[magkelly]

To me it's only logical that there's some kind of creating force from whence we came. What we call it is probably irrelevant as are the religions we humans like to make up to explain it all. We like to put at least semi-human face on whatever brought it all forth. Most of us seem to need a personal relationship with "God" whatever that might actually be.

The universe is too intelligently put together for me to take it as some random thing. The whole universe is basically math and music and even most diehard scientists will admit that. I personally think that the evidence of that creator's existence is all around us for science to see. I don't see science and in particular evolution as being mutually incompatible.

Religion per se I don't usually have much use for. That's all the same mythology regurgitated again and again by different people in different eras in my book. Everyone wants to think they have a handle on who "God" is but that's just human hubris talking, us even trying. In terms of being advanced enough? We're probably less than an amoeba compared to that which created us and the universe.

But I can't create a universe, at least I don't think I can, so yeah, there must be something out there that is of far greater intelligence and capacity than me. I seriously doubt though that it's at all concerned with which religion I adhere to or don't.

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

To me it's only logical that there's some kind of creating force from whence we came.

Have you read God's Debris? It's a quick and fun read, and it's free to put on your favorite digital reader.

[Digitalis]

To me it's only logical that there's some kind of creating force from whence we came.

even if there was I find it amusing that dominant western religions claim that a being with the power to create a universe would give a crap about a few billion specks of carbon riding on a dirtball hurtling through the interstellar medium.

The universe is too intelligently put together for me to take it as some random thing.

The fine tuning of the universe is remarkable but it isn't as improbable as you would think, it's only going to be a matter of time before we understand the mechanisms behind it.

[magkelly]

So the universe created itself that's what you're saying? Finding out how it works still doesn't really explain where it came from. Something capable of making a universe had to create it and put it there in the first place. I'm not saying that "God" is necessarily what we humans make it out to be. A personal interacting deity kind of thing is unlikely. Something as complex and vast as a universe has to come from somewhere originally. There has to be some force behind it's creation or it wouldn't even exist.

What's left outside the universe or universes? An empty void? Something has to move all that matter/antimatter around. Even if it's simply a force like in Star Wars and not a completely sentient being it's still greater than us and capable of an act of creation that we humans can't do.

[wildman]

The fine tuning of the universe is remarkable but it isn't as improbable as you would think, it's only going to be a matter of time before we understand the mechanisms behind it.

That may very well be true.

But -

Once we understand the universe as mechanism will that be adequate to explain how we actually experience the universe as a sentient, conscious living organism?

As someone who does not have a "religious" bone in his body that remains, for me at least, an open question.

[ihasa]

It seems to us humans that the universe was put together in such a perfect way that suits us so perfectly.

But this is because we have evolved to suit our niche in the universe, rather than the other way round.

[Coeurdechene]

The universe is too intelligently put together for me to take it as some random thing

That's a very anthropocentric view...intelligently put means (to some extent) volition...and assuming an act of volition is assuming something that shares with us our traits, or at least some...

The whole universe is basically math and music and even most diehard scientists will admit that

The whole universe is...Math is just our abstract game based on axioms that is usefull to model and explain reality it isn't reality.

Something capable of making a universe had to create it and put it there in the first place.

Why?

Something as complex and vast as a universe has to come from somewhere originally

It's not necessary to that something to be an immanent, omniscient, inteligent and volitive...
i know you said it needn't to be as we made humans pictured God, but assuming a creative voluntary force is just assuming a god, but a god that does not need to care about us...something more like the big architect to some masons, or the "reason" god of the french revolution...

Something has to move all that matter/antimatter around

Again why?
And then maybe is just that we can't aprehend reality in it's complex nature...maybe we can't understand void...or it's just our imprecise way to describe something we can't experience...
I think that need is ours...it's more our need to have something familiar, something (even remotely) close that explains all that is out of our capacity.

And then even if it was true that god would be independant to us, irrelevant...needless to say that our religious attitude towards it would be pointless and since it has benn socially harmless and source of opression for so much time, it should be fought (and i'm not refering to personal ,valid choices like Les' that in no way tend or try to be imposed but to those postures that have been teocrathic, that pretend power over people and that want to impose their moral codes to all of us based on their arbitrary god).

[Ratmagiclady]

To me it's only logical that there's some kind of creating force from whence we came.

I wouldn't say so, actually. *Logic* does not dictate this: sometimes we *believe* so because someone considered the *inventor* of 'logic' started asserting conceptually that there must be a 'prime mover,' but we also know that the event-based causality he was *assuming* actually breaks *down* when it comes to events in our own timelines.

The *consciousness* may be, logically-speaking, an *emergent phenomenon* inasmuch as we can speak in causal terms.

(This possibility/view doesn't change much for me, theologically. Among our 'Creation' stories of a cosmological bent, is one where the multiverse as we know it arose from Goddess looking in a mirror and manifesting all this form, err, ecstatically. Which is still putting a narrative, however much a kinda-Tantric one, on something which may not really be event-based in a way we could just keep working back cause-and-effect wise, cause that's still Now. Even this. )

What we call it is probably irrelevant as are the religions we humans like to make up to explain it all. We like to put at least semi-human face on whatever brought it all forth. Most of us seem to need a personal relationship with "God" whatever that might actually be.

I don't suppose there's anything wrong with *that,* ...put some try to go past Time and claim other things must 'follow,' and that's not necessarily as 'logical' as some might have you believe.

I do tend to file that under 'Cooler Than That'

The universe is too intelligently put together for me to take it as some random thing.

