God; puzzle solved.

Yeah, Cyr. It's all your fault.

So if you were really a good moderator for you own threads you would have told Jason to stop insulting the people interested in your thread. Namely me at this point...

But instead you just sat by and watched.

Rex

Sorry you had to go through that.

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So if you were really a good moderator for you own threads you would have told Jason to stop insulting the people interested in your thread. Namely me at this point...

But instead you just sat by and watched.

No, I didn't. I was stuck in a place with no internet access and a strong dose of the flu. Still, I feel more sorry for you :wink:


Anyways, I didn't even have to look beyone the names of the participants to get the idea of what's up here. I don't think JP means anything by it. It's just his style. Maybe he can't help it.



But as to the god puzzle. There seems to be vast similarities between the mystical elements of all religions. I am curious to see if an attempt to unify all of the mystical concepts will yield something useful.

Thing is, it's hard to talk about god, because no one knows exactly what he's talking about.

I agree Rex. But modern science has offered up enough horrors to let us know that it cannot be our vessel of truth. Besides, science only deals with the how, and it is the why that is interesting.

Any one religion is also clearly inadequate. So I'm thinking, what about ALL religions.
So I'm trying to devise one system of belief that doesn't contradict any other system of belief.

This starts simply with taking the entire universe and viewing it as a singularity, then calling this singularity alive and naming it God. So far there's no contradiction.

But then comes the hard part.... just wait and see..

Well, we can just look at what the bible ,for instance, says about God.

Omnipotence. Free will/determinism.. All these riddles that we crack our teeth on surface almost immediately. I'm bringing it up now because I don't want to wait for neo.

With a little pondering we quickly realize that in a concept such as the one we've established, the notion of free will/determinism no longer applies. We see that this set of dualistic counterparts only serve to explain aspects of this singularity's inner workings. But the singularity trancends the concepts.

Most people believe that omnipotence requires consiousness. It doesn't neccesarily. The God I'm proposing is omnipotent in the sense that all potency and initiative is to be found within it. Same with all knowledge and all places. There is nothing outside this God, by definition.

But what implications does such a singularity have to our everyday lives. Can this singularity be a God that humans can have a personal relationship to? I think so...

I think only the part where God seems to not know things... that is slippery territory.

Like a fish pond, God it above the surface of the water in intelligence.

I think the trick is to "think away" our human aspect of reality.

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I think only the part where God seems to not know things... that is slippery territory.

Like a fish pond, God it above the surface of the water in intelligence.

God is the fish pond, the surface, the water and intelligence. Even science relies on God. Science is the study of God. In order for a scientist to know anything about atoms, there needs to be atoms for him to study. Now where do atoms come from? God. They are microscopic parts of the singularity we're calling God.



One objection Neo had to all this was suffering. Why does God allow suffering? But it is a misconception to think in terms of an interventionist God. Whatever we have to work with is what is given us, by God, and we must accept that suffering and pleasure are both the same gift, only it is seen from different sides.

Humans have a tendency to be inconsistent in their line of reasoning. When something goes according to plan they are pleased to take the credit for the way things turned out. When things don't go so well, they are not as willing to assume responsibility. Then there's so many other things to blame. It is the same impulse that causes us to look up in incredulity whenever we encounter suffering.

For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

Rex wrote:

For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

The thing in common, the fellowship, is that they are dualistic counterparts of the same system. One needs the other to make sense. They are all within the singularity, God, and thus God trancends these notions.

God is the supreme wickedness and the supreme righteousness at the same time. It is the supreme light and the blackest darkness, also simultaneously.

The moon a tiny lifeless rock in the sky with the enormous power and life sustaining force of the sun?

Rex

Righteousness and wickedness are perspectives, no more.

Good and evil are perspectives. We know this.

Good and evil are not supreme values that stand ever firm. They are fickle things like rainbows; what you see depends on where you stand.

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The moon a tiny lifeless rock in the sky with the enormous power and life sustaining force of the sun?

The moon is equally valuable in sustaining life on this planet as the sun. In that respect you can equate the sun and the moon even though their attributes are vastly different.

There are no flaws with yin and yang. Yin and yang are abstract ideas to help us explain dualism, which help us explain the inner workings of the singularity in question. In other words, God's metabolism.