How Can Theology Really Study the "Nature of God?" An AI answer.

[Shadow Wolf]

I'd be interested in members' thoughts.

I'm not surprised it describes as something that resembles a school of philisophical thought, and present it in a way easily understood to those used to thinking of it as assumed true and from a lens of Westerm Monotheism (an obvious bias given it treating the word god as a singular proper noun).

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Why is only man capable of loving others as himself? In the animal kingdom it's the survival of the fittest - eg: none of them eulogize their deceased.

All social animals take care of each other and we know other primates as well as other animals (such as dolphins and elephants) eulogize their dead. Elephants even have gravesites they'll revisit.

 

[Aupmanyav]

.., rather than looking at the miracle of a deeper and higher plane of Life available to us that they point to. What on earth do you imagine spirituality to be? Stories about ghosts under the bed?

Spirituality is looking beyond selfishness, but I wish there was some evidence of 'higher plane of life'.

 

[Father Heathen]

Ai chatbots are quite fascinating.

I think a machine learning ai over time might get quite profound as it learns, or will become quite disturbing.

Eventually someone will try to run one for office somewhere, like a small town, as an experiment. It will escalate from there.

 

[Heyo]

Eventually someone will try to run one for office somewhere, like a small town, as an experiment. It will escalate from there.

:creative:

 

[Windwalker]

Spirituality is looking beyond selfishness, but I wish there was some evidence of 'higher plane of life'.

There is evidence of a 'higher plane of life' in actual lived experience. That's what Enlightenment exposes to us, and then we integrate it into our way of being in the world, living life at that higher plane than we were before when we were only seeing through the eyes of the ego and its fears and desires, which diminished and lowered our life experience in the spiritual aspects of our own being. That higher plane of life is Freedom itself.

 

[DNB]

"I am right, everybody else is wrong."

You feel the same way!

 

[DNB]

Again, most humans fit this description as well. But, how do you actually know whether or a not a dolphin, or an elephant, or a whale, or a rabbit even, doesn't feel a connection with God? How do you know that?

Well, if that ain't the mystery?

 

[Heyo]

You feel the same way!

Yes, but I can prove it.

 

[Windwalker]

Well, if that ain't the mystery?

It's not much of a mystery to me. It seem you are just arbitrarily decided animals have no sense of connection with the Divine, because you like to see yourself as superior to them in every imaginable way. Yet, how do you deal with Jesus saying that you need to be less sophisticated, and more like a child in order to see the kingdom of God? That's teaching we need to be less 'advanced', isn't it?

If you think deeply about that, little children and little bunnies and little doggies are likewise simply just living life and therefore more connected to the Divine than us sophisticated adults are with our fancy religions and theologies and whatnot. So it seems more than reasonable to believe animals are closer to God that most adult humans are. Wouldn't you think? It doesn't seem much a mystery to me. It seems rather obvious.

 

[DNB]

It's not much of a mystery to me. It seem you are just arbitrarily decided animals have no sense of connection with the Divine, because you like to see yourself as superior to them in every imaginable way. Yet, how do you deal with Jesus saying that you need to be less sophisticated, and more like a child in order to see the kingdom of God? That's teaching we need to be less 'advanced', isn't it?

If you think deeply about that, little children and little bunnies and little doggies are likewise simply just living life and therefore more connected to the Divine than us sophisticated adults are with our fancy religions and theologies and whatnot. So it seems more than reasonable to believe animals are closer to God that most adult humans are. Wouldn't you think? It doesn't seem much a mystery to me. It seems rather obvious.

The mystery was your comment '...how do you know...' i.e. how in the world can one not know?

What is obvious is that only man, other than any other creature on this planet, is religious - and you'll never be able to prove otherwise - some strange behaviour by a particular group of monkeys or elephants does not constitute the induction of spirituality within the animal kingdom.

Only man was created in God's image.

 

[DNB]

Yes, but I can prove it.

I was referring to you, referring to me.

But, as to your last post - I highly doubt it.

 

[Heyo]

I was referring to you, referring to me.

But, as to your last post - I highly doubt it.

I was kidding, of course.
But I won't dismiss all the experts without a serious attempt to explain why I feel that way and most likely would formulate it as a question what I'm missing.
When you think that all the experts in a field are wrong, ask yourself first if they might know something you don't.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

You feel the same way!

Well, yes and no. In effect I use limited relatvism for right and wrong, so my right and wrong are in some cases different than yours.

 

[wellwisher]

The internal self isn’t separate from the outer world, but it’s a good point of focus, yes

The internal or inner self has the eyes of the child; inner child, that many adults lose. Adults often get rapped up in the many rat races of cultures, and forget how to see things naturally and clearly.

I remember many years ago, when one of my nieces was preschool age. She saw and would comment on the adult world as it was. The adults would be skating around, pretending to be nice, trying not to hurt feelings. She would say things as it was. It was both funny and awkward, since so many adults seem less mature and more vulnerable to the shallows buzz words of cultural life; truth in the eyes of a child.

If you assume evolution, then the operating system of the brain, like the body, should be built on a foundation that reflects the eons of evolution. The modern person is on the outer shell of this larger firmware ball. The inner self is based on the foundation, which at one time require only contact to natural reality. The shallow or surface pretenses of culture came later. Religions keep one in contact with this inner aspect of the ball of consciousness; the natural man/woman that is alive in the child. One has to sense this from within, since the mask on the surface only allows glimpses, so unnatural is too often confused for natural.

