Evolution vs Creationism

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Considering my experiences, I think I may actually qualify as a 1. It's hard to not believe in someone you've had conversations with yourself.

 

You've had conversations with God? Like actually back and forth conversations? While praying is not part of my everyday routine, as I understand it, people who pray feel they are communicating with God when they do so. However, I was of the opinion that this communication was one way - that God did not actually talk back to you.

 

Well I guess God talks back in his own ways. It's free of interpretation. There's this movie called: 'Conversations with God' (what's in a name huh) where this guy claims he's had conversations with God. The response will probably be given through the steering of your desire or will, or it will just appeal to your intuition. Who will say.

We're in the post-modern age apparently... People make up their own reality. Can't blame 'em. If I interpret the same way, I'm having conversations with God. Though I rather see it as a conversation with myself. But it'll probably be the exact same thing.

On-topic: I've been to a debate concerning this topic. Haven't read through the topic, but I know it involves some sort of 'intelligent design'. I don't really believe it though. It seems something for the religious of heart. Might be that every happening has a purpose. Some people believe the Holocaust had a purpose. I tend to believe that though. But some 'force' who's responsible for the way things go around here? Hard to believe.

The only absolute law I believe in currently is the law of gravitation. It's supposed to transcend the physical world. The claim to this universality is written down in the infamous book: 'The Secret'. Though that book is a bit centered towards economic succes imo, it's still a useful book to live your life by. I should read it.

 

Aldeth, yes, He talks back (sometimes, when He feels I need it). Don't worry, it's not an audible voice (I don't hallucinate... often). It is the, well, I guess 'implantation of thoughts' is the best description I can give it. I get thoughts in my head that are direct responses to what I asked, and they are definitely not mine. I can feel a distinct and substantial difference. These thoughts aren't even words or clarified ideas as we tend to think in our conscious minds (usually with word-sounds and/or pictures, appealing to our two most important senses), they are raw concepts. I can always translate them into words, but the thougts carry so much more context, so much more understanding. The first time this happened, I was truely startled, even though I had been looking for something, but the experience is so one-of-a-kind, and so remarkably, inexplicably, well, divine. Really, there aren't words to describe it, but a 'still, small voice' really does some justice to it. Don't worry, this isn't a delusion or hallucination, I know way too much about psychology to believe that.

 

The response that you can get from praying can be anything. I always feel a sense of comfort or new purpose. A direction that I didn't know I needed.

Intelligent design is something that I should have put in the original post. It's certainly a halfway point between the two extremes!

 

I do not see Intelligent Design as a half way point between Creationism and Evolution at all. Intelligent Design is Creationism in sheep's clothing - they are practically synonymous terms. It's trying to place a scientific veneer over a throught process that is completely non-scientific.

 

Spiritual or religious experiences are a profoundly personal thing. They can not be duplicated under strict Scientific rules. If there is a divine being or consciousness he, she, it, whatever can not be treated as a lab rat. This being would be so far beyond our finite comprehension that there is no way to pin it down and test. It would act only in special circumstances and these circumstances are geared to the needs of the individual.

Maybe we should stick to the topic of Evolution vs Creationism and not get off topic with is there a god or spiritual experiences. We have done that before and it all boils down to the same thing. ZYX can't prove the concept wrong and CBA can't prove the concept right.

Trying to rationalize some of the strange and wonderful things that have happened to people just doesn't work. The experience goes far to deep and is an integral part of the individual. Sometimes it just plain can't be rationalized.

 

I can't see anything particularly intelligent about intelligent design where species are made as is, static and never changing.

Intelligent design? No.

Creation? Possible.

Evolution? Happens regardless.

 

Joac - I think your comments are interesting. Jung believed that man was spiritual by nature. Nataraja, with whom you are in agreement on many points, has not displayed any frustation towards those of us who believe in a personal God (more of bewilderment). But he has not repressed that side of his nature, as he has explained. That side of our nature, as depth psychology explains, is in the unconscious part of the human psyche.

The general point I'm attempting to make is that there is not any real unity in the human psyche. Human nature is divided with itself and we see that expressed in many instances, and not just religion and science. I believe it is important that we understand ourselves (through self-examination) and not become so delusional that somehow we come to the point where we believe that we are ONLY rational or ONLY spiritual by nature.

 

@Aldeth, the book is The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

 

Thanks heaps, you pretty much summed me up there. For me gods and goddesses are aspects of the universe, such as can be seen in the more well known gods; Vishnu being the aspect of god as a maintainer of the essence of the universe, Shiva being the aspect of god as the transformer of energy through destruction and re-creation, Ganesha being the aspect of god as the starting point, the over-comer of obstacles etc. To the majority of people Ive realised these appear to be separate gods, like polytheism. But this couldnt be further from the truth. All of them are just aspects of the One, the That. That is what ensouls the universe and everything in it, That is the inexpressible unity that is beyond mind, beyond time, beyond the universe itself.

While Shiva is my personal god, I am fully aware that he is just an aspect of the One, Brahman, and I dont pray to him in any way, but I have a few times, mostly I just seek to become One with him through meditation, cannabis, and dance. Basically, it is the god of Einstein, only it is anthropomorphic with the anthropomorphism increasing as you go down the scale from That to humanity. It is all about the levels of awareness you have.

