Is reason and intelligence inherent in nature and reality?

Quite erotic really... I think form get's misconstrued as a "standard" or "convention". I mean, obviously the concept of "form" could be obliterated by Nietzsche and the nihilistic type, but I think it's not "informality" to strive for so much as complete flexibility, magnitude, and genius of form. Schopenhauer makes this evident in The World As Will & Representation when he compares the evolution of thinking to the development of a building; that it needs sturdy foundation, something to support it and although Nietzsche or Joyce may think they refute it they don't because there is still a sense of foundation, consistency, and substance within them. so I would like to echo that it's not that form is bad but that what people do with form is often lazy and way to conventional as of course, somebody should always have the audacity to say, but always with all due respect with progress of humanity in mind.

If reason and intelligence were not inherent in the world, why are we disputing it amongst ourselves?

"being" is always temporary and thus illusion (maya)

To what extent may we use this question to enrich the world? If reason and intelligence were not inherent in the world, why are we disputing it amongst ourselves? That's enough proof. Or, if I say it exists, it exists that I say it exists and that others may build upon it. It's the same question, or of close relation to free will versus fate. Free will exists to create our fate. So let us add more relevance here, although i know we all want to be recognized for our technical merits, it is kind of like sticking your face in mud if you have no love for why you're using it.

So Being is in an important sense apodictic, that which cannot be meaningfully denied. I think 'existence' is the term that equates with maya, as the very word is derived from 'ex', meaning 'apart', and 'ist' from is or est, thereby connoting seperateness and temporality.

in which case your sentence would read 'existence is always temporary...'

... there is nothing, nothing in heaven, or in nature or in mind or anywhere else which does not equally contain both immediacy and mediation, so that these two determinations reveal themselves to be unseparated and inseparable and the opposition between them to be a nullity.

in which case your sentence would read 'existence is always temporary...'

God is not particularly concerned with human morals in the sense we typically mean or perceive

We are reason and intelligence.

Interesting post by prothero, but I can't agree with this part of it:
A powerful being who is "not particularly concerned with human morals" should not be called "God", or worshipped or revered or admired.

With respect to worship and admiration, any being who can bring forth order from the formless void and from chaos; and create a world of such infinite and extraordinary beauty (forms endless) gets my admiration and worship. Life itself and the universe is a gift of boundless value even if life seems short, bruttish and nasty when seen from a purely anthropomorphic perspective. I do not expect the divine to alter the processes of nature for my personal benefit. Perhaps I hope for too little, perhaps you hope for too much.

Where there is order we can reasonably infer that there is intelligence -

There are examples of order in nature other than the existence of man. There is the solar system, for example. The periodic table of elements is another example of order found in nature that is other than man.

How can we account for these examples of order? Where there is order we can reasonably infer that there is intelligence - but intelligence that is different from human intelligence.

It would be a difference of intelligence similar to the difference between human intelligence and the intelligence of plant life in that it is not biological. It would be an unbiological intelligence. I think this was Leibniz's position.

--

Most of Western history has been characterized by belief in design. Scientists accepted an ordered world as a given, a designed given. According to Whitehead, these were not "the explicit beliefs of a few individuals," but rather "the impress on the European mind arising from the unquestioned faith of centuries." It was thus an "instinctive tone of thought and not a mere creed of words." In this context of faith the scientific quest involved discovering the laws describing the world's patterned behavior, reducing an apparent chaos to order. These scientists, and the larger culture, had an implicit belief structure that behind the order lay the great ordering intelligence, or God.

So deep was this impress on the European mind that few scientists, even well into the nineteenth century, disagreed with Isaac Newton who had written that "This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."

Because of the cultural conviction of a created and designed universe, including earth and life upon it, it was very widely appreciated, from the early days of seventeenth century science onward until the time of Darwin, that science is not concerned with the question of origins. Why, they must have thought, would we want to scientifically pursue an answer we already possess? The world is created and designed; science seeks laws that describe the regular patterns we observe. A London Times newspaper article in the days of the Darwin controversy expressed the predominant cultural view, including that of most scientists, when it said, "we look to men of Science rather for observation than for imagination."

Yet, out of view, there was an undercurrent of variant opinion, as the scientific naturalists were marching to a different drummer. The culture and most scientists were so enamored with nature's many regularities and confirmations of their underlying beliefs, that they hardly noticed when the scientific naturalists inferred from these regularities absolute natural laws which even God (if He existed) must obey. For the naturalists nature had replaced God. The external signs of religious orthodoxy remained, but a mental dislocation had occurred in the intellectual world, which represented a radical shift from theism to naturalism. (emphasis added)

If you admire and worship a being who you believe has given you a lot of good things, it is hardly logical to suggest that someone else is being "anthropomorphic" and "hoping for too much"! Nor is it logical to equate human moral judgements with "expecting the divine to alter the processes of nature for one's personal benefit".

Perhaps I did not make my meaning clear. I was saying that part of the absolute minimum requirement I have for calling a being "God" is that I judge that being to be good. Obviously, a being who is "not particularly concerned with human morals" is not one whom I, as a human being, can judge to be good. Nor can I imagine how you propose to do better, because you are also a human being. Have you found some way of judging the moral character of superhuman beings which transcends your own "anthropomorphic perspective"? Or have I misunderstood your meaning as much as you appear to have misunderstood mine?

[...] I do think god takes in the experience of the world and both suffers and delights with his creatures. I do not think god can prevent Auschwitz or prevent the many sufferings that are inherent in the nature of the world. So god may be all good but not all powerful as I would envision it.

How do you deal with the regress?

jeeprs:

Yes, there has been a historical revolt against classical rationalism. Instead of looking to the natural ends to solve problems the moderns looked instead to the proximate cause.

But there are some good things associated with this revolt. To quote an old teacher of mine: "When man revered nature we were poor".

The rejection of natural teleology in modern political philosophy is especially noteworthy. In it, the nature of man is not posited as being directed toward a natural end, as in the virtues, it is posited rather as arising from the state of nature within which man's origin was found. The moderns looked to the superficial origins as their guide and not the purposeful ends. Modern man is free from nature's grip in a way that classical rationalism could not have imagined. Modern man controls nature precisely to the extent that he does not look into it for a purpose. .

Until the pendulum had swung so far towards what I call Darwinian rationalism, that anything that could not be explained by scientific means started to be regarded with suspicion. At that point, I think the pendulum has swung too far.