What is your 'idea of GOD'?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...universe-multiverse-supernovas-space-science/

 

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all that article tells me is that scientific curiosity is alive and well...

what next ? one must ask...
If they can apply their same physics to the "Great Attractor" they might be able to conclude in a similar fashion...
and given that the data is 100's of millions of years obsolete [ according to the light effect models ] I really gotta wonder about it's relevance to today's universe.

 

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The bottom line is that Arauca and others have as much right to their beliefs as a scientist does... whether they be founded by scientific evidence or not is irrelevant. IMO The thread OP asked for personal "Ideas of God" not a "Spanish Inquisition.

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[video=youtube;Tym0MObFpTI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tym0MObFpTI[/video]

 

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You're the one trying to push your concept of God here as some mysterious first cause. Arauca was doin the same thing. Arguing his God is real based on chemical processes. I have just been challenging those arguments as well as your own. BTW..the Spanish Inquisition played for YOUR team. Not mine.

 

I am not pushing any first cause.. I am merely pointing out that science has much to do before it can claim to know first cause. Arauca is simply saying that the mere existence of those chemicals and their orderly reactions are evidence of a God that belongs to HIS belief system. He is not pushing anything and nor am I except to say that science can not claim to know why we have chemicals and their reactions as a first premise.
Your paranoid defensiveness misses the fact that I am not a Christian nor a believer in any religious ideology. However if I see a flawed argument I'll jump on it regardless of which camp it belongs to.

my response to a post by Sarkus

 

God is the absolute deepest reality, beyond all knowing, all ideas, and all images.

 

I'm not a chemist, nor a biologist. Does that mean I should assert God did it?
Does the lack of either me or you having the answer in any way give rational credence to "God did it"?

 

Unfortunately your request assumes two things: (1) that there was a primary cause; (2) given the nature of the conversation, that this primary cause can be labelled God and provided with all the attributes thereof.

Since our investigations can only ever go as far back as the CBR (which is c.3-400k years after our universe is thought to have begun through the Big Bang) then it is impossible to test any claim of a primary cause, or even if one actually existed.

So in answer to your questions: I don't know.

But heck, I could always claim god did it.

Science is not missing the point: it is a tool, and those that use it know for what use it can be put.
It is people who misunderstand science that shout about how it can not answer everything and thus is flawed. Scientists already know it can't answer everything, and that there are questions that are and always will be unanswerable.

And claims of plausibility speak to the individual, and how willing they are to abandon reason, or unwilling to apply parsimony.
At some point one merely has to say "I don't know" rather than make up something which is untestable and superfluous to understanding and knowledge. That would be so much better than continual shouting matches between claims of whose fairy-tale is the "truth".

And you should know better than to ask such inane questions.

 

agrees totally.. those three important words "I don't know" seem to be so hard to say ...
However offering scientific achievements [ not about first cause ] to debunk the notion of someone who believes in a God as first cause with out offering a scientific alternative beyond "I don't know" is an exercise in futility is it not?
It also makes the contra seem totally ineffective due to it's loss of contextual validity.
My response to the OP was in post #10

 

Quantum Quack, science is usually brought into the picture to explain what science can explain. Recently that seems to be regarding evolution. As was pointed out where science doesn't know the answer currently the answer is "I don't know".

To me that's more satisfying than "I don't know but it was probably God".

How was the universe created isn't the only question that comes up in these discussions. Of course where questions that aren't currently not known it's possible to just say "God did it".

That's not the only conflict between religion and science. For many there is a conflict where science does clearly have the answers simply because it is in conflict with their "worldview" as the apologists like to say.

 

It's not "I don't know, therefore God did it", but rather "God is the unknown". The best scientists, the ones who ask the deepest questions, know that there is a level of reality itself that can never, ever be penetrated, and it is that fundamental reality which is God. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, just ask yourself what anything is, and whatever answer you think of, ask what that is, and continue doing this until you have no answer, and realize that no matter what answer is given, it can never ever be absolute.

"We know nothing about it [God, the world] at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of school children. Possibly we shall know a little more than we do now. But the real nature of things, that we shall never know, never."
--Albert Einstein

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms— this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men."
--Albert Einstein

 

Theists seem to like to quote Einstein for some reason. In any event, there is no difference in "I don't know so "God did it" and "God is the unknown". There is no reason to come to such a conclusion but you are free to do so of course.

Even if there are things that end up never being known that doesn't mean that there is a "God" behind it.

If you want to call the unknown "God", fine. You then have to stop there as well. You can't know any more about God including what he wants you to do or how to act because by this definition God is "unknown".

