"A God That Could Be Real" Nancy Abrams

[herbavore]

I recently read two blog entries by Nancy Abrams that were intriguing to me. I like ideas that open multiple doors of perception (rather than those that feel the need to open one and quickly shut all others). I am going to buy the book, based on these two articles but I am interested to hear what the nice little eclectic P&S community has to add to the discussion.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2015/...that-could-be-real-in-the-scientific-universe

and (2nd blog):

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2015/04/24/401931739/a-new-way-to-think-about-god


One rather humorous thought I had while reading about the ants was that it was validation for all those in an AA meeting that say "my higher power is the collective support of the group in the room".

 

[Ninae]

I do not believe in the Christian fairy-tale God, which many feel science has disproven, so arguments against that God doesn't really affect me. I think this childish concept of God was only supposed to be temporary, or until we were ready to begin to really understand, then got taken too seriously or didn't evolve with our reasoning.

So now many are perplexed that so many can believe in something that seems so irrational, at least in the form they perceive it to be. My conceot of God is quite a bit different than that and I was never able to believe in the childhood-version of it. But I guess you could say I see the consciousness known to us as "God" as residing at the top of the spiritual food-chain, so to speak, like we see ourselves as the top consciousness-forms in this world. There is a hierarchy of spirit, too.

In the spiritual world there are also levels of consciousness, only there we're not at the top. In that world, or the one we came from, I believe you can see God's face from everywhere and it's just recognised as the top of all consciousness or the most holy or high-consciousness there is. That's what it means to be God and is just the way it is, and no one can argue that, any more than we can argue the sun being the primary source of light and life in this world

While in this world, we live separate from God, and I also think that's the whole point of it (along with being separate from each other). In our true home, where there are no feelings of separation we live in full unity-consciousness, at one with God and one another. That is the only way to live, so this is a way to experience and learn what's not possible in our normal form. It's like a learning project we re-enter again and again until we become more able to recognise and find ourselves and God in human form. Although acknowledgement of God is not always an indicator of level of consciousness, or a high-consciousness soul can also be separate from God for some reason.

People tend to say if there was a God he would reveal himself to us, interfere with our lives when we asked him to, or prove himself in some way. When what makes us think we can really know that? Maybe it's intended as a mystery or great challenge for us to attain? Not one that is easily achieved, but one which can be a life-long project. Making contact with God in physical form is something special. It feels both strange and like the most natural thing in the world at the same time. Like going home and like you've never left. That's the best way I can think to describe it.

God does not seem to be of this physical world, but rather of the world of spirit so cannot be perceived through the physical senses and we need to make use of our higher senses, as he cearly doesn't reveal himself in this world in that kind of obvious way. The divine seems to reveal itself to you more like delicate rays very subtly shining through to you through the dense matter of this world. Like a rainbow forming in front of you and holding form for a moment until it disappears and leaves you like it was never there. Although I believe this sense of God-connection or revelation can be maintained as something more stable throughout a human life.

 

[swilow]

Sorry for long post...

I recently read two blog entries by Nancy Abrams that were intriguing to me. I like ideas that open multiple doors of perception (rather than those that feel the need to open one and quickly shut all others). I am going to buy the book, based on these two articles but I am interested to hear what the nice little eclectic P&S community has to add to the discussion.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2015/...that-could-be-real-in-the-scientific-universe

and (2nd blog):

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2015/04/24/401931739/a-new-way-to-think-about-god


One rather humorous thought I had while reading about the ants was that it was validation for all those in an AA meeting that say "my higher power is the collective support of the group in the room".

Thanks for posting this Herbivore. I read it earlier in the week and even reposted it to a staunch atheist friend. He enjoyed it too.

I found the idea of 'emergence' to be very interesting, and sort of clarified something that I've been thinking about recently regarding how to change one's psychological paradigm. I've always thought that there might be a secret word or mantra that, if I say it and think it just right, will have the power to enact an immediate, lasting change (instant enlightenment). I've always questioned the truth of that idea, but I've never stopped trying to find it until recently. I think that this is why many spiritual beliefs use repetition. The rosary, or mantra's., or shamanic ritual, or singing.. I think that if you repeat a simple idea over and over, a larger principle emerges. If I think to myself, "I am safe" (sadly, I need to work on this- I often still feel fundamentally unsafe), this does little in terms of making me feel safe. But if I repeat it, it seems to be transposed from a thought-sequence into a psychological attribute (something I know), which in has physiological manifestations, causing me to feel safe and not even think about it.

From the aggregate of numerous cells in our body, which are extremely limited individually, we have the implausibility of physical movement as instigated soley by thought. In the same way that the universe has 'organised' itself where the individual molecules have hardly any of the attributes of the structure they are part of. 'Mindless' ants creating something more complex and intelligent then they could ever imagine. Small parts manifesting something bigger and different, small thoughts manifesting physical changes in you...

I know I am mistranslating the idea of emergence somewhat but it can illuminating to take a concept and try and apply it in a different context to see if it works. I think it does.

Back to the article. An idea of god that I've played with could be that "organising force" or "great aggregator" of the universe. For some reason, against the odds, something complex has formed (the structure of everything we see and take as being physical laws) which seems like it must have some sort of impetus. It would be something impersonal though, and I don't think praying to it would work as such. Praying repetitively could trigger an 'organisational response' though, but I don't think anything would happen outside of ones own mind. Its blind in many ways.

It might not exist because there is no real evidence for it. It feels like there must be a reason that the universe has any laws at all. Physicists seek a unified theory; I think its the Great Aggregator. If only I was a mathematician... :D

I think the emergent phenomena on earth has been the belief in god, not the actuality of a god. In the end, they seem to be the same thing...

 

[Journyman16]

:D Maybe the 'emergence' is that of Life in the Universe?

 

[-=SS=-]

The science of complexity/emergence is a fascinating subject area most certainly. And it's good you've found something that's cracking your head open a little bit, anything that gets one thinking is good.

For me personally I think emergent behavior doesn't point to god so much as it does to just higher orders of intelligence. We've sort of limited ourselves to saying intelligence requires a nervous system and a brain when it might not. An example would be Earth (the Gaia theory) being a huge organizing system, and personally I see that as self-evident.. but then I disowned the belief of intelligence needing a nervous system a long time ago haha.

When you get multiple organisms coming together they form a sort of resonance or standing wave between them, allowing for almost instant flow of information between them.. you see it best with the shoal of fish or those huge clouds of starlings. But like you mentioned we have it to, the economy being a good example. The question I'm intrigued with is where this information exchange is happening. Is it like Rupert Sheldrakes 'Morphogenetic Fields'? Or in the ether? Or some kind of subtle electrical web?

I think when we see emergent behavior it's like in Carl Sagan's flatland analogy where a 2D organism see's a 3D shape penetrating his dimension (heh), sees it, and is like "what the holy fuck is that!?". So for us we're seeing some higher order flashing through into our domain.

 

[Ninae]

I think when we see emergent behavior it's like in Carl Sagan's flatland analogy where a 2D organism see's a 3D shape penetrating his dimension (heh), sees it, and is like "what the holy fuck is that!?". So for us we're seeing some higher order flashing through into our domain.

I think it might be like that. I can sometimes sense the 4th/5th dimension as a form of energy/consciousness. It's like it bleeds through to this dimension like the sun shining through something transparent (or a higher energy that penetrates a lower energy). We don't really have much vocabulary for it yet. But it feels very real or as real as anything else.