DAVID: Balance of nature is the only way evolution continued, providing life with the energy it needed to live and evolve under His direction. Sorry you don't see that. Not simple!

dhw: Life requires energy. The balance of nature changes according to how much energy is available to each species. You have agreed that all it means is life goes on. Nothing to do with your God designing millions of life forms and styles and wonders in order to produce humans.

You keep missing the point, or I'm not clear. In the tree of life there are thousands, if not millions of micro-econiches, with balance and energy supply. Millions of life forms are necessary.

DAVID: Why shouldn't He have a complete plan from the beginning?

dhw: A complete plan for what? The problem with your hypothesis is the nature of your plan: you insist that your God, who is always in tight control, geared everything right from the beginning to the production of humans, which leads you to have him designing nests and flight paths and parasites and frogs' tongues and fishy camouflage etc. in order to keep life going before he can dabble with the brains of humans - and his ability to dabble makes even you wonder why he couldn't have produced us more directly. It just doesn't make sense.

Guess what? I doesn't make sense to me either, but He did not directly create humans. He used an evolutionary process of living organisms, after using an evolutionary process to create the universe and a very special Earth. Go with the evidence that this was His plan from the beginning. Why not?

dhw: I am certainly not limited to the image you have created of a tough love God who is always in total control but could only find one way to create life, wants a relationship with us but hides from us and has nothing in common with us, does not contain one “smidgen” of evil and yet is creator of all that is, and watches us with interest but definitely did not create us in order to watch us with interest.
DAVID: Surprise. I see nothing wrong with your analysis of my position.

Dhw: Then I am surprised you cannot see that it is riddled with contradictions.

As above, follow the evidence.

DAVID: Because the Earth He created is a dangerous place. It seems to be true that He could not do it any other way.
dhw: It seems to you to be true, because you have now decided that although your God created the whole universe and is always in tight control, his powers are limited.
DAVID: Limitations may be possible. There are the dangers to us.

dhw: The dangers are all too apparent. You are suggesting that your God, who created everything from scratch and does not have a smidgen of evil in him, created disease and every type of natural disaster because he had no choice. And now he watches with interest to see if we humans can solve the problems he couldn’t solve.

I'm only trying to follow the evidence.

Life requires energy. The balance of nature changes according to how much energy is available to each species. You have agreed that all it means is life goes on. Nothing to do with your God designing millions of life forms and styles and wonders in order to produce humans.

dhw: And that hypothesis is modelled (muddled) by your personal image of your God, who knew exactly what he was doing right from the start and always remains in tight control.
DAVID: Why shouldn't He have a complete plan from the beginning?

A complete plan for what? The problem with your hypothesis is the nature of your plan: you insist that your God, who is always in tight control, geared everything right from the beginning to the production of humans, which leads you to have him designing nests and flight paths and parasites and frogs' tongues and fishy camouflage etc. in order to keep life going before he can dabble with the brains of humans - and his ability to dabble makes even you wonder why he couldn't have produced us more directly. It just doesn't make sense.

dhw: I am certainly not limited to the image you have created of a tough love God who is always in total control but could only find one way to create life, wants a relationship with us but hides from us and has nothing in common with us, does not contain one “smidgen” of evil and yet is creator of all that is, and watches us with interest but definitely did not create us in order to watch us with interest.
DAVID: Surprise. I see nothing wrong with your analysis of my position.

Then I am surprised you cannot see that it is riddled with contradictions.

DAVID: Because the Earth He created is a dangerous place. It seems to be true that He could not do it any other way.
dhw: It seems to you to be true, because you have now decided that although your God created the whole universe and is always in tight control, his powers are limited.
DAVID: Limitations may be possible. There are the dangers to us.

The dangers are all too apparent. You are suggesting that your God, who created everything from scratch and does not have a smidgen of evil in him, created disease and every type of natural disaster because he had no choice. And now he watches with interest to see if we humans can solve the problems he couldn’t solve.

dhw:If God is in full control, as you always maintain, then everything that is/was here is/was his purpose. The fact that humans have a uniquely enhanced consciousness certainly makes them special (perhaps they were the result of a divine dabble), but what models – and in my view muddles – all your thinking is your view that your God geared every single species, lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct throughout the history of evolution to their production (via the nebulous balance of nature, which simply means life goes on).

Balance of nature is the only way evolution continued, providing life with the energy it needed to live and evolve under His direction. Sorry you don't see that. Not simple! And I've admitted God's control might be limited, considering the dangerous universe and the problems as the Earth changes physically (earthquakes, etc.)

dhw: And that hypothesis is modelled (muddled) by your personal image of your God, who knew exactly what he was doing right from the start and always remains in tight control.

Why shouldn't He have a complete plan from the beginning?

DAVID: What I meant by 'not limited' is that you allow your romantic mind to wonder all over the place in regard to your theistic-sort-of views.

dhw: I am certainly not limited to the image you have created of a tough love God who is always in total control but could only find one way to create life, wants a relationship with us but hides from us and has nothing in common with us, does not contain one “smidgen” of evil and yet is creator of all that is, and watches us with interest but definitely did not create us in order to watch us with interest.

