God is not intelligent, or, why I am a pantheist

[Hume]

Yeah, if this were like some "professional" debate society or something. If I were trying to defend a school thesis I wouldn't use Wiki.

But for just "shooting the shit" on here it's at least a place to start (plus there's no pay walls so everyone can read the same stuff. And Wiki does have references and at least a LITTLE moderation to tamp down some of the trash).

Generally, though I agree with you if the stakes are higher.

Like I said, I ignore posts with wiki.

 

[Margot]

God is not intelligent.

Or rather, God is not an intelligence. The distinction is significant. God is an abstraction, and a mystery.

What I mean is that, in my brand of pantheism, there is a spiritual basis to life, that there is spirituality permeating all things and this divine source is not an intelligence. It is just source, a spiritual source sans intelligence. So, to say it is intelligent or stupid presumes intelligence, and given that it is not, these descriptors are not applicable.

The simplest definition of Pantheism is that it is the belief that God is not a separate, personal being, but rather that God and the universe are the same. In this view, everything in the natural world is a part of God, and God is present in all things. I have taken this idea and put my own stamp on it, and for lack of a better term, pantheism is much closer to how I see the world, on a spiritual plane, than anything else. Always remember, to a pantheist, his 'God' is not a personal God, or a God in any sense of it's traditional and historical definition, mono or poly. It is more of a non falsifiable force that permeates all things, more or less.

Now, I cannot be so arrogant to presume these things as fact, so preface all that I write on the subject with 'in my opinion...it is my belief that.....'., noting that to assert this preface on everything I express about it would be cumbersome, so just assume it henceforth.

My God is not theistic nor deistic, it is more on the Einsteinian pantheistic model. It does not intervene or answer prayers, and without undermining prayer, because, in my view, true prayer is meditation and meditation is the fastest path to God. This God is our native state, it is our destiny, our natural heritage and all souls, like bubbles in in the ocean, are bubbling upward and will eventually reach the sky, it is inevitable. The only 'hell' is the misery we create for ourselves but it is not permanent. Through this 'hell' we are forged like one forges steel through a furnace. Trouble, difficulty, pain and misery and the like, are the means by which we grow. There are higher states where misery fades and earth's density hasn't reached it, though it has on other planets. Each of us will eventually evolve to higher densities and reincarnate on planets where there are highers densities, (no Martha, Humans are not the brightest bulb on the food chain) where life exists without pain and misery and each of us has this to look forward to. That is the extent of my 'faith'.

This divine source is welling up everywhere. For me, this is the only thing that makes sense and the nice thing about it it does not conflict with science and where it does agree with religion insofar as that it is taken on faith as it is not falsifiable.

This divine source is not a personal god, and there is no such thing as a personal god. This divine source permeates all things, is the source of all things, and resides at the center of the human soul, whereupon all living things are but tentacles on the octopus of god. But, where that metaphor breaks down is that an octopus is has intelligence, and God does not, as God is beyond intelligence and incomprehensible. This divine source does not exist in time and space, it is behind it, the source of it, beyond it, but reachable, nevertheless. Once achieved, once one returns to native state, life, as you have known it, becomes a moot point -- life becomes moot.

The only way to find God is to find oneself. It has been said, 'Know thyself, and the truth shall set you free'. Now, that quote can be attributed to someone or some thing, but I believe it is older than our planet and has been around for billions of years. No, it's just a hunch, sure, I could be wrong, probably am wrong.

Much of my philosophy is borrowed from ancient eastern philosophy and a few modern mystics, sages.

All of them teach reincarnation, and I take reincarnation on faith, as well, not to mention there is some evidence for it. It is also logical to me.

When we die, our essential selves, our souls, noting that "I' and the 'soul' are the same thing, we do not perish. Death is an illusion and we are eternal.