 

This is the definition of "God of the Gaps".
If something is unknown, why postulate something that can't be known as an explanation, since it adds nothing and, if anything, merely complicates the matter by bringing any amount of unwarranted baggage along with it.
And what about the unknown is worthy of worship? If it is unknown, how do we know if it is worthy etc?
And why use a word when "unknown" seems to cover all the bases?

Why "God" and not merely "unknown"? What extra does the label "God" bring to the table?

oh, I understand what you're talking about... I just have issue with your labelling the unknown as "god", as doing so implies something more than simply "unknown".
So what is it you want to imply through use of the label, that is not already there with the term "unknown"?

 

Can you show me a specific example of where someone does that, please? I haven't come across it, to be fair.
But such would be futile, yes, but only in so far as offering scientific proof/evidence of an alternative.
What most would offer as an alternative is, in their view, a more rational explanation: one that posits fewer unknowns, adopts parsimony, etc. But rationality is only a personal guide, and is not itself evidence.

 

One of the main obstacles to rational debate between theists and scientists I have observed is due to arguing in differing contexts. [ at cross purposes ]

A theist will argue from the "first cause" point of view.

Eg..
Theist:
What is evolution?

Possible Answer:

Scientist:
What is evolution?

Possible Answer:
(no first cause mentioned)

======
To argue the case using

as a contra to the theist position:

is incorrect use of context. or category... or what ever.

The theist is talking about first cause as well as the position taken by science where as science excludes "first cause" all together [as unknown]
By simply saying the truth, that first cause is not known by science means there is no need for argument. The sometimes hostile situation is totally diffused. [ we are now talking about belief/faith vs a lack of scientific knowledge ]
======

since when has belief or faith ever been "rational" as per the scientific method? [chuckle]

 

As a gentle jab:

Did you know that the probability of this universe coming into existence from absolutely nothing is exactly zero?

Yet here we are... so if the probability of this universe coming into existence is zero and yet the universe exists does this
1] indicate a error in the probability assessment, or
2] the existence of a first cause agent of some kind?
In fact the probability of a first cause agent is highly likely given that other wise this universe would not be here. [agent does not necessarily have to be a God or something similar btw]

 

But the issue is not defused in as much as the theist answer is still laying claim to knowledge (that of first cause).
It is as defused as someone claiming any other thing that is unknown, yet being unable to support that claim.
If the scientist concedes that the cause is unknown, does that mean they should accept the theist's claim? That they should allow the theist to continue to make such claims unchallenged?

The argument is rarely about science having answers that are different to theists, but rather that theists are generally unable to support their claim through anything other than recourse to some scripture or other, whereas science says "I don't know".

 

Theist very rarely claim to know, however they tend to be rather strong in their beliefs. The distinction between knowing and believing comes to the for IMO.
Unsupportable claims to "knowledge" should never be accepted as valid/confirmed until supported adequately.
Generally the difference between a "cult" and "religion" is that the cult leader will claim direct knowledge where as a religion will claim belief supported by their knowledge of their scriptures, which they believe to be valid. IMO

I believe that this apparent "conflicting" of views can actually be explained in a way that can satisfy the most devoted theist and ardent scientist. A middle ground that explains why this incredible need for the majority in this world to cling to theosophical ideas in a seemingly polarized state with conventional science.

 

I am only religious in the sense that Einstein described himself as religious.

God as the ground of being is not the God of the gaps. There is a difference between saying "I don't know what caused this, therefore God must have done it", and saying "God is the deepest underlying reality of all phenomena which our intellects cannot penetrate". One is a matter of cause, and the other is a matter of underlying nature.

The reason I call the ground of being God is because it is unified, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal, transcendent, and immanent, just as the theologians describe God. It also invokes in those who are aware of it an incredible and deeply profound feeling of awe, which can best be described as religious in nature, and so I find it fitting to use religious language to describe it.

While it can't be known in it's deepest nature, we do have a knowledge of it's surface in which it expresses itself through elegant mathematical order and natural beauty, which I find worthy of worship. The only way I worship it, though, is through deep admiration and appreciation. I don't pray to it, build shrines in it's name, or make sacrificial offerings.

 

While I don't think it can be said how God wants us to live, or even if God wants us to live a certain way at all, the knowledge of God, of the unified ground of being, does have moral implications, because if all is unified in this ground, then self and other are one, and we should treat everyone and everything as we treat ourselves. This is yoga, which means union, and the "love" mentioned in the Gospels, which is an inclination towards union, or in a sense, is union itself.

"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind."
--Albert Einstein