(March 9, 2014 at 3:29 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote:(March 9, 2014 at 3:01 pm)Deidre32 Wrote: Neither. There's nothing to ''observe.''
God is created from the minds of those who hope for a Creator to explain the things that mankind can't yet explain itself. We are not comfortable with the phrase, 'I don't know.' So, we create a 'God of the gaps,' so to speak.
There's nothing wrong with gaps. If God exists, he will fill them in, without us having to do so.
Just my 2 cents
Yes but I'm saying let's suspend the idea of God as he (it) is typically conceived by religion. I'm happy with just calling the higher powers that be what they are--universal laws, nature, etc.
Even from that, in just discussing nature, we still have these questions about reality that basically assume we are consciously observing "things" out there, "objects" composed of innumerable atoms and even smaller components. But what are objects? Has the self-organization of atoms brought forth beings that can understand themselves...or have our conscious minds sprung forth or evolved in some fundamentally unknowable way so that our perceptions are themselves responsible for this apparent cohesion, self-organization, of everything that we observe? No reason to invoke a deity, though I see this as really just a surface level manner of speaking about this greater mystery underlying our existence. Matter and energy operates through mechanistic laws to produce beings, composed entirely of the same materials as everything else in the Universe, that can observe and reflect on everything else, including themselves. Are you saying observation, that is, all we perceive, is an illusion?
All that we are aware of (conscious of) would exist without our awareness.
If someone is not conscious for whatever reason, the laws of physics and nature still prevail. Our consciousness is merely our ability to be aware of objective reality.
That's how I see it, no pun. :-)
