What is God?
abracad, · Categories: religion, spiritualityI believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us... John Lennon
Beliefs about God
Atheists do not believe God exists. Agnostics believe it impossible to know anything about God, including existence or otherwise. In contrast numerous religions with billions of followers believe in the existence of one or more deities of various forms.
Reasons to Believe in God
The concept of God has existed for millennia, believed in by billions across cultures around the world.
Despite the undoubted success of science as a means of understanding reality it has made little to no progress in answering several fundamental questions, eg:
- the nature of consciousness, and free will
- the origin of the miracle that is life
- what preceded / caused the 'big bang'
- why the laws of nature are so precisely tuned as to support life
Quantum physics has found that nature seems to impose an impenetrable limit upon human knowledge. This presents itself as an inherent 'randomness' at the most fundamental level and prompted Einstein to state that God doesn't play dice... Might God be the hidden intelligence creating and orchestarting physical reality?
Unexplained phenomena - eg psychic abilities as well testified by parapsychology, and remarkable synchronistic coincidences that defy the laws of chance - suggest the agency of some unseen order.
The Nature of God
One of the strongest arguments made by atheists is the existence of so much suffering - both natural and man made - in our world. Apart from earthquakes, floods and famine, man's inhumanity to man seems to no bounds. There has scarcely been a time when war hasn't been raging somewhere on the planet, quite apart from unspeakable cruelty committed at an individual level.
It could be counter-argued that God endowed its creation with free will, and that much evil is initiated by ourselves, but God's non-intervention even in mass genocide surely suggests extreme indifference.
Aside from the extremes of suffering, individual fortune is frequently uncorrelated to any measure of worthiness.
And yet on more than one occasion I have made choices that were unwise for my wellbeing, and unlikely, unforeseen events happened that mitigated those choices. Like something purposefully intervened to both educate me and prevent total disaster.
Perhaps God is neither indifferent nor arbitrary, but its plan is far from apparent.
God as Universal Consciousness
Might God be universal intelligent consciousness? Instead of the universe giving rise to consciousness, might consciousness give rise to the universe, and manifest within the universe? Might incarnation be the temporary and artificial separation of one infinitesimal part of consciousness from the totality (like a raindrop from the ocean)?
See also:
Filed in: religion, spirituality
Leave a Reply