when you picture god in your mind, what is the mental picture you see?

Question

I have asked many friends this question, it quite interesting the responses I have had........ I see only a face and it's a greyish blue colour.

Answer 1

I see an old man with very long white hair and a very long white beard dressed in a long white flowing gown with a stern but loving face

Answer 2

When I was 5-6 years old the class teacher asked us all to paint a picture of God, and the weird thing was that every kid in the class drew the same image... a smiling man in a long white dress with a long white beard surrounded by white puffy clouds - I've always wondered about how all the little kids imagined the same thing as though it's part of our gene memory or something. I know that at that age certainly no-one had told me how God might look, but I made the same picture as all the other kids.

These days I imagine God like the heart of the cosmos, like a big light at the centre of all existence.

Answer 3

If I simply picture GOD I picture nothing because he would be too fearsome to behold, too holy to look upon with mere human eyes, but if i picture Jesus I picture the brother that I never had, the hand that holds, mine as I cross the streets of life. If I picture God the Father I picture daddy holding a little girl in his arms as she smiles up into his returning smile. Then she snuggles in close and falls asleep while He strokes her hair and tells her all the good things that He has created her to be. Don't get me wrong I also believe that same daddy would discipline the little girl if she did wrong, but the end result would be the same only He would be drying her tears and making her laugh again. Another picture is of a little girl dancing in her garden while her daddy sings her a song of joy, then he dances with her leading her in all the right steps.

Answer 4

It depends on my mood and my train of thought and the context of my prayer. I don"t think there is anything wrong or weird about having more than one mental image of God. In an interesting book called The Mind of the Maker, Dorothy Sayers said that the only way humans CAN think about anything abstract is in terms of metaphors, because that"s how our brains work. Even scientists have to resort to imagined metaphorical images like "waves" and "particles" and "beams" and "strings" in order to be able to think about complex matters. So, if I sometimes picture God as a kind man with an arm around my shoulder, and sometimes as a tornado-force wind disrupting my life, and sometimes as my fellow-ox yoked with me to the same muddy job, and sometimes as a blinding light, I suppose all of those mental images are equally helpful at different times. Whatever image we use is going to be false, in a sense, since the thing we are trying to imagine is too large to be held in any one image. But how else can we think about God, except in partial images? As Sayers pointed out, we have to use the brain we have in the only way it works.

Answer 5

My Grandma had a image of an older guy sitting at a table, head bowed, asserting grace. He had gray/white hair and beard. whilst i became little i became specific he became God (I do comprehend now he's no longer God - yet once you're 3 or 4 years previous...). I nonetheless image God as finding like the guy interior the portray. some photographs are annoying to shake, i assume.

Answer 6

When I picture God in my mind I vision everything. I see a little girl playing, I see a strong man caring, I see everything. He has the power through love and faith to change his shape to anything. But mostly I imagine someone similar to Jesus, after all where else would he get his looks from?

Answer 7

What I picture...I have 2 answers! The first picture I see is the Lord and Lady watching...pushing,...building, paths and giving us the freedom to choose which one to go down lighting it along the way..staying when I go astray... Second answer.. I see me (you see yourself) I see myself and the choices I make and i try my dammest to correct what I feel is wrong...I try to stay on the path that is lightened for me while being open minded to all things around me.. for we know in our hearts that what works for one doesn't mean it works for another...I see the gathering of people who believe that a helping hand is more pure then a 2 dollar bill...I see people who will have tolerance for those whom help themselves and are given the opertunity to do so...I see many more smiles in the world then we do today!

Answer 8

Morgan Freeman

Answer 9

Hi Lynn
I see a sharp dressed man who looks a bit like James Coburn (when he was older), wearing Ray Ban's, with a Nokia Razr, and a blackberry.

Answer 10

some times a bright light some times the universe. god has no face . people put their own creative thoughts or some one's to an image to god. if there is a god it could only be mind less energy.