Thread: Who or what is God to you?

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I Just found this video that somewhat changes my whole take on Christianity (at least its values, if not its dogma or any other aspect of it). Rocking Mr. E has rapidly become my go-to guy for pretty much everything relating to philosophy of politics, religion, and whatever else he discusses - thus far I'm extremely impressed by every one of his videos I've seen, and his viewpoints seem exceptionally well researched, reasoned and conceived. His accent makes him a little hard to understand (to me anyway) so I have to turn it up loud, but always remember to turn it down right the the beginning and the end when he wails on that git-fiddle!!

And while he is an atheist, he actually makes a very good argument that Christian values are at the heart of what has made the West great, and that their erosion is a terrible thing for society. Lately I've been feeling more and more that the atheists who scream and rail against every facet of Christianity are pushing an agenda that I dislike, and I think the venerable mister E explains what it is pretty well:

Uh oh - this goes against my personal convictions in so many points - I guess, I'll quote you over into the Atheism thread one fine day and get at it there, I've made some notes, but such a "debate" would again probably not fit properly into this thread.
He started to annoy me by claiming there would be no scientific evidence for man made climate change and for that homosexuality is something biologically natural. Well - I could present you with respective evidence in case you'd want me to.

What he basically says, is that if people were not threatened by eternal damnation and concepts of deadly sinning vs. heavenly rewards for holding human emotions and behaviours in check, then the world would have sunken into chaos by now. Lust should be frowned upon in his view for example, he deems it useful to view it as a "deadly sin" - that's just bizarre and would lead to us dying out, if taken seriously. If there were no divinely justified threats, he reckons - that would open the floodgates for all sorts of depravity and mishap. He goes as far as blaming the enlightenment for having supposedly had vastly detrimental effects on people. WTF?!
It's the picture of a human being as basically and intrinsically bad and without inner moral compass, without empathy, even, which I can only detest. His is not my picture of human nature - it's condescending to claim, humanity wouldn't be able to be acting morally without being lied to about eternal punishment and reward.
I hold a more positive view, way more positive.

What I do believe, though, is that there is a need for educating children in ethics and providing cultural structures, which enforce social and moral cohesion. But please - without the blatant lying and fearmongering - good old Humanism in short.

^^ Exactly what a few said here earlier. A control mechanism to affect the masses.

Steph, are you sure he said something negative about the enlightenment? That doesn't sound like the Rocking Mr. E I know - he's always praised it in all his other videos. Are you sure he wasn't talking about the counter-enlightenment? You seem to have heard things very differently than I did - maybe I need to watch it again and pay closer attention? What I got from it was that, while he obviously is not in favor of any religious dogma or storytelling being taken at all literally, he feels the basic values behind christianity are sound and in alignment with atheist morals. And of course lust is ok as long as it doesn't overwhelm somebody - I think that's the point with many of the so-called sins - they're ok in moderation just don't get carried away, Like gluttony - it's fine to have a wild weekend or pig out now and then, just don't let it become a habit.

What I got from the video is that rather than categorically hate all christians and christianity in general, we should only hate the bad aspects of it, and accept those aspects that are the same as ours. It all seems to come down to the same thing - movements generally begin with a good idea (the original core of feminism for instance, or the basic moral tenets of christianity) and then later along comes some more radical element that wants to use the movement as a means of control by dividing people through incurred hatred and dehumanizing 'the enemy'. Then later the entire movement becomes demonized because of only the radical element that co-opted it to use as a weapon. This is what I've been trying to explain all around the board lately - you don't have to choose sides and square off in a battle to the death - you can instead decide where the line is drawn between the good components of a movement and the radical components that are deserving of hatred and ridicule. Quite literally "don't hate the player, hate the game", but with the added caveat that the game wasn't always evil and has been rigged at some point in the past by radicals bent on hatred.

As for the small side points you raised - about climate change and homosexuality, they're not things I'm very interested in or want to debate - I haven't looked into them very much. I was talking about the basic message of the video, which was that there's no reason for christians and atheists to be at war ideologically if we can agree on the basic tenets of morality. If these are the points you disagree with then they're only very minor side issues that don't even affect his main message.

