[Opinion] How you think about "god"?

[Robert Ramsay]

I think Robert is reminding us to keep Karl Popper in mind and not make too many unfalsifiable statements. Which I agree with. Everything we use are all useful 'Just So' stories, shorthand.

As the saying goes "All models are wrong, but some are useful"

 

[MorganBlack]

Just a quick bit personal here about how I use this to find right relation to other magicians-using-different-models, Satanists, and the more pagany types.

I very much do not like erasing other people's stories about God, the gods, or no gods at all. You do you, buckaroo.

In my view, the stories, myths, symbols, and felt-meaning create a local space-time server for you and other minds to play in. And all the possible combination and configurations really are infinite, limited by only by what we dream up. I agree with Bernardo Kastrup that even the "hard" laws of physics in each universe are dreamed up by many minds all thinking / dreaming the same dream and having the same expectations about them.

So while I don't have a "Thor" in my universe that's only because I don't ascribe any particular feeling or meaning to stories about a colorful choppy-bang-bang mythological character in a handful of old books. I am not on that game server. So I do not experience a "Thor" because he does not exist in the universe I am playing with like-minded, uh minds.

Bu that does not mean Thor does not exist in the universe/s people are playing using pagan myths and stories. I leave them them to think about Thor, or The Morrigan, or whomever and however they want. Because... really not my thing. It's not a pocket-universe I need to have any solid opinion about.

They are living in some some other sub-quantum, local server they create with other minds who like and vibe with that kind of pagany thing, and it is just as valid and real for them as the server I am on with the daimons, Hell, Death, Love, Art, Resurrection, Mary, and the Demiurge.

So be it from me to "explain" Thor away. That's just artificial scarcity.

In my view, God is Infinite. (See the myths of "God" as infinite potential, for more) So there is space for everything we want to dream up and make real in our own game servers.. The only reason small minded people come over and sometimes want to yell at people in other mythic universes is because they are thinking way WAY too small.

 

[shelteringskye]

Except that postulating God doesn't actually explain anything. As explanations go, it's the equivalent of "a big boy did it and ran away". Maybe "First Cause" is what you meant.

Well, a First Cause (which is one name you can give to what I'm describing here) is a kind of explanation, it explains the existence of the series. The ground floor of a building explains the existence of the rest of the building, even if that explanation is a simple kind of grounding - without it, the rest of the building couldn't exist.

The explanation doesn't need to involve motivations or purposes unless you're talking about an agent, and specifically one who is quite analogous to us - which I specified I'm not, so I'm not sure why you're talking about "a big boy did it and ran away". Not all explanations must be in the form of motives or purposes in order to count as explanations.

 

[akenu]

I don't believe in a concept of God per say, just THE ALL and a bunch of egregores created from the void by means of worship.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Well, a First Cause (which is one name you can give to what I'm describing here) is a kind of explanation, it explains the existence of the series. The ground floor of a building explains the existence of the rest of the building, even if that explanation is a simple kind of grounding - without it, the rest of the building couldn't exist.

The explanation doesn't need to involve motivations or purposes unless you're talking about an agent, and specifically one who is quite analogous to us - which I specified I'm not, so I'm not sure why you're talking about "a big boy did it and ran away". Not all explanations must be in the form of motives or purposes in order to count as explanations.

What you're talking about is not an explanation; it's an axiom.

 

[embitca]

I'm in the "Source" camp -- I don't think of it as having a personality or really caring or thinking about us at all... it's just the source of all -- if it does have a personality its so alien to us it is unknowable. I do think there are other spirits with personalities, but they are not the source.

 

[Beyond Everything]

do not let the words of men divorce you from the personal experience. God and Christ have nothing to do with the sick people manipulating that book.

This is one of the more bizarre claims about religion. As if the hateful (of other religions, gays, what have you), prejudiced fundamentalists and the high percentage of hateful, prejudiced evangelicals have 'nothing to do' with christ. They pray to christ and they do get answers to their prayers. They have their own intense personal experiences as well. You could extend this to various muslims , jews, hindus and even buddhists (say in Myanmar). The incredible claim that centuries of christian repression have 'nothing to do' with 'god' and 'jesus' is one of the most laughable intellectual contortions out there.

The actual explanation is all these things are egregores.