The basic premise of eastern philosophy is that you keep coming back, you grow spiritually a little bit with each life, and this continues for however long it takes for the individual, the soul, to reach the Godhead, AKA 'self-realization', 'samadhi', 'nirvana' or 'heaven' or whatever term endears one the most. It has been said by most of these mystics that one can accelerate the process via meditation, or the modern term now is 'mindfulness' techniques. I also believe that during the first century or first few centuries when Christianity was coagulating and forming into various factions and struggling to achieve something, the Gnostic Christians believed that Christ had a secret, esoteric teaching and that teaching was more in tune with eastern philosophical concepts, accepted reincarnation, and it was Orthodoxy which deviated from Christ, whereupon they cherry picked his teachings to conform to that which would empower the political power of the church.

This is my faith, this is what I believe. I just thought I would share these ideas with anyone who cares to read them, and/or dispute or be amused by them.

As a side, but related, note; In in the context of non-zero probability, assuming infinity, abstract or real, all that is possible, is inevitable. (See if you can falsify that one). Life is possible, this much we know, and infinity, in terms of non-zero probability, if it is possible, it will occur, eventually, though not assured at any point. Thus we have life. So, in a sense, it is infinity that is the mother of all that is possible. Now, some things are impossible. Anyway, compared to infinity, all that is finite is infinitesimal. That is why all arguments that go 'there are too many gazillions of factors to be aligned in space for anything to happen by chance (the argument for 'intelligent design'), are specious logic'.

Thanks for reading.

Exactly. IMO, while the Universe itself may be intelligent (on a scale well beyond our comprehension), the Universe is a bubble and a artificial creation. Whatever created the Universe is the real power.

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“The first duty of a man is to think for himself”- Jose Marti’.... Our response to what is objective

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The creation of the physical universe was an equal and opposite reaction to Satan entering YHWH's space during Satan's failed rebellion to over throw YHWH.

 

[Daylight63]

The creation of the physical universe was an equal and opposite reaction to Satan entering YHWH's space during Satan's failed rebellion to over throw YHWH.

Curious if you can point me to the verse in the Bible that supports that.

 

[Margot]

But there is nobody on this board who is brilliant enough to come up with deeply original, profound, and revolutionary religious or philosophical ideas . None of us are geniuses, prophets, or polymaths. All we are doing is talking around the margins and being derivative of existing ideas.

That's an assumption!

 

[Margot]

Curious if you can point me to the verse in the Bible that supports that.

Not everything is in the Bible,but all information is available through the Holy Spirit (my source) but somethings are on a need to know bases atleast for now. Melchizedek-Files.com

 

[Daylight63]

Not everything is in the Bible,but all information is available through the Holy Spirit

Yes I have heard that in many variants of Christianity "revelation" is considered a legitimate knowledge source.

Although I've always wondered how one differentiates that from the imagination.

(my source) but somethings are on a need to know bases atleast for now.

I have never found a God who hides information to be one worthy of worship. Especially if the punishment for us if we get it wrong can be quite severe depending on the sect.

 

[Margot]

Yes I have heard that in many variants of Christianity "revelation" is considered a legitimate knowledge source.

Although I've always wondered how one differentiates that from the imagination.



I have never found a God who hides information to be one worthy of worship. Especially if the punishment for us if we get it wrong can be quite severe depending on the sect.

First part good question, when I had my Epiphany ,the Holy Spirit spent over a year just starting to teach me about Passover! How could my "imagination" teach me about Passover ,when I had zero religious teachings.

Some things being "need to know" is the difference between religion and theology!

 

[Publius]

Thanks for posting, sorry I didn't see this till just now. Your beliefs align with the traditional beliefs of many indigenous people as well as those of many of us modern day pagans. I've taken three semesters (sadly, all that is offered) of Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe language) at NMU. The very language reflects the concept that life/spirit is in all things. Objects are not "it" as they are in English; they are "he" or "she." I've often wondered if other languages with gender (Spanish, German, French, etc.) are that way for similar reasons. a remnant in the language of our pre-Xtian days.

Thanks, I'm not familiar with indigenous thinking and teachings, but I'm more than open to learn about them.

 

[Publius]

I'm perfectly OK with people believing what feels good to them. I think everyone does that all the time. I am uncertain how it would be a concept that would be able to garner more believers based on the merits of the claim.