I think his message is pretty clear - here are some of the most important parts as I see it: "In spite of these negatives, christianity still had a positive influence on western civilization, and without this influence the west would not be as prosperous as it is today. From the very start, christianity set itself apart from other religions, with a message of compassion for fellow human beings. With some notable exceptions, christianity was unique in this sense. Jesus Christ presented as a man of the people, prepared to give anyone a chance at a turn on life (not sure I got his wording right - that pesky Greco-British accent!!), regardless of their sins. {…} Though the Christian church did sometimes oppose anything that contradicted its teachings, it also stabilized and unified western culture through a spiritual belief. Christianity gave the west a moral conscience, born from free will and moral responsibility. {…} While modern science can explain concepts such as free will and personal responsibility without appealing to a higher power, it's important to recognize that christianity established the virtues of free will and personal responsibility long before science could explain them."

Ok, it's right after this that he talks about the enlightenment, and what he says is this: "When christianity began to diminish after the enlightenment, it opened a can of worms that many people couldn't handle" The people he's talking about here are those opposed to the enlightenment, the ones who founded the counter-enlightenment, led largely by Kant with his Critique Against Reason.

Weeell - I'm not so sure. Maybe one could say, Christianity with it's emphasis on compassion did a lot of positive things for formerly called Christendom in terms of social cohesion and also enforcing beneficial behaviours. But I would say, it was initially the Renaissance having benefited progress, drawing on ancient Greek philosophy and pre-scientific-age insights. These texts have only been preserved by the Muslim world, but destroyed in Christendom. The Muslim world before that Imam, I forgot the name of, set an end to the golden age of Islam. And later on it was the enlightenment, which really brought us progress in all sorts of manners, while the church again tried to suppress all that and with a vengeance. Consider the dark ages - that was Christianity having it's way. Consider the 30 years lasting war in Europe - purely a conflict between different brands of the same "compassionate" religion - with a death toll in the multiple millions.
It needed to be undermined by the two above mentioned zeitgeists, which the churches initially opposed kicking and screaming, until denial was impossible by overwhelming information and evidence. These movements were what primarily benefited us in terms of knowledge and progress in my eyes. The churches on their own wanted to preserve the status quo - logical - their influence has diminished ever since, when new and better explanations for the natural world became available by science.
Oh - and I don't think, he meant Kant by that, a Christian after all, he meant Hitler and Stalin, the classical people to invoke in order to show how dangerous secularism and atheism would be. That's very short-sighted in my eyes to say the least, but whatever...

I certainly do not hate any religious person, though, why should I? Takes a lot to make me feel hate towards somebody anyway, I can't even remember the last time that happened. What adult people believe in the privacy of their own heads - none of my business. But I do oppose religious ideologies in most of their outer manifestations, and indoctrinating children with lies including scaring them with hell-fire and telling them they are sinners and worthless by birth. If the parents want to do that - at least the schools should offer a different viewpoint. I also oppose Creationism in especial, since it can only lead to scientific illiteracy and flawed politics.

But I wouldn't dream of hating Deanstar for instance - I think of him as indoctrinated to a degree that justifies to invoke delusion - but I'm rather sorry for him, I even find myself liking him in some weird way - despite disliking his style of discourse quite a lot.

What we need to understand is that organised religions are mechanistic reductionist images and belief structures that promote a narrow mind in order to control and shape the culture of today.
Don't mistake the map for the territory.
Culture and ideology is not your friend.
What's real is the felt presence of experience.
What's real is the way you feel and what you experience within the platform of the human hardware that we are bestowed.
You may hear descriptions of what enlightenment is, or lucid dreaming, or sex,or having your first child etc but until you have EXPERIENCED it its all mental and intellectual masturbation.
Use what works in your unique individual case.Discard that which is ornamental.And always know that everything is in a never ending flux,ebb and flow...forever changing.
Having rigidity in your belief structures is limiting your growth.Know how to change your beliefs at will when they cease to serve you. Objective observation and awareness above all.
Cultivate your intuitive forces.
Trust yourself and your divine nature.

