In your opinion, who/what is God ?

[trainedobserver]

From His written word. Thump thump

I assume you mean the Christian Bible. Have you done a comparative study of the thousands of other religious texts and determined that it alone is a message from the supreme being? How long did that take and what was the methodology? If that wasn't what you did to arrive at that determination what was?

 

[TClaeys]

Funny, ... I searched and searched for a thread with nothing coming up in the search. But I asked a similar question years ago and did a poll. The basis of the question (although the question and answers were changed by the moderators back then) is this:

Was an intelligent agent involved in the creation of the universe??

https://www.theparacast.com/forum/threads/2626-Do-you-believe-in-god

Don't think Jesus. Don't think personal god involved in daily affairs. Don't think afterlife, hell, purgatory, etc. My question was basically an attempt to see if people thought that some kind of intelligence was behind the apparent creation of our universe. Some people were simply unable to divorce this from their dogma. Lots of discussion followed.

If what we see as the universe was created out of nothing via quantum fluctuations (whatever in the hell that means) it still doesn't answer the question entirely. We can't even really tell sometimes what is energy and what is matter and if matter is actually real. We can't rely on stuff we observe to actually be there when we don't observe it. There are so many strange enigmas when it comes to our view of the world according to scientific methods. The universe is a strange strange place.

So when we say God it holds so many differing meanings as to almost be useless. Could there be an ultimate creation force or energy?? I guess the question I asked was to see if people thought that some kind of sentience could have been involved. It is just as ludicrous and non-intuitive as the universe being an impossibly expanding quantum balloon that emerged and evolved so that humans may sit in a forum asking WTF god is.

I just find it peculiar and interesting the way life, matter, consciousness, and whatever else came out of nothing. Weird huh?? Anyway for the record about 60% thought an intelligent agent could have been involved with 40% voting for "it just happened naturally" (even though there was no nature at all before "it" happened). An interesting and futile subject that has been the source of much war and tragedy, as well as hope and love and faith. And perhaps even a little delusion for good measure.

 

[trainedobserver]

Was an intelligent agent involved in the creation of the universe??

Impossible to tell due to resource restrictions. If there was such a thing it would, by its very nature, be absolutely nothing like any human concept of it. It seems highly unlikely that it would remotely resemble anything like human intelligence and consciousness which remarkably most if not all god concepts do. The larger system of things that we are blind to could contain anything whatsoever. Our purpose within that system is as inscrutable as the nature of that larger system is, therefore we make something up.

 

[pixelsmith]

Apart from conspiracy theories and global warming, I'm sure there's tons of stuff we agree on. I used to do Tae Kwon Do until I hurt my knees, I use Macs, I love photography, and I play the blues on piano and on guitar - there's plenty of common ground there... And we agree on the concept of god.

Maybe we should have a photography thread. I like looking at other peoples photos.

---------- Post added at 06:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:35 PM ----------

Was an intelligent agent involved in the creation of the universe??

where would this agent be located before the creation of the universe?

 

[tyder001]

I recommend (Plus, he' not religious so you don't get dogma) google Roger Penrose and his thoughts on "before the big bang." He is a very interesting scientist. Although, in all honesty he's "over my head" much of the time.

 

[GeoShift]

I assume you mean the Christian Bible. Have you done a comparative study of the thousands of other religious texts and determined that it alone is a message from the supreme being? How long did that take and what was the methodology? If that wasn't what you did to arrive at that determination what was?

Thanks for your inquiry trainedobserver. Yes, you are correct in your assumption for the source of my determination.

 

[trainedobserver]

Thanks for your inquiry trainedobserver. Yes, you are correct in your assumption for the source of my determination.

So what are the answers to the other three questions?

Have you done a comparative study of the thousands of other religious texts and determined that it alone is a message from the supreme being?

How long did that take and what was the methodology?

If that wasn't what you did to arrive at that determination what was?

Is this going to be an open and frank discussion or is it going to be a hit and run testimony?

----

Oh, wait. That's four! Boy, I'm coming off as confrontational and mean. Sorry about that.

 

[GeoShift]

So what are the answers to the other three questions?

Have you done a comparative study of the thousands of other religious texts and determined that it alone is a message from the supreme being?

How long did that take and what was the methodology?

If that wasn't what you did to arrive at that determination what was?

Is this going to be an open and frank discussion or is it going to be a hit and run testimony?

----

Oh, wait. That's four! Boy, I'm coming off as confrontational and mean. Sorry about that.

I certainly appreciate the open and frank discussions in this forum and prefer it that way. I also hope that it is not necessary to present an obligatory response to every question asked when the answers could be determined from a previous response however limited it may seem. Sorry about my limited response.

 

[trainedobserver]

I certainly appreciate the open and frank discussions in this forum and prefer it that way. I also hope that it is not necessary to present an obligatory response to every question asked when the answers could be determined from a previous response however limited it may seem. Sorry about my limited response.

Well that's a laugh isn't it?

