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gord44

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Amazing! May I ask what made you trade Christianity for Islam, and what made you trade both for Deism?

I struggled with Christianity over the last 15 years. I tried a few different paths and was convinced of a creator yet not wanting to continually stumble in and out of Christianity so I tried out Islam for 6 weeks or to get a feel for it. It was a peaceful and interesting 6 weeks but in the end I found the same issues in it I found I disliked about Christianity. For now a deist matches me most closely. I believe in God but am not interested in defining much about him beyond that. He is our creator and we should be excellent to each other is about all I know.
 
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VeroObscura

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I'm curious what people think of the idea of a symptomatic rather than causal god. Would it qualify?

I am talking about a consciousness the magnitude of which we cannot comprehend and which results from the complex interaction between all things in The Universe and of which we are tiny individual parts. It would likely not be aware of us any more than we are aware of the firing of a single synapse.

But NOT a creator.

I'm not asking whether you believe in that, especially, but whether you could count that as God, were such a thing true.
 
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gord44

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I'm curious what people think of the idea of a symptomatic rather than causal god. Would it qualify?

I am talking about a consciousness the magnitude of which we cannot comprehend and which results from the complex interaction between all things in The Universe and of which we are tiny individual parts. It would likely not be aware of us any more than we are aware of the firing of a single synapse.

But NOT a creator.

I'm not asking whether you believe in that, especially, but whether you could count that as God, were such a thing true.

interesting thought to ponder.
 
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AskTheFamily

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I'm curious what people think of the idea of a symptomatic rather than causal god. Would it qualify?

I am talking about a consciousness the magnitude of which we cannot comprehend and which results from the complex interaction between all things in The Universe and of which we are tiny individual parts. It would likely not be aware of us any more than we are aware of the firing of a single synapse.

But NOT a creator.

I'm not asking whether you believe in that, especially, but whether you could count that as God, were such a thing true.

Why would it be a god as opposed to just a giant consciousness?
 
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AskTheFamily

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That's the point of my question: what defines a god? There have been plenty of gods with very finite spheres of influence...

A being that is worthy of worship. Monotheistic religions believe only one being can be worthy of worship.

Personally I don't know what would make a being worthy of worship. But just being a giant mind certainly won't cut it for me.
 
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VeroObscura

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A being that is worthy of worship. Monotheistic religions believe only one being can be worthy of worship.

Personally I don't know what would make a being worthy of worship. But just being a giant mind certainly won't cut it for me.

Merely being so vastly superior to our intelligence that we can't even begin to imagine it, and everything about its intentions and actions that goes along with that? Really?

Show me a being that wants to be worshiped and I'll show you one that isn't worthy of it.
 
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AskTheFamily

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Merely being so vastly superior to our intelligence that we can't even begin to imagine it, and everything about its intentions and actions that goes along with that? Really?

Show me a being that wants to be worshiped and I'll show you one that isn't worthy of it.

So it's not just a super giant intelligence but a superior intelligence? How superior is this intelligence and what about it's morality? If it has no goodness but it just super intelligent, why would it be superior?
 
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VeroObscura

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So it's not just a super giant intelligence but a superior intelligence? How superior is this intelligence and what about it's morality? If it has no goodness but it just super intelligent, why would it be superior?

Well with your (and my) puny intelligence, we are in no position to judge compared with something so far superior to our ability to understand. Its understanding of what is or isn't good is not to be questioned by mere mortals.
 
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Chesterton

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I know in Islam the earth and heavens both are said to have consciousness. Everything was said to have it. But the heavens as big as they are aren't believed to be a god.

Material nature has literal consciousness in Islam?
 
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dcalling

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Well, the anthropomorphism and the rather simplistic analogies ("a painting needs a painter, so those natural water crystals must have been designed by an artist as well - all hail the Snow Queen and her crystal-manufacturing court!") should be a strong indicator in and of themselves.

I am not discounting the possibility that this universe was "created", or that there could be entities so intelligent and powerful that we are little more than amoebae by comparison. But "God" is conceived as a person by the very definition of the term, and as such strikes me as little more than Man projecting himself upon everything, as he is wont to do.

Just look at how myths all across the globe operate: people see an unusual rock formation, and they instantly declare that it's the remnant of an artificial structure made by giants, gods, elves, or what have you. People detect patterns in nature (annual floods, rainy season, etc.), and they instantly attribute it to a human-like intelligence orchestrating events, sacrificing chickens to the "river spirit" to please spare their village. People see one family succumbing to a particularly bad case of influenza, and another remaining uninfected, and they attribute it to supernatural moral judgment, with the deceased family *clearly* being guilty of some misdemeanour while the spared ones are equally *obviously* exalted for some extraordinary virtue.