No one is smarter that you are.

Originally Posted by StephL

Weeell - I'm not so sure. Maybe one could say, Christianity with it's emphasis on compassion did a lot of positive things for formerly called Christendom in terms of social cohesion and also enforcing beneficial behaviours. But I would say, it was initially the Renaissance having benefited progress, drawing on ancient Greek philosophy and pre-scientific-age insights. These texts have only been preserved by the Muslim world, but destroyed in Christendom. The Muslim world before that Imam, I forgot the name of, set an end to the golden age of Islam. And later on it was the enlightenment, which really brought us progress in all sorts of manners, while the church again tried to suppress all that and with a vengeance. Consider the dark ages - that was Christianity having it's way. Consider the 30 years lasting war in Europe - purely a conflict between different brands of the same "compassionate" religion - with a death toll in the multiple millions.
It needed to be undermined by the two above mentioned zeitgeists, which the churches initially opposed kicking and screaming, until denial was impossible by overwhelming information and evidence. These movements were what primarily benefited us in terms of knowledge and progress in my eyes. The churches on their own wanted to preserve the status quo - logical - their influence has diminished ever since, when new and better explanations for the natural world became available by science.
Oh - and I don't think, he meant Kant by that, a Christian after all, he meant Hitler and Stalin, the classical people to invoke in order to show how dangerous secularism and atheism would be. That's very short-sighted in my eyes to say the least, but whatever...

I certainly do not hate any religious person, though, why should I? Takes a lot to make me feel hate towards somebody anyway, I can't even remember the last time that happened. What adult people believe in the privacy of their own heads - none of my business. But I do oppose religious ideologies in most of their outer manifestations, and indoctrinating children with lies including scaring them with hell-fire and telling them they are sinners and worthless by birth. If the parents want to do that - at least the schools should offer a different viewpoint. I also oppose Creationism in especial, since it can only lead to scientific illiteracy and flawed politics.

But I wouldn't dream of hating Deanstar for instance - I think of him as indoctrinated to a degree that justifies to invoke delusion - but I'm rather sorry for him, I even find myself liking him in some weird way - despite disliking his style of discourse quite a lot.

Was he the first imam? If so his name was Ali(very popular in the Islamic shiyi world( I'm originally Islamic shiyi, my father is named ali too x) )).

Anyways, I agree with you, we shouldn't hate religious people. They want from the bottom of their hearts to believe in god, so they don't allow us to destroy their dreams.

Also it stops when they impose their religious beliefs on us, I agree with that too.

Also that children shouldn't be 'brainwashed' into it. They don't know any better.

The worst part here is that religion create enemies. For instance, here in Lebanon, everyone foolishly believes that the US controls the UN and the whole world, and all Americans and Europeans are evil, or at least have evil leaders that control the world!
Haha they really got me brainwashed with that BS since I was a little child!
Glad I'm out of it now.

So, just for the sake of everything, I wish everyone would just forget about religion and make happiness the goal.

Also atheists aren't evil! Even if we don't think we will be punished after death, we still have consciences that we follow, and we do care about others and do have sympathy! If anything, we are the most people who want happiness in life, so we follow a loving and caring lifestyle! (That kind of lifestyle does give happiness naturally)

Maybe when artificial immortality comes, religion will go. Maybe it'll come in our lifetime!
Step one, clone a new young body containing all your up to date memories and info.
Step two, dispose old body.

They're making organs now using 3D printers! We're closer to this immortality bizz more than you can imagine!
I love science, it's my god!

Originally Posted by Kaizen

What we need to understand is that organised religions are mechanistic reductionist images and belief structures that promote a narrow mind in order to control and shape the culture of today.

