\"God is organized energy\" (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Friday, November 26, 2010, 12:27 (5110 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID (responding to BBella): GOD is energy, just as you suppose, and since everything is energy, God is everywhere. [...] God is organized energy.-dhw: The disagreements begin the moment anyone tries to impose attributes on that energy or force. Claims that it is conscious of itself and of us, that it deliberately and specifically set out to create humans, that it even loves humans ... that's where we all go in different directions.-DAVID: If we have consciousness and intelligence, it is not difficult to think that a universal intelligence would be similar to us. How many kinds of intelligence can there be: Cruel, thoughtless, devious? Then why bother to fool with creating us or observing us? I think one can think sensibly about what the intelligence might do? Love us, no way to know? All the other religious attributes: omniscience, knowing past and future, maybe; omnipotent, very likely, having made the universe; and so forth. Some guesses will be better than others, but we will never know for sure if any of our guesses are correct.-This is an important post because it highlights both the inadequacies and the deceptiveness of language. In the first statement you equate God with "energy". We all know that energy exists and is everywhere, and so the temptation (I'm sure this was not your intention) is to regard this as some kind of proof that God exists and is everywhere. My response was meant to indicate that energy means energy, and without attributes the word "God" then becomes meaningless. In your latest reply you have changed the term to "universal intelligence", which is intelligent by definition. But energy is not intelligent by definition, and so you cannot equate a UI/ God with energy. (I agree with you that IF there is a UI, we will have a great deal in common with it.)
 
I see this as exactly the same pitfall as the Neo-Darwinist claim that natural selection does not depend on chance and is a proven fact, and therefore anyone who challenges evolution is an idiot. NS, of course, is only part of the theory of evolution - just as energy is only part of God - but by making out that the two terms are synonymous, the Neo-Darwinist glosses over the problems (e.g. innovations) and the chance elements (e.g. mutations) of the rest of the theory.-None of this is meant as a criticism of your posts. I'm only trying to make sure we stay alert to misleading use of language.