El blanko
Which I am starting to believe, but that does not mean that God is necessarily lacking in personality due to being 'all things' seen & unseen.
Ah, 'depersonified' is not lacking in personality, at least not the way I mean it. 8-)
I just mean it isn't a person. It is more of evolution becoming aware of itself through the development (by purely natural processes) of sophont organisms. Search under 'Teilhard' (French RC priest) who wrote about such ideas. I believe it was Huxley who coined the "evolution becoming aware of itself" phrase but don't have the book at work.
It is sort of like 'a falling tree in a forest makes no 'sound' until there are entities capable of processing the vibration of air molecules'.
The very fact we can go 'wow' means there is a sense of wonder whereas before, exactly the same things that produce the sense of wonder were there, but with nothing capable of processing the sensory data and thinking 'wow'.
The development of intelligence (as we generally define it) has produced a capacity to appreciate the wonder of the universe that did not exist before.
That sebse of 'divinity', that 'Universal mind', whilst not being a person can have attributes which are given to it by the consensus of the sophont minds it is made up of. Thus general worldwide ideas about murder, stealing, etc. being wrong.
It you make god a big thing that we are part of you either have to answer all the unanswerable questions you do with a traditonal god we are not part of, or make it so removed from us as to bring the 'why bother' question up again.
Not that in anyway I claim to be right; this is just fun discussion!
Science often works upon the basis of hypothesis, which exists initially within the imagination of course.
Imagination by its very nature is unseen to the outside world, yet has form and in someways is felt by the originator.
So, invisible realties do exist, have form and can be felt. When you fly through your dreams, I can't see you, I can't feel you, yet you exist in some form.
|You're welcome to define it so, but the very defintion of realty seems to exclude your definiton by its definiton (from Websters)
"2 a (1) : a real event, entity, or state of affairs <his dream became a reality>"
Definiton 1 is 'the quality or state of being real', and real is 'something that is real', and real is "of or relating to fixed, permanent, or immovable things", "not artificial, fraudulent, illusory, or apparent", "occurring in fact <a story of real life>", "having objective independent existence".
So invisable realities of the mind do not fit conventional definitions of reality.
What actually defines reality?
The consensus of subjective realities defines objective reality, if not in definiton this is the case in practise, e.g. Witches don't exist but when everyone belived they did they burnt them anyway.
What actually defines consciousness?
The holder of that particular consciousness? I am sure dolphins are conscious in the way you mean, but that consciouness would be different to and seen differently by that which has it to how you see your own conciousness or see theirs. It is only by external observation that we can determine a creature has a "sense of self" like us, which I guess is the best I can come up with.
If a warm fuzzy feeling exists for a prolonged period of time and motivates a person to great deeds, does this make the original concept that inspired this direction any less real and provable, than say, relativity?
Of course it doesn't make it as provable as something that can be objectively determined! However love is real despite not being objectively determined by direct means, so I get your drift. But what if the SAME feeling is attributed to different things by different? Are they all real?
Does belief actually cause something to become real? Yes, subjectively. Objectively, no, not unless you take two + people who are ALREADY in agreement and even then Snta CLaus does not exist. Just 'cause we can THINK something doesn't make it real in the 'ten-tonnes truck' mode of reality.
We, I believe, squash that living energy out of shape when we attempt to apply human logic to it.
Don't spoil it by getting ineffable. ;-)
As for god sitting on SOME people's beds; this is silly as it means god is partial and biased and we are screwed unless it happens to be in our favour.
It could, if a 'traditional' god, sit on EVERYONE'S beds. If god sat on my bed I'd go see a shrink! If he sat on everyone's beds I'd believe it. How god could prove itself isn;t the big deal it is made out to be IF god is the big del he is made out to be.
However, ages ago someone came up with the idea that proof invalidates belief, or isn't required, or was given ages ago and isn't needed now, or any one of a number of excuses. Frankly I think ineffablity is a form of disease... I mean, would you invest in a pension scheme without proof the claims made were valid?
How come we have to believe in something far more important than our pension without proof?
Yet again, it is the TRADITIONAL view of god that causes these problems. Which is why I vacilate between 'no god' and a non traditional (at least for a European) view of god.
A god we are part of without personification couldn't prove itself if it wanted to! It still allows the warm and fuzzies without the need of proof or even the discussion of it. And you never have to have a discussion about evolution as OF COURSE we evolved.