God is something spiritual, something that give us intelligence. The computers' computing power will surpass humans in anther 15 years or so, but I bet they won't be able to do things we can do, they lack that something (maybe what we call soul).

As in material world there is no right, wrong or feelings, but we all seems to know right from wrong and have feelings (most of the time given the conditions, some are too grey to tell). That I believe is from God.
 
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AskTheFamily

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Material nature has literal consciousness in Islam?

Yes, the sun, the moon, atoms, all glorify and worship God and do have a consciousness according to Islam.

Rocks are alive and have perception according to Islam.
 
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Chesterton

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Yes, the sun, the moon, atoms, all glorify and worship God and do have a consciousness according to Islam.

Rocks are alive and have perception according to Islam.

I've never heard this before. Are you sure? Do you know, is this in the book or in some interpretations or something?
 
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Rationalt

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Rationalt

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My personal opinion, is that when you look at the complexities of living organisms, and their bio-systems, it is justifiable to infer a Designer. How the Designer did it (whether through evolution or special creation) is debatable. I don't believe it is reasonable to believe that non-intelligence can create complexities, as we see in living organisms. This type of design supersedes anything we see in a painting. Even on the atomic level; I don't believe quarks could have assembled themselves into to sub-atomic particles, creating atoms, with all the correct forces to hold them together.

I think this is different than experiencing patterns.

As for the anthropomorphism, humanity has assigned human like characteristics to God through the ages, but I personally believe that God has no gender, or humanlike features. God is something that we cannot comprehend, so we assign the only characteristics that we know. This doesn't infer God doesn't exists, it is just a result of our limited understanding.

:thumbsup:
 
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Jane_the_Bane

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My personal opinion, is that when you look at the complexities of living organisms, and their bio-systems, it is justifiable to infer a Designer. How the Designer did it (whether through evolution or special creation) is debatable. I don't believe it is reasonable to believe that non-intelligence can create complexities, as we see in living organisms. This type of design supersedes anything we see in a painting. Even on the atomic level; I don't believe quarks could have assembled themselves into to sub-atomic particles, creating atoms, with all the correct forces to hold them together.
What would a universe without a designer look like, then?
I'd argue that sentient beings deliberately re-arranging matter to their advantage is actually the odd-one-out, rather than the rule. Crystals form into mathematical patterns without any interference by a sapient designer - and that is how you ultimately differentiate between an artificial and a natural structure.

See, I'm not utterly averse to the notion that reality in and of itself is "sentient" on a level that's above and beyond anything we might fathom. My spiritual experiences so far would support that notion, in fact. But the term "designer" suggests an anthropomorphic projection, (at least to me,) even in the absence of physical characteristics or gender. However reality might have come to be, I cannot really see it as the result of some uberbeing consulting the transdimensional equivalent of a blueprint and go: "Hmmmm... I need to adjust the density of water in order to make biological life possible."
That's just putting the horse on the saddle. We are here because the conditions on this planet allow us to be here. The conditions aren't here so we might come about.
 
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Jane_the_Bane

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As in material world there is no right, wrong or feelings, but we all seems to know right from wrong and have feelings (most of the time given the conditions, some are too grey to tell). That I believe is from God.
Social instincts and even moralities are hardly unfathomable, numinous or supernatural qualities. Evolutionary biology accounts for complex social behaviour, and you can observe it in other species. Species that, if we follow Christian orthodoxy, lack a "soul" on account of not being human.

Here's what happen if you give unequal pay to capuchin monkeys for performing the same task:

What happen when you give one monkey cucumbers but grapes for another monkey - YouTube
 
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AskTheFamily

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Social instincts and even moralities are hardly unfathomable, numinous or supernatural qualities. Evolutionary biology accounts for complex social behaviour, and you can observe it in other species. Species that, if we follow Christian orthodoxy, lack a "soul" on account of not being human.

Here's what happen if you give unequal pay to capuchin monkeys for performing the same task:

What happen when you give one monkey cucumbers but grapes for another monkey - YouTube

I agree evolution can account for morality. But can it account for certain knowledge that morality is not an illusion?

If it's a construct like our identity is created by our brains, how do we know goodness is really good as opposed to just an illusion, a perception we have that has nothing to do with reality? Created by evolution yes, but an illusion...?
 
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