Yes, and please understand, I am most certainly NOT looking for 'devotees', or 'followers' or 'believers' etc. THAT wasn't my aim. It was merely to discuss a subject with which I find most fascinating, and, in that effort, find other similar souls, or even folks like yourself, with another take on what just might be, when scrutinized, viola, the same thing? Ya think?

But that's OK. All of this, in the end, really doesn't matter and we don't have to convince anyone else of our beliefs.

Précisément, 'scuse my french

That's an excellent metaphor as you subsequently note. May I explore it a bit?

Sure

My dog, B., has a great nose and can smell things I cannot. He is aware of things I am incapable of awareness of. BUT, here's the key differentiator, if I were to buy a gas chromatograph with a really sensitive detector on it, I could FIND those things B. is alerting on. I believe you suggest as much in the following sentence.

Yes, and I meant to point out that 'sensitivity' does not equal 'superior intellect'.

In the case of a sensitive person experiencing "god" (for lack of a better word for this intelligence, etc.) a non-believer could be swayed if there was some way for the non-believer to detect what the sensitive pantheist detects.

Well, noting that I'm not trying to convince anyone, *unless* they invited me to try. If that were the case, I would go down the 'look into the eyes' bit, I suggested further on in this post.

Such is often the case with any "religious" thought. It requires, in some sense, the active participation of belief before acceptance. Like it says in the "good book": "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". And I couldn't agree more.

There is 'faith' in the sense of 'pure belief' and there is faith that is predicated on more, such as 'sensitivity causes me to lean a certain way'. I'm in the latter category. I've had some fairly, for lack of a better word, what could be characterized as 'spiritual experience' such as 'out of body perception" etc. But for these experiences, I probably wouldn't be a pantheist/panentheist. And I chose those because they are the ones that do not conflict with science. My view is, if science says it's not true, then it's not true. From a scientific, and pure logic, angle, the concept of a personal god, and 'intelligent designer', a 'supreme being', well, the evidence points to the opposite conclusion, plus the fact that logically, there are huge holes in it. (Bertrand Russell explained, very convincingly, why he is not religious, or not a christian).

It is the essence of things hoped for by the believer.

And that's fine. It's how 100% of humans function on some level about at least SOME things in their lives. But it does not bespeak that such a thing one has faith in has any real existence.



My point exactly.



When I look into my dog's eyes what I'm actually "seeing" is a combination of my anthropomorphizing of the dog (I love my dog and I hope he loves me back so I will infer, almost like a paradoeilia, that the softeness in his eyes is "love" for me. Like those people who say their dog "smiles". Dogs don't smile. It has no meaning to them.

When owner comes home, dog looking very eagerly through the screen door, seeing owner approaching, wagging tail, barking, does that not express an emotion which would make it (if it were a) human smile? Just because he doesn't have the mechanism to physically smile, he does wag his tail, jump up and down, and bark, the doggy equivalent of smiling, eh? it's the emotion, not how it is expressed, that is evident. Does not this evoke a sense of 'this is a sentient being', and does not 'sentient being' evoke a spiritual essence?

NOW, dogs obviously DO have a way to connect with us on this nearly spiritual level because they have, over the course of millennia, evolved and been bred to be able to "read our body language" and respond in such a way as to maximize their benefit (food and shelter).

Nearly? are you sure that is the limit? Not quite spiritual, but 'almost'? For me, it's one or the other, there is no grey or 'almost'. But this 'evolution' which comports to 'learning' -- is there not a 'spiritual essence' kind of nudge to the physical realm such that evolution, genetically over time, or more transiently within a lifetime, suggest a spiritual something or other nudging the material world? to me, there is a certain logic to support the idea, though it is NOT falsifiable. Now, of course, i get Scientists, and their vehement disdain, and thus reluctance to accept any concept that cannot be falsified. it suggests 'woo', crystals, chanting, dizzy gals and guys with beads and potions and mood rings, etc., etc, etc. I get it, because, in their profession, it could spell doom if they did. But, Hal Puthoff, has succeeded in avoiding total professional doom by experimenting in paranormal science (if there is such a thing.) Eric Weinstein is dipping his toes, very reluctantly, kicking and screaming all the way, into the UFO/paranormal world. Just curious, Where are you on those subjects?

