Does God Think?

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Varda, Feb 22, 2006.

  1. Cottontop3000 Death Beckoned Registered Senior Member

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    Omniscience means that God does not Think.
    You can't have action without thought.

    Omnipotence means that god does not act. (If you follow the logic above. There is the flaw in my logic, in my previous post, I think. GOD, I hate circles.)

    If you are omnipotent, you don't need to act either, just as you don't need to think as an omniscient being.

    So, no thinking, no acting.

    Omnipresent (everywhere all the time).

    If you are omnipresent, you don't have to be anywhere, any of the time -- you are just playing hooky and are never there.

    There's the answer. God is not there.

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    Dog, my brain rejects this kind of thought.
     
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  3. Kibbles Registered Senior Member

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    So the basis of this idea is that because god is simply omniscient (all aware, understanding and knowing, no thoughts are made)

    In turn, this implies no consciousness.

    But couldn't omniscience (and understanding or awareness without thinking) imply consciousness?
     
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  5. Kibbles Registered Senior Member

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    (I'm more used to the idea of actions as simply movement or a series of movements)

    Your'e saying without thought, something is not an action. Is it simply an occurence?

    God does not exist because he does not think and therefore does not act?
    What of non-thinking things that exist?

    Why does omnipotence mean God does not act?
     
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  7. Cottontop3000 Death Beckoned Registered Senior Member

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    Sorry, I'm a little tired. I'll think about it some more later, or tomorrow. However, would you say that if omniscience means no thought then it must follow that omnipotence means no power?
     
  8. Mythbuster Mushroomed Registered Senior Member

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    He's also omnivorous.
     
  9. Kibbles Registered Senior Member

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    ... Looks like either some sort of paradox or some sort of error.

    Perhaps Action or does not require thought.
    (Action simply being a natural or intuitive movement)
    Perhaps Omnipotence does not require thought.
    (inherently infinite power?)

    Therefore Omnipotence can exist with Omniscience?

    Perhaps I'm beginning to understand what I am talking about less and less
     
  10. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    touch Earth, touch your body, FEEEL. THAT is more coming to the Goddess understanding. rather than imagining some kind of 'hovering detached mind'.
    And the PROCESS of the former is the sense of UNION of mind and matter. spirit and Nature. rthe PROCESS then is te actual process of lifedeath and reggeneration. the process is unconscious from whihc consciousness gros out of, as self-reflection--as with. but ALL matter-energy is intelligent
     
  11. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    look at your question. isn't it suggesting the opposite of what you deny, thus a contradiction.
     
  12. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    well i didn't mean a tree, etc, can just 'pop' into exisence. But there IS sequence. and the complexity of say the formation o areries, capillaries, is just so extraordinarily complex it couldn't be created by 'thought' as we know i. in fact iwouod say THOUGHT is born from it--organic process-- rathe than other way round
     
  13. stretched a junkie's broken promise Valued Senior Member

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    Ah, I see what you mean Duendy. But if you look at great feats of engineering, they had a starting point. Concept, a design, and then construction. When you look at something as complex as the Pyramid of Giza, it seems miraculously magnificent, but it started with a thought. Are you saying the architect is a product of the pyramid?
     
  14. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    matter-energy ITSELF, i believe, is sentient and naturally creative. there is no need for an 'outside agency' like a 'thinking god', who creates blueprints for p-otential architectural projects. the way we go about creating thngs. te human body is vastly more complex than a pyramid, or anything humans can make. as is a tree, etc.
    our very bodies grow. we donthave to 'think' thwm to grow they just do. there is creation going on

    i believe tat a patriarchalmindset projects their understanding of 'making' oto a disembodied 'god'. hene te concept of 'God' as 'Logos' and architect of the universe. tis is where we get te present emphasis on 'MEASURE'--in our materialistic paradigm, even to 'God' is supposed to be dead. yet still tis myth lives on. anything SUB-thought, SUB-measure as it were is highly distrusted both by the patriarchal religionist and the scientific materialist
     
  15. stretched a junkie's broken promise Valued Senior Member

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    1,244
    Quote duendy:
    “matter-energy ITSELF, i believe, is sentient and naturally creative”

    * I can understand this line of thinking. Perhaps, in a sense the Universe is a living organism? But not consciously creative? Or interactive.

    “there is no need for an 'outside agency' like a 'thinking god', who creates blueprints for p-otential architectural projects. the way we go about creating thngs. te human body is vastly more complex than a pyramid, or anything humans can make. as is a tree, etc.”

    * Agree, there is not a definite NEED, but perhaps, if we take the living Universe analogy, the Universe has a self awareness?

    “our very bodies grow. we donthave to 'think' thwm to grow they just do. there is creation going on”

    * Our bodies grow only after the process is kickstarted. What/who`s foot is on the lever?

