First let me state what my conception of God is. God is the only entity that is self-existent and is the source of all other existence. Any other sort of being, no matter how powerful or long lived, would not be God to me. So the Mormon version of God, the gods of Homer, etc. would not be what I mean by God. What follows are my reasons for believing in the basic idea of such a God which is shared by the various monotheistic faiths and by various forms of deism. It’s not meant as a justification for the peculiarities of Christian belief.

Since this kind of God would not be one entity alongside other entities in our universe but rather the fundamental cause of all that exists in the universe, God cannot be something that we observe directly. We cannot point to some particular part of the world and say ‘there is God!’ because God is not just a part of the universe or just one aspect of reality. Instead (any ignoring any possible self-revelation of God), the existence of God would be something that is inferred from our general observations about the nature of the world and about ourselves. The existence of God would be the 'theory' that combines these observations into a common philosophical framework. This can be a stumbling block to some since it can be possible to make different inferences based on the same observations. This is how I see it:

The physical universe exists, seems to have a beginning, and appears contingent.

The universe has a mathematical and informational structure as evidenced in the laws of physics

Those laws are such that the (eventual) emergence of life is possible and perhaps even probable. That could also be true for sentient life forms as well.

It is difficult to make sense of the world without allowing for the existence (in some form) of abstract immaterial entities like numbers, etc.

The human intellect is such that it is able to grasp abstract concepts and seems capable of understanding the universe at its deepest and most abstract level.

The human intellect is not reducible to an organic computer. Our mind must be more than a complex set of computational algorithms.

A purely materialistic worldview undermines the basis for human rationality and morality. But humans are rational and moral beings.

For me, the idea that can tie all of these disparate observations together into a coherent whole is that Mind, in the form of God, is the most fundamental reality. That may explain why the world exists in the ordered form that it does and why we have the intellectual capacity to comprehend it. Of course theism has its own philosophical and conceptual problems to overcome – like the problem of evil, or how exactly the universe is distinct from God, or how human free will could coexist with an omnipotent God.

This is a bare bones outline of why I think the existence of God is plausible. It’s hard to condense lots of reading and thinking on this subject into a few posts on an internet discussion board (but I tried). That’s why book recommendations are useful for those who may be interested in pursuing these ideas in more depth.

is what you are defending.

"Our mind must be more than..."

No.

"...purely materialistic worldview..."

As opposed to "spiritual"?

"Mind"? Okay, now we're clearly veering off into New Age territory.

i like it a lot! :)
and as we are on new age... anybody hear about Universal Consciousness? i have heard the term but couldn't find anything at the library...
just asking! :).

edited to say..oh yeah that is definitely New Age with the UC!

maybe i will get a book on it! :)

Boy SB will really be sorry now!! :) i wont be "unread" anymore! :)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 03:04PM by bignevermo.

nobody mentioned music. Unless they want to distract or derail the thread.

I caint have no fun here? :)

it was only cause of you:
New Age territory...see its all your fault!~ :)

and...UC does have to do with god...or so it seemed at first glance. :)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 03:08PM by bignevermo.

You silver tongued devil you.

Okay, what do you think "Universal Consciousness" is and what does it have to do with "God"?

The Essence of All Be-ing

Consciousness can be defined as -
• the self awareness, inner sensibility or cognisance
of the processing of one's own existence -
• the aggregate, collective or Unified Field of the interplay
of all of the energies which make up all life.

The paradigm that consciousness may exist independently of the physical body is often widely disputed from all sides and often ridiculed. It may sometimes be tolerated under the label of religious freedom, but virtually all branches of science are evolving in the opposite direction: explaining out soul and Spirit.

Yet, there can be a synthesis or common ground where, by removing the seeming discrepancies and limitations in the words and languages used by science, mysticism, spirituality and religion, it can be seen that

Universal Consciousness is the interweaving thread - the tantra - a bridge which joins all forms of human endeavour with all and, with all states and forms of sentient and non-sentient existance.

This Universal Consciousness is
• the Essence of Who We are
• and the Synthesis of Life itself.