 

[PureX]

I recently asked ChatGPT this question: "How can theology study the nature of God? Is it not constrained to only studying what humans think about God?" Here is it's response:



At the end of the day, I don't think it answered my question -- even seeming (and this would be surprising!) to ignore the last part. For example, the last 5 words "profound questions about the divine" seems to assume that "the divine" actually exists, in a way that isn't in question. So, I asked a followup question: "But doesn't theology assume first that both God and the divine are realities?" Here is the response:


I'd be interested in members' thoughts.

(My own thought, for better or worse, is that theology is actually the study of what humans think about divinity, and not very much more. The study of what might have been wrought by divinity, in my view, winds up in the sciences -- the study of what is, not necessarily why it is.)

What is the difference between studying the nature of God, and studying what humans think about God? Can humans study something without thinking about it?

And why didn't you pick up on this flaw of articulation, yourself? Could it be that a bias got in your way? A bias the machine didn't have?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

What is the difference between studying the nature of God, and studying what humans think about God? Can humans study something without thinking about it?

About the same as eating a plum, and eating somebody thinking about a plum. In only one of those instances is a real plum involved. Think about it this way: what would you learn about God by studying what Pope Francis and I each think about God?

And why didn't you pick up on this flaw of articulation, yourself? Could it be that a bias got in your way? A bias the machine didn't have?

See above answer.

 

[PureX]

About the same as eating a plum, and eating somebody thinking about a plum. In only one of those instances is a real plum involved. Think about it this way: what would you learn about God by studying what Pope Francis and I each think about God?

See above answer.

You are still assuming that the God we think about is not actually God. Yet we have no awareness of or access to any God other than by thinking about it. God is a meta-idea, like perfection, or justice, or infinity. It's an idea that we use to identify and qualify and interrelate other idea sets. God exists to us as an idea. However else it may exist is beyond our comprehension. We can only speculate, and that, of course, would be us thinking about God, too.

So your implication that there are two "Gods", one comprised of human thought and the other existing in some other way is just an idea you hold in your mind about God. So do you see why your two questions are not coherent?

 

[Windwalker]

What is obvious is that only man, other than any other creature on this planet, is religious - and you'll never be able to prove otherwise

I do not equate being religious with being spiritual. Being religious is a external practice. Being spiritual is a internal state.

Of course animals are not "religious" in the sense that they erect altars to their gods and offer berries and twigs and whatnot, like humans do. But this does not mean that they aren't spiritual. Just being religious does not at all mean that someone is spiritual. "By their fruits you shall know them", not by their temples or by how religious they are. Quite the opposite may be true.

You've heard the term "spiritual but not religious", before haven't you? That seems the growing category these days, since religion itself has failed to help translate spiritual meaning into people's lives these days. People are doing better spiritually without religion getting in the way of love through its insistence on forms and clinging to the past and outdated ideas.

- some strange behaviour by a particular group of monkeys or elephants does not constitute the induction of spirituality within the animal kingdom.

It indicates very clearly the same behaviors you see in humans expressing emotions. It very clearly, undeniably indicates that. Now spirituality is another level underneath or beyond emotions, which is what we were talking about, as opposed to just emotions.

So again, I ask you, what do you think Jesus meant when he said "Except you become as a little child you will not see the kingdom of God"? To me that means just simply "being" and not being consumed by all our ideas about things. Just see the world, be present in the world, and see God. Now little children and animals have a lot more in common that way than us mentally overactive adults who can't see the forest for the trees.

Only man was created in God's image.

Didn't God create everything? Isn't God in everything? Besides, what does in God's image actually mean? Why do you assume that means a spiritual nature for humans and not for animals? If God is Spirit, and God creates anything, that that Spirit is infused in everything. I has to be.

So what does "image" really mean then? I don't think it means having a spiritual nature in contrast to the animal kingdom. Humans are animals themselves, of course. It's all spiritual as it comes from Spirit. I think it points more to conscious awareness than simply a spiritual nature.

We can have a conscious awareness of the Divine and make choices regarding it. Animals from what we know can't 'think' about it, the way we can. But that doesn't mean they don't have it, just like we do but may never think about it or develop it either. It many regards being spiritual for the animal may be much simpler, as they don't have as many obstacles to it created by their minds. This my point about being as a little child.

 

[DNB]

I was kidding, of course.
But I won't dismiss all the experts without a serious attempt to explain why I feel that way and most likely would formulate it as a question what I'm missing.
When you think that all the experts in a field are wrong, ask yourself first if they might know something you don't.

Sorry, you're joke went over my head, ...but, that's it.
Have you ever observed animals before - owned a pet, watched National Geographic, been to the zoo, etc...?
They're not religious, man is religious - 90% of man has spent billions of dollars, hours, prayers, literature and study, on religious endeavors.
There's a religious edifice on every street corner in the world, a religion for every country, and a denomination for every man.

In comparison to that, do you really believe that animals believe in a divine and holy Being that created them, and who resides in heaven?
Does God in return speak to them, and advise them on behaviour and morality, and about salvation?

Heyo, do you get the point - like I said, the 'experts' are ridiculously in error.