Skitto

Consider all of the things that have ever happened to you, direct effects of anything on you in your life, and everything that is happening to you right now, as well as what will happen. This is my concept of Life, an ongoing process that shapes the will and thought of people.

Can a concept of God be substituted for this? I mean, can we narrow the concept of God down from Everything down to Everything that has happened to You specifically?

Because if even your own thought about someone else's life is a direct relationship between you and that person, is it not also a stimulus that has effected you?

Just a thought.

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Willravel

I'm not against the concept of pantheism. I think it's a nice way to frame incredibly difficult questions. It's also a hop, skip, and a jump away from naturalism, one of my favorite isms.

My only concern is when people start assigning some relatable personality to the universe or life or the some total of sentient experience. I think as long as people can call life god without talking to god or assigning god a will of some kind, it's a very beautiful way to frame life.

Zeraph

Personally I believe we are all a piece of god. When we were one for one reason or another (I have several theories) we decided to do an experiment where we'd split ourselves infinitely, then make ourselves forget who we are. We did this so that we can experience life.

zenda

Hi Skitto

You said "Can we narrow the concept of God down from Everything down to Everything that has happened to You specifically? ...."

And I reckon we can, for "Everything that has happened to You specifically" is all the 'everything' that is possible to have. Our thoughts about and concepts of everything .... including those we have about God are part of this 'everything that had happened to us specifically'. This is our workbench and our narrowing or expanding of any concept will be performed on and within it.

I'm not offering a "Solipsism - oh dearie me " proposition here, but rather a faith - a 'beyond the ability or moreover relevance of proof' proposition. I assert - I choose to hold true that there is an outside and also an inside beyond this moment of utterance. I need the feeling of coherence and am therefore soothed by anything which gives me a sense of 'IS' to my world of perceptions. I suppose I am offering a 'Subjectivism plus assertion of consensus realty ... yayyy proposition '

Your thought is a thought which is part of what makes this universe one I like living in.


Like Willravel, I don't want to assign some 'relatable personality'

Having joined you, Skitto, in narrowing the concept of God to everything that has happened to me specifically, I feel I have performed an 'appropriate act of emotional humility', By which I mean I can bellow "EVER-Y-THING! I DEEM THE WORLD TO BE SUCH AND SUCH!" and still look in the mirror and whilst cringing at my loudness and knowing I risk disturbing my epistemological neighbours, say to myself "I know that is a 'my trumpet' that I blow, no matter how few or many people choose to play a similar tune to mine"

At times when I have assigned a 'relatable personality', I feel I have done something different from your 'narrowing', I feel I have 'Crushed' the concept. I feel I have performed an 'inappropriate act of emotional hubris/pride/ whup-upside-the-head-able uppityness.' For I have my concept of 'other' - 'other than I/me' - of other species and other intelligences .... and I don't want to look at my species and go 'there is a creatOR(some individual which did an act of 'making') and it is organized similarly to this species.' By expanding the concept of ME, I'd cripple my conceptualisation of and by [my] implication, the extent of possibility in the universe. I'd generate an impoverished notion of 'everything' ... I need to think further on this.









For now, I am pushing my ejection seat button and hopefully bailing out before I disappear up my own .............




........


Read before breakfast
Tried to reply but floundered
I better eat now

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ZENDA

Zeraph

I don't believe in Solipsism (I can't, would make things too pointless) but does anyone else ever feel like a solipsis? I get these feelings sometimes after random events that make me feel, more than think, its all me and I'm the only real one. Just wondering if other philosophical people feel that way.

Baraka_Guru

Well, my view is that the universe is invariably interconnected. We are bound to the outcomes arising from cause and effect. However, we are also capable of free will, but are generally bound by the choices we make.

We are a sum of our choices, and we are often unable to dictate the conditions surrounding these choices. We do have the power to influence this to some degree, however.

By taking personal responsibility, by seeing through delusion, by overcoming emotional attachment, we can become powerful beings who are prepared to respond to what comes before us in the universe.

Consequently, I do not see the universe as being or being conducted by a deity. I see the universe as a dynamic material reality populated by sentient beings with the capacity to make their own choices within this universe. However, it is the emotional attachment to this material reality that can lead us to delusion and can cloud our thinking.

We must come to terms with the fact that our existence is temporary and ever-changing. Is this something we should long for and grasp after throughout our entire lives?

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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Jinn

Skitto's proposal would seem to diminish both God and life. Life is certainly extraordinary, and does indeed include every experience that has ever happened to us. We already have a word for that - life.

So why confuse it by calling it God, too? What special characteristics or abilities does this God concept add to your life? It would seem that it is not intrinsically modified, so it's an extraneous and unnecessary addition. If there were a God, certainly they'd have some sort of measurable effect, and one would hope, extraordinary powers - omniscience and omnipotence are the common ones, especially in Abrahamic religions.

If God becomes this diffuse word synonymous with "human experience" or "my own personal experience", then its useless.

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"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

roachboy

i had a conversation about this with a comrade last night, strangely enough. it was mostly his show, however---his claim was that god was another name for the "life force"--the energy that animates all things but was different from the life force because the name god is a way of answering the question of why that force exists. so in its ongoing being, it is life (but qualified that way) and god when the view of the same force shifts register.

this was somehow linked to a tale about 12 years of catholic school but the way the link worked eluded me; at times it seemed that this was a "revelation" he had come to about catholicism; other times it seemed like a statement of where he had gotten to despite catholicism. i suspect it's both.

i mention it because the distinction life force/god as reflecting a shift in viewpoint on the same thing makes sense to me if you work within a linguistic space/frame of reference that makes "life force" (universal soul?) and "god" words that you're inclined to do things with.

i'm not sure of how compelling these things are outside that kind of frame of reference though.

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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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Zeraph

Heh, that's pretty much what I said. I just based it more on philosophy and logic than his 12 years of catholic school lol

Ourcrazymodern?

It seems to me a concept of god is only substituted for a concept of life by unthinking religionists. The amount of time I spend thinking about it is unreasonable. I do not then blame the concept for wasting my life, but continue trying to change my own mind.

...God doesn't seem to mind.

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bagatelle

And when we are in the internet, what are we to each other but thoughts.

You are what you eat, we say. You are what you read too? There must be an effect, especially when you start reading something over and over again.

How big is the difference, if you just read one person, but never interact with them?

I have to admit, I haven't read philosophy... much... at all. I get confused thinking how to embed god into all this.

Some time ago I watched the series of What the bleep do we know -videos on YouTube and they offered me a lot to ponder. Um... if that was purely fiction, then someone could fill me in right now.

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pai mei

I'm God! Bow to me foolish mortals !

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Zeraph

must be a solipsist.