Why can't we all accept that "God" is simply the universe? (believe, exist)

[brightdoglover]

For the record, I've had transformative meaning-of-universe molecular-level-of-life when I was a teenager in my LSD years. I negated it for years, "Oh I was so high." I've come to realize that I really did take a shortcut and it worked for a while (been to the mountaintop) and then the time for that was over, done. I must admit that everything since then has had the aura of a footnote.
People say you can have the same experience in meditation. Or prayer. Or whirling dervishing. Anything that takes you off the same mental ruts.

For the record, I have always felt that the human reproductive system is absolute proof that there is no intelligent design.

[distraff]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

::Sigh:: Because "naturalistic" is NOT an explanation. It implies a source of the forces ("Nature") which is as arbitrary a label as God. Emerge is another useless euphemism for non-explanation explanations. It is merely an observation . . . NOT an explanation.

How is a set of forces arbitrary?

[Asheville Native]

Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer

It's called the universe. It is, in the deepest sense, unfathomable and incomprehensible to us humans.

Therefore, why can't we call the universe "God"?

Here we have something that mankind does not yet know fully (and may never) and the lazy thinkers want to merely explain it away with "god magic".

[BigCityDreamer]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry3911948

i have heard that proposal. but that would mean my God is impersonal is not especially concerned about me and accepts the concept that "....." happens. that is not the God i worship. if my life could be explained by luck, as some have suggested, i would have cleaned out the casinos long ago. only reason i am here and breathing is bek God is here.

Given that there are probably hundreds of sextillions of planets with unknown numbers of them each having hundreds of sextillions of life forms over the billions of years the universe has existed, I would be very disappointed if a God existed who was concerned about me for much more than nanosecond in my lifetime.

I would expect God to have far more important things to attend to.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by SeekerSA

Yes it is
No it is not
No it is not
As are your feeble attempts to try and redefine what 99.99% of us here know in the meaning of words.

If your "paradoxical new and improved god" cannot be explained outside of your personal mystical experiences then you are wasting your time trying to sciencify and/or change the way we communicate and use language.

If you are angling to join Nozz on ignore you are doing a good job of it, Seeker. But on the off chance that you actually intend to objectively think about the issues . . . I will respond. I am not redefining anything. I am simply asking you to objectively acknowledge the undeniable characteristics of what you accept as "given in the inner consciousness" without thought or question because of the labels used. Pretending that "Nature" or "Natural" explain anything is lazy and sloppy thinking. They just name things in a way that suits your preference for a "No God" reality despite the very God-like attributes they embody. There is nothing wrong with that. God suits my preferences for acknowledging reality objectively without regard to prejudice or bias against religious absurdities. If the Source of everything including your existence is not a God to you . .. that is ok as your PREFERENCE . . . but not as objective science and some pretended neutral position. There is nothing neutral or objective about it . . . and claiming ignorance as a defense for it is disingenuous. "We don't know" does NOT negate the objective status of "What we don't know" with regard to us..

[SeekerSA]

Originally Posted by SeekerSA

Yes it is
No it is not
No it is not
As are your feeble attempts to try and redefine what 99.99% of us here know in the meaning of words.

If your "paradoxical new and improved god" cannot be explained outside of your personal mystical experiences then you are wasting your time trying to sciencify and/or change the way we communicate and use language.

Your arguments boil down to nothing other than "I cannot explain it so... thus god."

I have said it many times, god exists only between your ears and that piece of meat called a brain. It is as real as you make it to be.

We have godless explanations of how stuff works w/o the need or a gap for yours or any other imaginary god(s).

Go for it, soon you will be talking only to yourself

But on the off chance that you actually intend to objectively think about the issues . . . I will respond. I am not redefining anything. I am simply asking you to objectively acknowledge the undeniable characteristics of what you accept as "given in the inner consciousness" without thought or question because of the labels used. Pretending that "Nature" or "Natural" explain anything is lazy and sloppy thinking.

No it is not. This has been explained numerous times. What we see in the natural world and have perfectly adequate explanations, you want to inject your personal and mythical god into the mix and try coerce folk into your way of thinking or alternate reality. If your god cannot be explained in common terms we all understand then it stands to reason, this god of yours is at best a figment of your imagination.

They just name things in a way that suits your preference for a "No God" reality despite the very God-like attributes they embody.

Only in your eyes. You are assigning "god like" characteristics when in the first instance you cannot even describe your "new and improved" god. You always have to attempt to redefine the evidence and try and make it match your idea of god. You anyway reject much of the mainstream stuff as baloney and we do read your posts. We also see you morph into a typical fundie next door over the 22ft wall.

