more peace in the world.

Actually that was me but I heard that quoted someplace else

Yeah I see God this way because he simply does not respond back and I do all the talking

What makes me laff more than anything is people who think they have some higher understanding of what they think God is and their relationship with "it"

At some point we are supposed to outgrow imaginary friends and actually grow up

Supposedly

With the qualification of not knowing what "much more" might be , this is the common ground that exists universally - which is not the same as saying its universally applied.

Religious or atheist, scientist or mystic, over and over the principle of the Golden Rule turns up in human constructs and in nature. The atheist would argue this is because of the natural advantage found in Reciprocal Altruism. The religious person would claim it is imbued by God.

Personally, I could care less - we can pretend it comes from Fred as long as we practice it.

Hands off my imaginary friend.

Well, the list would be endless in my opinion - I wouldn't classify picking up a discarded paper cup and chucking it in the garbage as either of those, for instance.  But thank you so much, GR, for there are indeed people who firmly believe what you so rightly call 'universal' as being exclusively or almost exclusively the domain of believers, Christians, etc.

An endless list? Like infinite! Is that something like God ... not to define but describe one isolated aspect as observed by a force of isolation called M'N. In Greek tongue this is meme-non, an ancient king for being aware of the script on the wall ... one could be enlightened if you hads the interest to look. Some are just not curious about anything outside themselves and thus are adverse to anything alien to there space ... a mind set in concrete or just a beauty in Mar-ble' that cannot express itself ... like A'don's or Venues ... beautiful sojourner ... the genre called mind. Grand imagination call pal (Buddha) in some tongues, pale'stein in others, well contained as in Africanus where James is the slave keeper .. an unshared thought is a dangerous thing as IT will be eventually lost and wil be the end of a thoughtless M'N asking that thinks he' defeated an intangible Jinn in the deserted space of mind. Few go there ... Cathar's? Have you read an ancient history called a Few Good Men? It's enough to initiate another story that someone would convert (corrupt) into a modern militant story!

Is this OD in space ... a mind? (see the post called: OD). Perhaps it explains the Greek/Hebrew confusion over means to an end, a meme brea-st and the rod of Mues's! It is all corruption of the word to a'Muse the powers above in space ... gastro economics kills creation like a peig in the garden, consuming all and sharing no thing what-so-ever! The End?

The 'n' in Greek is 'v' giving an interesting twist to the word "Muon" as particle of light, reflective, traveller in space: Muon Lisa, whispering lightly in the arc of night ... Nuit case? Did someone say that M'ona Lisa was a satirical expression of a fringe personality that and old Roman instituition could not abide with? Perhaps that defines a certain hate for the Da Vinchi Code, chilling thought over Ephraim of wo-eM'N ... that's Dan's, move'n!

 Approaching God as an imaginary friend might be a good form of religious 'post-critical naïveté", which I believe I explained in some thread which everyone probably forgets by now.  The basic idea of post-critical naïveté is that you first believe in something the way a child believes, then as you grow you get over it using critical thinking and realize that logically, there is no absolute truth to this belief and you certainly (in the case of God) have no right to impose it on other people, and then growing further one discovers that one can return to believing anyway, for the benefits of that belief, without taking it too seriously.  This idea was originally intended to apply to Santa Claus (one of my favourite imaginary friends, still ) but works very well with God.

Although you guys may forget this, I think everyone who's been on this site does remember very well that Arminius believes in God as the self-generative cosmos.  No offense, but you don't have to explain that again every thread.

Really? I would. I think that's the premise behind Reciprocal Altruism - that doing things like that benefit us indirectly. As such, I'd say that they fall into either category.

Some might argue that's stretching the concept beyond its boundaries but I disagree. To me, its when we try to create differentiations/exeptions that we abuse the understanding that, at the most basic, biological level, "justice and compassion" are the essential survival traits. We have to keep peeling back those "infinite lists" that we make in order to discover that.

you're welcome. Yup, pretty much every group thinks they hold exclusive sway on it. I laugh when I hear supposedly "bible - literate" Christians (the ones who love to spout Scripture as their justification for everything) make this claim. If they knew Scripture half as well as they think they do, they'd know the reason that Jesus trumps the priest/lawyer/whatever in the story is because he's quoting from Jewish text written two thousand years earlier. He's never written as claiming it was original to him at all.

