It's only meaningless if one chooses to lack belief that the universe is "alive". Otherwise it's not at all "meaningless". In fact I would argue that it adds physical meaning" to the term "God".
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Any weakness of our modeling of the universe is just an issue of our ignorance.
It's a cop out because defining the universe as a God, can make you a theist, but it doesn't differentiate you from an atheist, it just makes the word meaningless.
It's only meaningless if one chooses to lack belief that the universe is "alive".
Otherwise it's not at all "meaningless". In fact I would argue that it adds physical meaning" to the term "God".
Saying the universe is "alive" IS meaningless unless you are specific with what you mean by that.
If you mean the term "God" is pretty vacuous I agree.
The first problem of religious thought concerning "God" would be to define it in a way that you could actually say you understood what you were talking about.
Yes!
The easiest way to visualize God is to visualize Jesus.
Is God easier to visualize accurately?
Merriam-Webster defines visualize as "to make visible."
I would very much appreciate it if you would describe what you see in a way that I could paint it, with colors and forms, even patterns if they are part of your visualisation - not personality characteristics or words that refer to emotions (love, joy, etc.). And provide the evidence that your visualisation is accurate.
Most of them are really looking to see if they can find actual "evidence' (whatever that means to them personally) of God...
Even among Christians themselves there is often controversy in terms of one's "personal interpretation' of the Bible...
I believe in universal salvation, not perpetual torment...
No, I'm not saying that. I don't know the explanation for the universe, if it has one.Are you saying it's obvious to you that elements and laws of physics burst into reality from nothing, chaos self-organized to order by chance, life came from non-life, after a while you came from amoebas, and here you are, typing wisdom away?
Atheists (and most agnostics) don't believe in a God or gods. Looking to see if they can find 'actual evidence', as Michael puts it, is very different from, "... looking to know God and accept salvation from his or her sins". That's a non-sequitur for a non-believer.Give me one name, one atheist/agnostic on this forum, with let's say more than 2000 posts in their profile, who is earnestly looking to know God and accept salvation from his or her sins.
Michael said: ↑
Most of them are really looking to see if they can find actual "evidence' (whatever that means to them personally) of God...
Give me one name, one atheist/agnostic on this forum, with let's say more than 2000 posts in their profile, who is earnestly looking to know God and accept salvation from his or her sins.Give me one name, one atheist/agnostic on this forum, with let's say more than 2000 posts in their profile, who is earnestly looking to know God
and accept salvation from his or her sins.
Give me the best name you know that fits the criteria (searching for God and has more than 2000 posts in their profile). I would be interested to go through some of the postings of such person, to see how they are working through their path towards God. I am speaking seriously. I think I haven't seen such person here, but I could certainly be wrong since I don't frequent these sub-forums much, and I would love to see such person here. Please, provide me one name that fits criteria, one best name you can (and a link to one of their posts).
There is absolutely no controversy among Christians over the issue that brings salvation: that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born into this world from a virgin, died for the sins of the world and resurrected on the third day. Atheists deny God exist (it's in their name, a + theist). And you compare the two?
Do you share the Gospel of salvation to the atheists/agnostics? Can you give me an example of your post where you specifically talk to them about Jesus Christ and salvation that Jesus Christ brings to sinners?
Putting the issue of universal salvation aside, I too don't believe hell is perpetual torment. But hell does exist, as a place where souls are destroyed.
Could share a link to more info on the "slam dunk proof" you spoke of? I would love to research these for myself.
It seems pretty self explanatory to me. The universe is essentially the most sophisticated form of life that we know of in term of interwoven circuitry and overall complexity
Only typically in the physical sense, certainly not in an emotional or 'life effecting" sense. Seeing the universe itself as God simply adds physical substance to the term. Most theists find that 'optional' actually.
There's both a physical aspect and a personality aspect to discuss here. Two individuals might both agree on the physical existence of the current President of the US, but they might vastly disagree about his character and/or his personality. There's even a subjective personal "interpretation' aspect that adds a great deal of complexity to the topic.
Ah but it isn't at all self explanatory.
The phrase "the devil is in the details" springs to mind, well so too would be your "God".
How are you defining life.. Or, what aspects of biological life do you suppose the universe to possess?
And more importantly, what leads you to the conclusion, and how can you tell that your conclusion is correct?
Hallucinations and delusions can "effect' your life pretty substantially too.
[Vacuous is a play on words there (sorry I can't always help myself), an allusion to the amount of space in the universe.
