Is god sentient?

Post Reply New Topic

Something that's really interesting as a spectator is how many understandings of a single god exist. Both in the sense of multiple names but even more so in the different understandings of what the personality attached to that being might be.

You're right though, there's no reason to assume a god might care about such concerns as what we describe as 'acts of god'. They might be far more disinterested in us than we'd like to acknowledge, although that sorta god probably doesn't send floods and sons.

Of course, it's quite possible that neither floods nor proclaimed sons have anything to do with gods, whether or not gods exist.

Also, if one views their god as their creator, wouldn't that make the claim of being their god's child a much less substantial claim, since everyone who buys that notion can make that claim?

He's sentient in the way a puppet is sentient.

Hint: the man who controls the puppet is sentient and he lends his voice to the puppet.

Not if the one making the claim isn't a created being. Created beings such as we are have a shelf life. We begin to exist at some point, i.e. we are created beings. The Logos isn't a created being but is eternal (God).

Otherwise, you are logically correct in that in human form Jesus made Himself equal with all created beings. And that was half the point, that God reaches down to us not in the form of a loving Father "up there" and detached from our reality but as a brother in the here and now.

As far as acts of God and natural disasters go, I think there are things that can be explained in terms of timing, like hurricanes that show up on weather radar and satellite, or things like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes that we can be reasonably certain WILL happen although we're not always certain about when. The Santorini eruption COULD explain the plagues in Egypt. The Sea of Reeds is not terribly deep, but crossing any body of water won't be easy. An earthquake/tsunami would partially explain receding water allowing the Israelites to cross easily, and a fast-moving wave of water after such an event would easily wipe out a military detachment caught in the area at the wrong time.

But then Moses just "happens" to show up at the beginning and the end of each phase of it without any knowledge of Santorini. Sure, it was going to happen anyway. But knowing the timing of it put Pharaoh at a disadvantage and set up a political crisis that Moses leveraged to move the Israelites out of Egypt. In strictly scientific terms, that's unheard of. God either led Moses to take advantage of the timing of events related to Santorini and a rare earthquake, or God caused all those things to happen at Moses' word. I prefer the latter. The former is less "miraculous," of course, but there is no explanation why Moses could have predicted exactly everything that happened. It doesn't explain how Moses happened to get all the Israelites together in one place exactly when the Reed Sea receded (or Red Sea if you prefer) and how a tidal wave just happened to crush the Egyptian military once the Israelites were safe. And there's no exact certainty that Santorini was responsible for everything that happened. Targeting the firstborn of the Egyptian families seems a bit...specific, does it not?

But if information travels bi-directionally between the past and the future, it seems much less miraculous. Suppose Santorini was NOT the cause of the plagues. The plagues were bound to happen because God already knew Pharaoh wouldn't change his mind. God reveals all this to Moses and all Moses has to do is just show up and tell everyone involved what's going to happen--and of course, it does. And that means everyone knows that when Moses shows up, he has a message from the Lord and is uniquely qualified to lead them through the Exodus period.

Personally, I prefer not to overly complicate things. God reveals what he wants to reveal to who he wants to reveal it to. God makes happen what he wants to make happen. His creation is his property and within his power to dispose of as he pleases. If God wants to knock on our door by doing the impossible, nothing can stand in his way.

---

GoD iS A WinG oN A Bird
Becoming Wind FRiEnDS
With Gravity Perfecting Life to Breathe

True Others Believe in An Idol God of
Human Abstract Constructs Somehow

Believing

They Will Fly
Greater Than
A Bird On Wings
Becoming One With Wind
And FRiEnDS With Gravity
Perfecting Life to BREaTHE Even more...

And Even Tell God How God Must Fly Free;

True, Unless i Become That Bird And Wings And Wind
The Air i BREatHE A Lesser God i Will Be Than Bird On Wings Wind Free...

Hmm, About Half the World Believes in a God of Words By Story Told;

Hmm About the Other Half And So Much More

Lives God More As

Experience

Greater FRiEnDS
With Gravity And
The Rest of Nature in Balancing
Force of Peace iN LoVE That is No
Force At All

Just Balance

Just Peace

Just Loving
Life As is God to Be i Am...

