Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Not-Quite-Science Forum Philosophy of Religions--all religions, including,

I heartily agree.
BTW, this I why I coined the acronym GØD--goodness, order and design (regardless of the source). I did it to help myself get away from the god-ideas as spread by all the fundamentalism--and there are numerous forms. I now find it impossible to think of GØD as a father or a mother.

Think of these questions: Is there anything beyond the physical edge of the cosmos (the macro)? If so, what is it? I believe there IS, and I call it GØD.
Is there something at the very heart and center of the atom (the micro)? I believe there IS. I call it GØD.

A brilliant scientist I dialogue with (at Brainmeta.com ) who abhors organized religion--I prefer to say, sick religions--but does not want to call himself an atheist, calls it Nature. I have no problem with this. We have dialogued for years. No problem. He is the one who told me about the math-symbol Ø I use it to symbolize that in and through all things there seems to be a divine order which is ours to explore (the role of science), uncover and put to good moral. use

We always need to keep in mind that children, before they reach the age where they can think rationally, and people with child-like minds tend to think objectively, literally. This is why some children will ask questions like: Who made? Or, how big is God?

IN MY 30's I BEGAN QUESTIONING TRADITIONAL THEISM
Years ago--trying to explain to my five-year old son (now 47) something about the idea of God I said: God is in all of us. A few minutes later, he asked: "Dad, if I cut you open, would I find God inside you?" We had a great laugh, and a good talk, about that question. Soon he was on the road to thinking rationally. As Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, puts it: "When I was a child I thought and spoke like a child..."

This kind of child-like thinking is not necessarily a bad thing in its place, as long as we recognize the limitations of this kind of thinking and can help ourselves and our children mature.

I repeat: It is my experience that children, before they reach the age where they can think rationally, and people with child-like minds tend to think objectively, that is, literally.

Keep in mind: I have all the respect in the world for children and for people with humble and childlike-minds. Children and people who think this way will ask such questions like: Who made God? Or, how big is God? Where is he? Can he see and hear what I am doing right now? Does he know everything that I have ever done and ever will do?

EXAMPLES OF THE CHILD-LIKE MIND

Okay, Rev., here is what I understand you are trying to say: You want your readers to understand that, while it is cute, and mostly acceptable, to be child-like in our thinking, it is a limited kind of thinking.

Please feel free to correct me if I am on the wrong track, but it is my understanding that you want people to be free and to think for themselves. You want people to have a concept of God that is compatible with their maturity.

For example, as a child I thought of God as being like my father. It so happened that my father was a good and strong person. I was fortunate. However, can you imagine what would have happened if my father was otherwise?

LET US BE CLEAR AS TO WHAT WE MEAN
Like the Rev., I want to know what it is that people have in mind when they use the term 'god', or 'God'.

Therefore, I ask atheists: What do you have in mind when you hear, or use, the term 'God', or 'god'?.

Keep in mind that, like the Rev., I do not think of God as a personal being, out there, separate and apart from all that is, including the physical universe.

Check out the work of David Sloan Wilson: Though he is an atheist he does see the value of and role for religion.
http://darwinianconservatism.blogspot.com/2007/06/david-sloan-wilsons-evolution-for.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sloan_Wilson

IMO, David Sloan Wilson is a panentheist/unitheist. His "atheism", I believe is because of the premise of theism. Most theists, but not all, speak of God as if he is a personal and male being, who wills, acts, senses, sees, hears and rules all nature as if He were a loving heavenly Father. They think of nature as just a collection of material things. Wilson rejects this.

As a unitheist, so do I.

For the sake of new readers I need to summarize: As a unitheist I think of GØD being itself to which only the verb "to be" applies.
GØD simply IS: that which is in and through all that is, all nature--physically, menatlly and spiritually. Nature, IMO, is more than a collection of bits and pieces.

Rev, you keep referring to "God" as though it actually exists. If it DOES exist, does it give a STUFF about how we conduct our affairs, and if so, why should it?
Please keep your response, if any, to less that 100 words.

What mortal can know the mind of an infinite being? Consider the butterfly effect over millennia.

Scpg02 wrote:

"What mortal can know the mind of an infinite being?"