Surprise. I see nothing wrong with your analysis of my position.

DAVID: Because the Earth He created is a dangerous place. It seems to be true that He could not do it any other way.

dhw: It seems to you to be true, because you have now decided that although your God created the whole universe and is always in tight control, his powers are limited.

Limitations may be possible. There are the dangers to us.

dhw: And being forced to do it one way hardly endows him with the full control you always ascribe to him, but then you seem to pick and choose his attributes as the wind blows.
DAVID: As the evidence takes me!

dhw: The evidence takes you in different directions all at the same time, as listed above.

I can only follow what we observe, and make judgments.

If God is in full control, as you always maintain, then everything that is/was here is/was his purpose. The fact that humans have a uniquely enhanced consciousness certainly makes them special (perhaps they were the result of a divine dabble), but what models – and in my view muddles – all your thinking is your view that your God geared every single species, lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct throughout the history of evolution to their production (via the nebulous balance of nature, which simply means life goes on). And that hypothesis is modelled (muddled) by your personal image of your God, who knew exactly what he was doing right from the start and always remains in tight control. See below for more of the features you impose on your God.

DAVID: Your vision of God is not limited. I try to limit mine for the simple reason that we cannot fully understand His person.
dhw: You wrote: “Your humanizing approach limits your vision of what actual capacities a creator God might have.” Now you tell me my vision is not limited! So how does my humanizing approach limit my vision of his capacities without limiting my vision of his capacities?
DAVID: What I meant by 'not limited' is that you allow your romantic mind to wonder all over the place in regard to your theistic-sort-of views.

Ah well, I am limited in my vision and I am not limited in my vision. I am certainly not limited to the image you have created of a tough love God who is always in total control but could only find one way to create life, wants a relationship with us but hides from us and has nothing in common with us, does not contain one “smidgen” of evil and yet is creator of all that is, and watches us with interest but definitely did not create us in order to watch us with interest.

dhw: You have suggested that God HAD to make the world the way he did, which emphatically limits his powers. Since we “cannot fully understand His person “ (though he’s not a person, and according to you we can’t understand him at all), I don’t know why you want to impose any limits on him.
DAVID: Because the Earth He created is a dangerous place. It seems to be true that He could not do it any other way.

It seems to you to be true, because you have now decided that although your God created the whole universe and is always in tight control, his powers are limited.

dhw: And being forced to do it one way hardly endows him with the full control you always ascribe to him, but then you seem to pick and choose his attributes as the wind blows.
DAVID: As the evidence takes me!

The evidence takes you in different directions all at the same time, as listed above.

dhw: I’ve read this through twice, and have sat here for quite a time wondering how to respond adequately to such a moving and revealing post. I remember feeling the same when you first gave us an account of your illness. The fact is, all our intellectual wrestling with facts and theories simply fades into insignificance when confronted with the overpowering reality of such an experience. You don’t understand it yourself, but the message I get is that there is no need to understand it. It is what it is, and it goes far too deep to be questioned. I love the link with poetry and art. These and music seem to me to take us into realities beyond those we know, and it makes sense to me that they can be used therapeutically precisely because they reach deeper into us than self-conscious reasoning. Maybe our self-consciousness, while being a huge asset in terms of survival and technological progress, is sometimes our greatest enemy. The fellow creatures to which you felt connected simply get on with life instead of thinking about it!

It’s noticeable that like Buddhism your experience does not now incorporate a god. It will be interesting to see how David responds to it.

Meanwhile, I can only thank you once more for sharing this with us and again adding a new dimension to our discussions.

I deeply appreciate both parts of BBella's exposition of her reactions. It still sounds to me as if she had an at-one experience with All That Is just as is described in many NDE's reports. They get a true sense of what the meaning of everything seems to be, love and light as in Kabballah.

dhw:In relation to complexity, I accept your evidence as offering the best possible case for the existence of a designer. With regard to your explanation of evolution’s history and your readings of God's mind (if he exists), I can see no evidence for your speculations. One correction: you have reached very firm conclusions. I have not reached any. For me, a conclusion either way demands too much fiction in place of evidence, and so I see myself as much more evidence based than you.

The fact that humans are here against all probability, which I accept as FACT, is evidence enough to declare we are God's purpose. That models all of my thinking.

DAVID: Your vision of God is not limited. I try to limit mine for the simple reason that we cannot fully understand His person.

dhw: You wrote: “Your humanizing approach limits your vision of what actual capacities a creator God might have.” Now you tell me my vision is not limited! So how does my humanizing approach limit my vision of his capacities without limiting my vision of his capacities?

What I meant by 'not limited' is that you allow your romantic mind to wonder all over the place in regard to your theistic-sort-of views.

dhw: Let’s sort this out, shall we? You have suggested that God HAD to make the world the way he did, which emphatically limits his powers. Since we “cannot fully understand His person “ (though he’s not a person, and according to you we can’t understand him at all), I don’t know why you want to impose any limits on him.