Yes. But keep in mind also that organized religions are but one of many "... structures that promote a narrow mind in order to control and shape the culture of today. " There are many more: Nationalism is nearly as powerful/bad as organized religion (both are at the top of my personal "worst things in the world" list), but there as an entire sea of lesser societal structures, including education systems, pop culture, tradition, MMORPG's, reality TV, high school cliques, even family structures.

That list can go on and on, I think. We humans are seemingly driven by our herding instinct to choose stupidity and conformity in the name of being part of something, or perhaps in the name of having to think or do less. Into which pool of organized and personally stifling behavior they dive is the only choice many people make... kind of makes sense then how stubbornly they cling to that choice, once made.

So, yes, organized religion is a mind-narrower indeed, and maybe the worst of them all, but it is not the only one...

Originally Posted by Sageous

Yes. But keep in mind also that organized religions are but one of many "... structures that promote a narrow mind in order to control and shape the culture of today. " There are many more: Nationalism is nearly as powerful/bad as organized religion (both are at the top of my personal "worst things in the world" list), but there as an entire sea of lesser societal structures, including education systems, pop culture, tradition, MMORPG's, reality TV, high school cliques, even family structures.

That list can go on and on, I think. We humans are seemingly driven by our herding instinct to choose stupidity and conformity in the name of being part of something, or perhaps in the name of having to think or do less. Into which pool of organized and personally stifling behavior they dive is the only choice many people make... kind of makes sense then how stubbornly they cling to that choice, once made.

So, yes, organized religion is a mind-narrower indeed, and maybe the worst of them all, but it is not the only one...

This is very very true!
Other than all the damage this causes, maybe the worst thing is that, some certain aspects or kinds of it, effect our judgment so much that we blindly follow a path that is quite opposite to the path of happiness. The biggest of them is following the 'trends', peer presure, excessive money desire, loss of an understanding of the fundamentals of life actually. The mainstream considers meditation, one of the most powerful mental tools, to be weird and undesirable in someone's traits, or how it considers popularity or how much followers you have on twitter to be the basis of social life, or the most obvious vase for us, how dreams are dealt as unreal unimportant state.

I mean I'm genuinely stunned at how many people are just simply blind to the obvious!

Originally Posted by Sageous

Yes. But keep in mind also that organized religions are but one of many "... structures that promote a narrow mind in order to control and shape the culture of today. " There are many more: Nationalism is nearly as powerful/bad as organized religion (both are at the top of my personal "worst things in the world" list), but there as an entire sea of lesser societal structures, including education systems, pop culture, tradition, MMORPG's, reality TV, high school cliques, even family structures.

Tradition and family structures are the real oddballs there (as well as MMORPGs for that matter) because they have a distinct essence to them that make them very desirable in a community. Were they promote violence, pride and a feeling of superiority they can also provide a vibrancy and dynamic to an otherwise dull place. A family bind exists naturally and if stimulated properly can form into something overwhelmingly positive.

I think the real key here is teaching children to discern and criticize ideologies for themselves. The problem as I see it is that with each step we take away from outdated ideas, we are quite often pulling elements with us that make this world beautiful. Cultures and nature are too of those elements that are lost each day and it's a true shame to see people disregard them as another outdated concept.

^^ You've made a couple of good points, but I think I'm going to keep tradition, family (and MMORPG's) on the list.

Yes, they have good sides as well -- so too do pretty much all the other categories, including organized religion and nationalism -- but even those good sides may also be mind-narrowing, even if they are quite comforting and community building (community, especially of the small, heavily organized kind, probably should have been on the list as well, BTW). Indeed, those natural family ties (or binds -- even the words are negative, even oppressive) can cause some of the most profound damage to an individual of all, especially if that individual is born into a very troubled family, and can find no way out from, say, constant abuse, because she is so bound to her family that she cannot open her mind to safer options. Extreme, I know, but it makes the point.

Sometimes I think that these things that demand our sacrifice of free will, imagination, and self-awareness (and yes, as good as they can be, they all work best when those aspects of individual freedom are put in a box) are designed to feed off of our primitive hard-wiring that demands, for survival, that we belong to a group or die.

