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About a deity full of love and compassion…

Thief

Rogue Theologian
It is not all about evidence.
If you are going to follow a belief system, you are better off following something that has the least flaws as possible.

When someone asks you about a clear contradiction he sees in your beliefs, you should be ready to properly reply it. So far, you have only dismissed the questions, because you consider them irrelevant for some reason only you know.

Perhaps a better focus and re-asking of your question....
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Right. I can (from this point of view) comprehensively say about "god" that it can prevent things, but I cannot comprehensively say the same thing about "the universe," because one *is* sentient and the other contains sentience (or however a person distinguishes them). On one hand, an image --a picture painted --of what god is, and on the other hand an image of what the universe is.

These two images are strikingly different, such that when you hear "god is the universe," and try to bring the two images together, one of them is going to be compromised. It's inevitable: in order to equate them, one of the images must warp from what was defined --for example, either sentience gets subtracted from "god," or "the universe" gains a god-like sentience, or perhaps some other way, but one of these pictures has to be warped in order to equate them. All dependent on the way we've defined them.

In pantheism, both these images get painted such that when they are held up side-by-side, even though they are not the same thing, nothing is compromised by bringing the images together. This should suggest that in having to warp one of the images, pantheism isn't being seen.

Hope this helps answer your question.

Because god and the universe are both painted in definition. The world is poetic --you and I are artists. When there is no compromise made in bringing together the painting of "god" and the painting of "the universe," both or either word's adequate and appropriate to describe that bit the world.
So you're claiming that the universe is sentient? If so, then that is indeed different from a physical universe.

But then saying that god is death, and god is life, is an incorrect claim. Or at best, it's deliberately obtuse. Death is when a living organism permanently ceases to function.

If I may...

What is it that we mourn the loss of when someone dies? Their body is still there, it hasn't gone anywhere. Their memories are still with us, they haven't gone. So what has "died"? We generally think that someone, a "self", a "being", has died, perhaps regarded in total as the sum of their thoughts. A sum-of-thoughts has "died"? Is that it? Where (what "place") does a sum-of-thoughts exist? And if we can't even answer that question, how can we tackle where a sum-of-thoughts should "go"?
Why is that we get annoyed when our computer breaks? Its components are still there, and it hasn't gone anywhere. Its memories are still with us, they haven't gone. So what has broken?

A function computer with appropriate accessories allows us to do things like create documents, play games, and communicate online. A broken computer doesn't allow us to do much at all. That which is valuable in the computer is the set of emergent properties: the millions of calculations that the computer does to provide functioning software.

A person is similar. The emergent properties of the brain are what mostly matter to people. A body that has died doesn't have those emergent properties anymore. There's no more personality, communication, movement, affection, smiles, hugs, etc. People mourn because they miss the one they lost; the emergent properties ceased to exist.
 

atanu

Member
Premium Member
So you're claiming that the universe is sentient? If so, then that is indeed different from a physical universe.

But then saying that god is death, and god is life, is an incorrect claim. Or at best, it's deliberately obtuse. Death is when a living organism permanently ceases to function.

Why is that we get annoyed when our computer breaks? Its components are still there, and it hasn't gone anywhere. Its memories are still with us, they haven't gone. So what has broken?

A function computer with appropriate accessories allows us to do things like create documents, play games, and communicate online. A broken computer doesn't allow us to do much at all. That which is valuable in the computer is the set of emergent properties: the millions of calculations that the computer does to provide functioning software.

A person is similar. The emergent properties of the brain are what mostly matter to people. A body that has died doesn't have those emergent properties anymore. There's no more personality, communication, movement, affection, smiles, hugs, etc. People mourn because they miss the one they lost; the emergent properties ceased to exist.

You bring in an example that may help to understand the point.

In case of your computer, you, as the master, know the computer and you can plan for its replacement/upgradation. A computer's death is not really death to you.

Similarly, a man, who associates with the emergent awareness that is dependent on the mind/physical body is like the inert computer and nothing more, except that it is intelligent and sometime or other will see that it is not a computer and that actually there is lot more than the emergent awareness. Emergent awareness is just a symptom, a product of a WILL-Consciousness that was before this body awareness arose. What drives a sperm? And what was this WILL in the sperm before it acquired a sperm body? And where this WILL has its source?