Because the Earth He created is a dangerous place. It seems to be true that He could not do it any other way.

dhw: And being forced to do it one way hardly endows him with the full control you always ascribe to him, but then you seem to pick and choose his attributes as the wind blows.

As the evidence takes me!

It’s noticeable that like Buddhism your experience does not now incorporate a god. It will be interesting to see how David responds to it.

Meanwhile, I can only thank you once more for sharing this with us and again adding a new dimension to our discussions.

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
(Robert Burns)

In relation to complexity, I accept your evidence as offering the best possible case for the existence of a designer. With regard to your explanation of evolution’s history and your readings of God's mind (if he exists), I can see no evidence for your speculations. One correction: you have reached very firm conclusions. I have not reached any. For me, a conclusion either way demands too much fiction in place of evidence, and so I see myself as much more evidence based than you. I can almost hear Burns laughing at both of us!

DAVID: You are again making religious assumptions about the description of God's powers. I've said he probably had to make Earth this way. His powers may be limited.
dhw: I make no assumptions. I simply object when you tell me that my approach limits my vision of what capacities God might have when your own approach suggests explicitly that his powers might be limited.
DAVID: Your vision of God is not limited. I try to limit mine for the simple reason that we cannot fully understand His person.

You wrote: “Your humanizing approach limits your vision of what actual capacities a creator God might have.” Now you tell me my vision is not limited! So how does my humanizing approach limit my vision of his capacities without limiting my vision of his capacities? Let’s sort this out, shall we? You have suggested that God HAD to make the world the way he did, which emphatically limits his powers. Since we “cannot fully understand His person “ (though he’s not a person, and according to you we can’t understand him at all), I don’t know why you want to impose any limits on him. And being forced to do it one way hardly endows him with the full control you always ascribe to him, but then you seem to pick and choose his attributes as the wind blows.

DAVID: He may have. My point is we cannot know that, so why presume it. I don't think discussing it adds anything to our knowledge. I think God can have goals or purposes without self-gratification.

dhw: It is not a presumption, and you may well say that discussing the unknowable adds nothing to our knowledge since it is impossible to “know” whether God exists, and if he does exist, what are his purposes and his nature. The same applies to the origin of life and to what happened before the Big Bang (if it happened). All we have are theories based on our inadequate “knowledge” of all that is. But you have your beliefs, and have written two brilliant books to explain them, so I’m afraid your dismissal of any theories that contradict your own because they do not “add anything to our knowledge” rings a little hollow. You are just as much an explorer of the unknowable as I am.

You are correct in that we both are explorers, each in our own way and yet so very different. That is what makes us reach so very different conclusions. I feel I am much more 'evidence' oriented than you are, especially in the recognition of the importance of complexity. We may not know God exists, but He is required by the complex designs we see

DAVID: You are again making religious assumptions about the description of God's powers. I've said he probably had to make Earth this way. His powers may be limited.

dhw: I make no assumptions. I simply object when you tell me that my approach limits my vision of what capacities God might have when your own approach suggests explicitly that his powers might be limited.

Your vision of God is not limited. I try to limit mine for the simple reason that we cannot fully understand His person.

It is not a presumption, and you may well say that discussing the unknowable adds nothing to our knowledge since it is impossible to “know” whether God exists, and if he does exist, what are his purposes and his nature. The same applies to the origin of life and to what happened before the Big Bang (if it happened). All we have are theories based on our inadequate “knowledge” of all that is. But you have your beliefs, and have written two brilliant books to explain them, so I’m afraid your dismissal of any theories that contradict your own because they do not “add anything to our knowledge” rings a little hollow. You are just as much an explorer of the unknowable as I am.

DAVID: Your 'weapons of mass destruction' are Earth's requirements for life. It suggests God could not make the Earth in any other way. Perhaps He has limits. Your humanizing approach limits you vision of what actual capacities a creator God might have. We can only work with what we actually know of our reality.
dhw: Please reread what you have written. First you say that perhaps he has limits (he had to use weapons of mass destruction to create life), and then you tell me that it’s MY approach that imposes limits on him! It’s YOUR approach that imposes the limits. I merely wonder why a God with limitless powers couldn’t find a less destructive way to create life.
DAVID: You are again making religious assumptions about the description of God's powers. I've said he probably had to make Earth this way. His powers may be limited.

I make no assumptions. I simply object when you tell me that my approach limits my vision of what capacities God might have when your own approach suggests explicitly that his powers might be limited.

