EVOLUTION, what a lie.

[doppelganger]

Why must God be supernatural . . . some silly definitions or absurd descriptions by religionists? Who says you should NOT dealing with the natural world?

You're a curious one, MysticPhD. The "Jesus Inside" doesn't necessarily mean what some take it to mean, as your username suggests, but your need to cling to theism seems incongruous with mysticism. Perhaps you've just gotten too defensive maybe, and aren't reading carefully.

 

[Autodidact]

Why must God be supernatural . . . some silly definitions or absurd descriptions by religionists? Who says you should NOT dealing with the natural world?

Oh those silly definitions, they just make talking so complicated. When MysticPhD uses a word, it means exactly what he wants it to mean. It's merely a matter of knowing who's boss.

 

[doppelganger]

http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...144-atheism-theism-twins-separated-birth.html

It's not out of the realm of ordinary to redefine "God" as "Nature," but that's not "theism."

 

[MysticPhD]

Epigenetics uses a few otherwise silent areas of the genome, by no means does it use the majority. These areas are usually down regulated so that they don't actively code, but are otherwise perfectly functional.
There are large parts of the genome that are functionless due to profound errors in the nucleotide sequences.

Either way that change is not directional. Downs syndrome is not adaptive even if it is a change.

From a scientific standpoint I can't say if it was 'designed' as there is no scientific testable evidence of a 'designer' or of any purposeful 'design' in the process. It operates via natural chemical processes.

Separate from what?

God or God-willed processes (instead of Nature or natural processes). I am not advocating actually using the terms . . . that would be overkill. But the point that would be made by substituting them wherever they appear and seeing that it changes NOTHING . . . would be therapeutic for the "given in the inner consciousness" certainty and investment in the "No God" default syndrome that infects science and so many scientists.

ps. what is your opinion of chaos math and chaos theory?

It has more applicability than it is given . . . but it wouldn't probably have satisfied Einstein any more than Quantum theory did. I am afraid it will take some new innovation of the magnitude of the calculus to merge the "nested functions" approach of Bohm with the perturbational approaches of Quantum and String theories and the Loop Gravity quantizations . . . and to do it in a 4-dimensional timespace.

 

[doppelganger]

What does "God" provide that cannot be accounted for by the inherent rules and structures of grammar that inescapably govern ordered thought?

 

[MysticPhD]

Here's what I'm having trouble following regarding MysticPhD's arguments....
He seems to be arguing that "god" is natural, and maybe even "nature" itself (whenever someone seperates "nature" from "god", he objects).

Ding, Ding, Ding!

But then when folks point out that mutations occur via understood natural means, he objects even though he seems to be arguing that "natural = god". Why would someone who holds that "nature = god" object to natural explanations for phenomena?

Because they pretend that they are explanations separate and distinct from God-willed explanations . . . they are not.

He also seems to be arguing that everything is "god"...that the entire universe is "god". He further continues this argument by objecting to anything at all occuring randomly. This is at least consistent, in that it is based on the belief that every single event in the universe is carried out/directed/guided by this "god".

Not necessarily consciously guided . . . but functioning according to designed processes. Everything does not require monitoring or control.

But, if this is so, then none of us (MysticPhD included) are really having this conversation. If absolutely every event in the universe is under the control/guidance of this "god", then our conversations are just god talking to himself. "MysticPhD" isn't writing his posts and putting them on the internet, god is. And god is responding to god.

Non sequitur . . . we are part of God's consciousness with the same characteristics of free will and creativity (if we are to reproduce God's consciousness it would have to be so). Since each and every individual consciousness is unique . . . that means an infinite variety of conversations.

Perfectly sensible, eh?

Yes . . . it is.

 

[MysticPhD]

Why bother to define your god? Why allow yourself to be constrained by making it possible to understand what you are advocating?

Each of us as separate intellects is free to define God in anyway we can accept and understand (including "Not-God"). The historical definitions and descriptions are NOT controlling for something so ultimately personal . . . especially since so many of those descriptions and attributes extant are so utterly irrational and absurd. BUT . . . THAT is no excuse for UNDEFINING God by subtituting different names (Nature) that make people think there is something else that is universally "Not-God" that everyone must accept. The disputes are entirely over the ATTRIBUTES of God (Nature) . . . NOT the existence. The "nature-lovers" prefer an indifferent and purposeless "Not-God" God. Islamists prefer a 72 virgin bestowing God., etc. etc. etc. The only attributes we are sure exist are those revealed by science . . . all others are personal preference and opinion, period.