I think the real key here is teaching children to discern and criticize ideologies for themselves. The problem as I see it is that with each step we take away from outdated ideas, we are quite often pulling elements with us that make this world beautiful. Cultures and nature are two of those elements that are lost each day and it's a true shame to see people disregard them as another outdated concept.

That, ironically, I agree with completely. It would be nice if we could somehow hold onto the good bits of those organizations, cultures, and traditions, without dragging along the bad, and without that pesky requirement to conform to outdated or counterproductive norms.

Well I have several different beliefs. My first and foremost philosophical/religious belief is that our world is completely absurd and random and I doubt any human will ever be able to comprehend the deepest secrets of reality. Because of this, I think it is as likely as not that some omnipotent being created the universe. However, even if there is some sentient omnipotent being ruling the universe, I still believe there is certainly one true god that is even greater. This god is the sum of everything in all possible realities. Their consciousness is made up from everything, even another potential god. So you could say they are sentient, and even omnipotent, depending on your definition of those words.

Originally Posted by StephL

Oh - and I don't think, he meant Kant by that

Oh wow, I completely missed this before - I thought you had just never responded here. Mr E never mentioned Kant, of course, I brought Kant up because he was the founder of the Counter-Enlightenment. What he said was (and I don't remember the exact wording now) "a lot of people were very upset after the Enlightenment" - those people are the ones who founded the counter enlightenment of course, beginning with Kant. It was his Critique of Pure Reason that launched all the beliefs against reason and logic. He doubtless wasn't the first religious person to rail against logic and reason because it eroded belief, but he was the most important of the early ones, and it was because of his Critique that the movement really got rolling and began to develop momentum.

Also, you're talking about The Church, an institution, while Mr E was talking about the values of Christianity. It's pretty much the same thing as blaming Stalin's Atheism for the horror of Communism. When the church leaders decided to institute a totalitarian rule and forcibly wipe out anything that goes against church doctrine, that was not a true reflection of the positive aspects of Christian belief as taught by Jesus (the stuff Mr E was talking about) - that was a dictatorial human institution bent on using Christianity to control people. In fact Mr E listed the positive values he was talking about in the video - New Testament Christianty marked a very different and much more humanistic type of belief from any of the pagan or Old Testament beliefs, which were loaded with fire and brimstone.

What God is to me? Some sort of primitive way to explain things. I'm unable to believe that something like a God created everything. But at the same time I don't think that science is so superior as many people say it is. I think that there are atleast 2 things that will never be explained by science, nor it will be by religion/faith. Those are: conciousness, and: the beginning of everything.

Some people will say that conciousness is just the firing of neurons in your brain, that is also what I thought. Untill I read Superbrain by Rudolph E. Tanzi & Deepak Chopra. It says that the brain is just an instrument for your conciousness, and your conciousness is the thing that interprets everything. Like colours: blood is red, almost everyone will say that, but you will never find any 'red' in your brain. How are neurons able to taste, hear, feel?

Neither can it be explained by religion, which will probably only come with a cheap story about a 'God' which gave me my conciousness.

The beginning of everything isn't the Big Bang, something must've 'banged' right? Scientists found atoms(?) which can pop up out of nothing, but how is the atom(?) formed etc. etc.. Religion can't explain it either because there is no single piece of evidence except for that cheap one-liner that gives me the chills: "You can't prove God does not exist!". No shit sherlock, and so you can't prove that I can't fly like superman.

It's a discussion that will never stop.

Originally Posted by Forg

What God is to me? Some sort of primitive way to explain things. I'm unable to believe that something like a God created everything. But at the same time I don't think that science is so superior as many people say it is. I think that there are atleast 2 things that will never be explained by science, nor it will be by religion/faith. Those are: conciousness, and: the beginning of everything.

Some people will say that conciousness is just the firing of neurons in your brain, that is also what I thought. Untill I read Superbrain by Rudolph E. Tanzi & Deepak Chopra. It says that the brain is just an instrument for your conciousness, and your conciousness is the thing that interprets everything. Like colours: blood is red, almost everyone will say that, but you will never find any 'red' in your brain. How are neurons able to taste, hear, feel?