As time passed, sychronicity began to enter the picture (outside me) and began to play the part of teacher for me. It was something I could not ignore, even though I didnt understand it - it insisted on grabbing my attention at every opportunity. Cant exactly say that I comprehend it then, or even now, and at that time, it began to communicate to me without words - just numbers at first. But even before that, I was already receiving messages about the world around me. Some of those experiences included being ONE with that IS - which understandably, I didnt fully grasp ( and still do not). But I knew that I was receiving communications or messages, and knew what it meant to me, at the time, and still today. I believed, and felt at that time, the world that surrounded me was giving me emotional support and care that I could understand and feel, at a time when I had felt no care by the God that abandoned me. I felt something/everything outside me cared enough to communicate to me by way of what I allowed into my filter. These messages were not like any known information I was familiar with, although in some sense, it felt normal. These messages came from that which resided outside me but which took the time to connect with me through the world around me, like spiders, birds, plants, trees, clouds and even the far out cosmos or nebulae which came to me at times in my dreams and through my poetry and drawings. I felt I was receiving reassurance and hugs from the world and even the universe that surrounded me.

Soon, I began to feel a healing balm come over my body, even though my pain level did return somewhat. It was as if I knew I was going to be ok. I was led by my youngest child to begin coloring with her, and I started noticing how different colors had an impact on me and lifted my spirits. This was before color or art therapy became popular. It was the impact of color on my emotional health that caused me to read my first book since going anti - man made information. This book coincidentally landed on my doorstep (so to speak) not long after I noticed colors impact. The book was in a box of books given to me by a friend of a friend who was moving and couldnt take her books with her. Finding that there were studies on color therapy, I again felt synchronicity validating my experience. Many things like this happened, including being guided through synchronicity to begin writing poetry, drawing and painting. These are all things I loved doing as a very young child - so it was fitting, I assume, that feeling like a child I would naturally be guided back to these things when my mind was clear and empty of everything else. Through poetry and art, I began expressing my connections and guidance I was receiving. And sometimes I used it for guidance as well.

It may not be evident by what Ive written, since I obviously havent and cant recount every step, but I feel without a shadow of doubt in my mind, that what IS (that which I perceive as OUTSIDE myself) guided me out of my dark place and into the light. I was given many, many synchronistic messages that I could not ignore, and that I never questioned and still do not. Some of those messages I have found similarities since in science, philosophies, books and articles that I've found since. But I do not cling to the ideas of others (that was one of my messages), I just feel a kinship or a familiarity of messages I've already been given. So, in some sense, I not only feel interconnected with all that IS, it could be said that I feel a personal relationship with it. Not like I have relationships with my family or friends, but like a relationship with something beyond me that I know is also a part of me.

The universe is unquestionably based on something that is beyond our current understanding. My musings were rather more personal, though, as I was really wondering why interconnectedness was such an important factor in BBella’s concept of the ALL THAT IS.

Even though the details have become fuzzy over the years, your question has me asking myself the same question and following the "breadcrumbs" or thread back to how it all came about; how I developed my "belief" of the interconnectedness of all things and why it has become an important factor in my concept of all that IS, so much so, that I feel no shadow of doubt about my connection and interconnection with it.

Going back to when my illness became unbearable those many years ago, when I had willed myself to die, as I've mentioned before, this brought about an OBE that subsequently opened up my life to visions, dreams, and a connection to the world that I had never experienced before. Before this time, I had increasingly began to shut down - feeling alone, distanced and isolated, even with my family. The pain had separated me from my life. I had become a separate particle in a world I could no longer relate with. I felt I had nothing left to live for but to be a burden to my family. I had become not only a separate particle, an inconsequential one as well. But that isnt how I entered this world as a very young child, I remember feeling very connected. I was born with a communal sense with the world I was born into, especially with nature - in every sense of the word - which led to a huge problem later in my young life - as I followed my "senses" rather than the cultural wisdom of common sense and tradition, I became very senseless in the eyes of my loved ones living for the pleasure of my senses and nothing else.

Then Christianity swooped in and saved me, giving me a sense of mind and intellect that had me researching with a fervor, wanting to understand my place in God's will for my life. I developed a closer connection to my family and loved ones and life went along as "the good Lord willed". That good will began to fade out of sight when years later, pain entered and took over my life (my last child at this time was still an infant). Because of the pain, which developed quickly over one years time and when on for 5 years with no end or relief in sight from the medical field, I became disillusioned with God. I could not understand why the God that had saved me from myself (selfishness), that I had come to know and love, had abandoned me at the time I needed him most. I felt uncared for by the ONE that I had spent much of my adult life worshiping, consuming knowledge and understanding about, and living what I believed was his will was for mine and my children's lives, doing the best that my mental and physical capability as a human could. I lived a good Christian life, giving to the community as a Christian counselor, giving to the poor and helping everywhere I could - doing all a good Christian would want to do. But the pain shut all that down in a very short time. The pain separated me from everything I loved about my life. It was a mental and a physical anguish - a distance that nothing could cross over to me or that I could escape from. I felt boxed in a padded cell unable to be reached by anyone or anything, except pain, which was my cell mate.

