God of Consciousness (evolve, experience, atheist, God)

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by Somkid

From a philosophical stand point if you make the supposition that God is a collective of consciousnesses and we are created by god you then must make the supposition that we are part of gods consciousnesses and as a collective we have the knowledge of god. Do you see how this theory does not work?

No. Explain it. (If it doesn't work, Buddha-mind doesn't either)

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by Somkid

From a philosophical stand point if you make the supposition that God is a collective of consciousnesses and we are created by god you then must make the supposition that we are part of gods consciousnesses and as a collective we have the knowledge of god. Do you see how this theory does not work?

The more I thought about this response the more I smiled. People throughout history have been describing this as experience and interpreting it according to their understanding and culture. It goes hand-in-hand with religious concepts and descriptions using words like: revelation, born again, enlightenment, Oneness, Buddha-mind, Atman, and Christ-consciousness to name a few. Perhaps you ought to read The Integrated Theory of Intelligence.

As a philosopher and a Buddhist, you'd do a lot better in refuting God's existence if you knew the difference between something that has being and Being itself.

[methylatedghosts]

Just a thought.

I don't know if this is what the thread is going towards but here's a little something to ponder.

Take the smallest thing you can imagine. Now cut it in half. Now cut that in half. And again. And again and again and again. You see where I'm going with this? You can keep going ang going and going forever through infinity. Now if there is this "downward" infinity - this infinity into smallness, what makes you think that there isn't this same infinity into bigness? i.e. Take the universe, now double it. Double it again. And again. etc etc. Now i'm just thinking, couldn't this be the same regarding God and consciousness? What if our universe is a speck amongst many infinite others? What if the consciousness of mine is a speck amongst many others and "consciousness" goes infinitely smaller and infinitely bigger?

Eh - thats what sorta came tumbling out of my head....

[Jaiket]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

....the difference between something that has being and Being itself.

Rolling Stone, is there any chance you could explain what you mean?

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by Jaiket

Rolling Stone, is there any chance you could explain what you mean?

If something exists, something exists that cannot not exist. Just about every person in RF who questions God's existence, including the self-professed philosopher/Buddhist and patronizing Somkid, refer to God as having being. But if God is truly infinite, that does not apply: it's anthropomorphizing God by bringing him down to our level of contingency. By virtue of being infinite, God is being itself, without a second. Period. This means that creatorship is not at attribute, but the aggregate of "his" acting and unchanging nature, which has always been and will always be: it means that God is that which cannot not exist. Yet, in a sense, God cannot be said to exist because he transcends existence: he is existence and the "laws of nature" are the habit of God's perfection. In short, something that has being, whether it's a rock or a flying pink unicorn, is contingent on something more fundamental: they are dependent on their source and inseparable from it, but are not necessarily determined by it.

It's sorta like the difference between values (God) and something having value (things).

[Willamena]

Do you think refering to God as existence or being doesn't also "bring him down to our level"?

[Francine]

Originally Posted by Rolling_Stone

If something exists, something exists that cannot not exist.

There is a peninsula in England called Land's End, where the land gets skinnier and skinnier and then comes to an abrupt halt at sea. If you are walking on the land, the land ceases to exist, and you come up with ideas about necessary and contingent things, and conclude that land is contingent. If you are swimming from the ocean the land pops into being, ex nihilo. But if you look at it from the air, Land's End is simply a brute fact of geography. It is only when you travel the land or swim the sea (allegory for tracing causes and effects) that you come up with silly ideas like elephant's trunks causing their tails, and that stuff.

[harleydavidson]

to darkness,re. your post of 12/26. "as we grow so does god",I will write in proper english when you write in proper logic! You apparently have no concept of the god you don't believe in. If god can grow ,he was not omnipotent before the growth,and if that is so he was not god. You need to define your terms before you argue [or post[.....harley davidson

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by Francine

There is a peninsula in England called Land's End, where the land gets skinnier and skinnier and then comes to an abrupt halt at sea. If you are walking on the land, the land ceases to exist, and you come up with ideas about necessary and contingent things, and conclude that land is contingent. If you are swimming from the ocean the land pops into being, ex nihilo. But if you look at it from the air, Land's End is simply a brute fact of geography. It is only when you travel the land or swim the sea (allegory for tracing causes and effects) that you come up with silly ideas like elephant's trunks causing their tails, and that stuff.

Are you saying that existence is brute fact? If so, I agree. The only question is the nature of that "brute fact." You cannot overlook the fact that it is natural for rational beings to look for rational answers: questions like, "Can something that has existence be more than existence itself?" are considered and the answers weighed against experience and conceptualized according to the abilities and understanding of the experiencer.