Neither can it be explained by religion, which will probably only come with a cheap story about a 'God' which gave me my conciousness.

The beginning of everything isn't the Big Bang, something must've 'banged' right? Scientists found atoms(?) which can pop up out of nothing, but how is the atom(?) formed etc. etc.. Religion can't explain it either because there is no single piece of evidence except for that cheap one-liner that gives me the chills: "You can't prove God does not exist!". No shit sherlock, and so you can't prove that I can't fly like superman.

It's a discussion that will never stop.

Different colors have different wave lengths. Who wrote this book seems like a moron lol. He is surely claiming a lot of stuff without him even understanding simple physics and biology. It's obvious what credibility this gives to his claims.

As for them big bang and the atom that was created from nothing:
Just give science some time! It's studying parallel universes now, and it's starting to seem very likely, which makes this atom case very likely to be scientifically explained afterwards (this might not be directly related, but if we understand the existence of matter in other parallel dimensions, then I would imagine a spinoff to explain this atom case)

Also:

Originally Posted by Forg

Some people will say that conciousness is just the firing of neurons in your brain, that is also what I thought. Untill I read Superbrain by Rudolph E. Tanzi & Deepak Chopra. It says that the brain is just an instrument for your conciousness, and your conciousness is the thing that interprets everything. Like colours: blood is red, almost everyone will say that, but you will never find any 'red' in your brain. How are neurons able to taste, hear, feel?

Individual neurons do not taste, hear or feel. However:

Hundreds of millions of neurons, working in concert and enjoying the fruit of eons of evolution, are creating the perception of sensory input. Your interpretation of that perception is certainly consciousness, but I'm not sure that consciousness existed first, and is just using a brain as an interface to reality. That is an interesting thing to consider, of course, given the concept's implications of immortality and Something Bigger Than Us (good for selling books, too), but it is very hard to go right there without first considering the incredible complexity and potential of the human brain first. This argument might finally be solved (or at least simulated) when we finally build a computer as complex as our brains, and discover that it too is conscious. By the same token, all living things are conscious at some level; does this mean that, say, lizards are aethereal consciousnesses just using their hosts as interfaces? Also an interesting concept, but it seems a bit ungainly to me.

It might be a mistake to underestimate the processing power of all those neurons, and also to assume that they achieved that processing power overnight -- it took us a very long time to reach the levels of perception, intelligence, and, yes, consciousness that we humans now have.

This reminds me about that creationist argument that asks about how eyes can exist, given that they are so complex.... the argument assumes that eyes just appeared recently, rather than taking uncounted millennia to develop into their current form.

Originally Posted by Forg

What God is to me? Some sort of primitive way to explain things. I'm unable to believe that something like a God created everything.

So this is the crux of my question. I think it's possible that the "God" that we see in the Bible is just a word for the process of creation. God is referred to as the creator. The Alpha and the Omega. If, in our recent history, the only way to explain the natural world was to give the acts of nature a name-God- but there was not evidence to explain such nature or the process of how things became what they are, a myth was created to try to explain to the everyday folks that there was a power greater than they knew and people accepted that and built upon it and distorted it, manipulated the myth etc, etc. So in my way of thinking "GOD" is just another name for the process of life, creation, or nature and chemistry etc, etc.

Just rambling here, but this is what I mean when I say that I see God as just a name for the process of creation. We are all God as we create everything in our lives and our lives are affected by creation. Therefore we should take care of ourselves and our environment as we create. I hope that makes some sense.

Originally Posted by Forg

Some people will say that conciousness is just the firing of neurons in your brain, that is also what I thought. Untill I read Superbrain by Rudolph E. Tanzi & Deepak Chopra. It says that the brain is just an instrument for your conciousness, and your conciousness is the thing that interprets everything. Like colours: blood is red, almost everyone will say that, but you will never find any 'red' in your brain. How are neurons able to taste, hear, feel?

