Concepts of God: how I think about God (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 06, 2016, 16:38 (3152 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw:So a whatever-it-is hides and keeps shtoom, and we ‘respond' to the hidden whatever-it-is's shtoomness. As BBella puts it so aptly: “...doesn't a relationship at least take two?”-For the uninitiated shtoom is Yiddish for silent. Can we learn more about God if we use Yiddish words?
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> DAVID (to BBella): The voyeur part of dhw's proposal just having entertainment watching us is out and out wrong. 
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> dhw: Just as you once dismissed the findings of eminent scientists concerning cellular intelligence as “absolutely wrong”, you now dismiss a hypothesis about God's unknowable nature as “out and out wrong”, which can only mean you profess to have inside knowledge of the truth. -I look at the available evidence from God's works to arrive at my conclusions, and I see purpose everywhere, because I look for it. Circular I admit, but productive. Let's look at an interesting scientific study on algae that produce hydrocarbons. Why would they do that? If they evolved that capacity during their evolution, what purpose did it serve them? Nothing as far as I can tell. They don't need to hydrocarbons for their sustained existence. It is a side effect. Is it fortuitous OR is it something God did to help provide oil deposits all over the world for our use for modern fuel?-http://phys.org/news/2016-04-enzyme-discovery-scientists-path-oil.html-"'The interesting thing about this alga is that it produces large amounts of liquid hydrocarbons, which can be used to make fuels such as gasoline, kerosene and diesel fuel," Devarenne said. "And these liquid hydrocarbons made by the alga are currently found in petroleum deposits, so we are already using them as a source to generate fuel." -Comment: Note my bold. We, not God, yes, we are using the fuel supplied by the algae, but why shouldn't we look at the algae as supplied by God. I have a different frame of reference that the researchers and BBella and you. This is the way I came to a belief in God.-> 
> BBELLA: On the other hand, putting myself into the place of ONE such eternal being with all power to create - instead of creating life, and becoming a watcher and a fiddler of it - I would become life itself. Become it in such a multitude of ways as to experience any and every possible way of being and experience it all fully. But the only way to do that, to truly experience ALL things exclusively as one thing, I would have to close the door to the true knowledge of who - I AM. 
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> dhw: This is a very complex concept: God (a being with the power to create) would presumably have created life in the first place, but then decided to experience it in all its aspects by giving up his own identity and becoming all living things.-In my view God's identity is not given up. BBella is right on. God is in each of us, but we are not allowed to recognize that by a direct stimulation. That recognition requires thought and reflection by studying God's works for us (teleology). Thus panentheism is a logical conclusion or me by looking for teleology everywhere.-
> dhw: But if he has no identity and IS all living things, he no longer exists as a separate being. He has become ALL THAT IS, in all its diversity. Is this right? It's certainly an intriguing idea, and would explain his absence and the higgledy-piggledy history of evolution, as well as putting paid to David's various evolutionary and teleological hypotheses.-Doesn't change my approach. You don't think in teleological terms at all. -
>dhw; In fact, if it weren't for the difficulty of believing that life came about by chance, we could dispense with the concept of God altogether, which perhaps is what you are getting at? On the other hand, putting myself in his place (if he exists), I'm not so sure that I would want to give up my identity!-Right on. No He wouldn't give up identity! "Concept of God" is for me a strange way of approaching God. Very analytic but is it a search for evidence? I don't think so.