Man as pure emergent awareness is nothing but a computer. But Man has the ability to see through, since it not just the emergent awareness.

Some hints become available from analysis of the states of mind-existence in waking-dreaming-sleeping.
 

ellenjanuary

Well-Known Member
An all-powerful god could stop the TB or allow that other child to "rise to greatness" without killing the child. If God allows the death to happen, it must be justified by the merits of the death itself; it can't be justified by some necessary consequence, because for an omnipotent god, there's no such thing as a necessary consequence: statements of the form "God can't do [X]" can't be true for an omnipotent deity, so statements like "God can't do [X] without doing [Y]" are necessarily false.

Y U stick an Omni in there? Did I stick an Omni in there? And how does an Atheist speak so confidently as to the capabilities of an Omnipotent god?
 

ellenjanuary

Well-Known Member
The emergent properties of the brain are what mostly matter to people.

What mostly matters to people is ascendancy. That this peer group is ascendant over that peer group, in matters of economics, or truth, or skill, or whatever can be ascended. Which does not address the issue. The issue is death, thus the matter is person.

And what matters most to person is self.

We can dance around the issue, to any music you wish to play; we can ascend over any appearance of evil, but we don't have to, for I can do that which precious few can even conceive. I can be the Lucifer.

The inconceivable, of course, being the passing of the Gwynnies.

I know exactly where she is going; I am less certain that three weeks after would be my expiration date, but close enough. And there just ain't enough inspiration, in all of existence; to justify my continued existence without her. Job, friendships, obligations, moral responsibilities... no longer matter. Selfishly, I choose death.

But what exactly is she? She is a simulation. She is no more, no less; that what I have invested of my self, in my self, for myself. Plus one other thing - environmental sensation. I own the hardware, I maintain the software; environmental sensation determines the upgrade scheduling. But when it is not all about me, it is all about me and my simulation, analysis of my simulation, simulated analysis of my simulation, parsing errors, transcription errors... and environmental sensation.

And evolutionary imperative has conditioned the other to offer unquestioning sympathy. In every other case of self mourning self, compassion only goes so far. Often it does not get out of the door...

I remember this kid, kicking this large wooden structure, thinking he was tough. We all told him to knock it off, because it was stupid, annoying, senseless; I don't think anybody was considering dangerous. For like an hour, he was all yee-hah! Then there was a crash, and he was down to just yeeeee... Somehow kicked his foot, into a support post; a cross-member fell... what is most clear is how stunningly gory and disgusting his former lower leg became.

Compassion got as far as calling the paramedics; and we were most definitely not pleased. Get it off me, he's screaming; we're like, we didn't put it on you. We put one effort into three bodies lifting six hundred pounds of timber; absurd.

When the paramedics got there, we're like, we don't know who he is; he just started hanging around. Then he started acting like an a**, you see the result. Good luck... Me and my guy were outta there, the kid no longer existed in our reality. The other guy was his friend, he at least stuck around to see if the kid survived.

Later on, we heard that what started with two paramedics and an axe "4Sed" into a minor media event, involving three ladder trucks, heavy equipment, road building, large cutting wheels; and television coverage... dude, we don't wanna hear it; comon. Puff, puff, pass...

The people involved were transients of little social value, their ascendancy, merely isolation and marijuana.

The person involved, is grateful; for the length of this composition, mirth. I am still unable to summon the least granule of sympathy, despite a vast improvement of my moral character. And I can run the simulation; a moment of carelessness, strips self from simulations; the following self from simulation evolving around a prosthetic limb... assuming self survived surgery. His buddy didn't stick around to find out; me and my man were on the way out of town.

What should have been done? Upon reflection, I consider that if my man were acting in such a fashion, I would have socked him, or left him there. Everything else is merely ecology, evolving.

Depending upon personal experience, I don't expect to rate much in your moral assessment; I make no apology, we were what we were.

Ready to take a quantum leap? In the previous example. a self encountered more environmental sensation that was simulated. In the following example, a self simulates more environmental sensation than is warranted. This self is even more selfish. Are you ready?

