Sunday, May 29, 2011

Tolerable conceptions of God?

Going back a few weeks, I wandered down the road of how one might argue for and characterize god ... not quite examining arguments for its existence, as I may have intended, but lightly skimming over claimed characteristics for the big gal.

My summary was that we're left with a god of the gaps.

Today I want to revisit other conceptions that I can be tolerant of.

The first conception is the deist one ... god created the universe, then was never heard from again. This argument suffers from the idea of god as the "efficient cause" of the universe - and since we're so early into real research into high energy physics, we can't say whether the big bang was really the start of the universe, or just a point in transition from an earlier form.

Second is the panentheist view - that god exists and we are within him. This is pretty tolerable, in that god is not separable from the universe, thus not requiring special pleading to argue.

Third is that we're in a computer simulation ... a fun concept, but rather weak, because it apparently requires a creator, programmer and operator of the computer.

Fourth is that I am god ... and you guys are my imagination.

I like it!

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