Hi ShamanWolf:

There are new people on this site who haven't heard it before.

OK.  I can see that.  And easily live with your interpretation.  I was viewing 'j & l c' as rather loftier, but your outlook radically simplifies things.  Hmmm...  I wonder if much (or anything) 'good' can reasonably be excluded  from 'j & l c'?  Thanks again (for 'realigning' my thoughts)!

i'm all about the KIS pronicple - lol. The more complicated we make things, the easier it is to justify our "exceptions" - so an evangelical, for example, can pretend to "love" someone they condemn to their mythical hell. Strip all those exceptions and qualifications away and its not so easy. A Jesus or Buddha or Einstein comes along and cuts everything back to its roots, then others who don't like the implications start building up the crap all over again.

nope

I feel that to try to stuff God or spirituality in to a clearly defined box damages it.  God is obviously something no one can see or touch that's why belief in it is called "faith".  I can run up and hug my mother, I can't run up and hug my God but I always feel my 'God' right beside me. 

The term 'imaginary friend' is a good way to generalize my understanding of God for others to grasp. :-)

Greetings!

Well . . . I looked up the term "imaginary" and it says . . . "Existing only in imagination; having no real existence."  So, for me "imaginary friend" wouldn't be who God is to me.  While I can't touch God, see God, prove God, to me personally, God is more than just existing in my imagination, and to me, does have real existence.  So instead of "imaginary friend", I will just leave it at God.

Hope, peace, joy, love ...

You captured it far better than I could.  Thank you.

While I think you've logically and correctly nailed it (I gather kids usually feel their imaginary friends in the same way) - I agree it does the concept (much) damage.

Are thoughts contrived in the imaginary field of the mind ... real? Now is Love/God a rather inverted form of thought? You never see ID coming only going as an after thought. Weird ante matter situations when we have people in our midst that believe not in God/Love or the mind/soul complex ... is that a pathological state caused by too many religiously instituted injuries without understanding? A sub-liminal thought!

My thoughts appear to be real to me ... alas others may think they're chit ... fecund, or gravid projections ripe for growing material ... an evolving twist? Ain't that a hoo'd in space where many people think nothing changes but death and Tax's? Then how many realize that t'X's is an old expression for double crossing the flow ... spirit and soul on the move through indeterminate medium? W' itch craft ... the burning desire to understand extracted from the Greek letter omega ... small case nut! Double breasted suite ... Plat eaux Ka vein sign ... d' void? Is that per seus, a Zion floater as reining wash of the mind? The thought may change tomorrow in new light; others will hold firm com'elle of high waters ... to stifle the piers!

 Beloved: I don't know what dictionary you're reading, but I don't see any reason why 'existing only in imagination' implies 'having no real existence'.  Dictionary definitions are sometimes useful in bringing a philosophical discussion back down to Earth, but other times they can be very simplistic as well.  Don't believe everything you read in a dictionary.

Imagination (in my imagination :-) is one of the ways to access the sacred. Others are intuition, meditation, contemplation, prayer, or any of the large number of meditative exercises and rituals.

Did you know that Jinn is the spirit of the desert in Middle Eastern terms? The emma is an extraction of "eM" the population of God's children ... eM'a Jinn Nation, a gathering of cosmological intellect? O' the th'oughts that befall us as a fall from the heavens ... as'tar dust!

How little we understand the origins of our words ... and the word is sole sign of an idealism of God ... a mind or psyche in distress ... a tensor item we will not find today than the mind of humanity. "In the beginning was the word ..." do we question such meanings, or just take them superficially? Ain't that the devil? That's exactly what King James said about the Hebrew bible when he authorized a translational corruption of a deep ancient synt'x! That's an incidental syn ... a crossing like T!

Recall the old adage: "Authority corrupts, absolute authority ...." What else could we expect from a people in which it is immoral, unethical and illegal to talk about emotions and sinful activity? How will we learn about who phoqah's up God's little ones? Is that the plan from on high? Isle take understanding first ... a bit in the dirt ... the underworld to those in higher tiers (hazed, Ahaziah) as Jaqob fell in the desert east of Eden and struggled with a'm'n. Now was that a spirit or soul ... intangible non-entity? He din't resolve and remains ... hindered ... crippled!