After the first OBE, I began a very slow but progressive road to unlocking that cell door through an uncanny guidance that I had never known before. Because nothing in my past could help me, I refused help from anything I had known before - knowing it would not and could not help me. I shunned every road I had ever traveled before this time. Nothing anyone could say (try this or that) would I listen to. I felt like I had become an empty vessel that shunned or was wary of any familiarity. I knew nothing in my past had helped lessen my pain - so whatever it was that suddenly helped me during the OBE was unfamiliar to me, and I was unable to recreate it through what I already knew or relate to it, because I knew nothing about it. I didnt want to be disturbed by the mental addiction I'd had, since becoming a Christian, of the constant rambling through any and every exhausting avenue in my mind, searching for answers (as I had done in my search to understand God's will for my life, etc). Initially, it was a wondrous time for me to be in that state of non trust and nothingness, but a strange time for my family, because I became very quiet for quite sometime - but they were happy I was no longer in as much pain. I lived in observe mode, fearful of even a thought. I didnt want to disturb the waters - so to speak, by thinking. I learned a new state of quiet emptiness by building a wall around my mental space, not allowing even one thought to enter. In some way, I felt like an infant child, peering into the unknown (inside and outside of me), fearful of the old boogeyman (information) that had led me into a dark and scary prison I had just emerged from. I knew something had helped me emerge, I just didn't know what - but I knew what it wasnt; anything familiar that I had known before. So I just detached myself - like a balloon detached from it's string, off into the unknown.

DAVID: Of course we can discuss how we relate to God, and wonder how He relates to us. You are taking my approach to a silly extreme, which is fair enough in any debate.

dhw: I don’t know why it’s “silly” - though it’s certainly fair enough - to question how a relationship can be possible without contact and without common ground. If you can’t answer, then perhaps you should face up to the possibility that there may be something wrong with your approach (e.g. perhaps God has actually endowed us with some of his own traits).

He may have. My point is we cannot know that, so why presume it. I don't think discussing it adds anything to our knowledge. I think God can have goals or purposes without self-gratification.

DAVID: Your 'weapons of mass destruction' are Earth's requirements for life. It suggests God could not make the Earth in any other way. Perhaps He has limits. Your humanizing approach limits you vision of what actual capacities a creator God might have. We can only work with what we actually know of our reality.

dhw: Please reread what you have written. First you say that perhaps he has limits (he had to use weapons of mass destruction to create life), and then you tell me that it’s MY approach that imposes limits on him! It’s YOUR approach that imposes the limits. I merely wonder why a God with limitless powers couldn’t find a less destructive way to create life.

You are again making religious assumptions about the description of God's powers. I've said he probably had to make Earth this way. His powers may be limited.

DAVID (referring to Musser’s article): The answers you seek are not present. That was the point of presenting Musser.

If I am trying to make sense of a confused set of arguments, I’m afraid it’s not very helpful to be presented with a long article which answers none of my questions but shows that everyone else is confused, including you (see your next comment), although you are convinced that somehow or the other it all makes sense.

It is important to know quantum facts, even if we don't understand how it works. That is a major point of all the articles.

DAVID: Psychokinesis is wooly thinking. My guess is still God uses quantum mechanics as the basis of reality. How? I don't know because I don't understand quantum mechanics an more than Feynman did. BUT quantum mechanics IS the base.

dhw: I simply asked how an immaterial being could “control” (your term) matter, so why is psychokinesis woolly thinking? You have often suggested that beings communicate by telepathy in the afterlife. The principle is the same: the power of thought. You don’t know how God does it, but you know it’s not by mental power, though your God is all mental power?

You are right. God wills things into existence through quantum dynamics. I guess I don't like the word psychokinesis as it reminds me of spoon-benders.

I don’t know why it’s “silly” - though it’s certainly fair enough - to question how a relationship can be possible without contact and without common ground. If you can’t answer, then perhaps you should face up to the possibility that there may be something wrong with your approach (e.g. perhaps God has actually endowed us with some of his own traits).

DAVID: Your 'weapons of mass destruction' are Earth's requirements for life. It suggests God could not make the Earth in any other way. Perhaps He has limits. Your humanizing approach limits you vision of what actual capacities a creator God might have. We can only work with what we actually know of our reality.

Please reread what you have written. First you say that perhaps he has limits (he had to use weapons of mass destruction to create life), and then you tell me that it’s MY approach that imposes limits on him! It’s YOUR approach that imposes the limits. I merely wonder why a God with limitless powers couldn’t find a less destructive way to create life.

DAVID (referring to Musser’s article): The answers you seek are not present. That was the point of presenting Musser.

If I am trying to make sense of a confused set of arguments, I’m afraid it’s not very helpful to be presented with a long article which answers none of my questions but shows that everyone else is confused, including you (see your next comment), although you are convinced that somehow or the other it all makes sense.

DAVID: Psychokinesis is wooly thinking. My guess is still God uses quantum mechanics as the basis of reality. How? I don't know because I don't understand quantum mechanics an more than Feynman did. BUT quantum mechanics IS the base.

