Concepts of God (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Tuesday, August 28, 2012, 15:36 (4251 days ago)

Under "Will, Consciousness, Identity":-TONY: I have seen nothing in the biological processes that explains the brains ability to do all of the things that it does. Nor have I seen anything at our current level of understanding that can come remotely close to explaining consciousness, emotion, or experience.-TONY: ...for those with any type of belief in a archetypical deity that does not fit precisely with the norm, getting deep into any details or reasoning for a particular belief generally only drives the subject off topic. (That's not a criticism of anyone here, it is just my general experience.)-DAVID: Religion has left us with fairly rigid concepts of a 'greater power', one that is too anthropomorphic. More quantum less manlike is my guess.-As the only non-theist in this particular triangle, let me throw a few thoughts into the arena. We all agree that human consciousness is inexplicable. We all agree that if God exists, he must be conscious. It seems perfectly reasonable to me, then, to assume that God's consciousness and human consciousness must have something in common. With regard to human consciousness, David has already told us that authors "all return to the same quantum suppositions or to holographic representations based on quantum theory". Now it's a "more quantum less manlike" God. If we forget the bearded father figure and concentrate solely on mind, it would seem that God AND man are quantum phenomena. This might also help Matt to understand why some of us dislike the word "supernatural". Whatever exists, including quantum phenomena, has to be part of Nature, and so if psychic phenomena are real, they simply belong to those many aspects of Nature we do not understand.
 
Of course nobody understands quantum theory anyway, but if this is the world of the mind ... human and divine ... it is not a matter of anthropomorphizing God. Instead we return to the biblical claim that God made man in his own image. Bingo! The consciousness of God is the same quantum phenomenon as the consciousness of man, and there is absolutely no reason to suppose that all the elements that constitute the human mind ... reason, emotion, memory, imagination etc. ... are not reflections of the elements generated by God's mind. After all, you can't have consciousness without being conscious of SOMETHING and without reacting to that SOMETHING. So may I suggest that religions might not be that far out in their "anthropomorphic" concepts. I wouldn't go along with the idealized versions myself, but it's always consoling to think that he's bound to have a goodly ration of love and humour to balance the less attractive qualities. If he (she/it) exists.