I didn't read any 'implication' or dependence of 'having no real existence' on 'existing only in imagination'... just that both points apply to imaginary.  But I note that people people here like to redefine even common words with common meanings to suit their biases.

I looked at my usual source to find the (acknowledged standard) Oxford for 'imaginary' and to my surprise it wasn't there, but Cambridge defines it as:  "adjective - describes something that is created by and exists only in the mind; that is not real" (my 'u').

Even our hard copy 'Random House College' and 'Webster's Children' dictionaries state "not real".  Perhaps pointing to Beloved's dictionary is pointing in the wrong direction.

Greetings!

I like to refer to a dictionary when certain words are used that for each one of us might conjure up a different meaning.

When I looked up "imaginary" as in "imaginary friend . . . is this who God is to you?" in two dictionaries it said:

The Living Webster Encylopedia Dictonary - Imaginary . . . "Existing only in imagination or fancy, not real"

and

The Concise Oxford Dictionary - Imaginary . . . "Existing only in imagination, having no real existence"

I felt this did not adequately describe God for me . . . as to me God is real.  So I would have to use a different terminology than "imaginary friend" when referring to God as I understand God . . . and I guess, it is easier for me just to say God.

Hope, peace, joy, love . . .

here's one....  try imaging an apple, then handing it to someone to eat.

The implication is clear.  A real apple can be eaten and serves its purpose. An imaginary apple cannot.

Can you understand the frustration of people like BrettA and myself, when trying to have an understandable dialogue with self-professed believers?

LL&P

Spock

Personally, I'm not overly frustrated with mere dialogue...  it's when people are so extraodinarily intolerant of people like you and I that they simply do not accept that our thought processes are not the same.  Most readily grasp that them believing in the FSM or any of humanity's other Gods is just plain silly (their own word in many cases), but not for us to lack belief in their 'God'.  In both cases it's because we've not been indoctrianted to believe, but they just can't get their head around the fact that - *Gasp* - their 'God' is as silly to us as the Invisible Pink Unicorn, Baal, Skak or Cai Shen is to them (or gnomes, magic, psychics and unicorns for that matter). 

Not accepting the fact of our beliefs (or lack) seems to me about as intolerant as one can possibly be.  Other forms or manifestations of intolerance may be more damaging or harmful, but the actual lack of acceptance following our repeated assertions that we do not believe seems to me to be the ultimate intolerance.  Thoughts?

BrettA,

I mentioned frustrastion only in the endless semantics debates that occassionally happen here on the WC.  Phrases like "Jesus lives" soak up hours of argument over the definition of "lives" (and even "Jesus"!).

I'm not so sure indoctrination is the source of beliefs. There is a natural predispostion towards having a fear of the 'rustling in the bushes' that social studies point out as having a evolutionary survival advantage.  I tend to agree with the observation that religiousity is probably a result of that wiring.

Not accepting anything outside of personal beliefs is ultimate intolerance, and yes, it exists everywhere here on the WC.  I'm concerned about how people base their actions on their beliefs. That is dangerous.

LL&P

Spock

Where I'm mainly coming from here - as with your "Jesus lives" - is indoctrination of any specific belief.   Surely there's no doubt that a believer of any specific 'God', or 'Jesus', or 'Satan' or 'Ahriman' is due to indoctrination.  And it's almost always specific in my experience.

Indeed this is the connection for differences in time and place re beliefs... such as; If you were raised in:
Iran - you'd likely believe in Allah.
Japan - you probably adhere to Shintoism.
Togo - you'd likely be devoted to Mami Wata.
Israel - you'd be either Jewish or Muslim.
Norway circa 850 - you'd worship Odin and Thor.
Egypt circa 1 BC - you'd see Ra as the major 'God'.
 

I can be fearful of what's 'rustling in the bushes', too - especially given the number of hikes I've done in Griz and cougar country - but I don't think 'Devil' (or whatever) re the fear and I never think 'God'.  However, I have indeed read what you allude to.

Then the Raven and Condor are black and unknown entities to many ... yet revered by aboriginals!