 

[MysticPhD]

You're a curious one, MysticPhD. The "Jesus Inside" doesn't necessarily mean what some take it to mean, as your username suggests, but your need to cling to theism seems incongruous with mysticism. Perhaps you've just gotten too defensive maybe, and aren't reading carefully.

I'm reading fine . . . my mysticism led to my theism by unambiguous experience. For me . . . it is not a question . . . God definitely exists as a loving and accepting consciousness in oneness with all life.

 

[painted wolf]

God or God-willed processes (instead of Nature or natural processes). I am not advocating actually using the terms . . . that would be overkill. But the point that would be made by substituting them wherever they appear and seeing that it changes NOTHING . . . would be therapeutic for the "given in the inner consciousness" certainty and investment in the "No God" default syndrome that infects science and so many scientists.

Aside from placating some peoples feelings, I don't see how adding god does anything useful.

One it implies that you know 'Gods will' and that God is operating under your set of rules.

Two, who's god gets the nod... the last thing science needs is to start a secular battle over what religion gets mentioned. Not all faiths see god in the same light.

If god is "nature" (and I think god is) then there is no need to separate the two or to worry about natural processes getting the spotlight.

Science doesn't have a "no God" default, it has a "only what you can test" default. It says nothing on the existence or nonexistence of god (after all you can't expect to get god under a microscope). Let religions fight over that.

It has more applicability than it is given . . . but it wouldn't probably have satisfied Einstein any more than Quantum theory did. I am afraid it will take some new innovation of the magnitude of the calculus to merge the "nested functions" approach of Bohm with the perturbational approaches of Quantum and String theories and the Loop Gravity quantizations . . . and to do it in a 4-dimensional timespace.

If you are willing to accept the mathematics of Chaos then why all the fuss over randomness?

wa:do

 

[Autodidact]

Mystic: Are you equating God with nature? For you, is God the same as nature?

 

[MysticPhD]

Aside from placating some peoples feelings, I don't see how adding god does anything useful.

No need to add it . . . just use the substitution effect to enlighten those who are stuck in the separate nature/God non-existent distinction. THAT is what causes most of the conflict with the nutjobs that promote their personal God as the only acceptable possibility. When science is only seen as adding more and more validated attributes to God . . . there is less to fight about with science. The religionists can continue to slug it out.

One it implies that you know 'Gods will' and that God is operating under your set of rules.

No . . . it implies the we are discovering God's will and we are operating under God's rules.

Two, who's god gets the nod... the last thing science needs is to start a secular battle over what religion gets mentioned. Not all faiths see god in the same light.

Who cares . . . let them slug it out. It will remove the onus from science and science curricula.

If god is "nature" (and I think god is) then there is no need to separate the two or to worry about natural processes getting the spotlight.

Would that you were correct . . . but just look around.

Science doesn't have a "no God" default

Maintaining a separate reality that is "Not-God" is a defacto "No God" default.

, it has a "only what you can test" default. It says nothing on the existence or nonexistence of god (after all you can't expect to get god under a microscope). Let religions fight over that.

It shouldn't say anything and doesn't directly (except for a few atheistic loudmouths) . . . but separate is separate . . . not equal.

If you are willing to accept the mathematics of Chaos then why all the fuss over randomness?
wa:do

No fuss . . . it is quite useful . . . just not a phenomenological explanation . . . just formalized compensation for ignorance.

 

[MysticPhD]

Mystic: Are you equating God with nature? For you, is God the same as nature?

Yes . . . plus (which is where all the debate exists)

 

[The Voice of Reason]

Why must God be supernatural . . . some silly definitions or absurd descriptions by religionists?

I'll take you at your word, that you see God as "nature". That would put you in the pantheist/panantheist end of the spectrum.

If I'm going to accept such a position by you, perhaps you can explain to me why you have the "Jesus Inside" avatar? Is there a hidden message there?

Who says you should NOT be dealing with the natural world?

I give. Who? Also - when?

 

[doppelganger]

I'm reading fine . . . my mysticism led to my theism by unambiguous experience. For me . . . it is not a question . . . God definitely exists as a loving and accepting consciousness in oneness with all life.

So you have a personal interpretation of a subjective personal experience as the basis for your ontological claims and you demand everyone adopt your interpretation?

You're a masochist in training, my friend.

Every mystic (and certainly one who claims a "PhD" in it), should be equally comfortable and fluent speaking from an atheist perspective as much as a theist one (precisely because they know better than to lose their center in either one).

 

[doppelganger]

Yes . . . plus (which is where all the debate exists)

Ah, a panentheist. That can be comforting, for sure, but not epistemologically sound when projected as an ontological truth.

 

[doppelganger]

Would that you were correct . . . but just look around.

