What about the differences between chimps and humans?

[Phred]

Jesus founded the United States.

That explains why Jesus is mentioned so often in the Constitution.

 

[Ophiolite]

Having once been limited to where your at, which I still go to on a daily bases as I work my garden, I've since become aware of a deeper more encompassing presence of the Divine not only in Nature, but through out the Cosmos. There really is a difference in presence in the wonders of nature than when experiencing the presence of the Divine directly IN Nature and IN Life as a whole. It's an interesting point that you bring up, so much so that you will find that the mystics through out time have quite often addressed this very subject.

When I talked about Nature I was not restricting myself to this planet, or this solar system, or this galaxy, or even this currently expressed universe. I don't think we have any ready way of determining which of us has the more encompassing sense of what you call the Divine. Indeed my point was that all my observations show no significant differences between individuals who have such experiences. Perhaps yours are deeper, perhaps mine are, perhaps they are much the same. You ascribe them to recognition of a deity. I ascribe them to conscious recognition of our identity as an integral part of reality. (Whatever that is.)

 

[AV1611VET]

That explains why Jesus is mentioned so often in the Constitution.

He's in our founding documents; most notably the Mayflower Compact:

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.

 

[dlamberth]

When I talked about Nature I was not restricting myself to this planet, or this solar system, or this galaxy, or even this currently expressed universe. I don't think we have any ready way of determining which of us has the more encompassing sense of what you call the Divine. Indeed my point was that all my observations show no significant differences between individuals who have such experiences. Perhaps yours are deeper, perhaps mine are, perhaps they are much the same. You ascribe them to recognition of a deity. I ascribe them to conscious recognition of our identity as an integral part of reality. (Whatever that is.)

I don't know about "recognition of a deity", that's not what being aware of the Divine in Nature is for me. I do understand your point though, I've been there and still am to a large degree. But when we move past that place of unity in consciousness...my question is what lies beyond it? Is there a place where spirit and matter meet? The indigenous cultures certainly believed so as they are very aware of an omnipresence of spirit in Nature. When we reach out and touch a tree, is the tree reaching out and touching us back?

 

[Phred]

He's in our founding documents; most notably the Mayflower Compact:

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.

1. Who cares?
2. Jesus isn't mention in that paragraph.
3. Again, Jesus isn't mentioned in the Constitution. Neither is God or Christianity.

 

[AV1611VET]

1. Who cares?

Apparently not you.

But I have a feeling that, even if God documented what He did (i.e., founding America), when He did it, where He did it, how He did it, why He did it, what order He did it in, how long it took Him to do it, why it took Him that long, and who the eyewitnesses were, academia would still deny it.

 

[dlamberth]

He's in our founding documents; most notably the Mayflower Compact:

IN THE NAME OF GOD, AMEN. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. Having undertaken for the Glory of God, and Advancement of the Christian Faith, and the Honour of our King and Country, a Voyage to plant the first Colony in the northern Parts of Virginia; Do by these Presents, solemnly and mutually, in the Presence of God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil Body Politick, for our better Ordering and Preservation, and Furtherance of the Ends aforesaid: And by Virtue hereof do enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal Laws, Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general Good of the Colony; unto which we promise all due Submission and Obedience. IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape-Cod the eleventh of November, in the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, Anno Domini; 1620.

The Puritans may have talked God, but did they truly bring Christ to America? Personally, I don't think so as the seed that birthed the genocide of Native Americans began with the Puritans. God talk and actually having God as one's reality are two completely different things.

 

[AV1611VET]

The Puritans may have talked God, but did they truly bring Christ to America?

It doesn't matter if they did or not.

1 Kings 9:3 And the LORD said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.

It's what God wanted, not us.

But to answer you question, yes, I think they truly brought Christ to America.

 

[Phred]

Apparently not you.

But I have a feeling that, even if God documented what He did (i.e., founding America), when He did it, where He did it, how He did it, why He did it, what order He did it in, how long it took Him to do it, why it took Him that long, and who the eyewitnesses were, academia would still deny it.