Seriously, If Ya Can't Find God
On A Beach Naked Enough Whole
Complete With No Words And Only

Foot Prints to
Be Obviously

Part oF iT ALL,

God is Not Real
And Only WordS iN A Book
MiSSinG The MarK of Nature
iN OTheR Such Make Believe of Human
Abstract Constructs Alone And Truly Dead.

On The Other Hand, Symbols May Become Sugar
Pills Real in Magnificent Placebo Effect As It's True

Not Unlike What the Great Band 'Styx' Suggested in
'Pieces of Eight' And 'Lords of the Ring,' 'To the magic
and mystery they bring to the music in their story,' It's the Hope

The Faith
The Essence

The Loving Life

of the Placebo
Sugar Pill Effect

of the Stories That May
Yes Bring Giving Sharing
Caring Healing More As
Well With Most Respect
And least Harm for All

Yet of Course THere is DarKeR
And LiGHTeR, Ya May Find A 'Good
Cop Jesus' in a 'New Testament Beatitude'
Flavored With Peace and Love Or Again By
The End of 'Matthew' One 'Literally' Who Psychopathically
Leaning Tortures Parts of Creation Forever Without Abate...

Which Ever Jesus As Sugar Pill of Placebo or Voodoo of Nocebo

Folks Come to Find and Do; Or Whatever Other Symbol Used As

Sugar
Pill
or
Voodoo too

Is Mostly Flavored
By Our Experiences

In Life And Whatever

Hallucinations of Life We Co-Create Next
As Modern Neuroscience ShowS iNDeeD

We Co-Create Our Stories of Life And With
That Come Symbols of God's of Dreams and
Nightmares too

Whatever
Path Humans
Will Create Next
Solo and ToGeTHeR Real...

i'm Not Waiting For A Dirt
Nap For Heaven Within i
Co-Create This Reality Within;

i Give Share Care and Heal it All
Away For Free Yet of Course It's

Not A World All Are Able to Meet And Greet With SMiles

As Two People Sitting at A Bus Stop May Experience Heaven
And Hell Together

Separate
Yet real
As Real Gets...

Sort of Like 'Pink Floyd'
And Their Lament of
'Wishing You Were Here...'

More Than Likely Associated
With the Inner Hell they Witnessed
'Syd Barrett' Going Through Then Yes

As The Light Glimmering ERaSinG From His Eyes; Yes,

The 'DarK Side of the Moon,' i've Staycationed Too As Well...

Oh How Wonderful it is to Shine Sun Within Again on Moon's Who 'See'...

You'll Never likely Fully Understand Sacred and Holy Text Until Ya ViSiT 'the Places'

Similarly
Within

'Ghost
Authors'
DID For REAL;

Particularly, if You
Are Fortunate Enough

To Return
Again...

iNDeeD
i BREaTHE
A 'Sentient God' For Real

Never iMPRiSoNeD NoW Alone
iN A Book i Am 'Wind' FREE ReaL..

---

Mind you, it's more reasonable to assume that flesh and blood craftsman was merely a regular craftsman and just another created being (if one believes in a creator). Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and the idea that Jesus was more than a man is an incredibly extraordinary claim that even many early Christians didn't accept at face value. There's a reason why the early church had to make rulings on this matter, because Christians weren't united in belief.

But, I have yet to encounter a faith that doesn't eventually boil down to this is true because we believe it to be true on our faith. It always requires the acceptance of some unproven claim on which all the other claims stand.

Even where you start your case here requires one to accept an unsubstantiated claim, that the person calling themselves the Son of God was actually divine. If they weren't (which is the more likely possibility), then any line of reasoning built on top of the notion of Jesus as divine also falls apart.

Since the premise seems impossible to me, so do the conclusions but I realize faith plays a big role in whether or not one accepts those claims.

Not really, though. In order to argue "extraordinary claims," I would have to accept the premise that Jesus isn't who He is. And this I cannot do. We are only as correct as our presuppositions. From my point of view having experienced things as I have and being unable to deny what I know to be true, the claim of NON-existence is an extraordinary. I cannot see how God does NOT exist, in other words. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that even extraordinary evidence wouldn't suffice; it is IMPOSSIBLE to believe otherwise.

