Rex asks, who is She and why

In another thread

http://able2know.org/topic/205018-2#post-5215234

…..appear a number of interesting q's, my entirely unsatisfactory answers to which being somewhat OT, present I herewith, with many thanks to Rex its perpetrator

I'd not specify "physically." According to the general principle that nothing is entirely anything while everything is partly something else, there's considerable reality on the scale of abstraction between a rock, say, at (or near) one end and God at the Other

Indeed, absolute proof, undeniable

Some would disagree but let's assume that for the sake of argument

Sorry Rex but it's an illusion. Imagine for instance each damp cell in your brain is replaced one at a time by its dry semiconductor equivalent. At no moment could you tell the difference

I'd have to agree. Even with only one inhabitable planet per galaxy a very conservative estimate shows that there must be at least 100 quintillion of us, and that is pretty wondrous

According to the general principle that the simplest answer almost always proves the ultimate truth, there just simply isn't one. We're it

Alas, wishful thinking Rex. However if you consider your soul everything about you except your body, then yes you do indeed carry on. However of course at death the feeling and thinking part does diminish a bit

In any way you wish

You're asking on behalf of the humanoid of course, not for instance the porker whom we (Christians, etc) hang up by the legs and cut his throat so he bleeds to death before slaughtering and consuming him

Otherwise you're all welcome to argue, after all that's what a2k is for

Forgive me Rex but isn't that a sort of a silly q depending on how you define your terms. Ah well, that's why we do this isn't it

Okay Christianity is 13 percent better than Islam in the treatment of women but 4 percent lesser than the Bestiarian

You're inviting us to go 'round in circles. All right, as an apodictical existential pantheist I respond, yes Rex, I do find something mysterious about The Entire Megillah, and I'd agree it seems the humanoid plays an important part in it

Call Her God if you like. But as for the mechanism, I leave that up to other participants

As a former member of his clan I suppose the atheist might respond that There wasn't a creation, it entails too many contradictions, there was always a Universe. Recently in fact there's some evidence that all the constants are interdependent, that the World is the way it is because it can't be any other way. He would conclude, "Any more questions?"

Yes, mine

Largely to reassure the indecisive

So they accuse one another

Yes, mine

….depending on of course what you consider good. The Christian, Islamist, and the pig all have different ideas about that

If the last were in charge, intelligence would be considered a vice. We would be housed in muddy pens but he probably wouldn't torture us before slaughter

Some do or so we can suppose

Is what

Are you asking, Rex, if what we now consider evil should be called spiritual

Forgive, Rex, but some of us are unwilling to backtrack

One's "soul" is largely the product of cause and effect, surely passed on in every way septillions of times 'til the next Big Crunch

Your behavior is determined almost entirely by circumstance, including your soul

There's validity to freewill that affords this choice, but only about 1% effective

Of course, and with each its own. They all "mean well" but most suffer from a "subconscious" motive, that is to maintain control over their flock. Power corrupts and discourages independent thought

Again, this is what a2k is for isn't it. I'd maintain that some are "better" than others but from the humanoid perspective, not that of the pig, whale, or the unfortunate monkey bred for research

Why should She so prefer the creature of higher intelligence--since it's the only one intent on destroying itself

In most cases it simply isn't, it's serving its own need. Anyhow Rex you're assuming a sort of dualism--or if you like trialism--which the pantheist will deny on the basis of so much resulting contradiction and paradox

She is a natural phenom, just as is matter and energy. She doesn't have all that much choice; she can't do the impossible because the impossible can't be done. The only feasible way to permit evolution of a humanoid is on a rocky sphere full of cracks, with a molten core under pressure, orbiting gigantic hydrogen bomb of questionable stability and certainly limited duration

So we have volcanoes, evil, disease, strife, privation, catastrophe; its just the way things hafta be

In large part. However there's much truth to some religion, in symbolic or abstract terms. For instance some maintain that She is everywhere at all times, whereupon the pantheist replies, why of course that's pretty obvious isn't it

…the Universe being Her body and all the activity therein Her mind at work

But wouldn't it be great if somehow we were somehow granted the ability to skirt cause and effect in favor of sheer reason

Rex, really well put, better by far than my rantings