I think that the God attacked by atheists indeed does not exist. IMHO God is cosmic intelligence, which is nonphysical.
Roger Clough, [email protected] 9/8/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function." ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Jason Resch Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-07, 23:43:22 Subject: Re: The poverty of computers On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 12:12 PM, John Clark <[email protected]> wrote: On Fri, Sep 7 2012, Roger Clough <[email protected]> wrote: > machines, even computers, IMHO in practice have no intellectual or feeling > facilities, are no more than dumb rocks. Computers may or may not have feelings but that is of no concern to us, if they don't it's their problem not ours; however those "dumb rocks" can and do outsmart us on a regular basis and the list of things they are superior at gets longer every day. The very title of this thread just screams whistling past the graveyard. > So there is no more communication with God possible than there would be with > an abacus. Now that I agree with 100%, computers are no better at talking to God than a abacus is. John K Clark John, Bruno makes a valid point, that you attack only the weakest, most ill conceived, notion(s) of God. Perhaps you have never bothered to investigate deeply the true claims of various religions. If you haven't you might easily have missed some of the deeper meanings of God, which are quite different than what you might believe listening only to the most vocal (fundamentalist or literalist sects). Many, perhaps even a majority, of modern religions define God as the self-existent, self-sufficient, immutable, infinite absolute truth, and the foremost reason and/or cause for all of existence. I included some examples below: Judaism: God is an absolute one indivisible incomparable being who is the ultimate cause of all existence. The name YHWH literally means "The self-existent One" (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Judaism ) The first sentence of the book Genesis begins: "The primary cause caused to be." (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_nihilo#History_of_the_idea_of_creatio_ex_nihilo ) Christianity: The book of John begins: "In the beginning was the ? ?? , and the ? ?? was with God, and the ? ?? was God." ? ?? or logos, is the root word from which we get logic, as well as the -logy suffix as in biology, geology, etc. It has connotations of reason, principles, logic, with no perfect translation to English. In Latin bibles it was translated verba, and when translated to English became "word". Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish of the first-century, taught that the logos was both the agent of creation and the agent through which the human mind can apprehend and comprehend God. "To all of us who hold the Christian belief that God is truth, anything that is true is a fact about God, and mathematics is a branch of theology." -- Hilda Phoebe Hudson "Geometry existed before the creation; is co-eternal with the mind of God; is God himself" -- Johannes Kepler Islam: Among the names of God given in the Koran: "Al-Haqq", meaning: The Truth, The Real "Al-Wahid", meaning: The One, The Unique "As-Samad", meaning: The Eternal, The Absolute, The Self-Sufficient "Al-Baqiy", meaning: The Immutable, The Infinite, The Everlasting (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Islam#List_of_99_Names_of_God_as_found_in_the_Qur.27an ) Sikhism: The root mantra in Sikhism reads: "There is one creator, whose name is truth, creative being, without fear, without hate, timeless whose spirit is throughout the universe, beyond the cycle of death and rebirth, self-existent, by the grace of the guru, God is made known to humanity." (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikh_beliefs ) Hinduism: Brahman, the supreme God, is is seen as the infinite, self-existent, omnipresent and transcendent reality which is the divine ground for all that exists. In the Bhagavad Gita, “You are the Supreme Brahman, the ultimate abode, the purest, the Absolute Truth. You are the eternal, transcendental, original Person, the unborn, the greatest.” In the Sri Brahma-samhita, “I worship Govinda, the foremost Lord, whose radiance is the source of the singular Brahman mentioned in the Upanishads, being distinct from the infinity of glories of the material universe appears as the indivisible, infinite, limitless, truth. “I would say with those who say ‘God is Love’, God is Love. But deep down in me I used to say that though God may be Love, God is Truth above all. If it is possible for the human tongue to give the fullest description of God, I have come to the conclusion that God is Truth.” He continued, “Then there is another thing in Hindu philosophy, namely, God alone is and nothing else exists, and the same truth you see emphasized and exemplified in the kalma of Islam. And there you find it clearly stated that God alone is, and nothing else exists. In fact, the Sanskrit word for truth is a word which literally means that which exists, sat. For these and many other reasons, I have come to the conclusion that the definition – Truth is God – gives me the greatest satisfaction." -- Mohandas Gandhi Buddhism: There is the concept of the “All-Creating King”, who declares of itself: "everything is Me, the All-Creating Sovereign, mind of perfect purity ... I am the cause of all things. I am the stem of all things. I am the ground of all things. I am the root of all things ... There is no other Buddha besides Me, the All-Creating One." (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulayar%C4%81ja_Tantra ) The phenomenon of these universal ideas appearing among diverse peoples is commented in on the Perennial Philosophy, it begins: "PHILOSOPHIA PERENNIS the phrase was coined JL by Leibniz ; but the thing the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds ; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being the thing is immemorial and universal. Rudiments of the Perennial Philosophy may be found among the traditionary lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions." (from: http://www.archive.org/stream/perennialphilosp035505mbp/perennialphilosp035505mbp_djvu.txt ) It may be easy to dismiss some people's definitions of God, but I find it quite difficult to separate the notion of "self-existent, self-sufficient, immutable, infinite absolute truth, and the foremost reason and/or cause for all of existence" from the concept of infinite, uncreated, self-existent, truth as it exists in Mathematics. And according to many thinkers, including Plato, Plotinus, Bruno, Tegmark, that truth may also be the "foremost reason and/or cause for all of existence." Platonism (or mathematical realism) is the majority viewpoint of modern mathematicians. Computationalism (or functionalism) is the majority viewpoint of cognitive scientists and philosophers of mind. Thus the scientific consensus is that infinite (mathematical) truth is the self-existent cause and reason for our existence. Few people today have realized that this is inevitable conclusion of these two commonly held beliefs. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