Your definitions of both god and life are again, not very meaningful in terms of any real demonstrated understanding though.
I think you're getting ahead of yourself here, you haven't even gotten step 1 pinned down and "personality" is something like step 20.
I'd say that Split Rock falls into that category.
Thank you for reference. I checked it out, but won't comment. Other Christians who don't frequent these sub-forums much, but are reading this, might also be interested to see what the suggested best example of "honestly seeking for God" atheist on Christian forum (with more than couple of thousand posts on their profile) looks like, so they too can check out Split Rock.
Well, for starters the universe posseses many of the same mass layouts and circuit topology features that we might expect from a living organism based on what we observe inside of living organisms.
I can only cite "observational evidence" that humans the world over and throughout recorded human history have reported, and continue to report having a relationship with something they call "God". I can "predict" that a living electric universe would tend to explain that observation.
It also tends to explain those mass and circuit topology layouts we observe in space which tend to mirror the circuitry that we find inside of living organisms on Earth. If we're going to approach this issue "scientifically", the best I can hope to do is cite observational "effects" which the theory itself might "predict".
Note that I have no need, nor any desire to ascribe anything to the larger universe that doesn't already show up here on Earth, whereas other cosmology theories suffer from the need for one or up to four supernatural components to work correctly. I don't even need one supernatural element to physically describe "God" as the physical universe.
True, but "hallucinations" don't typically effect the majority of the human population. All "theories" are subject to being rejected or replaced over time of course, but that never stopped anyone from proposing scientific theories and hypotheses.
Doesn't it seem odd that with all that space, the macrocosm and the microcosm tend to look alike? So above, so below?
What exactly do you mean by the term "understanding"? In comparison to any other cosmology theories, or just in general? I can (and do) understand the physics in terms of circuit theory as it applies to plasma in space, and to some degree how it applies to circuity in living organisms. I can't claim to have as complete of an understanding in terms of biology as other professional biologists, but I'm plenty qualified as it relates to circuit theory and plasma physics.
I agree. I'm just noting that it's one thing to have a conceptual physical description of God without having a "relationship" with the God, and visa versa. Lots of Christians have a relationship with something akin to a "personality" of God, but they don't typically have a physical definition of God to offer. I'm willing to start at step one, but it's not fair to expect *more* of me at step one than mainstream scientists with respect to physically describing the universe.
If you're going to compare any ambiguity issues at the macroscopic level, we'll have to compare that ambiguity to the ambiguity that exists in "alternative cosmology theories".
Hmm - despite addressing questions directly to me, HenryM has told me he will no longer read or respond to my posts... Makes me wonder what he's doing here.
Looks similar = has the same function?
I don't think that's a very good premise.
I suppose we might be operating from differn't definitions of "explain".
When I explain something I mean to yeild clarity and detail, not to propose a differn't mystery to remove another.
Well so far, you've got a "layout" that is somewhat similar between neurons and very large gas structures. And to that you add that people tend to think there is a "God".
When I ask you how you "know" things, I mean how do you differentiate between your ideas being true and your ideas being false.
You seem to still require any number of forces you don't understand for your "alive" universe, as such a thing doesn't just explain itself. How a gigantic megastructure would act like electro-chemical neurons seems to be more of a problem than an explanation.
I still don't see where you've clearly defined what aspects of "alive" you seem to think the universe has so you are without even a definition, much less an explanation or cosmology.
Given the weakness of the evidence for or even a coherent concept of God's, I can not simply rule out the idea that humanity is prone to some mass delusion.
A sensation of a being that is so differn't in scale and nature would be quite something in and of itself, but, how exactly would that work?
Odd? What you should be asking me is whether such a thing could only be true if your ideas are true.
My expertise would be more on the biological side. So, the issue I am having is that I am pretty sure we don't exactly understand how neuronal nets work in biology. You are presenting the idea that they can work on VERY a macro scale and I have no idea how you suppose to go from not terribly understood A all the way to whatever Z you are prescribing.
We can assess depth of understanding based upon how much you can tell us about the phenomena we are talking about and how all the steps between A and Z work.
Fair enough, just like mainstream scientists, from you I expect you to have some sort of methodology and epistemology that would allow you to either accept or reject your ideas based upon relevant objective criterion that are well defined and accessible to anyone.
When the other scientists fail at that they aren't being scientists either.
No, again, if we are just fairly ignorant about cosmology, that is the state of things.
Appeals to ignorance are not valid. They are not good reasons to believe A rather than B.
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