Ok, I will make the further assumptions that, you have arrived at your faith not through "shopping around" but probably through family or social inheritance and that you are some flavor of Christianity by default as it were. That was my experience anyway so why can't I project that onto your situation seeing as I don't have much to work with here?

I was raised to believe in my family's god with little or no encouragement to really think about the thousands of other gods mankind has worshiped over time. This is of course no different than your average Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist or what have you in the world. I believed in a specific religious world-view because I was programed to do so. I was taught every one else was wrong and in the snare of evil supernatural forces and only my god was real. Boy was I lucky to be born when and where I was!

There is no more rational in believing one religious sacred-text over another than there is to believe the characters of Marvel comics are real and DC comics are not. At least I have yet to see it or have it explained to me by those who would contend such a thing.

 

[TClaeys]

---------- Post added at 06:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:35 PM ----------


where would this agent be located before the creation of the universe?

I wouldn't presume to know. Perhaps it just popped into existence out of nothing like anything else that we are routinely told happens. Perhaps it was just kicking back at it's computer terminal and decided to write a program called "universe 1.0:Simulated Reality". Perhaps "god" is the quantum foam that everything spills out from. I have no idea and I'm not really sure anyone has it nailed down even a little. I'm just skeptical when someone says "it all just popped into existence, normal routine stuff, .... ala god is dead". I'm way more skeptical when someone says God created the Earth in 7 days, etc. I'm skeptical of it all. Seems much too comlicated to ever get any kind of good answer.

I guess I don't see why we preclude such a possibility even if we have no idea how it could have happened. There are so many oddities involved in creation of the universe, life, intelligence, unseen forces, etc that the scientific and religious hubris probably clouds any grasp of truth. I don't suppose it matters one bit either way. But it's a good mental exercise I think, ... albeit futile.

 

[trainedobserver]

Anything with a beginning and ending in it sounds as though it is entirely human generated to me. It seems just as likely that the universe (whatever that actually is) has always been and will always be. In fact, I highly suspect that the human perception of time (which allows for a beginning and an ending) is in fact restricted to consciousness and does not exist in the real world as such. Therefore the universe doesn't need a creator, it can simply be.

If we are some side experiment, conducted by some super race or being, well so be it. I'll be damned (so to speak, ah-hem) if I'd feel the necessity to venerate them as deity though. I mean, hell. I'd want to send them a bill.

 

[tyder001]

It seems just as likely that the universe (whatever that actually is) has always been and will always be.



I think science disagrees with you (see Big Bang) Again, I would also recommend Rodger Penrose and others who have worked on the questions of What was before the Big Bang and where the universe might be going. Yes, it (appears) to have had a begining.

 

[trainedobserver]

I think science disagrees with you (see Big Bang) Again, I would also recommend Rodger Penrose and others who have worked on the questions of What was before the Big Bang and where the universe might be going. Yes, it (appears) to have had a begining.

One school of thought suggests that The Big Bang is actually more of a Big Bang - Collapse - Big Bang - rinse and repeat. Like giant hands clapping endlessly. That mystical enough for you?

However, none that addresses the fact that what we think we know of the universe and how it works is derived from within the constrains of a 3 (or perhaps 4) dimensional consciousness. Time, as human beings experience it is not consistent even within our experience. Like color, the sensation of light and dark, like sound, time itself is a manifestation of our brain/mind systems. Like the color red, it is something else entirely in the real world, in fact it doesn't actually exist at all. In the real world there is only an electromagnetic wave 650 nm long and not the bright chromatic display my brain produces to represent the relationship that wave length of light has with others.

Therefore the passage of time could very well and most likely is another illusionary aspect of consciousness. Our necessity for something to have a starting point, a direction, an origin, seems to stem from the lens of time that we view things through. All things may have already occurred. Our perception of it may be what is moving.

Or ...we could all be brains in a jar hooked up to a Virtual Reality machine and Toby the underpaid lab assistant is jacking with us big time.

 

[Randall]

Regarding my first proposition, I've actually spent a huge amount of time thinking this one through...I invite you to read through one of my gather.com posts for more explanations (the thread commentary is interesting as well) -- regarding your notes on the I-determination before God-determination, I'll have to chew on that a bit...

Hey there Michael ... really good stuff. You aren't kidding when you say you've bee seriously thinking this one through. I'd like to comment on this quote: "to be aware of all things simultaneously is to be completely oblivious of everything." But first offer my own framework for understanding "God".

I start with a very dictionary like approach:

God:

RELIGION: supreme being: the being believed in monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Islam, and Christianity to be the all-powerful all-knowing creator of the universe, worshiped as the only god.

Then I take it a bit further based on the initial premise to fit a wider variety of situations:

"God is a name ( noun ) used as a title to designate rank among dieties in religious belief systems."

Therefore unless we believe in such religious belief systems, there is no God for us. This however does not preclude the existence of some being or entity that others revere and worship as their God, but that we see as something or someone else entirely different. For the believer, God exists, and because believers exist, God must therefore also exist ( within this context only ) ... unless as in some religions their God is physical and real ( Living Gods in India for example ), in which case God not only exists a belief, but as an actual being we can measure and weigh like anyone else.

