What the God debate is really about

[Mudhammam]

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. :-)

But consciousness varies from species to species. For example, snakes perceive infrared thermal radiation while bees are said to see ultraviolet colors. Imagine what consciences might be like in other animals that perceive different wavelengths of light-- vastly different! And they would never know what it's "really" like "out there" (at least as we do). Even in people, just altering chemicals in our brains change how we perceive objects, spatial dimensions, even time. And there's synesthetes: people whose neurological make up is such that when one sensory or cognitive pathway is stimulated, it leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. Some always see numbers, for example, in distinct colors, or visualize sounds.