LifeStreams
In this web-site, we have used the term LifeStreams to bypass the preconceptions which can arise and create divisions in thought and understanding - hopefully creating a map of Universal Consciousness which can be followed without the need for the technicalities and special nomenclatures of fields of knowledge and experience that may be accessible only to people with special training.

Within these Life Streams, patterns can be found which directly influence mental and physical health - and all interpersonal relationships. They are the sources of conscious and unconscious programs and beliefs that govern life leading to stress, conflict, addictions, medical and psychological diseases.

Yet, these same LifeStreams have a commonality to all of the senses used by all of man-kind. Thus, the material on this site bridges physics and metaphysics.

oh and by the way...Steve Roach music is great to read about the UC by!!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 03:28PM by bignevermo.

What is Universal Consciousness?

According to whom?

Why do you find it reasonable?

What does it have to do with God?

i heard about it...went to the library...they had nothing...blanks stares is what i got... and just now looked at it online... cut a brother some slack.(notice no exclamation point) :)
I be giving a book report after i get a book on it...:)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 03:39PM by bignevermo.

Word salad. Sounds like it might mean something until you think about it, then....huh?

Oh, and this statement is, well, crap:

"The paradigm that consciousness may exist independently of the physical body is often widely disputed from all sides and often ridiculed. It may sometimes be tolerated under the label of religious freedom, but virtually all branches of science are evolving in the opposite direction: explaining out soul and Spirit."

Actually, neuroscience is mapping the brain and consciousness itself through fMRI technology and supercomputers. "Soul and spirit" have nothing to do with it, unless they are archaic synonyms for "neural activity".

I apologize if I wasn't clear.

"Soul and spirit" are not concepts or terms to be confirmed or disconfirmed in neuroscience.

The New Age perspective became clear in the next passage:

"Yet, there can be a synthesis or common ground where, by removing the seeming discrepancies and limitations in the words and languages used by science, mysticism, spirituality and religion, it can be seen that

Universal Consciousness is the interweaving thread - the tantra - a bridge which joins all forms of human endeavour with all and, with all states and forms of sentient and non-sentient existance."

Suddenly we are using terms and models from Eastern religions, without any justification. Why?

Carl Jung believed in a collective unconscious, but he was prone to the mystical. I have not seen any kind of research to confirm this UC.

Sorry about any confusion.

i kinda like how you approach things...you seem very thoughtful. ready for bear too aint ya! :)

and do ya like new age music? I LOVE it... i like to meditate and use it sometimes to fall asleep!!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 03:55PM by bignevermo.

Why do you find it reasonable?

what is wanted? :)

you are one curious cat aint ya!! in a good way!

...in which I felt that I was part of the universe and I felt a unity with all things. It was very intense and wonderful. It set me off studying mysticism and psychology for many years.

I really do believe that humans can improve and experience much joy and self-actualization in life. That can seem mystical in the experiencing.

..............

Believe that life is worth living and your belief will create the fact. Be not afraid to live.

~ William James

:)...your experience must have been intense...ya know some people go all theistic after their "peak experience"...but i see you didnt...humans...we aint all alike is we?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 03:59PM by bignevermo.

A purely materialistic worldview undermines the basis for Rats rationality and morality. But Rats are rational and moral beings.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8943567/Rats-display-human-like-empathy-and-will-help-rodents-in-distress.html

... default code?

Timothy

I give BHS props for launching his proposition. Defending his thesis will be a different matter.

I'm still waiting on those intellectual reasons.

Timothy

blackholesun Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> The physical universe exists, seems to have a
> beginning, and appears contingent.
>
> The universe has a mathematical and informational
> structure as evidenced in the laws of physics

This is the part that I think needs to be stated differently. The Universe is there and Mathematics is there and the mathematics that WE humans have created is useful in describing and predicting SOME of the behavior of SOME of the things in the universe. The "Laws of physics" are our creations. Like Newton's laws, they tend to not be absolute truth when looked at more closely.

> Those laws are such that the (eventual) emergence
> of life is possible and perhaps even probable.
> That could also be true for sentient life forms as
> well.