Or even if such a thing exists.

I have had personal experiences that prove to me that one does exist. Beyond that it would be a matter of faith.

Scpg02 wrote:

"I have had personal experiences that prove to me that one does exist".

I'm sure what you meant to say was, "I have had personal experiences that prove to me that something I cannot explain occurred".

Same here. Several times. But I didn't jump to the conclusion it was the work of an Infinite Being. Mind you I was never taught that such a being existed when I was a child. I consider I was fortunate in that respect.

I said what I meant.

And what "Infinite Being" would give a stuff about Mortal Men?

You obviously have never read the Dune series.

No. I didn't, Herbert was too "dry" for my liking, sorry about that. Or were you being facetious? In this type of communication, it's so hard to tell.

Yeah that's why I like using my smilies. They add something to the message.

The last three books deal with an extremely long lived God like figure who is able to see not just the future but all possibilities. With this knowledge he can mold civilization into what he wants it to be.

Wolfman, have you read my STUFF. If so, you obviously misunderstand my STUFF.

IMO, GOD does NOT exist as a being; GOD is existence as I experience it, and is as real as our next breath (The Bible uses air as a metaphor for spirit). Take note of the air we breathe. Let us try living without taking our next breath. I find it impossible. How about you? Can you live, physically, without breathing?

Now define the god you think I believe in.

Rev, it sounds as though you're infatuated with some nameless, formless "entity" that doesn't belong being discussed in a Science Forum.
If you don't mind my saying.


Try this Forum - "The-Face-On-Mars-Is-Keanu-Reeves.com"

scpg02

"The last three books deal with an extremely long lived God like figure who is able to see not just the future but all possibilities. With this knowledge he can mold civilization into what he wants it to be."

This is a god-like figure that evolved as a "child" of the cosmos, subject to the laws of physics, rather that the 'purpose' behind the cosmos. Which do you think you experienced? - or would your description be different?

I think my experience would fit into the purpose behind the cosmos category.

I've also had what I would call past life memories though I don't believe in reincarnation. Go figure.

As for the Spirit of God that has been mentioned, I have no problem reconciling that with the Chinese concept of Chi or even the fictional "force" in Star Wars.

I also enjoy concepts such as a quantum hologram.

Yes, purpose. It's the experience that tells you that it all means something. Something wonderful.

ScpgO2, and Rede, do I take it that, unlike Wolfman, you are not just materialists, or atheists. That is, you are not among those who see the material world as the untimate reality.

Wolfman, feel free to correct me if I misread your stuff. And don't misunderstand me: I love the natural world, especially when it is behaving itself and giving us of it beauty and bounty. I am an advocate of ecology. I think of Nature as the body of GØD. BTW, Wikipedia has quite an article on Ø. It is common in Scandanavian languages. Check out what it says about its role in maths. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98

In my humble opinion, before there was the primordial ball, which became the BIG bang, there was what I call the Ø--the no-thing. That is, GØD in the micro. Compare it with the string theory.

Outside the billions of galaxies which we call the cosmos, the result of the big bang--15 billions of years ago--and subject of all the studies by all the sciences, there is also that which I call the Ø. But here it stands for the-everything--GØD in the macro; that which is beyond measure; and which boggles the human mind just to think about it.

BTW, Wolfman, I assume you are a happy, moral and positive atheist.
If so, why do atheists always avoid defining for me what they mean when they use the term 'God'?
What do you think I have in mind when I write, G Ø D?
I certainly do not have an objective male or female being in mind, one out there separate and apart from us.
BTW, why do atheists try to get unitheists to stop posting here?
Do we challenge atheism and materialism too much? After all, I see all of nature as part of GØD.

Again I ask: Can we live, physically, without breathing in the spiritual breath of life?
===============000000000000=================

GØD is The One
---------------------------------------
I find myself at one with ALL around me.
I'm one with mother earth, with sky and sea.
I find myself at one with space and time,
And one with all pervasive gravity.

I feel GØD's power in every tiny atom;
I see GØD's face in galaxies above;
But best of all, I feel GØD's power within me,
The power of GØD's unifying love.