I simply asked how an immaterial being could “control” (your term) matter, so why is psychokinesis woolly thinking? You have often suggested that beings communicate by telepathy in the afterlife. The principle is the same: the power of thought. You don’t know how God does it, but you know it’s not by mental power, though your God is all mental power?

DAVID: What you consider nasty God knew when He created. Plate tectonics make quakes sand tsunamis, but are required for life in Earth. Viruses advance evolution. He gave us big brains to solve the problems.

dhw: Just to clarify, then: God set out with the purpose of creating humans, but he couldn’t do it without creating weapons of mass destruction or without the millions of species, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extinct whose purpose was to keep life going for the sake of humans. And his purpose in creating humans was to get them to solve problems, but we shouldn’t ask why, and he wants a relationship with us, but we shouldn’t ask what sort of relationship is possible if he and we have nothing in common and he hides himself in the quantum world.

Of course we can discuss how we relate to God, and wonder how He relates to us. You are taking my approach to a silly extreme, which is fair enough in any debate. Your 'weapons of mass destruction' are Earth's requirements for life. It suggests God could not make the Earth in any other way. Perhaps He has limits. Your humanizing approach limits you vision of what actual capacities a creator God might have, Wec can only work with what we actually know of our reality.

dhw: I was actually asking what you meant by “related”, because as I have said above, I don’t know what sort of relationship we can have with a God to whom we must not attribute any human qualities. In what way are we “closer” if we can’t get anywhere near him (he’s hidden) or near understanding him (no human attributes)? And in any case shouldn’t a relationship be two-way?

You are asking the same questions I ask. But in thinking about it, I understand the limits in understanding God. Do you?

DAVID’s comment: The entire article needs to be read, and even then you will be confused. It can only be understood if one presumes the quantum connections and even particles may be on the other side of a semipermeable wall separating us from the quantum realm. In that way they can be closely connected, but there, not 'here'. God resides at the quantum level of reality, in my view. Space time is made from and based on that level.

dhw: Much as I appreciate the trouble you have taken to edit this article, it’s a pity you didn’t put your comment at the beginning! Of course I am still confused. So how does that help me? Even the scientists are confused. All they know is that these particles do not conform to their expectations of space and time, cause and effect, and they don’t understand it. What is now even more confusing is that I always imagined your God was an expert in making matter actually conform to the laws of space and time, and cause and effect, with his fine tuning of the universe and his brilliantly cohesive design of life and evolution, but apparently you think the weird behaviour of particles is a better guide to how he works. I did ask if you thought your God used psychokinesis to “control” the bits of himself that are separated-but-not-separated from himself – bearing in mind that he is immaterial and the matter he manipulates is material – and if you thought the quantum world was immaterial. Musser doesn’t answer these questions either.

The answers you seek are not present. That was the point of presenting Musser. Psychokinesis is wooly thinking. My guess is still God uses quantum mechanics as the basis of reality. How? I don't know because I don't understand quantum mechanics an more than Feynman did. BUT quantum mechanics IS the base.

Just to clarify, then: God set out with the purpose of creating humans, but he couldn’t do it without creating weapons of mass destruction or without the millions of species, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extinct whose purpose was to keep life going for the sake of humans. And his purpose in creating humans was to get them to solve problems, but we shouldn’t ask why, and he wants a relationship with us, but we shouldn’t ask what sort of relationship is possible if he and we have nothing in common and he hides himself in the quantum world.

DAVID: Of course conscious beings are more related than conscious beings and unconscious objects.
dhw: “Related” in what way? Do you mean similar? With more in common? Careful! Next thing you’ll be saying that the more conscious the being is, the more he has in common with your God.
DAVID: Don't tell me what to think. Of course a human is closer to God than an ape, who can't even think of such a possibility.

I was actually asking what you meant by “related”, because as I have said above, I don’t know what sort of relationship we can have with a God to whom we must not attribute any human qualities. In what way are we “closer” if we can’t get anywhere near him (he’s hidden) or near understanding him (no human attributes)? And in any case shouldn’t a relationship be two-way?

DAVID: The universe has two or perhaps more levels of reality. The quantum level contains God from which He interacts with the other layers and controls them. He created them from Himself.
dhw: How do you interact with part of yourself and yet not be present? (“All that IS is God’s creation and a part of him.”) Do you mean he operates by some kind of psychokinetic remote control on the parts of him that are outside his hiding place? That is hardly “interaction”. Besides, if we disregard the somewhat misleading term “virtual” as in virtual particles, are you now saying that the quantum world is immaterial? I apologize for the interrogation, but as I said, I am floundering and this is the only way I can de-flounder myself!

david: See Musser's article. Two parts.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160119-time-entanglement/?utm_source=Quanta+Magazine&a...

DAVID’s comment: The entire article needs to be read, and even then you will be confused. It can only be understood if one presumes the quantum connections and even particles may be on the other side of a semipermeable wall separating us from the quantum realm. In that way they can be closely connected, but there, not 'here'. God resides at the quantum level of reality, in my view. Space time is made from and based on that level.