Last night I had the complete awareness of myself on the pale blue dot...and because I was looking in the mirror at the same time, and I was hella baked, I was able to experience multiple levels of awareness simultaneously. I totally experienced the mobius strip of the self and qualia that Ramachandran talked about. While I disagree with the Afro-Asiatic mythology and all of its descendant religions on their metaphysical cosmology, and on their nature of god (why just one?!?, makes no sense to me), I do understand how important these things are for them. What I found though was that the more I got in to science, the less of a place my gods have in the universe, and now they are mostly just relegated to being nothing more than anthropomorphized constructs of the mind that helped less technologically endowed mankind understand the universe and their place in it.

Back to evolution vs creationism...

I thought that ID was no longer a viable 'theory', and that it was now 'Teach the Controversy'. Ever since the court case in the US showed that ID was creationism in disguise, I thought that it was the end of the whole debacle, but looks like I was wrong...

 

Nataraja - By awareness, do you mean to say, self-awareness, or a heightened sense of "reality?" I use the term reality to describe a part of existence which is unseen and ony by merging with your God figure can you sense that part of reality that is unseen. And that you are able to becaome "aware" of greater aspects of it. I would guess the former in this case, since for you there does not seem to be anything within our reality that cannot be measured or demostrated empirically. But I could be wrong in both instances, since for me spirtual awarness is through the unconscious part of the psyche.

Nevertheless, God can assume any form He desires. In Christianity we have more than one God in the sense that there is the Holy Trinity. But the Trinity is still One Being, and divine in nature, regardless of the form. All three are different aspects of the same Being.

Edit - Sorry, I meant former, not latter in my question. Fixed it.

 

The latter, mostly. I find as my awareness increases my self disappears. I frequently experience ego death, mostly though meditation, but also through the use of cannabis, the sacred plant of Shiva, but that isnt something I do regularly. I have nearly completely shut off the chatter in my brain, for example. I no longer hear things in my head, not when I read or when I listen to music...I stopped thinking with a voice. I came to the realisation that you are not that voice in your head, and if you listen carefully it is many voices in your head using the same or similar voices. I think, but I cannot confirm, that this is because you have two brains, a left and a right. So, yeah, basically I experience heightened reality and the dissolution of the self.

Yeah thats the problem I have, but you are right in that its more of an honest bewilderment. I cannot understand a god that is an actual being. My understanding is best summed up by wikipedia

"Brahman is the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter, energy, time, space, being, and everything beyond in this Universe."

...which is why I have found very little problems with my religion and evolution and all other science.

Advaita Vedanta view of Brahman

 

Ah, your ego is the part of the psyche that disappears. Well, I think we are speaking of something similar:

But this is an integration of both the ego and the unconscious part of the self. For you, it seems the destruction of the ego. That is not the same thing in theory, although it may work out the same in actual pratice. Interesting....

 

By destruction of ego it is more of a dissolving of the ego into a greater cosmic ego, Shiva Consciousness. It is the realisation that the 'me' is really just God, or Shiva, and the break down of the barriers that restrict this realisation.

 

Ah! So it really is a heightened sense of reality. I'm impressed. Not that there is anything wrong with self-awareness either.

 

It is about experiencing everything exactly the way it is, incorporating all of my (limited) knowledge and applying it to how I experience the universe. Experiencing life as biological research reveals it to be, for example...the realisation that the reason why we breath is to supply oxygen for our metabolism, the realisation that all organisms are at the same evolutionary level, experiencing myself as just a form of organized matter or experiencing myself as a stellar phenomenon. I also experience the planet moving, not the sun, I experience this planet as being such and in no way different from the pictures the Mars and Moon probes send back to us...except of course theres life. This is at first glance non-spiritual experiences, yet that couldnt be further from the truth. Because the ultimate reality underlying all of the universe is Brahman, it is to me no different than experiencing the nature and essence of god.

Like I always say to other scientists and science students, 'Scientists study god all day long and usually dont realise it'.

 

I was impressed because you really are spiritual by nature. I understood that the science is another expression of the spiritual for you, now that we are examining these concepts from a different point of view. What is spiritual and rational is not an issue, the way it is for some of us, because they are the same thing (from your point of view).

 

Its all how you look at it, Ive found, when it comes to spirituality and science. Whenever science contradicts a pre-existing belief of mine, I change my beliefs to match reality. This allows me to be incredibly flexible and allows for a lot of adaptation. I guess you could say that my religious view evolves gradually over time in small increments.

I strongly feel that life is more amazing when it is a struggle against insurmountable odds, such as seen in the evolution of our species, for example. Just makes me feel better knowing that against the odds, here we are...exactly as we are, than if we were made by a god and then were bad and now all of the world suffers.

 

I think what Nataraja is talking about is why many of the eastern religions are growing in popularity in the west as well. Mostly Buddhism but Buddhism and Hinduism shares many things just like the western monotheistic religions share many things. It is because they are compatible with the modern world, there is very little in buddhistic philosophy that really contradict the scientific view of the world. That doesn't mean I personally follow them but they are much easier to reconcile with the universe we through science are learning more and more about. The only way to reconcile the monothestic religions with the modern world is to either butcher the religion or the science.