I'm not saying my dog doesn't love me, far from it. But rather that what we look into the eyes of a dog we are doing a lot of onboard processing of the signal and adding in a lot of stuff we simply make up that makes us feel good.

Maybe that's all it is, maybe not. Ya never know!

As for the child example, that's a bit more straightforward. My wife and I don't have kids and I don't much like being around kids anyway so it isn't a matter of my feeling paternal or anything) but we recognize they are human and our "theory of mind" helps us understand that they, like us, have a mind. They will give us back the almost perfect response to our stimuli because we are a common species.

I don't necessarily think it means anything more "spiritual" or deep.

If you were ignorant, a simpleton, IQ just above an Ape, sitting in a boat, looking at the water, would you know that it can be several miles deep, (assuming you were at that spot on the ocean) ? Now, there are various levels of oceanic strata (zones) of ocean streams, where fish and creatures swim and congregate at different depths, they exists way down, just above, in the middle, and towards the top. Why wouldn't what is true for them, be true for us, intellectually (even 'spiritually') ? I ALWAYS assume there are higher levels of awareness (intellectually and spiritually) beyond my own, and am always searching for anyone who inspires me in that way. (Christ, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Ramana Maharshi, and a few others, inspire me that way --- but with Christ, is it the Gospel Of Thomas that touches me deeper than anything that is attributed to him in the Bible)

Agreed. But unless the claim can be "falsified" it really doesn't have much power in terms of assessment of its reality or lack thereof.

Well, consider the possibility that that 'power' can be amplified as one's 'sensitivity' increases. I don't say 'believe it' just consider it is possible.

Again, I know that we all have some corner of our lives in which we invest that kind of "faith", so I'm not here saying pantheism is wrong or anything. Just that it is hard for me to find a way to separate it from simple imagination that makes the imaginer feel good (not that there's ANYTHING wrong with that).

I think you are more spiritually inclined than you let yourself on to be.

 

[Publius]

Using wiki to debate is a sign of failure.

I would never make such a blanket claim about wiki, which I view as an assumption. Allow me to explain, and this is no disrespect to you, sir. Much of wiki is annotated, and the annotations are the thing, not the wiki content, itself. I happen to know a lot about music. I looked up a certain concept on wiki about which I am an expert, and the wiki entry was wrong, though it was, at the time, the popular view on it, though I've known that the popular view on this particular thing was wrong for provable reasons. So I tried to sign up to be one of those editors, and correct the mistake, It held for a couple of days, and someone put it back to the way it was. So, I left it alone, I'm not going to make a ruckus about it. however, a couple of years later, it was updated to what I had tried to correct it to a couple of years earlier, But,. I had nothing to source what I know about a certain something in music, my 'proof' was in the form of old sheet music that wasn't online to source. Also, it was based on years of observation. So, from that experience, I learned that, although wiki can certainly be wrong, I would judge wiki on a case by case basis, looking for how well it is annotated, and the sources given therein.

 

[Hume]

I would never make such a blanket claim about wiki, which I view as an assumption. Allow me to explain, and this is no disrespect to you, sir. Much of wiki is annotated, and the annotations are the thing, not the wiki content, itself. I happen to know a lot about music. I looked up a certain concept on wiki about which I am an expert, and the wiki entry was wrong, though it was, at the time, the popular view on it, though I've known that the popular view on this particular thing was wrong for provable reasons. So I tried to sign up to be one of those editors, and correct the mistake, It held for a couple of days, and someone put it back to the way it was. So, I left it alone, I'm not going to make a ruckus about it. however, a couple of years later, it was updated to what I had tried to correct it to a couple of years earlier, But,. I had nothing to source what I know about a certain something in music, my 'proof' was in the form of old sheet music that wasn't online to source. Also, it was based on years of observation. So, from that experience, I learned that, although wiki can certainly be wrong, I would judge wiki on a case by case basis, looking for how well it is annotated, and the sources given therein.