Much as I appreciate the trouble you have taken to edit this article, it’s a pity you didn’t put your comment at the beginning! Of course I am still confused. So how does that help me? Even the scientists are confused. All they know is that these particles do not conform to their expectations of space and time, cause and effect, and they don’t understand it. What is now even more confusing is that I always imagined your God was an expert in making matter actually conform to the laws of space and time, and cause and effect, with his fine tuning of the universe and his brilliantly cohesive design of life and evolution, but apparently you think the weird behaviour of particles is a better guide to how he works. I did ask if you thought your God used psychokinesis to “control” the bits of himself that are separated-but-not-separated from himself – bearing in mind that he is immaterial and the matter he manipulates is material – and if you thought the quantum world was immaterial. Musser doesn’t answer these questions either.

DAVID: God is conscious of everything we are conscious of and much more.

dhw: Presumably, then, before he created all the nice things and all the nasty things that you and I are conscious of, he knew exactly what was nice and what was nasty, and since - being the first cause - he created everything out of himself, it is not illogical to suppose that he himself is a mixture of nice and nasty. But I suspect you would rather not speculate on the possible implications of your God having created the nasty, and the nasty being "a part of him", and him being conscious of his nasty part.

What you consider nasty God knew when He created. Plate tectonics make quakes sand tsunamis, but are required for life in Earth. Viruses advance evolution. He gave us big brains to solve he problems.

DAVID: Of course conscious beings are more related than conscious beings and unconscious objects.

dhw: “Related” in what way? Do you mean similar? With more in common? Careful! Next thing you’ll be saying that the more conscious the being is, the more he has in common with your God.

Don't tell me what to think. Of course a human is closer to God than an ape, who can't even think of such a possibility.

DAVID: The universe has two or perhaps more levels of reality. The quantum level contains God from which He interacts with the other layers and controls them. He created them from Himself.

dhw: How do you interact with part of yourself and yet not be present? (“All that IS is God’s creation and a part of him.”) Do you mean he operates by some kind of psychokinetic remote control on the parts of him that are outside his hiding place? That is hardly “interaction”. Besides, if we disregard the somewhat misleading term “virtual” as in virtual particles, are you now saying that the quantum world is immaterial? I apologize for the interrogation, but as I said, I am floundering and this is the only way I can de-flounder myself!

See Musser's article. Two parts.

***

"These temporal correlations are the ingredients for that quantum time capsule. The original idea for such a contraption goes back to James Franson, a physicist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. (Franson used spacelike correlations; Olson and Ralph say temporal correlations may make it easier.) You write your message, encode each bit in a photon, and use one of your special detectors to measure those photons along with the background field, thus effectively encrypting your bits. You then store the outcome in the capsule and bury it.

"At the designated future time, your descendants measure the field with the paired detector. The two outcomes, together, will reconstitute the original information.

***

"Whenever two events are correlated and it’s not a fluke, there are two explanations: One event causes the other, or some third factor causes both. A background assumption to this logic is that events occur in a given order, dictated by their locations in space and time. Since quantum correlations — certainly the spatial kind, possibly the temporal — are too strong to be explained using one of these two explanations, physicists are revisiting their assumptions. “We cannot really explain these correlations,” said Ämin Baumeler, a physicist at the University of Italian Switzerland in Lugano, Switzerland. “There’s no mechanism for how these correlations appear. So, they don’t really fit into our notion of space-time.”

***

"The researchers beamed a stream of photons at a partially silvered mirror, so that half the photons took one path and half another. (It was impossible to tell, without measuring, which path each individual photon went down; in a sense, it took both paths at once.) On the first path, the photons passed through Alice’s filter first, followed by Bob’s. On the second path, the photons navigated them in reverse order. The experiment took quantum indeterminacy to a whole new level. Not only did the particles not possess definite properties in advance of measurement, the operations performed on them were not even conducted in a definite sequence.

***

"In Brukner’s original experiment, the path of each individual photon is placed into a “superposition” — the photon goes down a quantum combination of the Alice-first path and the Bob-first path. There is no definite answer to the question, “Which filter did the photon go through first?”— until a measurement is carried out and the ambiguity is resolved. If, instead of a photon, a gravitating object could be put into such a temporal superposition, the apparatus would put space-time itself into a superposition. In such a case, the sequence of Alice and Bob would remain ambiguous. Cause and effect would blur together, and you would be unable to give a step-by-step account of what happened.

"Only when these indeterminate causal relations between events are pruned away — so that nature realizes only some of the possibilities available to it — do space and time become meaningful. Quantum correlations come first, space-time later. Exactly how does space-time emerge out of the quantum world? Brukner said he is still unsure. As with the time capsule, the answer will come only when the time is right."

Comment: The entire article needs to be read, and even hen you will be confused. It can only be understood if one presumes the quantum connections and even particles may be on the other side of a semipermeable wall separating us from the quantum realm. In that way they can be closely connected, but there, not 'here'. God resides at the quantum level of reality, in my view. Space time is made from and based on that level.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160119-time-entanglement/?utm_source=Quanta+Magazine&a...

