How A Dead God Can Love

[Sirius]

Of course, the sceptics have a rational explanation for everything. This is why I'm not really into purely religious debates. Personal insights, intuition and beliefs cannot be supported with objective evidence so it's really pointless to argue with the folks who treat humans merely as meat machines born to f*ck and procreate. Likewise, it's counterproductive to debate a creationist living in his own echo chamber. Sure, science provides arguments but they won't get through to the brick wall.

Not pointless, we are created. You are moulded and shaped. A small twist of fait and either one of us could have been one of those machines you speak about.

What you are saying feels hopeless, unless i'm misunderstanding? I don't like the idea of people being born into misery forever.

[BeyondKnowledge]

This is similar to the way I see God. The difference perhaps is that I perceive this force as conscious. It knows, it can feel and it permeats every living being. We anthropomorphize God, we imagine his attributes and create religions so that we can communicate with that creative force. I believe that the spark, breath of God, the soul is present not only in humans but also animals and plants.

No, religon was created to control other people. Organized religion made a god in the image of man to have some holy power over those beneith them. There is no God in organized religon. Only a god that they pretend to gain power from.

God is made up of everything in the universe, the interactions of nature. The energy fields within the motions of stars and galaxies. Within the plants growing form the dirt. Everything interacting, living or not. But god was made up by organized religon. They wrote books about this god and say it is God. But God is not really in those books or their organizations.

They started out to explain God but went too far and made up god to suit their needs. They began with training wheels but turned them into blinders from the truth.

You don't need organized religon because you are part of God and God is part of everything.

Believe as you will as long as it doesn't hurt others or yourself.

[BeyondKnowledge]

Of course, the sceptics have a rational explanation for everything. This is why I'm not really into purely religious debates. Personal insights, intuition and beliefs cannot be supported with objective evidence so it's really pointless to argue with the folks who treat humans merely as meat machines born to f*ck and procreate. Likewise, it's counterproductive to debate a creationist living in his own echo chamber. Sure, science provides arguments but they won't get through to the brick wall.

Belief in God explains why, science explains how. Some think the two are separate. They just don't see how related the two are.

All animals are meat machines but there is much more to them. All plants are plant machines but there is more to them. All are made of various rocks, fluids and gases but there is also more to them then our current understanding.

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

I'm not really convinced the universe is hostile or amoral. I think God is above what humans think is moral or not. I view morality not as something objective and universal but something that evolves with us, changing throughout the ages. The same applies to honor and integrity, which are purely subjective.

Long answer that drifts into pseudoscience probably.

There's a Christian cliche along the lines of "indifference = evil."

And that reminds me of the last line of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

"There is no dark side of the moon, as matter of fact, it's all dark."

And it's almost like the default is amoral as you would put it.

As far as the change morality undergoes, I'm not ready to rule something inherent out. I think there's underlying tendencies that influence what changes later.

The Dunbars Number angle.

Under 150 people, humans are still very close to their ancestors in terms of empathetic bonds and family group tendencies. Nomadic clans aren't that far removed. And can easily be reverted to. Ask any resident of a village of 100 people in the middle of nowhere.

But civilization is a biome of its own. A habitat that has all the same evolutionary rules of disordered nature, but exists more or less as secondary.

I think God becomes anthropomorphic when it has the prefixed "anthro" to control in numbers that exceed the natural capacity of our biology. And that's when morality (honor, integrity and definitions therein) drift into the artificial tangent. The hellish slave morality of German philosophers.

Cohesion, and keeping it, requires something EXTRA to go on top of it. God is Government and vice versa.

But what influences that claws back to the primitive clans of old. The territorial rules of boundaries and respect that were always geared towards balance.

And that's where I see the fingerprint of beyond, so to speak. The underlying need to survive through adverse (indifferent) conditions. But go about it in a way that seeks beneficial order and a type of equilibrium.

More coded by thermodynamic laws then we give credit to. Like programmed to grow in complexity and disorder, which looks increasingly like order.

Consciousness seems like the telescope more than the eye. Secondary. It took a path of mutation and natural selection to get to neurons and omitting brainwaves. Which produce electromagnetism and exist bound by a material universe.

And in my conceived multiverse God is reduced to infinity. It is simply the absolute, given infinite space, for our universe to exist with the laws it has exactly like it does. Even for there to be material-like laws imparted on "not-so-random" randomness. Like animal groups seeking a harmonious separation and equilibrium with resources, like indigenous cultures still practice.

Ordered civilization is the first achievement of transhumanism.

To me, God is the infinity of that multiverse. In a sense it really is everything above and beyond our singular finite universal reality. The laws we have exist because they too are dimensional parameters of existence collapsed from an Alpha/Omega.

Which is why I like M-theory so much. Because it says that in math I can't even pretend to understand or know what the symbols mean. But it requires infinity. And infinities of infinities in equations that supposedly explain how this universe collapsed from this multidimensional manifold.

Multiversalism seems more TOE than universalism.