There is nothing wrong with that. God suits my preferences for acknowledging reality objectively without regard to prejudice or bias against religious absurdities. If the Source of everything including your existence is not a God to you . .. that is ok as your PREFERENCE . . . but not as objective science and some pretended neutral position.

I have no personal preference. The evidence for any god is sorely lacking and you have yet to convince me that it exists outside the need for alternate levels of consciousness to connect with this god.

There is nothing neutral or objective about it . . . and claiming ignorance as a defense for it is disingenuous. "We don't know" does NOT negate the objective status of "What we don't know" with regard to us..

Claiming we don't know is far more honest than positing a god which as you know has so much baggage.

I do not deny any theist their experiences as not being real. I too had real experiences but they were all made up in my head b/c I wanted them to be real. These however are anecdotal and prove nothing other than personal emotional experiences. People then label this as god.

We have discovered a lot in the last 150 years and much of that has refuted the biblical claims.

In the end of all your wordiness, you are merely positing a theistic evolution and I have addressed that elsewhere as being redundant.

By all accounts DNA is a recent discovery that confirms a lot of earlier predictions and other hypothesis. Not once were any of these pointing to a god of any sort and now that science has irrefutable evidence in genome mapping, the theist want to claim this is how god engineered it all.

Not quite as the bible clearly states we are mud puppies and spare ribs. It was not even a best guess even back then, just a myth as they knew no better.

Like it has been already said, if you need to cite a place holder for "We don't know" then you can use 42 just as easy as god. At least 42 has no baggage.

Your approach IMO requires folk to be rocket scientists to understand the "new and improved" god of yours with all these references to dark matter, string theory et al. This is a huge deviation from "...as a little child"

This god has ignored my standing invitation of 8+ years to make a personal appearance while I am sober and in front of two sober witnesses. I amended it slightly to allow for digital recording of the event too as I have a HD camera now. When this happens I will post it to YouTube but I am not holding my breath.

[distraff]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

If you are angling to join Nozz on ignore you are doing a good job of it, Seeker. But on the off chance that you actually intend to objectively think about the issues . . . I will respond. I am not redefining anything. I am simply asking you to objectively acknowledge the undeniable characteristics of what you accept as "given in the inner consciousness" without thought or question because of the labels used. Pretending that "Nature" or "Natural" explain anything is lazy and sloppy thinking. They just name things in a way that suits your preference for a "No God" reality despite the very God-like attributes they embody. There is nothing wrong with that. God suits my preferences for acknowledging reality objectively without regard to prejudice or bias against religious absurdities. If the Source of everything including your existence is not a God to you . .. that is ok as your PREFERENCE . . . but not as objective science and some pretended neutral position. There is nothing neutral or objective about it . . . and claiming ignorance as a defense for it is disingenuous. "We don't know" does NOT negate the objective status of "What we don't know" with regard to us..

I don't really think anybody knows that the source of everything is. How do you know it is God?

"Nature" explains the creation of thunder in rain storms. There is an example for you.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

If you are angling to join Nozz on ignore you are doing a good job of it, Seeker. But on the off chance that you actually intend to objectively think about the issues . . . I will respond. I am not redefining anything. I am simply asking you to objectively acknowledge the undeniable characteristics of what you accept as "given in the inner consciousness" without thought or question because of the labels used. Pretending that "Nature" or "Natural" explain anything is lazy and sloppy thinking. They just name things in a way that suits your preference for a "No God" reality despite the very God-like attributes they embody. There is nothing wrong with that. God suits my preferences for acknowledging reality objectively without regard to prejudice or bias against religious absurdities. If the Source of everything including your existence is not a God to you . .. that is ok as your PREFERENCE . . . but not as objective science and some pretended neutral position. There is nothing neutral or objective about it . . . and claiming ignorance as a defense for it is disingenuous. "We don't know" does NOT negate the objective status of "What we don't know" with regard to us..

Originally Posted by distraff

I don't really think anybody knows that the source of everything is. How do you know it is God?

Did you read the bold above or not? Do you understand what the status is that I am alluding to?

"Nature" explains the creation of thunder in rain storms. There is an example for you.

No . . . science explains it . . ."Nature" is a label to use so that God will not need to be used. Science acquired this aversion during the religious persecution of the early scientists . . . and the present day attempts to infiltrate science curricula with religious crapola reinforces it. Understandable as that is . . . what is IS and what we call "Nature" and "natural" are some very Godlike attributes as the Source of everything.

[distraff]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

Did you read the bold above or not? Do you understand what the status is that I am alluding to?

Please answer my question. That is the one question you failed to answer in your post.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by distraff

Please answer my question. That is the one question you failed to answer in your post.

I know it is God because of its status in relation to us puny creatures. You know . . . the status you refuse to acknowledge or even consider relevant . . . eg. the Source of everything.