This is why you stay far away from the nonsense Deepak Chopra tends to come up with. I'm pretty confident that if you were to cut a blood vessel in your brain, you'd see some red.

Originally Posted by kadie

So this is the crux of my question. I think it's possible that the "God" that we see in the Bible is just a word for the process of creation. God is referred to as the creator. The Alpha and the Omega. If, in our recent history, the only way to explain the natural world was to give the acts of nature a name-God- but there was not evidence to explain such nature or the process of how things became what they are, a myth was created to try to explain to the everyday folks that there was a power greater than they knew and people accepted that and built upon it and distorted it, manipulated the myth etc, etc. So in my way of thinking "GOD" is just another name for the process of life, creation, or nature and chemistry etc, etc.

Just rambling here, but this is what I mean when I say that I see God as just a name for the process of creation. We are all God as we create everything in our lives and our lives are affected by creation. Therefore we should take care of ourselves and our environment as we create. I hope that makes some sense.

This actually makes sense. It's a valid opinion I think. It's like gossip that disforms the original gossiped news.

God is a guy or girl (gonna go with she, just because everybody says he) who managed to prolong a lucid dream for billions and billions of years though time distortion and at some point she got bored with being a "god" able to do anything she could think of. And from this boredom she suddenly realized that she felt quite lonely so she decided to create the stable universe that we know today (might have taken her many many tries to get it right). She has managed to give her dream characters (us) free will and given us a mind of our own, or at least the perception of it. She then decided to jump right into the dream refusing to use any of her dream powers to alter the dream (though she could). Whenever the character she is playing dies, she simply makes a new one or whatever. Nobody except her can really know what she wanna do with it all and most likely there's not a grand plan other than the fact that he wants to feel love. Maybe she goes into full dream mode whenever she dies (heaven) and plays for a while with all the other people who are dead, and they all make new characters when they want to. And obviously god herself is just a dream character in another gods dream etc. And you can probably see where I'm going with this, science is just the tool she used to make the world stable and all religion, spirituality and science work well under this theory. I'm probably not the first with this idea, and I didn't read all the thread so might not even be the first on this thread, and I don't really believe it in particular, but it's the explanation I like the most
Actually I really think this is one of the theories that makes the most sense, I just described it very shortly but there's a lot more thought, details, explanations, expansions and implications in my head that I can't really make myself write out in one bid ramble but feel free to ask any questions (yes, even critical O.o) I'd love to talk more about it, but not in a one sided ramble. So good night!

Originally Posted by Sageous

Also:



Individual neurons do not taste, hear or feel. However:

Hundreds of millions of neurons, working in concert and enjoying the fruit of eons of evolution, are creating the perception of sensory input. Your interpretation of that perception is certainly consciousness, but I'm not sure that consciousness existed first, and is just using a brain as an interface to reality. That is an interesting thing to consider, of course, given the concept's implications of immortality and Something Bigger Than Us (good for selling books, too), but it is very hard to go right there without first considering the incredible complexity and potential of the human brain first. This argument might finally be solved (or at least simulated) when we finally build a computer as complex as our brains, and discover that it too is conscious. By the same token, all living things are conscious at some level; does this mean that, say, lizards are aethereal consciousnesses just using their hosts as interfaces? Also an interesting concept, but it seems a bit ungainly to me.

It might be a mistake to underestimate the processing power of all those neurons, and also to assume that they achieved that processing power overnight -- it took us a very long time to reach the levels of perception, intelligence, and, yes, consciousness that we humans now have.

This reminds me about that creationist argument that asks about how eyes can exist, given that they are so complex.... the argument assumes that eyes just appeared recently, rather than taking uncounted millennia to develop into their current form.

I think you would like this Sageous: Captain Metaphysics and the Ghost in the Machine - Existential Comics. Not all of it is related but it mentions the theory of why/if/how the soul (if it exists) could have an impact on the mind/body.

^^ At a I think I will like that too; thanks for sharing!