I honestly did try apologetics at one point not too many years ago. I enjoyed it and learned a lot of things, and I think I matured in several ways. But the "extraordinary evidence" thing grew tiresome. It took me a while to figure out why I got so frustrated over it. I honestly believed that the extraordinary evidence thing was the goalpost. Oddly enough, the more I tried arguing evidence, the goalpost seemed to get further and further away. I finally realized that from my experience, the existence of God is nothing extraordinary. The world wouldn't exist without a Creator. THAT would be extraordinary. I can't reasonably assume the burden of proof because I'm not the one claiming God doesn't exist. Since there's no need for me to prove anything, I gave up trying to make the argument in favor of expecting the atheist to prove his case...which he can't do. Oh, they always say, "you can't prove a negative," but...actually, a negative CAN be proven. The non-existence of things CAN be proven. And, of course, the classic goalpost-moving extraordinary evidence thing.

I do think evidence is an important thing to discuss, or rather the role of evidence in faith formation. I wouldn't feel the way I do without reason, without a sequence of events in my life that put me in a position in which God is undeniable. It's no secret that I've picked up on Ayn Rand and objectivism. I think she's right about so many things, especially with regard to epistemology. But objective atheism is built on the axiom that God cannot possibly be a part of reality outside the human mind. Objectivists pretty much HAVE to assume God doesn't exist without proving He doesn't exist--as Ayn Rand foolishly and famously declared "One cannot be called to prove non-existence..." In other words, Objectivism is just as much about faith as Christianity is, and I think it's a shame that someone who gets it so right philosophically also gets it so wrong. But there is faith, and then there is blind faith. If you cannot REASONABLY believe something, you shouldn't believe it. I wouldn't still claim to be a Christian if I didn't see evidence from day to day that this is real. More importantly, I think it's that I CHOOSE to see it that I have evidence that substantiates my faith. What defines atheism with regard to evidence is that the atheist CHOOSES to not see evidence. It might be some atheists actively REFUSE to see evidence. And I think that's what has making the case for Christ a difficult task for the Christian. You can't reason with the unreasonable.

You mentioned faith as opposed to evidence. I haven't always been entirely in agreement that my beliefs are all about faith, but I've come to accept that more in recent years. If we're being honest, EVERYTHING is taken on faith. The law of gravity. Atomic theory. Evolution. Big Bang. All of it. If you're being consistent and require evidence for everything, then you need to strap yourself to your bed and bolt it to the foundation of your house just in case gravity doesn't work when you wake up the next day. You don't know that gravity is reliable when you wake up. What if something changes? No, you ASSUME gravity is reliable, that your next glass of water isn't full of poison, and that your vehicle will reliably get you to/from work or school. You expect everything to work as it did from one moment to the next. You don't need to test things and prove things before you act on other things. It "just works" and that's enough.

Well...that's faith. Don't bother with counterarguments, I'm just going to ignore them. At some point you have to accept that things work as you expect them to, else there is no reasonable point to waking up or going about your day at all.

The trouble with human beings is the ability to reasonably know or expect anything. If you work from the opposite direction, from a place of belief rather than disbelief, you already know that the world is an imperfect place full of imperfect people. People do bad things. People are evil. And the evil and sin that people allow into the world has a corrupting influence on the world. The human mind exists as part of that corrupt world, therefore the mind is also corrupted. The corrupted mind cannot be expected to understand the world as it is. We cannot make any claims to know anything because our minds don't allow us to.

The only way one can make a claim to know anything with any reasonable certainty is if the mind is informed by a being whose mind isn't corrupted by the influence of sin. That mind must also be capable of knowing EVERYTHING. Without knowing all things, one cannot know anything. But if a mind is capable of knowing all things, that mind is reliable and can be trusted. If that mind can be trusted, then AT LEAST ONE thing can be known by any human minds that have a relationship with an omniscient mind. If AT LEAST ONE thing can be known, other things can also be known built upon the truth that is already known. And those things can ONLY be known if a being exists which can heal the human mind from the influence of sin.

Once the human mind is healed from its corrupted state, the all-knowing Mind can reveal truth to it. From there other things can be reliably known.