Is the unknown to be feared? This is the infinite sojourner like a phiosophical thought. Is a thought real? It couldn't be could it ... if it comes from the imaginary source we call mind ... denied by so many as irrelevant like your deisre (Gods, ideals). Are your thoughts real, you can withhold comment on my thoughts as many do not like them. It is what sets humans apart from the mind that would like to get into and understand everything ... but is denied. Many will not go there as if it was bo^ish land, a hiding pits that one could fall into like the desires that shadow the mind ... drive it in ID's sojourn. Militant types hate thinkers ... they disturb their desires like demons. Satirical devils eh, or is that a double negative when balanced?

Do words have alternate meanings like understanding: alter Ego? That's super or even subliminal in the line of sight of a straight player without Ba'aLem's wobble ... wiggle of the following buttei!

Which, as I'm sure you're aware, is only valid if one posits a corporeal "god".

lol - and why should that frustration not be shared by those who have a much broader understanding of what constitutes "god" when folks like yourself insist on using arguments that only apply to people like Geo (oops, I mean "Geos's dad, Snip)?

Rather than an apple, why don't we imagine an idea. "Justice" for instance, just to grab something off the top of my head. Now hand it someone, a refugee in the Sudan possibly. Can we prove the existence of "justice" to that person? They can surely demonstrate its absence. Does that mean that "justice" does not exist? Is "justice" dead?

You see, for me, and for many, God is as elusive, and yet as real, as justice or any of a number of other concepts I could name.

Were Einstein's ideas the fruit of his imagination?

Interesting that a rule of science states that all things made from nothing must have an opposite (coming in pairs, pars, or perhaps paris) ... there fore with relativity we get debate ... the storm in the nether regions a' muses the Gods! First a mortal has to find and resolve the point of contention an Eros .. blind old man of desire who misplaced the thoughts about IT!

Zhi (cross point in the stitch of time) was his mate which makes the loss ... matrix-ide! Is that word play of the God's Fury-us winds ... in laughter as they observe the battles from afar? They wouldn't get into the whorl ... gods are old enough to know to stay out of IT .. why we can't often find a reliable ideal in this space ... they're too broken up ... fractal images like a rein bowed over in giggles at human nature. They're dualistic in nature and would rather fight than make Love ... perhaps in a moment of angst (anhk) some love would warm the pool?

Then 'anhk is a route word of Hank, Harry and Eire ... Sufi code for works of the mind .. rare Ayres! One must simply follow the history of the evolution of word ... it is a deep mystery after the Romans burned the old books of myth. You see you cannot tell such T'Ruth to a human ... they're so used to lies, everything must be told upside-down for proper reciprocation. It is a Roues of the lens of mind ... sigh-que in some tongues!

Do real human like to know of the con-science of the mind? That's why it was shoved over the horizon of mortal limits Exodus 20:19 .... a Jinn's Tone ... singing san (without)! It is the surrounding that casts the habius corpus if a'm'n can't find his own soul for scars. One must look at self with the covenant removed ... a naked pair? What is th' Eire nature ... essentially vapor ... us? Just Piscine words in a higher dimension! Yah have to fish for them through a point in time ... whip stitch to immortal beans ... Jaqo-bean! What's in a word? "Anything you can make of IT!"--- Shakespeare. There is no end of the story ... it just cahanges form ... Gospel of John, if you can read into the manna with balanced heart and mind ... full soul?

In certain substance rehabilitation programs, they promote, "Believe in a Higher Power of your own understanding." This means that my understanding of God will be different from yours. My imagination is different than yours. My beliefs & values are different than yours. So long as I do not impose, what I believe to be right & true to you, then everyone on earth can have their own imaginary GOD. Every race has a different creation story. Asians have Buddha. Muslims have Alah. Europeans have Jesus. Native Americans have Wasakichuk. My Creator is my friend, my confidante, my father, my guiding light. I imagine Him to be the father I never had as a child. I am his daughter who he loves and accepts unconditionally. I think if this world were more spiritual than religious, God would find His way into more hearts, and not be turned away by such narrow minds.

So I guess the question I have for the athiests would be, "Do you believe human beings have a spiritual element?"

God is knowable, and if you want to meet him, he has left a detailed description of what he looks like and where to find him. The most common way is for you to believe, and then he reveals himself (Gives you proof), but some get the proof first.

