(November 12, 2010 at 8:26 am)LastPoet Wrote: You need proof for this assertion Rayann, and how do you go from this to a personal god? It just won't follow, what about the infinity of other possibilities and explanations for this 'self-referencing' you propose.
I don't have a way of proving this scientifically, of course, but since it is a fact that we ourselves have the ability of self-perception, and yet made of stardust particles, it follows from here that there is a self-referential element in the universe that allows inanimate matter to build itself and organize itself, and then finally cause it to reflect on it's existence (as I'm doing right now by typing this post). I don't think there is any other explanation for our self-awareness which is simpler (and sounder) than what I have presented in this thread. If you think so, then feel free to post your ideas and/or scientific theories.
How did I go from this to a personal God? Well, it's because the idea of self-referentially in nature implies that a collection matter can perceive itself and become alive only when it can loop back on itself, such as the brain in a human body, and therefore, the most abstract level of reality is a "self" instead of a "non-self" (i.e. mainly because it is something that can refer to itself). And such an abstract type of self can be viewed as a personal God since it logically follows that anything that has a self can also have its own feelings and thoughts just like we do.
(November 12, 2010 at 10:18 am)R-e-n-n-a-t Wrote: Books can't think because they don't have the chemical impulses required to simulate thought in a logic-processing brain structure. Also, we made books out of ground up stuff. That'd be like throwing somebody in a woodchipper and asking the chunks that come out if they can think.
Yes, books can't think because they don't have a brain. But that's not where I'm getting at in this thread.
See the comments above. (November 12, 2010 at 3:23 pm)Lethe Wrote: Of course one could argue: "Well, who made these cosmic laws?"
Either the laws created themselves or they were always there. But whichever of the two it is, there has to be a simpler explanation for the laws until we are left with one, single law which explains every other law in the universe. This ultimate law could be God Himself. And as I've been saying, He could be a self-referential type of law in the sense that He is a law for making all the other laws, as well as a law for giving rise to evolution, life, and even consciousness. And the law is alive itself because it is the source of our own aliveness.
In Islam, two of the attributes of God is that He is the All-Aware (Al-Khabeer) and the Alive (Al-Hayy). We also believe that He is the Self-Subsisting (Al-Qayoom). These are some of the qualities which are in agreement with my own theory on why these qualities are necessary in the first place to make it possible for inanimate matter to perceive itself and to become alive. That's why, it's reasonable for me to believe in such attributes of God as mentioned in Islam.
(November 12, 2010 at 3:23 pm)Lethe Wrote: Since the existence and nature of these proposed creatures has never gone past speculation, or has any methodology in which to test their potential existence, it would be impossible to say with any degree of certainty what they are and what they are not -- what attributes they possess, and what attributes they do not possess, as the definition of 'god' and 'gods' is an incredibly fluid one.
Yes, and one of my thoughts on atheism is that when a person says that he doesn't believe in God, he is not rejecting God, but only rejecting models (or concepts) of God.