    “i believe tat a patriarchalmindset projects their understanding of 'making' oto a disembodied 'god'. hene te concept of 'God' as 'Logos' and architect of the universe. tis is where we get te present emphasis on 'MEASURE'--in our materialistic paradigm, even to 'God' is supposed to be dead. yet still tis myth lives on. anything SUB-thought, SUB-measure as it were is highly distrusted both by the patriarchal religionist and the scientific materialist”

    * I don’t quite follow here. Can you be clearer?
     
  16. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    what i am meaning is that it seems clear to me, that a male mindset created IT's self into an image of 'God' rather than the oter way round as dogmatized in say, Genesis.
    So men looking at himself--self-conscious/self-reflective, SSUMES a being LIKE 'HIMself' is in command of the very universe.
    By doing this tis mindsets e,phasizes consciousness, an ignores/obviously, UNconscious process. so the latter becomes somewaht of a THREA to tis mindset. because he doesn't KNOW it. it is like 'SUB-thought'-----he actuallydemonizes/dismisses it as 'subconscious' as opposed to his deification of 'superconsciousness/'God'

    how does this relate to secualar world of materilistic science? well, we see the emphasis on 'MEASURE' and anything which cannot be meaured is conisidered fallcy, non-existent' delusion, etc. so again we see this ongoing psychological division between 'consciousness/what is KNOWn about/measured' and unconscioueness/NOT known about/immeasureable' maintained throug different paradigms. same assumptions, prejudice, fear

    As for you question about 'who kick started it' ie., process. this is like looking for a 'causer' to explain 'effect'. again this is a reason FOR a beliefe in A 'God' who kick starts universe, right? the 'prime mover' as it were. but i am saying that te evolving intelligence IS actual matter-energy which is always with consciousness and natrually creative. we, ar a part of this evolution in tat we are consciousness self-reflecting on itself....but as i understand, it IS. it is spontaneus creationing, rather than some entity that needs a 'kick starter. /the process IS it in action
     
  17. c7ityi_ Registered Senior Member

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    duendy, why is there something instead of nothing? nothing would be much more logical since it wouldn't require a cause. i don't understand.
     
  18. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    something and nothing arise toGETHER, obviously. you canny have one without the other

    if we see space as a 'form' of 'nothing, try and imagine being able to observe a tree without space. could you? surely space and tree/thing arise togther, no?
     
  19. c7ityi_ Registered Senior Member

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    1,924
    something can't exist without nothing but nothing CAN exist without something. these two are fundamentally different, and it doesn't make sense that something exists, unless 'something' is a 'form' of 'nothing'.
     
  20. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    you are seemingly lost in abstracts
     
  21. iam Banned Banned

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    Oh boy, now this thread is turning into a discussion of the intelligent design theory. I suppose that was inevitable. If that were true, who made the designer? And it becomes cyclical. Or for the sake of convenience, theists propose god always WAS. Conclusion, "god" does not think, it is. Big bang theory. If all you can possibly see or know is limited in the meantime, its always best to keep on the grounds of reality. Lose a foothold on reality and you won't be able to figure out where you are or what you've found when it happens.
     
  22. duendy Registered Senior Member

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    what i am saying makes more sense than either your marerialist position, or the ptriarchal position wit teir architect'god

    now your challenge is to prove it don't, init?
     
  23. Kibbles Registered Senior Member

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    Well here's my idea on intelligence:

    Intelligence comes in an infinite number of levels only a few of which we can understand.

    Humans think, imagine, classify, creatively solve problems, and have all those other mental exercises that humans do.

    Below that there is emotion and learning or mental conditioning. Humans have this too, of course, as do many animals of equal or greater complexity than an aomeba.

    Below that, there are simple reflexive responses and natural living processes. This is the point that we no longer really consider intelligence. This is probably the prerequisite for being considered a living creature though.

    Below that there are the supposedly unbreakable laws of physics. The realm of nonliving things.

    Below this things get chaotic, messy, and unpredictable, and so far humans can no longer really understand this low a level of "intelligence". This trend continues downward into oblivion.

    Above normal human thinking we have things like collective consciousness and thought that can influence reality. This is poorly understood and comes in a gazillion names from divine inspiration, genius, psychic powers, affirmations, etc. Basically, some sort of metaphysical reality exists that incorporates such things like how our nervous system incorporates intelligence and learning. It's just really hard to percieve and understand at our level of intelligence.

    Above that there's nirvana, enlightenment, whatever that we cannot normally comprehend. These levels of intelligence presumeably continue onward into infinity.

    Now perhaps they loop, perhaps not, but the collective intelligence of all things is what I am thinking about and not the disembodied intellect of the patriarchal God.

    So I propose that God is the collective intelligence of eternity that neither thinks nor reacts nor understands but is instead aware at another level.

    This isn't exactly the most helpful view of things but maybe we can understand levels of intelligence a few ranks above our own by trying to figure out how God "Thinks" (for lack of a better word)
     

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