You're headed in the wrong direction - toward more schism - when you view the universe in such black and white terms.

From Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols:

The error of free will. Today we no longer have any tolerance for the idea of "free will": we see it only too clearly for what it really is — the foulest of all theological fictions, intended to make mankind "responsible" in a religious sense — that is, dependent upon priests. Here I simply analyze the psychological assumptions behind any attempt at "making responsible."

Whenever responsibility is assigned, it is usually so that judgment and punishment may follow. Becoming has been deprived of its innocence when any acting-the-way-you-did is traced back to will, to motives, to responsible choices: the doctrine of the will has been invented essentially to justify punishment through the pretext of assigning guilt. All primitive psychology, the psychology of will, arises from the fact that its interpreters, the priests at the head of ancient communities, wanted to create for themselves the right to punish — or wanted to create this right for their God. Men were considered "free" only so that they might be considered guilty — could be judged and punished: consequently, every act had to be considered as willed, and the origin of every act had to be considered as lying within the consciousness (and thus the most fundamental psychological deception was made the principle of psychology itself).

Today, we immoralists have embarked on a counter movement and are trying with all our strength to take the concepts of guilt and punishment out of the world — to cleanse psychology, history, nature, and social institutions and sanctions of these ideas. And there is in our eyes no more radical opposition than that of the theologians, who continue to infect the innocence of becoming by means of the concepts of a "moral world-order," "guilt," and "punishment." Christianity is religion for the executioner.

What alone can be our doctrine? That no one gives a man his qualities — neither God, nor society, nor his parents and ancestors, nor he himself. (The nonsense of the last idea was taught as "intelligible freedom" by Kant — and perhaps by Plato.) No one is responsible for a man's being here at all, for his being such-and-such, or for his being in these circumstances or in this environment. The fatality of his existence is not to be disentangled from the fatality of all that has been and will be. Human beings are not the effect of some special purpose, or will, or end; nor are they a medium through which society can realize an "ideal of humanity" or an "ideal of happiness" or an "ideal of morality." It is absurd to wish to devolve one's essence on some end or other. We have invented the concept of "end": in reality there is no end.

A man is necessary, a man is a piece of fatefulness, a man belongs to the whole, a man is in the whole; there is nothing that could judge, measure, compare, or sentence his being, for that would mean judging, measuring, comparing, or sentencing the whole. But there is nothing besides the whole. That nobody is held responsible any longer, that the mode of being may not be traced back to a primary cause, that the world does not form a unity either as a sensorium or as "spirit" — that alone is the great liberation. With that idea alone we absolve our becoming of any guilt. The concept of "God" was until now the greatest objection to existence. We deny God, we deny the responsibility that originates from God: and thereby we redeem the world.

(emphasis added)
It's the old "legal paradox" again. To gain the world, you must completely surrender your grasp of it.

 

[painted wolf]

No need to add it . . . just use the substitution effect to enlighten those who are stuck in the separate nature/God non-existent distinction. THAT is what causes most of the conflict with the nutjobs that promote their personal God as the only acceptable possibility. When science is only seen as adding more and more validated attributes to God . . . there is less to fight about with science. The religionists can continue to slug it out.

Not all Scientists view God as we do... I have no desire to start a holy war among them. Science is so valuable because it can cross sectarian lines. Your religion doesn't matter on the scientific field... just your ability to do science.
An Animist, a Catholic, a Communist, a Hindu and a Muslim can all talk about the same subject in mutual respect and share information without hate.

No . . . it implies the we are discovering God's will and we are operating under God's rules.

As you see it... others can and will disagree.

Who cares . . . let them slug it out. It will remove the onus from science and science curricula.

Dogma stifles scientific learning... keep it out of science.

Would that you were correct . . . but just look around.

I see no conflict between my faith and my science. I know others who agree.

Maintaining a separate reality that is "Not-God" is a defacto "No God" default.

Only for those who see god and nature as the same thing and don't want 'nature' to get the credit... again, not all faiths see this way.

It shouldn't say anything and doesn't directly (except for a few atheistic loudmouths) . . . but separate is separate . . . not equal.

Those loudmouths speak as individuals...
In this case separate is needed to preserve both sides. Nothing good comes of mixing faith and science on the application level.

No fuss . . . it is quite useful . . . just not a phenomenological explanation . . . just formalized compensation for ignorance.

I rather like the idea that god allows a little chaos into things... balance and all that.
Rather than ignorance, I think its acceptance that we can't explain or control everything.
Considering human arrogance, it's almost liberating.

wa:do

 

[MysticPhD]

So you have a personal interpretation of a subjective personal experience as the basis for your ontological claims and you demand everyone adopt your interpretation?

