A God That Makes Sense?

What are the objections to religion(s)?

A form of apodictical existential pantheism maintains that the Universe is Her body and all the activity therein Her thinking

Okay Foot, ask away, I'm game

She is a natural phenom and so are we. Eventually an advanced thinking will show that the entire ensemble from Big Bang through Big Crunch is a form of evolution, in which a Universe without the Humanoid is unthinkable

In a sense, absolutely correct, esp in view of the obvious maximum that nothing is entirely anything while everything is partly something else

In my opinion it's very hard to even design a concept which is both realistic and still seems like a "God" in the popular sense of the word.

The closest you can come to a God that makes sense in the natural world is something like a Spinoza God which is like an "essence" of nature. But I'm not sure that concept of God really fits with the "personal" God of many of the larger religions.

The challenge with defining any type of "Personal God" which is also realistic within the natural world is that you end up anthropomorphizing an omnipotent/omniscient entity, and that alone is oxymoronic.

In my opinion, any time you try to construct the concept of a personal God, you automatically reduce the grandeur and freedom of the of the concept and the entity, and ultimately corrupt it.

This is why I think it's impossible to construct a "God" which both meets the popular view of what a God is, while at the same time being something rational and reasonable.

But then again, this shouldn't be surprising because God doesn't really exist outside of the mind of the believer.

As the OP stated, religions are not my interests but since you asked, religions contradict each other and often themselves.

I was looking for a "clean slate" concept of God that does not contradict the circumstances that we find ourselves in. I think that is an achievable thing and obviously should be if a God exists.

'Being easy' was not one of the requirements. Neither was compliance with a popular concept.

The God of Spinoza fails the 'give a ****' test. If it has no relevance to me personally, why would I give a ****? That is equivalent to no god at all.

Why would it be oxymoronic to propose that a God who went to the trouble of creating sentient beings that he desired as company, be similar to himself ? What the hell else would he do? If you were alone in existence and had the ability to create other conscious, thinking beings for that purpose, what would you do?

For the purposes of the discussion you are perfectly welcome to assume the God we are hypothesizing is all in the mind. The only requirement is that it 'make sense' in life as we know it. That would be Grandeur to me.

We're not going to have the He/She God debate , are we?

If God is just 'mother nature' , that fails the 'give a ****' test as well.

Your cosmology is out of date. All the evidence points to the universe ending in a cold empty abyss of maximum entropy. No 'Big Crunch'. No second go round.

So...why have the qualification of "meets the popular view of what a God is?"

Humans actually are wrong occasionally...and maybe the "popular view" is not valid.



You know this how???

My reply would be a variation on what you said:

Why not?


Anyway...why not a god that always existed...and that occasionally just creates things to see what happens? One that can "create" beings incapable of comprehending a true creator.

Sure...one can easily hypothesize a god...and one that does not contain the kinds of things that cause people to object to some of the (seemingly) hypothesized gods currently being "worshiped."

But my question would be...why do it other than to show that guessing "there are no gods" is as unproductive as guessing "there is a god?"

Why not just accept that the existence or non-existence of gods in REALITY is an unknown...and accept it as an unknown?

Nice move, Leadfoot.

Glad you ran with this particular ball.

Looks as though you're gonna be a good addition to the forum.

Welcome!

I am not much of a theologian nor a scientist my friend, but I favor the theory of a waiting god theory

-Creator creates man
-Man rejects his maker as ruler in favor of self rulership (the ability to discern for ones self right from wrong)
-Said creator god determines a period of time for simulation and conclusion of mans rule, while keeping in place a plan for the redemption and reclamation of rulership

Of course you must keep in mind I am skipping lots of details, I've been a keen student of the bible for a good few years and that is the best I could make of it.

and welcome to A2k Buddy

Skipping around is probably the best approach here :-)

I didn't intend to use the bible as the primary guide to formulating a God that makes sense but the book is bound to come up. I do think it would make sense that even a God who conceals himself would provide some clue as to what the deal with us is.

Why he would conceal himself is an important point though. Your statement about man rejecting his maker does not explain it well enough for me. Why would an almighty God run and hide from mere Man? I figure if he cared enough to make us there must be a good reason.

Best guess? - Must have something to do with Free Will. It would be hard for fresh beings like us to have completely free will if there were obvious signs that God was hanging over your head.

Thanks for the welcome Smileyrius, good to be here!

Judging by the history of religion, I think religions are supposed to be outlandish and absurd or we'd have a pro-science sorta one already.

Scientology's the default example. Though invented by a sci-fi writer who surely could have made a more logical one, he went the other way and made a totally outlandish and absurd one which worked nonetheless.

Sorry for the format, How the heck do you embed quotes here? I don't see the gadget for doing that.

Frank Apisa wrote, (in quotes)

"My reply would be a variation on what you said:
Why not?

Anyway...why not a god that always existed...and that occasionally just creates things to see what happens? One that can "create" beings incapable of comprehending a true creator."

Because that would be boring. Not the part about seeing what happens, that is interesting. Much more interesting if the beings COULD comprehend the creator. Every religion I've been exposed to tells me that I CAN'T comprehend God. I'm just not buying that story.

"Sure...one can easily hypothesize a god...and one that does not contain the kinds of things that cause people to object to some of the (seemingly) hypothesized gods currently being "worshiped."

But my question would be...why do it other than to show that guessing "there are no gods" is as unproductive as guessing "there is a god?"

Why not just accept that the existence or non-existence of gods in REALITY is an unknown...and accept it as an unknown? "

It would only be unproductive if we fail to 'find' the God that doesn't answer the existential questions that man has always asked. The mere fact that we can't seem to get away from the questions is justification enough for me. I notice that in forums like this, atheists far outnumber the theists. Even THEY can't seem to stay away from the questions. Sure, some are just in it for the entertainment value in watching 'Christians' trying to defend their delusions but that would get boring soon. There is more to the attraction than that.

Screw religions. Don't wish to settle for the 'least outlandish' one. A God that makes sense would not require that.

Scientology works?? You need to do some homework on that one :-) read a book or two by ex Scientologists.

Every religion has an ex-religion group that bashes. Are ex-Jew, Catholic, Baptist, Scientology, etc. groups out there. Judging the religion by its detractors isn't fair however.

As a religion made out of thin air and fairy dust yes Scientology works. Wouldn't have an army of undead (I mean lawyers) at their beck and call if they weren't successful.

As Joseph Goebbels (might been Hitler) said, "If you tell a big enough lie often enough, people will believe it." It's this truism which enables religions to thrive.

Maybe I didn't say it loud enough. I said - SCREW RELIGIONS. As the OP stated, I have no interest in defending/debating religions.

Are you capable of separating the subject of God from religion or not?

Money = Success? Come on, this is a theology discussion.

Yes, you did say that religions are not your interests, but previous to that you asked about a hypothetical God that answers all the objections to religion(s). Thanks for answering.

A deistic god would fit the bill, having created a basic process from which the world developed.

I can see how that would be confusing. What I meant by "objections to religion(s)" were the objections to a God that skeptics raise based on what religions say.

For example, some object by saying things like "The idea of God is ridiculous because there is no such thing as virgin birth". If you are going to accept the hypothesis of a God it's pretty silly to say that the creator of a universe (and us) would be unable to cause the development of a human egg cell. Especially when we have been able to do the harder thing of cloning a sheep from a lowly skin cell.