All kind of things "could be true."

> It is difficult to make sense of the world without
> allowing for the existence (in some form) of
> abstract immaterial entities like numbers, etc.
>
> The human intellect is such that it is able to
> grasp abstract concepts and seems capable of
> understanding the universe at its deepest and most
> abstract level.
>
> The human intellect is not reducible to an organic
> computer. Our mind must be more than a complex set
> of computational algorithms.

Why do you say this? This is definitely a question that has not been resolved by scholarly/scientific means.

> A purely materialistic worldview undermines the
> basis for human rationality and morality. But
> humans are rational and moral beings.

Again I don't see where this comes from. Ancient peoples divorced their morality from their religion. The idea that morality is imposed from OUTSIDE of humans upon humans didn't start until the Hebrews. The Romans certainly considered morality to be a totally human concern.

> For me, the idea that can tie all of these
> disparate observations together into a coherent
> whole is that Mind, in the form of God, is the
> most fundamental reality. That may explain why the
> world exists in the ordered form that it does and
> why we have the intellectual capacity to
> comprehend it. Of course theism has its own
> philosophical and conceptual problems to overcome
> – like the problem of evil, or how exactly the
> universe is distinct from God, or how human free
> will could coexist with an omnipotent God.
>
> This is a bare bones outline of why I think the
> existence of God is plausible. It’s hard to
> condense lots of reading and thinking on this
> subject into a few posts on an internet discussion
> board (but I tried). That’s why book
> recommendations are useful for those who may be
> interested in pursuing these ideas in more depth.

Oops. Wrong spot.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 03:42PM by kolobian.

I'm a little confused by your post honestly.

I think what you are saying is that the human intellect is more powerful than you believe would have happened through evolution alone?

And that the universe would not have the structure and existence it has without God?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 03:50PM by ronas.

Interesting discussion - I have a few points:

1) Maybe you sould revise your first observation to state "The physical universe observed by us exists, seems to have a beginning, and appears contingent." I assume your logic is that existence can't spring from non-existence, thus the non-self-existent nature of our universe necessitates something that is self-existent from which it (eventually) emerged.

2) I am not sure how the Laws of Physics and the probable development of life play in. For instance, if there were an infinite number of universes with an infinite combination of laws, and only one of them had the combination that made life and intelligence possible, then that intelligence would be the only one that would observe those laws. The uniqueness of the laws of our universe means nothing. The same thing goes with the existence of abstract immaterial entities.

3) You said "The human intellect is such that it is able to grasp abstract concepts and seems capable of understanding the universe at its deepest and most abstract level." This is purely conjecture. You have no reason to believe that we are capable of this. To make an example, can you understand 11th-dimensional existence? The math seems to indicate its existence, but there's no reason to believe that we, as 3-dimensional beings, are capable of understanding it.

4) You said "The human intellect is not reducible to an organic computer." Again, why not? Abstract concepts understood in the mind may be nothing more than collections of firing synapses. We don't understand the brain well enough to say this for sure, but there's no reason to definitively say otherwise. This then follows into the basis behind rationality and morality. Whether or not these can be reduced to a biological computer, which is not definitive, doesn't mean that both are evolutionarily beneficial traits, and would be the expected result of life-forming existence.

Still, I agree with you that something must be self-existent. I just see no reason to believe that it must be a being, much less a rational one.

Why do I feel like William Lane Craig just threw up all over RfM?

So you've attempted to mix the cosmological argument, the transcendental argument, the numbers argument, and argument from ignorance together and called that reason even though every single one of these so-called logical proofs have been debunked over and over and over again.

It's apparent you're only reading one side of the arguments and not actually doing any reasoning.

Craig and Bahnsen. At least we haven't gone into a presuppositional "black hole" yet.

too small!!
just sayin... i know i know...stay focused!!
maybe i have ADD~ :)

Hugh Nibley

The idea that the universe must have been intentionally created in a way that we can understand, instead of us evolving to understand the universe in a way that is most likely to benefit our survival...sorry, I just lost interest.