God is simple, not complex.

[Looncall]

I think that God is Truth and Truth is God. The only question is whether that Truth is conscious and self-aware or not. In either case, Truth is pretty complex.

Word salad. These words are not meaningful combined like this. Grammatical correctness does not guarantee meaningfulness.

 

[Gambit]

Sure god is simple. Not existing is as simple as it gets.

And positing that something spontaneously created itself out of nothing is simply a supernaturalistic explanation masquerading as a naturalistic one.

 

[Ouroboros]

And positing that something spontaneously created itself out of nothing is simply a supernaturalistic explanation masquerading as a naturalistic one.

simply because they're one and the same. Supernatural must be natural, not non-natural. Super just mean more or above. It's natural, but more than natural. Besides, all these "proofs" for God's existence are based on naturalistic reasoning, which means that the result you get is a naturalistic explanation.

 

[Ouroboros]

I agree 100%.

It frustrates me that Atheists often 'create' the simplest, uniform, most child-like rendition of 'God' to then dismiss it (in other words they build a straw man).

I think Gambit was talking about atheists arguing God being complex, not simple.

God is simpler than anything we could ever imagine. The essential nature of reality is one. Seperation is an illusion. There is nothing simpler than true reality, once we've cast off the illusions created and reinforced by our thirsty egos.

kind'a agree. God is simply all things, but all things aren't simple.

 

[Ouroboros]

The complexity is an illusion. Imagine being asked to describe an ocean, and you stand by the edge of the ocean and start to describe the dimensions, sizes and characteristics of each and every wave. The waves are constantly changing so just as you're describing one it changes and no longer resembles the wave you were about to describe!

Pretty complex huh?

Agree.

Or, looked at with a different perspective, you look out to the ocean and see that, despite the impermanence in it's characteristics and form, it is made completely out of one essence; water. The form and characteristics of each complex wave do not change the fact that the whole ocean is water.

which makes it simple too. It's just water. But also complex.

Such is life. It is our human egos that create separation, and then try to cling to our current form, in a world of apparant complexity. But in essence, life is very, very, simple.

True. But we are all this. We are the representation of life. Life as a potential is simply, but life as a realization is complex.

 

[Shad]

God creates by knowing his essence as imitable.



This is only because you lack the intuitive capacity to perceive this.

The whole idea puts God in epistemological terminology which is only based on previous believers doing the same, a chain of believers trying to made God, their beliefs, immune to reason. Yet such terms only apply to observed and verified knowledge. So the idea is fallacious itself since all properties of God are asserted only. Thus the whole concept is nonsensical and fallacious. Look up the philosophy of identity.

 

[AllanV]

It is God's will. Is will complex? The will is used to exert. God is everlasting, eternal. God is a life giving Spirit.
If thought is applied to how this works in the human then it can be understood in all creation, because man is created in God's image.

Own will is own life, it is the will to live.

The will exerts through a personality and when words are spoken there is an emphasis of emotion in the words, depending how the mind is directing and strengthening them. The words have some power and they do affect others. Also the person's appearance and body language are an expression of the mind's direction.

God's will exerts through a complex pattern in the creation and then everything appears the way it is seen instantly. The complex pattern aids and regulates the power coming into a closed system making it appear.

With this idea a technology could be made.

A cyclonic energy field producing eddies that prescribes a spiral in a gradient developed toward the center. Dimensional travel is probable.

But the human is not aligned with God because the personality is encumbered and the wrong pattern emerges that degenerates and dies. It comes from man because he develops the complexity in his own power of reasoning in a predatory biology.

The human will needs to be aligned with God's will by transformation and a renewed mind. The energy proceeding out of a person when words from a purified self are spoken, do not deplete the hearer.
If a person is able to connect with this it is similar to a perpetual free energy device.
It is the Holy Grail, but most say this is impossible because there are limitations in a closed balanced system.
Immortality is entirely possible but not in a biology.

 

[Nakosis]

When I read the Bible, God seems like a pretty complex Dude.

 

[AllanV]

When I read the Bible, God seems like a pretty complex Dude.

Why are you reading the bible?

It is a bit like how I behave around teenagers, but I'm not quite as extreme.

 

[we-live-now]

Atheists seem to have this basic misunderstanding that God is complex. This is not true. God is simple, not complex. In theology, this is known as the doctrine of "divine simplicity." (This is why I can argue that God is the most parsimonious explanation for why there is something rather than nothing.)

I would agree with the statement that "God is one" meaning he is one single whole. I am not sure about being "simple" though. I think that under law he gets divided up and becomes infinitely complex very fast.

Most Christians would agree with the initial statement that "God is one" meaning that he is "omni-present" or present everywhere as scripture states that and logically it makes sense.

However in the next breath we are also told that God is NOT in the unbelievers "heart". That a person needs to "believe" in order to put him there. Man, this "believing" that they talk about must be really powerful to make an almighty God go into a place he wasn't able to before.

Interesting, isn't it?

 

[Gambit]

Here's one more confusion I have.

This "God is simple" concept sounds very offensive to the Swiss. After all, the watchmakers in the old days were skillful and created some very complex machines because of their intelligence and ability to construct these things, not just the will, we're here saying that God, the Watchmaker in the sky, is a simpleton.

Maybe the argument should go like this? Why are there watches instead of no time? It's explained by the Swiss simpletons having the will to do so.

You sound confused.

 

[Gambit]

Not at all. I believe in a creator/higher intelligence but I don't know exactly what he/she/it is.

Previously, you stated: "I like to think that "God" is unknowable and all efforts to explain this entity are simply opinions." That qualifies as agnosticism.

 

[Gambit]

How can one determine if God is simple or complex since these things are relative. What are we to compare God's simpleness or complexity to?

That was explained in the OP.

 

[Gambit]

I find it very difficult to keep up with all these different ideas about God that theists keep coming up with, which is why I have converted to ignosticism.
Complex, simple, loving, not-loving, personal, impersonal, mono-, pan-, pana-, endless permutations on the 3 omni-whatsits, well, oi dunno, it's enough to give you a headache.

Then you probably should not spend anymore time attempting to debate these issues.

 

[Gambit]

I am not making an argument. I am heavily questioning your sincerity right now

Agreed.

 

[Gambit]

Nice. Sounds a bit Buddhist actually.

It doesn't appear to me that you understand the basics of Buddhism.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Agreed.

Been waitin' to say this. . ONTO MY IGNORE LIST YOU GO .
Golly I keep having fun with this! I should make it a game!

 

[Gambit]

Sounds awfully lot like pantheism! LOL!

I've asked you this before, but I never received a response. What exactly do you understand the "ground of being" to be?

 

[Gambit]

I never considered myself an pantheist. In my signature, when Anne talks about God is life, she is personally talking about her Creator not pantheism.

The Creator is in the food they ate, the water they drank, the air they breathe, the earth they trod and died on, the sleep they slept, and the everywhere and everything. God is life is not just a pantheistic point of view.

It means God IS life not God created life. More powerful whether or not He be a creator or, I don't know, the Sun.

It sounds like pantheism to me. At any rate, it doesn't have any relevance to the topic at hand.

 

[Gambit]

I'm thinking yes.
Some 'problems' that immediately come to mind.
Subjectivity. Others have brought this up. You have an arbitrary standard for defining the terms.

I hope the following helps.

A subject is a being who has a unique consciousness and unique experiences, or an entity that has a relationship with another entity that exists outside of itself (called an "object").[1] A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed.

(source: Subject (philosophy))