So, look. If you know less then wiki...then I am not interested.

 

[Publius]

So, look. If you know less then wiki...then I am not interested.

What, then, knows more than you know? Please enlighten us.

 

[Hume]

What, then, knows more than you know? Please enlighten us.

Wiki is for people who know nothing on a topic.

 

[Publius]

Wiki is for people who know nothing on a topic.

You said:

If you know less then wiki...then I am not interested.
By that claim, you are suggesting that you are only interested in that which knows more than you.
Therefore, I am asking you: What, then, knows more than you know? Please enlighten us.

 

[Hume]

You said:

If you know less then wiki...then I am not interested.
By that claim, you are suggesting that you are only interested in that which knows more than you.
Therefore, I am asking you: What, then, knows more than you know? Please enlighten us.

You clearly did not understand the meaning of that sentence. Seems deliberate, you are a troll.

 

[Scott]

Wiki isn't great but you are very spot on. It's a great place to start if only because there are references you can read to find out if the wiki summary is right.

Besides, there's nothing wrong with people on here citing wiki. I mean it's not like any of us are experts on most of the stuff we talk about! LOL.

Agreed on Wikipedia . I don't always agree with their articles, but I have agreed with them a fair amount of the time. Even when I disagree with a Wikipedia article, I've still taken the time to go to their sources and point out flaws in said sources. I remember one time where I think the Wikipedia article misinterpreted the source and pointed that out.

I've heard there are people that are apparently paid to remove key information on Wikipedia in order to mislead people and I think it's quite possible. But this still doesn't change the fact that I think there is a fair amount of good information on Wikipedia as well.

I'd like to say something that I think is quite important- someone like Hume may not like Wikipedia, but you may notice that he doesn't actually provide sources for many of his own opinions at all and doesn't seem to be that interested in providing his sources either. I'd rather have an article with bad sources that I can then point out as bad sources then an article (or a poster) who doesn't provide sources at all.

 

[Scott]

Wiki is for people who know nothing on a topic.

Sure, but it can also be for people who know a bit of a topic and would like to learn more. One great advantage of Wikipedia articles is that they -always- have sources of their own and you can frequently access them on the internet free of charge. Many news articles and posters don't provide links to their sources.

 

[Scott]

You said:

If you know less then wiki...then I am not interested.
By that claim, you are suggesting that you are only interested in that which knows more than you.
Therefore, I am asking you: What, then, knows more than you know? Please enlighten us.

You clearly did not understand the meaning of that sentence. Seems deliberate, you are a troll.

He may well have not understood your meaning, but that doesn't make him a troll. I think the gist of what he was trying to say is that you've certainly criticized Wikipedia a fair amount, but you don't seem to provide much if any source material for your own beliefs.

 

[Publius]

You clearly did not understand the meaning of that sentence. Seems deliberate, you are a troll

Well, well, so you’ve declared yourself the supreme arbiter of knowledge, disinterested in anything 'less than Wikipedia' -- yet seemingly unable to offer a single source 'more' credible. You toss out the term 'troll' as if it’s some magic shield, deflecting any question that might challenge the fortress of your own knowledge. So let’s get this straight: you dismissed Wikipedia, dismissed reasoned rebuttals, and now you’re dismissing questions that expose the lack of substance in your own argument.

How convenient.

But let’s be clear: it’s not trolling to question the hollow bravado of your 'Wikipedia-is-always-wrong' routine. It’s called calling out empty rhetoric for exactly what it is: an attempt to sidestep discussion. So, here’s the simple question again -- since you’re so intent on proving you’re beyond the basics: what credible source, or indeed any source, do you have that is so magnificently 'above' Wikipedia? Or is dismissing others' sources all you actually bring to the table?

 

[Dutch Uncle]

About one percent of human beings at most have the creativity and intellect to make deeply original and profound contributions to human knowledge and achievement.

Everything else is derivative.

The best I can do is acquire a range of existing knowledge, integrate it, filter it, frame it against my life experiences, and decide which elements make the most sense to me.

That's what I do; learn, assess, implement.