When it comes to religions where there is only one all powerful God that is abstract and removed from our everyday awareness, it is this version of God ( usually depicted as some old bearded man on a throne in the sky ), that people get into debates over the reality of. Now to touch on the point made in the quote at the start:

"to be aware of all things simultaneously is to be completely oblivious of everything."

Supposed I were to offer you a way of looking at this problem that seems plausible, or at least for all practical purposes the same, within the context of the universe as we know it ( our current spacetime continuum )?

j.r.

 

[tyder001]

Don't have a lot more to add here. I have my own experience and life and worldview. But, I have to honestly hand it to some of the posters here. When I first saw the question I thought "Oh boy, here we go." I was expecting the old name calling and silly little simple snarky soundbites. While there were/are a few of those, it still has been a pleasant suprise to see how many people have honestly thought and articulated their feelings. It's one of the things that sets this forum apart (imo) from many other forums out there. We have a wide range of folks here from conservative to liberal to religious to atheist and we seem to be able to discuss things. Most of the time in a civil manner. Anyway, I haven't read anything here that has "changed" my mind about God or life. But, I have seen some new ways of looking at the questions we all have.

 

[Chuik]

God = Love = Life

 

[GeoShift]

Don't have a lot more to add here. I have my own experience and life and worldview. But, I have to honestly hand it to some of the posters here. When I first saw the question I thought "Oh boy, here we go." I was expecting the old name calling and silly little simple snarky soundbites. While there were/are a few of those, it still has been a pleasant suprise to see how many people have honestly thought and articulated their feelings. It's one of the things that sets this forum apart (imo) from many other forums out there. We have a wide range of folks here from conservative to liberal to religious to atheist and we seem to be able to discuss things. Most of the time in a civil manner. Anyway, I haven't read anything here that has "changed" my mind about God or life. But, I have seen some new ways of looking at the questions we all have.

Nice way to describe the scenario tyder001. You covered the bases for my same sentiments about this thread and forum quite well.

 

[Terjarv]

God = Love = Life

We can only hope . Of course if I were to play devil's advocate, more people are killed in the name of God than anything else.

 

[Randall]

This is a continuation from my first post defining the term "God" ... here:

https://www.theparacast.com/forum/threads/8927-In-your-opinion-who-what-is-God?p=119968#post119968

It had left off addressing the statement by Mike related to his post here:

https://www.theparacast.com/forum/threads/8927-In-your-opinion-who-what-is-God?p=119883#post119883

Mike proposes with some considerable thought that: "to be aware of all things simultaneously is to be completely oblivious of everything."

Supposed there were a way of looking at this problem that seems plausible, or at least for all practical purposes the same, within the context of the universe as we know it ( our current spacetime continuum )? What might that be? How could it be possible?

Consider the possibility that the universe as we understand it within the frame of the Big Bang, which is our current spacetime continuum is actually a sophisticated generated environment by an ultra super powerful data processing system ( computer ). At first this seems impossible due to the apparent infinite nature of the universe, which implies infinite complexity. This is certainly daunting to us, but if we simplify the equation it begins to come into focus. To acheive a seemingly infinite generated environment what we'd need is an infinitely powerful computer. How might such a thing be constructed?

If we look at the rate of our own computing technology, there are theoretical designs for computers based on quantum processes and light. Both of these processes involve what is for all practical purposes intantaneous data manipulation. Light for example travels so fast that at the speed of light time stands still. Therefore from the point of view of a purely optical processing system, time is irrellevant, and if time is irrellevant to the processor, it is for all pratical purposes infinite in power. Have a look at some of the computational cosmology done with supercomputers. I propose that our primitive models are a foreshadowing of things to come.

Now imagine that the computer that runs this universe ( let's call it universe_01.exe ) is also intelligent and self aware. Our own scientists estimate that we will be able to create sentient machines during this century, so imagine one so evolved that it can run an entire universe? The logic of this model means that the computer that runs the program must out of necessity be aware of what it is doing and it would be aware of it all simultaneously ( at least from our perspective ). Now where this get really bizarre ( because I'm not religious ) is that this model ( generically called the computational model ) also implies that there could be a creator of the system, an engineer or architect, something that is responsible for the creation of the universe as we know it. But is that the way it really is? I don't know, but I see no reason to think it's not possible.

Of course this model only provides an explanation for our universe. The same theory can be applied to multiverses the same way we can run simultaneous programs on our PCs, but at some point we still find ourselves asking, "What about the universe the computer is in? Where did it come from?". I have no explanation for the recursive universe conundrum. It's an infinite regression paradox. But inasmuch as we are only dealing with our universe, suddenly we have a rational plausible hypothesis for the existence of an all knowing creator ... whether or not it deserves to be worshiped as a deity is another matter altogether.

j.r.

 

[GeoShift]

Good stuff ufology. Yes it seems we are living in a very sophisticated digital simulation.