jupivix wrote:He already is everything, so he can't create any more things.
You are sticking to the Law of conservation of matter and energy. But God is defined to be beyond this law. By 'create', I suppose you mean, 'rearrange matter and energy to form a new structure of things', but God is defined to be able to materialize physical objects out of 'thin air'. Magical, but logic is not enough to disprove that ability.
David Quinn wrote:
He could conceiveably have a different form of consciousness - have different senses, have the ability to think faster, have more intuitive insight, experience things more vividly, etc. But the essential characteristic of consciousness - that of being aware of what is before us and blocking everything else out - would be the same.
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God's consciousness is described to be able to perceive everything, like the eye that could see itself. And he perceives time spatially, which means, he see the past, the present and the future simultaneously like different frames of a movie placed together. For this reason God's consciousness is beyond time. Our cannot conceive his.
Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen is a semi-good illustration:
http://i.imgur.com/AlpXy.jpg
If a geometric point had consciousness, it could not conceive a line. If a one-dimensional straight line had consciousness, it could not conceive a plane. And if a plane had consciousness it could not conceive a three-dimensional solid object. We are three-dimensional beings, can we conceive how a 4-dimensional being who exist in a higher dimension would think? Can we see two circles in a table and guess that they are the marks of two fingers of a human being? Any line consist of infinite points in a way that a point cannot conceive, any plane consists of infinite lines in a way that a line cannot conceive and any solid consists of infinite planes in a way that a plane cannot conceive. A higher dimension object would consist of infinite three-dimensional objects in a way that a three-dimensional being cannot conceive. In this dimension the past, the present and the future of the whole universe are displayed simultaneously, all three-dimensional images of the universe at all point in time are perfectly visible to the eye of God like a jewel of infinite facets. Among the modern physics community, this concept is not new.
Any potion of the All might just be as infinite as the All. For example, the totality of Odd numbers is as infinite as the totality of Natural numbers, which is just as infinite as the totality of Real numbers. A popular view in mysticism is that: In God's mind, any potion of the All contain all that is not it within itself, and A is both A and not A. It is not illogical, just a higher logical that is seemingly illogical from our lower logic's point of view.
David Quinn wrote:It is exactly the same. We are able to distinguish between consciousness and strawberries because they each have their unique characteristics and their own unique identity. Identity is not a physical property. It is a property that all things partake in, physical or otherwise.
If a strawberry is all that is, it won't have the outer shape of a strawberry, but it atomic structure, i.e. inner structure remain the same. The chemical process within it would be pretty much the same.
You reasoned in your book that even a mere sphere can be said to be made of its two halves. But it can only be 'said', an abstract idea. What if in reality the sphere cannot be divided by any force and is an indivisible whole?
If we characterize a thing by appearance, then it depend on external things. But if we characterize them by their inner substance, then even if an object is all there is, it would still keep it identity.
The process of God's consciousness is defined to have no form or an outer appearance, and it is not composed of part, it is indivisible.
David Quinn wrote:It's funny how theism inevitably slides into the realm of thuggery and torture. He can torture me if he wants, but it still won't change the truth of his own status.
That is just a scenario I brought up not to miss anything, not an inevitability.
You seem to think that enlightenment is equal to immortality. But it is just a metaphorical immortality. From a materialistic point of view, your consciousness arose when the atoms in your brain are put together in right positions, when then these atom decompose, or fall apart from their positions your consciousness would disappear. In a sense you are your consciousness and when your consciousness no longer work, you die. Any mortal consciousness that is born is already old enough to die. So the goal of ephemeral consciousness is to die, or to achieve immortality? You seem to think your metaphorical immortality is superior to literal immortality, that is, ever-lasting consciousness.
Instead of God and man, we can examine our situation as the mortals and the immortals. What do you choose?
Another theory of God is that He is the totality of 'souls', namely the Oversoul, formless and massless, to which your soul will return and with which your would will reunite after your body decomposed. And Hell implies the separation from the Oversoul.
And if the universe, namely the total mass, is just like a drop of water amidst the immeasurable endless ocean that is God, then even if the All consists only of God and the universe, would you say God is insignificant to the endlessness of the All?
Kunga wrote:if there was a creator God, I would hope he has the intelligence and mercy to understand why we don't believe in him....
"Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence." - Bertrand Russel.