"In 2012, Jay Olson and Timothy Ralph, both physicists at the University of Queensland in Australia, laid out a procedure to encrypt data so that it can be decrypted only at a specific moment in the future. Their scheme exploits quantum entanglement, a phenomenon in which particles or points in a field, such as the electromagnetic field, shed their separate identities and assume a shared existence, their properties becoming correlated with one another’s. Normally physicists think of these correlations as spanning space, linking far-flung locations in a phenomenon that Albert Einstein famously described as “spooky action at a distance.” But a growing body of research is investigating how these correlations can span time as well. What happens now can be correlated with what happens later, in ways that elude a simple mechanistic explanation. In effect, you can have spooky action at a delay.

"These correlations seriously mess with our intuitions about time and space. Not only can two events be correlated, linking the earlier one to the later one, but two events can become correlated such that it becomes impossible to say which is earlier and which is later. Each of these events is the cause of the other, as if each were the first to occur.

***

"To understand entanglement in time, it helps to first understand entanglement in space, as the two are closely related. In the spatial version of a classic entanglement experiment, two particles, such as photons, are prepared in a shared quantum state, then sent flying in different directions.

***

"as though Alice’s particle knew what happened to Bob’s, and vice versa. This is true even when nothing connects the particles — no force, wave or carrier pigeon. The correlation appears to violate “locality,” the rule that states that effects have causes, and chains of cause and effect must be unbroken in space and time.

"In the temporal case, though, the mystery is subtler, involving just a single polarized photon. Alice measures it, and then Bob remeasures it. Distance in space is replaced by an interval of time. The probability of their seeing the same outcome varies with the angle between the polarizers; in fact, it varies in just the same way as in the spatial case. On one level, this does not seem to be strange. Of course what we do first affects what happens next. Of course a particle can communicate with its future self.

***

"The obvious explanation for this result would be if the photon stores both bits and releases one based on Bob’s choice. But if that were the case, you’d expect Bob to be able to obtain information about both bits — to measure both of them or at least some characteristic of both, such as whether they are the same or different. But he can’t. No experiment, even in principle, can get at both bits — a restriction known as the Holevo bound. “Quantum systems seem to have more memory, but you can’t actually access it,” said Costantino Budroni.

***

"So the question of a particle’s supermemory remains a mystery. For now, if you ask why quantum particles produce the strong temporal correlations, physicists basically will answer: “Because.”

***

"Even a perfect vacuum, which is defined as the absence of particles, will still have quantum fields. And these fields are always vibrating. Space looks empty because the vibrations cancel each other out. And to do this, they must be entangled. The cancellation requires the full set of vibrations; a subset won’t necessarily cancel out. But a subset is all you ever see.

***

" In 1976 Bill Unruh, a theoretical physicist at the University of British Columbia, showed that the detection rate goes up if the detector is accelerating, since the detector loses sensitivity to the regions of space it is moving away from. Accelerate it very strongly and it will click like mad, and the particles it sees will be entangled with particles that remain beyond its view.

"In 2011 Olson and Ralph showed that much the same thing happens if the detector can be made to accelerate through time....the particles it picks up will be entangled with particles in a hidden region of time — namely, the future."

See the second chapter

Presumably, then, before he created all the nice things and all the nasty things that you and I are conscious of, he knew exactly what was nice and what was nasty, and since - being the first cause - he created everything out of himself, it is not illogical to suppose that he himself is a mixture of nice and nasty. But I suspect you would rather not speculate on the possible implications of your God having created the nasty, and the nasty being "a part of him", and him being conscious of his nasty part.

DAVID: Of course conscious beings are more related than conscious beings and unconscious objects.

“Related” in what way? Do you mean similar? With more in common? Careful! Next thing you’ll be saying that the more conscious the being is, the more he has in common with your God.

dhw: David, you identify yourself as a panentheist, the essence of which is that God is “within and without” ALL THAT IS. That is the concept I have been questioning in these exchanges. Your reply to me is:
DAVID: I would think He operates inside the universe adjusting its mechanics at a quantum level, which is where I think He is. I firmly believe He is hidden inside the quantum level of reality.
dhw: This, I must confess, leaves me floundering. If God is a universal consciousness, then either he is present at all levels of reality or he’s not. If he’s not, then how can he be within and without All THAT IS (which you say is a part of him)?
DAVID: The universe has two or perhaps more levels of reality. The quantum level contains God from which He interacts with the other layers and controls them. He created them from Himself.

How do you interact with part of yourself and yet not be present? (“All that IS is God’s creation and a part of him.”) Do you mean he operates by some kind of psychokinetic remote control on the parts of him that are outside his hiding place? That is hardly “interaction”. Besides, if we disregard the somewhat misleading term “virtual” as in virtual particles, are you now saying that the quantum world is immaterial? I apologize for the interrogation, but as I said, I am floundering and this is the only way I can de-flounder myself!