The role of faith is trusting that the One Mind is reliable and reveals truth. And I think that's an extremely difficult thing for an atheist or hard empiricist to do. Not impossible, but it requires the admission that you only know anything because God reveals it.

I don't expect to argue you into losing faith, even if you accept the logic of my points. I'm fine with having them accepted as coherent and understood as where I'm coming from.

I enjoy hearing your logic as well, especially how you reconcile things I find irreconcilable, or seeing where it does require concession to just faith. Because it's something I literally struggle to conceive of on some level I'm as curious as a small child, only with a slightly better ability to ask probing questions or pick at where no one's been able to give a 'logical' answer.

I feel that a Creator ultimately is just short circuits the question of the origins of the universe. In some way it's the goalpost that moves. Even if there's a totally natural creator (say like, it's all a simulation on a computer, or some understandable actor caused our universe to begin, whatever) all it does is introduce a whole new problem to understand, among things, how they came to be.

Why the Creator doesn't need a Creator can never be answered adequately for me. It always comes off like whenever you see something like that, a wizard did it.

But this is why I struggle to even imagine believing in such things. Even my fantasy setting has a 'natural origin' despite the fact that it's completely irrelevant and not understood or known by a single person. I understand that I could create the world in an afternoon before my Godly presence dies after tripping over a black hole... or whatever more fantastic scenario I like, and yet... I don't know if I can buy that.

Sometimes fantasies aren’t really fantasies, or like how a broken clock is correct twice a day.

I do see what you mean, though. For me, it’s not really a concession that “it’s just faith” because faith isn’t worth much without something real to believe in. It’s a commonality that we all have, believers and atheists alike, because everything must ultimately rest on assumptions that have to be proven but cannot be. Doesn’t matter who you are or what you believe, it’s all circular reasoning. But taken as an axiom or a presupposition, all other questions can be answered. Science DEPENDS on, say, Big Bang or Evolution. You can’t talk science without them, or without at least assuming them.

And faith is the same way. We shouldn’t be out there trying to prove God exists to those who believe He doesn’t. Logically it’s an insult to God. Trying to prove God exists implies that God needs us to do so. God is sovereign and has no such needs nor requires it of us. I don’t really do apologetics (except presuppositional) anymore because the idea that God needs defending suggests God did something wrong that demands a defense.

Why does it have to be infinite?How do you know?The ontological argument? Why choose the worst argument to be one of your favourites?Gathering evidence to support your claims? All a waste of time. It saves so much effort to just say something is a presupposition so you don't have to prove it.Yep. That's pretty much how creationism works.

Last edited by RetroGamer87 on 23 Jan 2023, 1:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

One important difference between science and religion is that science is willing to disprove the Big Bang if evidence for another explanation starts to build-up.

The same would be true of evolution, although at this point it seems very unlikely.

Neither of those are likely to be disproven in favour of biblical claims, so disproving them would mean very little to science vs. Creationism. If we proved reality was all a computer simulation (for example) it wouldn't advance biblical Creationism even if it meant something resembling Creationism was true.

Science would just start trying to understand the world based on what we know, it wouldn't miss a beat. You would see a lot of atheists reconsider if the now proven creator counts as a god though.

Faith might require a more significant reboot because we'd have concrete evidence of a creator, just not theirs. Of course, many folks would just ignore it and stick with how their faith understands the universe. Pssh, computer simulation, everyone knows the universe was created when the world-egg hatched inside the primordial darkness. You see those stars, that's what's left of the egg membrane. Checkmate scientists.

You're right though, if God or many gods exist, they don't need defended. Odds are they've got much higher priorities than discussions between humans.

In order to consider and answer that question, we would first have to establish that god exists first, beyond reasonable doubt, which has not happened yet.

Why can't we discuss him hypothetically?

Which god are we talking about?

If one assumes that the universe is god (pantheism), then it is sentient. E.g. through you, a focal point of consciousness. You're the universe becoming aware of itself.

Agree.

I guess we can discuss him/her/it hypothetically, but it will always just be hypothetical speculation without the ability to figure out the facts without god's existence being confirmed. Only when god's existence is confirmed can we actually start serious discussion about attributes.