You have lots of feelings. And beliefs. You spew nonsense into the air and then wonder why I don't just agree with you. Somehow you've convinced yourself that your deity is American. It's... well, it's pathetic. You live in a dream world where nobody can ever prove you wrong because nobody can ever prove you right. That statement there, in your head, is proof to you why God won't ever document the things he did. But in your mind he can and would offer all those bits of proof if only we awful people wouldn't just deny it anyway.

Of course, the real truth is that none of that stuff ever happened at all.

 

[pitabread]

Somehow you've convinced yourself that your deity is American.

I've always thought it bizarre how nationalism and religion intermix in that way.

 

[Phred]

I've always thought it bizarre how nationalism and religion intermix in that way.

It is... odd. I hate to say it but it goes with the adoration of bullies.

 

[Ophiolite]

It is... odd. I hate to say it but it goes with the adoration of bullies.

That is ambiguous. Did you mean:

• It goes with people who feel driven to adore bullies.
• Bullies tend to adore that sort of thing.

 

[Phred]

That is ambiguous. Did you mean:

• It goes with people who feel driven to adore bullies.

That one.

 

[DamianWarS]

From over here this is the silliest thing I witness time after time. People telling other people what the think a God does or doesn't care/think/do. Show me with any tangible evidence what a god has ever done. Ever.

But you folks will keep arguing about it. Because no god has ever manifested itself to correct you.

it's based on a Christian biblical concept of God. Most manifestation accounts you will hear are anecdotal which I'm sure you already know. it doesn't make them wrong it just makes them personal which speaks to a God that is personal (I know that's anecdotal too). But it can't be surprising Christians based\ revelation about God by what's in the bible.

 

[Vap841]

Maybe you need to think carefully about what a 'decision' really is - is it how we evaluate what to do in a given situation and then use our imagination to visualise how that evaluation could have gone differently, or is it something mysterious?

Given your explanation of why you 'get pulled into Deism', I wonder why you need the idea of a God or gods at all... Doesn't it just raise more questions and make things more complicated without actually explaining anything? Where's the benefit?

For God I would use the word decision more narrowly, I wouldn’t think of it as deliberating and weighing pros & cons like people do (with hints of uncertainty no matter how slight), for God I just think of a decision as choosing A over B because A would have certain effects on conscious agents that B wouldn’t have, but the “Decision” has no second guessing it is made definitively without hesitation.

I remain torn on invoking God because I am torn between two possible realities. Reality #1 is that I see how all emergent properties are undeveloped and nothing more than dormant potentialities that haven’t been actualized yet (until they emerge). So if we rewind the cosmic clock before all emergent properties such as feelings, values, emotions, the capacity to care about things, the practice of desiring or choosing A decisions over B decisions BECAUSE we care about things, ect…a rewound clock would contain none of these properties because we would have rewound the tape to a time of nothing but dormant seeds of unactualized potentialities. So reality is just the “Grand Seed” that these potentialities spring out of, and seeds don’t exhibit qualities, they are just precursors to the properties that they give rise to.

But in my Reality vision #2 I see that any traits that are in existence come forth from something that preceded those things that had those traits beforehand, and the thing that preceded it already was those traits or understood those traits. Loosely speaking every potentiality that becomes actualized came forth from a parent that came first, and not in just a dormant seedless state but in a fully functional instance of those traits. Birds came forth from mature birds not just bird seeds, fish came forth from fish, people came forth from people, bacteria came forth from bacteria. In my reality vision #2 it seems strange to me that that trend would be violated only at the very beginning, and that when we rewind the cosmic tape to the beginning we would have the only instance in reality where that which gave rise to actualized potentialities did not itself recognize those potentialities first.

So the foundation of reality is either an automated assembly line that itself doesn’t relate to any of the traits that it produces, or the foundation of reality is the parent of all traits that get produced (omniscient). I’m torn between which one seems more plausible, I also doubt that the puzzle could ever have an empirical solution to the problem, only a rational guess.

Anything that has ever been, or could ever be, had its prepackaged potentiality already baked into the cake of reality from the beginning. If there are self aware agents with emotions then self awareness and emotions were always possible. If it’s metaphysically impossible for a real life Superman to exist then it has always been impossible for Superman to exist and it always will be impossible. Is that which contains all potentialities (reality itself) a stupid unactualized seed, or instead is that which contains all potentialities the parent of those potentialities that understood them first? Do we have a “Grand Seed” or do we have a “Grand Parent” of all potentialities. Idk, I’m torn.