Oh pleaseeeeeeeee that is exactly the kind of rhetoric   that I hear all the time

You don't even know what that means you just repeat it to yourself how have you met God how do you know him did you meet on Facebook or did you Tweet him .... Mr Crowe

Original think much ?

Lets give the copy and paste button a rest !!!!

Hello everyone God bless you...

I believe that God wants us to use our imagination to see Him and the things of Him..God is all and in all...for example read the scriptures on Ezekiels Visions, and Revelations 21, we cannot comprehend without our imagination what they are trying to tell us...

God does tell us to have the innocents of a child...I believe in angels and I do believe that because of the innocents of children, they may see the angels ..are not all angels ministering angels..but when our minds are all cluttered with the things of this world there is no room or imagination in the Great Master Creator of the Universe...

IJL:BJ

Sorry that's just the blind leading the blind ...

Like many others, I have met Jesus, face to face.

Hey so long as it's not audio / visual hallucinations more power to you.

Haven't met 'em all to discuss...  Haven't even met all the atheists to see if it applies to all o' them.  But not me and most that I know (and I have discussed this with several since coming on to this site to ensure I'm not mis-representing them and got a completely unsurprising 100% hit rate for agreement...  no 'spiritual').

Well, waterfall, this all depends on how one defines "spiritual element," doesn't it?

If one, as I do, regards energy as the basic material and spiritual substance of the universe—in other words, if the material is also the spiritual—then the spiritual element could hardly be denied.

If, however, the spiritual substance is some airy-fairy substance that no-one can prove or define, then the spiritual element becomes more iffy. 

No one has mentioned Richard Dawkins yet here, and as far as I know, this was his idea. At any rate, he devotes some time to explaining the argument of "God as imaginary friend" premise in his book The God Delusion.

The analogy between God and imaginary friend is introduced to provide an explanation for the prevalance of religion across cultures. Dawkins notes that many children have imaginary friends and that maybe God serves the same purpose for adults and societies as imaginary friends serve for children (mostly, the purpose that I remember Dawkins emphasizing was the need for comfort and consolation when this isn't otherwise available).

Like many evolutionary psychology arguments it is open to debate (regardless of whether or not one believes in the existence of God apart from human's conceptions of the divine), because evolutionary psychology arguments rely on a lot of assumption. I don't think you can scientifically demonstrate what imaginary friends are for, and the argument doesn't really address why religion is so much more universal than imaginary friends. I belive Dawkins acknowledges this in his book, but I don't have the book with me and can't remember for sure.

Haven't you just implicitly addressed it here, just by who they apply to? Religions - 'run by' adults - has almost infinitely more resources to devote to propagation of the concept than does anything that a child might think.  And a child has no vested interest in spreading his or her imaginary friend, while if religion doesn't do so, it basically goes nowhere...  No adherents, no money, no nuttin'!

I think it is a reasonably plausible argument from an evolutionary psychology perspective myself, but haven't really spent a lot of time thinking about it. I was just trying to point out some potential criticisms of the imaginary friend / God analogy. You bring up some good supporting points for the argument. I suspect that there are also many other facets of human nature that would explain why religion is so ubiquitous in different human cultures, both sociological and psychological.

No question...  I was only trying to address the adult/kid comparison.

You're basing that on the old adage, "Seeing is believing?". Different strokes for different folks. Your creation story is different than mine... so obviously I do not follow that. I know when my spirit is not with me. I know when someone is visiting from another plane of existence. It is a 6th sense. Some things are not meant to be seen. Some things are not meant to be defined. The human mind can only comprehend so much. 

Hi if.i.were.a.boy:

Many manifestations of energy can't be seen and not even measured. I include the immeasurable and undefinable in my cosmology. I do rationalize about the cosmos and I experience it mystically and intuitively. I regard my cosmic interpretations as specualtive and metaphorical, not as a challenge to someone who thinks differently.

The efficient God  has Angels, to perform THAT service:

They all go first to Hints and Sugestions 101 for few hundred years (our time, not theirs..) and then a few lectures on "How to get through to them", and they're set to go.. That's why you should be kind to strangers...ya never know...

,.

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