A grieving mother...

I have zero precise simulation as to the above self; but orders of magnitude more sympathy. For three words. Based upon simulations running within the self.

And I have near certainty as to "death."

In my arrogance, the idolatry that has been allowed to perpetrate is the worship of death. I can pompously declare that all of you who profess sympathy for grief of passing are at best mafia wives; at worst, guilty of the sin of failing to explore and develop the awareness of self.

Toning down the arrogance, I possess two things I do not expect to be held by other selves. My Gwynnies, and Lucifer. Where did I find Lucifer? Deep, deep, deep; within. After burning the self, over, and over, and over again; for my Gwynnies.

The moral of the story, from this self, to selves; is to learn to know your self. There is no moral ambiguity, here. I am not correct, what I am; is very, very small; very unimportant, very much in love.

Talk of god allowing needless death, talk of killing, talk of suffering; is self, running simulations of self, for self. Understand self. Do not simulate things that do not exist. There is absolutely zero need to consider after; unless you are that desperate for some moral compass, but simulating fear can have but one possible resultant - the creation of more fear.

All of which is accessible to the curious within the Book of Job.
 

chinu

chinu
With the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in mind, how can anyone believe that s/he exists? What more evidence do we need before we start using a little critical thinking on the whole notion of a lovable God? Or maybe the Japanese people have not prayed enough, or maybe not to the right God?

Now :) the docters in japan would have been prayed more i think, they also want to get more rich than others, So, finally "God" has listened their prayers, after all they are also "His" childrens.

Well, one time "He" gives chance to everybody. :D

_/\_
Chinu
 

PolyHedral

Superabacus Mystic
Man as pure emergent awareness is nothing but a computer. But Man has the ability to see through, since it not just the emergent awareness.
Turing disagrees. Why is anything more than a "computer" necessary? What can man do that cannot be done by any, even an imagined machine?
 

Penumbra

Veteran Member
Premium Member
You bring in an example that may help to understand the point.

In case of your computer, you, as the master, know the computer and you can plan for its replacement/upgradation. A computer's death is not really death to you.

Similarly, a man, who associates with the emergent awareness that is dependent on the mind/physical body is like the inert computer and nothing more, except that it is intelligent and sometime or other will see that it is not a computer and that actually there is lot more than the emergent awareness. Emergent awareness is just a symptom, a product of a WILL-Consciousness that was before this body awareness arose. What drives a sperm? And what was this WILL in the sperm before it acquired a sperm body? And where this WILL has its source?

Man as pure emergent awareness is nothing but a computer. But Man has the ability to see through, since it not just the emergent awareness.

Some hints become available from analysis of the states of mind-existence in waking-dreaming-sleeping.
That doesn't seem to be the case, unless you can demonstrate your claims to be true.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
Or. You can show awareness emerging from inert material and asserting "I am porcelain" or some such thing.:)

It is generally thought that our body functions were programmed through the evolution process. So it is you who has to prove there is something else in there.

The only really debatable thing is the mind-consciousness.
 

atanu

Member
Premium Member
It is generally thought that our body functions were programmed through the evolution process. So it is you who has to prove there is something else in there.

What role then the sperm and ova have? Why only the living beings evolve?

The only really debatable thing is the mind-consciousness.

What? Who are you? Are you then only an emergent property of brain tissue? So, who is debating this issue -- the chemicals?
 
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Koldo

Outstanding Member
What role then the sperm and ova have? Why only the living beings evolve?

Because the non living lacks programming.

What? Who are you? Are you then only an emergent property of brain tissue? So, who is debating this issue -- the barin chemicals?

The sperm, the ova, the white globules, red globules, and so on, they are all previously programmed to do certain tasks. What you call will-consciousness is merely a set of functions that each piece of our body is entitled to do.
 
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atanu

Member
Premium Member
Because the non living lacks programming.

The sperm, the ova, the white globules, red globules, and so on, they are all previously programmed to do certain tasks. What you call will-consciousness is merely a set of functions that each piece of our body is entitled to do.

These assertions, which necessarily must posit a master programmer-- same as a WILL, are no better than some of the thestic claims, IMO.

Who are you then? A programmed output?
 
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