[Anna]

Not pointless, we are created. You are moulded and shaped. A small twist of fait and either one of us could have been one of those machines you speak about.

What you are saying feels hopeless, unless i'm misunderstanding? I don't like the idea of people being born into misery forever.

Well... I'm really surprised, shocked even, that what I wrote feels hopeless. I thought it was quite serene. And yeah we were moulded out of clay. I remember. But tell me, was it done deliberately? Or was it one big WTF moment?

Anyway, this thread has reminded me of Lisa Simpson's science project:

[sahgwa]

I think God is All .
At it's base it is Source.
We all come from it and we are all part of it.
It's like the Tao.
We are all God.
Why hurt others when they are you? 
Why not feel pity when you see a part of it being disharmonious and hurting itself or the rest?
God is a vibration, since all is a vibration.
It's scientific and spiritual.
Source splits into pieces to experience other parts of existence. 
Deities as we know them are human constructions that represent the different personalities of God.
Because we are all God, in creating these gods, we make them real. 
Make sense? 
Just my experience/opinion.

[BeyondKnowledge]

How about this.



Strange, YouTube thinks God is age restricted.

[quintessentone]

Why is love a survival stategy/adaptation among most intelligent (fewest offspring) animals?
Is the universe indifferent or hostile?
Are there virtues to be had in chaos?

Love is not universal in humans nor animals. I just watched the other day a mother giraffe stomping her baby to death. Many humans lack empathy and that love essence. The universe is nature, nature does what nature does - we just need to understand its forces and properties better, and if at all possible ourselves and how we fit into it. Virtues are to be had in all things depending on one's perspective and one's make up.

There's an overused cliche in philosophy that says "The map is not the terrain."

That depends on which map you choose to look at. Literally speaking if I wanted to study the terrain of an area, I'd get a map showing the terrain, or do an up close experience by hiking it. Philosophy, to me, is perspectives, subjectivity, objectivity...does it apply or relate to your experiences or do you need to explore it further with a hike? Not all philosophical cliche's apply to everyone's experiences.

I have interpreted that as "No amount of ideological mapping can prepare you for your actual chaotic trip through the wilderness, but it can give you a general idea of the best way to survive."

I have found that through knowledge, learning about what the trip ahead may entail, I managed to tread slowly and softly and carry a big stick. Be prepared, be alert, be adaptable, be knowledgeable because within a densely populated societal framework there can be dangers just a great as what one would find in the wilderness; both could be considered wildernesses in different respects. Learn from others who have trodden a similar path before you but don't follow their path - it's not yours.

You seem to me to have mastered an understanding of your experiences and how they translate to your perceived realities and your emotional state. We all have our own experiences which shape our realities now throw into that beliefs of a divine entity, aliens, an afterlife, other planes of existence then do have hope or horror? I commend you for exploring the emotional aftermath from all the incoming chaos (as you call it) but you don't have to stay in that place.

But I guess that's too long to say.

I have a love/hate relationship with it. Hate it for being pretentious philosophy major stuff, but love it for being somewhat profound.

And therein is a problem I encounter in my religious debates. How can a non-interactive God still uphold the universal adage of "do good." Where is God's love if it never interacts.

I guess only if you anthropomorphize it's existence. A God that coded the universe to run a chaotic and adversity based program, also prompted the adaptations that arise to thrive in such a naturally hostile set of circumstances.

To use another cliche, "Without darkness, light means nothing."

And that's pretty much it. In a deterministic always known world, survival strategies, and charts of the territory are redundant.

It's secondary and adaptive benefits are second to none.

Our survival stategy is our empathy. Our ability to recognize another's plight and immediately relate it to ourselves in someway.

It not only categorizes threat but establishes bonds with each-other.

And it couldn't exist without a fucked up hostile universe to throw adversity at them.

What is the seemingly universal essence of love?

It may not be love per se, but perhaps for most of us, a desire of good will towards others, helpfulness, caring, trying to lift humanity out of our primitive impulses for the greater good. I see and feel this, but I don't attribute our actions or feelings to a divine universal entity, not to say I don't believe in a divine force, just not one that controls human behaviour, that's all on us.  What beliefs or philosophies or ideologies is utimately in control of you and your actions - it's all you and your free choices within the bounds of what you can control. Don't make life harder for yourself when you don't have to.

Our best damn defense against how it actually is.

Be happy within yourself, love yourself, be kind to yourself, look after yourself first.

[Maxmars]

Indulging myself and shifting a bit closer to the thread title question (for a moment - ignore if appropriate)

Was thinking...

How A Dead God Can Love

I commented earlier about how nothing dead can love.

Not to get stupidly fixated but I had to think that it meant "Dead (to us) God..."
Maybe the "death" is the exclusion of his love...

But isn't that only an "inference?" Just a way/perspective to frame a message I really want to believe in?...
I found one answer... Faith adds to the equation... we just can't figure out what it adds to measure.

Weird thoughts, huh?

[Karl12]

That's a really thought provoking post Anna - thought this Ringo vid was important but am all for a big signal (with us as the antennas).