I demand nothing . . . I have been trying to clarify my views and to point out the obvious error of using a "No God" default by maintaining a separate reality from God as the basis for science . . . by calling it Nature.

You're a masochist in training, my friend.

This forum would add credence to your prediction.

Every mystic (and certainly one who claims a "PhD" in it), should be equally comfortable and fluent speaking from an atheist perspective as much as a theist one (precisely because they know better than to lose their center in either one).

For decades as an atheist Buddhist I would have agreed with you . . . but after achieving the "end state" in deep meditation under conscious control . . . the experience was so completely counter to all my expectations it changed my entire life. It took 18 years to achieve the meditative end state trying all manner of techniques . . . and I experienced a startling epiphany during that breakthrough session. The experience was quite uplifting and unexpected. There was an immediate sense of oneness with everything . . . but I didn't lose my sense of self or objective perspective . . I was participant and observer simultaneously.

The most striking feature of the experience was the immense sense of joy that could only be analogized as the sense of a huge crowd roaring simultaneously (but there was no sound and no identifiable individuals . . . just this "knowing" that it was so). The gist of the sensation was AS IF they were simultaneously yelling "He's Alive" . . . but it was again just this "knowing" . . . no actual words or sound or anything . . . just a joyous feeling.

I have tried on many occasions to describe this experience without success . . . as it was such a direct experience . . . there is no adequate way to relate it . . . except as I have above. The only thing I could relate the "knowing" to . . . would be the sense that one can have during a dream when you are operating in the dream "knowing" certain things that there is no basis in the content of the dream or the "plot" that would justify such a "knowing". If you have ever experienced that in a dream . . . you perhaps can relate to this "knowing" directly without supportive content or basis.

As a consequence of this experience and subsequent meditative experiences through the years . . . I am convinced that this universe is indeed comprised of consciousnesses (collectively) and that they are part and parcel of what most people refer to as God. The sense I experience during each session is one of love and acceptance and lack of separateness from all that exists. It isn't remotely impersonal as I was led to believe.

 

[The Voice of Reason]

Mystic -

From post #283 -

... perhaps you can explain to me why you have the "Jesus Inside" avatar? Is there a hidden message there?

Is there a chance that you'll answer those two questions?

 

[lunamoth]

I demand nothing . . . I have been trying to clarify my views and to point out the obvious error of using a "No God" default by maintaining a separate reality from God as the basis for science . . . by calling it Nature. This forum would add credence to your prediction.For decades as an atheist Buddhist I would have agreed with you . . . but after achieving the "end state" in deep meditation under conscious control . . . the experience was so completely counter to all my expectations it changed my entire life. It took 18 years to achieve the meditative end state trying all manner of techniques . . . and I experienced a startling epiphany during that breakthrough session. The experience was quite uplifting and unexpected. There was an immediate sense of oneness with everything . . . but I didn't lose my sense of self or objective perspective . . I was participant and observer simultaneously.

The most striking feature of the experience was the immense sense of joy that could only be analogized as the sense of a huge crowd roaring simultaneously (but there was no sound and no identifiable individuals . . . just this "knowing" that it was so). The gist of the sensation was AS IF they were simultaneously yelling "He's Alive" . . . but it was again just this "knowing" . . . no actual words or sound or anything . . . just a joyous feeling.

I have tried on many occasions to describe this experience without success . . . as it was such a direct experience . . . there is no adequate way to relate it . . . except as I have above. The only thing I could relate the "knowing" to . . . would be the sense that one can have during a dream when you are operating in the dream "knowing" certain things that there is no basis in the content of the dream or the "plot" that would justify such a "knowing". If you have ever experienced that in a dream . . . you perhaps can relate to this "knowing" directly without supportive content or basis.

As a consequence of this experience and subsequent meditative experiences through the years . . . I am convinced that this universe is indeed comprised of consciousnesses (collectively) and that they are part and parcel of what most people refer to as God. The sense I experience during each session is one of love and acceptance and lack of separateness from all that exists. It isn't remotely impersonal as I was led to believe.

Welcome to RF. I enjoyed reading your posts and I'm glad to see that others are starting to understand where you are coming from. I agree that while most scientists and teachers of science will say that science is neutral on the topic of God (as it is), there is a growing public sentiment, aided by the new atheists, that somehow science precludes any reasonable basis for belief in God. There is no need for this antipathy between science and belief in God, although there is every reason to keep creationism (including ID) out of our science classrooms.

Just wanted you to know that I can see that you do know what you are talking about, that you are not 'anti-science,' and that I think you've made many good points in this thread.

I think we need more articulate scientists presenting this view.