Problems with this section; for Frank (Agnosticism)

by Frank Paris , Sunday, November 22, 2009, 00:27 (5479 days ago) @ dhw

"Can you please explain how these particles of a non-physical God become physical, or have I totally misunderstood the whole concept?"-First off, I'd rather speak of God as "trans-physical" rather than non-physical. Obviously the "little particles of God" manifest themselves differently in the universe than God himself does. But they're still made of the same "stuff". So they don't so much become physical, as they are what is physical in our universe. -"You believe God created the laws of Nature."-I don't look at it that way. When the fundamentals "do their thing," laws are expressed, what we as scientists call "the laws of Nature."-"I don't see why you need to stress your disbelief in miracles."-We're talking about real laws. Miracles would be breaches of those laws. Breaches don't occur, or at least there's no evidence for them. Seems pretty straightforward to me.-"It's all very well for the folk who make some sort of contact with God's consciousness and, like BBella, come out of their ordeals with new and exciting perspectives, but the vast majority don't and won't."-Not only that, but "enlightenment" is fragile, and depends on more or less stable living conditions, as far as obtaining the basic comforts of life. Remove those and you just don't have time or the necessary tranquility for contemplation and peace of mind. Enlightenment, especially in the West, requires a certain amount of affluence.-'Since you don't believe in an afterlife, even that "reflection" is fleeting.'-Not only that, but often I think of God himself as existing in "layers." There is a section of himself concentrating on our planet, and other sections concentrating on other planets. Then there's a section of God that "comes alive" in the evolution of our universe, and different sections that "come alive" in other universes. Some process theologians seem tied to the idea that God never forgets anything. Sometimes it seems more reasonable to me that "sections of God" arise, evolved, and eventually "die." Sections of God then get reborn to experience himself anew. That's part of Hindu mythology, actually, and probably based on the same mystic insights.-"This doesn't mean your vision is not true, but what may superficially look like a rather beautiful idea ... the universally loving God ... offers precious little comfort."-The "comfort" doesn't come in "feeling good" to think that God is a loving God. It's not an intellectual thing at all. The "comfort" comes in simply experiencing a large enough perspective in any particular situation to see what is going on and understanding what the best course of action is from incident to incident, and then doing the right thing.-"but we end up as nothing."-As does God himself in the "layered" version of God I described above. Also remember, the "we" is just an illusion of separation anyhow. If it's no great tragedy that God lives and dies in an eternal cycle of birth and death, it's no great tragedy that we as individuals die.-"It may be so, of course, but in the final analysis what advantage does this theology hold over deism or atheism, other than providing an intellectual framework to support your mystic experience?"-How about "being closer to the truth"?