 

[Vap841]

It looks to me like your missing the "experiential" aspect of knowing the omnipresence of God. I'm highlighting the word "experiential" here. That's because knowing the omnipresence of God directly is way more soul touching than Biblical definitions or any definitions for that matter can ever be. When exploring the presence of God, Definitions, Biblical or otherwise, will always fall short of the actually event of the souls awareness of God's presence. But I also want to add that as a universal presence that is not limited to or contained within any single set of religious beliefs we find the omnipresence of God being experienced world wide with in many spiritual trajectories.

So are you saying that omnipresence in Biblical speak is referring to the ability to connect with all peoples everywhere, and to interpret omnipresence as God having a literal presence everywhere is to misread the text?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

For God I would use the word decision more narrowly, I wouldn’t think of it as deliberating and weighing pros & cons like people do (with hints of uncertainty no matter how slight), for God I just think of a decision as choosing A over B because A would have certain effects on conscious agents that B wouldn’t have, but the “Decision” has no second guessing it is made definitively without hesitation.

If I was to disagree with that, what evidence or argument could you give to support your apparently detailed knowledge of God's decision-making?

Reality #1 is that I see how all emergent properties are undeveloped and nothing more than dormant potentialities that haven’t been actualized yet (until they emerge). So if we rewind the cosmic clock before all emergent properties such as feelings, values, emotions, the capacity to care about things, the practice of desiring or choosing A decisions over B decisions BECAUSE we care about things, ect…a rewound clock would contain none of these properties because we would have rewound the tape to a time of nothing but dormant seeds of unactualized potentialities. So reality is just the “Grand Seed” that these potentialities spring out of, and seeds don’t exhibit qualities, they are just precursors to the properties that they give rise to.

That seems reasonable enough. Hydrogen and oxygen together have the potential to make water which has the properties and characteristics of neither.

But in my Reality vision #2 I see that any traits that are in existence come forth from something that preceded those things that had those traits beforehand, and the thing that preceded it already was those traits or understood those traits. Loosely speaking every potentiality that becomes actualized came forth from a parent that came first, and not in just a dormant seedless state but in a fully functional instance of those traits. Birds came forth from mature birds not just bird seeds, fish came forth from fish, people came forth from people, bacteria came forth from bacteria. In my reality vision #2 it seems strange to me that that trend would be violated only at the very beginning, and that when we rewind the cosmic tape to the beginning we would have the only instance in reality where that which gave rise to actualized potentialities did not itself recognize those potentialities first.

That's clearly false in the general case (hydrogen & oxygen, above), and in the case of biological creatures is explained by the theory of evolution. When a population produces new generations of offspring, each is slightly different from its parents and the others. Some of these variations will be more successful and some less. The more successful variations will contribute more offspring to the next generation and those offspring will inherit those variations. So the population changes over time to reflect the accumulation of successful variations. If conditions change, the kind of variations that are successful will tend to change, so the population traits will move towards traits that are more successful in those conditions. Under severe conditions, a population can change significantly in less than a hundred generations, as only the most successful variations contribute to the next generation.

This process means you'll rarely, if ever, see much difference between generations, but if you compare the starter population with that after hundreds or thousands of generations, they may be significantly different. By analogy, if you have a new baby and follow it from birth to adulthood, you won't see any significant changes from one day to the next, but over hundreds or thousands of days the differences become very significant.

So the foundation of reality is either an automated assembly line that itself doesn’t relate to any of the traits that it produces, or the foundation of reality is the parent of all traits that get produced (omniscient). I’m torn between which one seems more plausible, I also doubt that the puzzle could ever have an empirical solution to the problem, only a rational guess.

For the first, you only need the kind of stuff we see around us, changing and rearranging over time. For the second, you need a whole new ontology, an unexplained and seemingly inexplicable entity with unexplained and seemingly inexplicable superpowers, which cannot be detected or verified...

Both arguments have ultimate unknowns - the origin of the relevant stuff or entity. The second is certainly a more entertaining narrative, providing something to anthropomorphise and invent scenarios, motivations, and activities for, but, when all's said and done, it's an act of imagination.