god

...and thank Odin for that!

NutterAlert wrote: Snow Dog wrote: ^ What you trying to say Nutter? One of my fav paintings, and highly controversial at the time. 'Man controller of the Universe' its called. My reading of it being that man-is-man-made, we control what happens to us and there is no higher being.

Hey.....thats just about what I've been saying! We need a hand shaking Smiley here!

It was by Diego Rivera and is a massive mural. It features Lenin & Trotsky.

It was in-famous as it was originally meant for one of the large skyscrapers in New York (Rockerfeller maybe?), but the owner didn't like the communist references and scrapped it.

Now somewhere in Mexico.

 

The main difference between an atheist and a "believer" (I dislike this word; it gives a wrong impression) is that for the "believer" the world makes sense, for the atheist it doesn't. As Jean pointed out, "to believe" does not mean "to think there is an entity somewhere that judges our deeds". It merely means there is a consciousness behind it all, which in my opinion is a perfectly logical conclusion. Nature has a tendency to create ever more complex structures, and the more complex they get the more consciousness they have. An amoeba has a higher consciousness than a stone, and an insect has a higher consciousness than an amoeba. Due to the very complex structure of our brains we humans have a highly complex consciousness. The most complex structure in the universe is the universe itself though, so it makes perfect sense to me to assume it has a consciousness. And this consciousness I call "God". This can be neither proven nor disproven, but I rather prefer the world to make sense.

Mark that by saying this I introduce the concept of an "evolving God", which is quite different to the omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent entity in Christian religion. Nevertheless it could be said of the "God" of my conception that these attributes are true in a way. "It" (I dislike the usage of the personal pronoun "he" for God) certainly is omnipresent, since the whole universe is part of it. It is in a way omnipotent too, because everything in the world is done by it, or rather one of its parts. And it is omnisicent, because just as a human being is aware of its own body, so would it be aware of its body, and perhaps even more so. While human beings are not aware of the cells of their body, a consciousness of this magnitude might very well be aware of its own parts.
I am quite certain dyed-in-the-wool atheists will still reject my concept of God. Not because they disagree with me, but because they reject any idea of God in principle, no matter what that idea is.

My being a High Priestess of a religion that worships Gaia, the Great Mother Earth, is no contradiction, by the way. On the contrary, Gaia is a perfect metaphor of my believe. We just stick to Earth and don't extend the deity to the universe in that religion because we can't reach the stars anyway yet. But Gaia embodies the same principle of a higher consciousness.

goose wrote: goose wrote: Nobody can know for certain that their senses are giving them an accurate portrayal of the world and universe around them. I'd just like to point out for clarity that I started following this line of thought when I was thirteen or fourteen, long, long before I took any hallucinogens

How can I know that I have read and replied to this posting?

Don't worry Eetu- blame Maani, he wanted discussion! Makes good reading, but I think that may degenerate in the near future if the thread keeps going.

no, God IS the creation, ever changing, ever evolving, ever alive!

 

Great sermon!

Eetu Pellonpää wrote: But what I regard as a fact is, that all three things stated before are observed. They can be, and are measured scientifically. Senses never give an accurate picture of the world, but the scientific instruments can drill down deeper. I think today quantium physics indicate the level, where we cannot anymore do exact measuring? So nothing at least from to say about those theories.

goose wrote: tangerine62 wrote: Look mate god does not exist for me now or ever, so don't bull me with take a walk in a forest.......This universe was created after the big bang and not in 7 days that the numpties would have you believe. I don't like god nor have any wish too, wake up and smell the sh*te your your preaching. So you have an absolutely unshakeable belief? What's the difference between your belief and belief in a God?

(off-topic)

This is just my appreciation for your formidable socrateic attitude that
you have discreetly shown ever since I began reading the forums, and
still keep doing so. I'm sure there're many more who praise your sceptical
stand.