I would say, this does *not* follow: especially in imposing a very human-like binary-thinking 'Random Or Made' paradigm on a universe that nothing says must obey that paradigm.

From what *I* think I have seen and understood about the multiverse, all possibilities are actual and the stable parts tend to be stable. Some ask, 'Why is this physical 'law' just so to be just as it is? If it were not so, matter would fly apart!

I suggest that it *does* fly apart, everywhere it doesn't.

The whole universe is basically math and music and even most diehard scientists will admit that. I personally think that the evidence of that creator's existence is all around us for science to see. I don't see science and in particular evolution as being mutually incompatible.

I'd say it's *evident* that we're in a place we can sing and calculate, and that ain't half-bad.

I do see the Divine *in this* but logically speaking won't say that means it's 'created' nor go further to say 'by 'design.'' I do know, blood bone and soul, it's *alive* or at least that's the best way for creatures such as we're being to describe That.

Religion per se I don't usually have much use for. That's all the same mythology regurgitated again and again by different people in different eras in my book. Everyone wants to think they have a handle on who "God" is but that's just human hubris talking, us even trying. In terms of being advanced enough? We're probably less than an amoeba compared to that which created us and the universe.

I suppose people confuse 'In My Book' for some 'Ultimate Form Of Nature.' Then try to draw conclusions about *myths.* And myths aren't bad. Myths are a story that never happened but is always true... And that sounds a lot like what I* can know about our little piece of space-time-matter-energy-a/causality.

But I can't create a universe, at least I don't think I can, so yeah, there must be something out there that is of far greater intelligence and capacity than me. I seriously doubt though that it's at all concerned with which religion I adhere to or don't.

That's where it gets messy here on our Earths. But, no, certain *religious beliefs* assert that 'believing the right thing offers a sense of vicarious control over the universe and time and possibility and what our brainstems fear as 'death.'


Maybe All This wasn't 'made' by 'designs' of 'A bigger human-like Intelligence.' (Does She *have* to be?) Maybe She's just All That and This Bag of Miss Vickie's Simply Sea Salt Kettle-Cooked Chips on my desk. (All Natural Original Recipe, welcome to my microcosm. )

Maybe *we're the ones* who make stuff. Design stuff, organize stuff in our little corner of Creation and Creation ain't done yet, done for us, or 'done' like we being talkey-thinkey-throwey hairless primates count things 'done or undone.'

And we get a lot of mirrors. Even make some, and if that ain't creating a universe, I dunno what is.

[magkelly]

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff." - The Doctor

This is "God" to me too in a way. I don't even pretend to understand the whole "God" entity thing beyond the human ideas of it. I figure it's a bit like that time thing. It's probably all scrambled up and backwards and forwards, but not really because it's actually not going the way my primitive mind thinks it's supposed to kind of stuff.

Thinking about time travel too much always did give me a metaphysical headache. Thinking about "God" the universe, and how and why we're here usually does too. I'm a big picture kind of person, but the whole Creation thing is sometimes a bigger pic than even my fairly open mind wants to contemplate for long.

I actually do like to contemplate my navel sometimes, you know? But not so much my mind turns to jello. At that point I tend to just accept what is known to me and just BE, figure I'll just have to wait and see on the rest...

[Ratmagiclady]

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff." - The Doctor

This is "God" to me too in a way.

Well, in *that* way, that's Mannanan Mac Lir, Myrddin, (Merlin) or... in modern tales, The Doctor.

Not 'God.' Just ... That Dude.


Of myth.

I don't even pretend to understand the whole "God" entity thing beyond the human ideas of it. I figure it's a bit like that time thing. It's probably all scrambled up and backwards and forwards, but not really because it's actually not going the way my primitive mind thinks it's supposed to kind of stuff.

Nothing wrong with admitting that.

Thinking about time travel too much always did give me a metaphysical headache.

I get that, too, Right in the tension headache where yer third eye's supposed to be.

Thinking about "God" the universe, and how and why we're here usually does too.

Well, someone's trying to sell you a big 'Why' about a 'How,' and hoping you don't look at the What.

I'm a big picture kind of person, but

'Big Picture' and 'But' don't get along.

the whole Creation thing is sometimes a bigger pic than even my fairly open mind wants to contemplate for long.

Well, if we're not *allowed* those wants, I could be in serious Dutch with speculative powers-that-may-or-may-not be.


And if that's *my* problem, the Universe has a serious middle-management dysfunction.

I actually do like to contemplate my navel sometimes, you know? But not so much my mind turns to jello. At that point I tend to just accept what is known to me and just BE, figure I'll just have to wait and see on the rest...

Ever wonder why *navel?* Or why it's spoken of so?

Heh. Wasn't what I was looking for, but ....Ever heard the tale of Bran the Blessed, (notably his head) or the ravens of the Tower of London?

You Tube

You Tube

Math Mathonwy? Gwion Bach? The Once And Future King?

I don't want to alarm you, but rumors of our conversion and colonization are greatly exaggerated.

[Ratmagiclady]

"If you knew your history, then you would know where you're coming from.. Then you wouldn't have to ask me....."

Bob Marley, but it applies.

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

Something capable of making a universe had to create it and put it there in the first place. ... There has to be some force behind it's creation or it wouldn't even exist.

And what is the force behind the force? Does gravity really explain anything about why it is happening? You apparently understand the second part but you stop short of following the idea all the way through:

Finding out how it works still doesn't really explain where it came from.

Saying something has created the universe still doesn't explain where that something came from and who created *it*. If the universe must have an origin, why shouldn't *it* have one as well? And if you are ready to accept that *it* does not have an origin, why do you find it so hard to accept that the universe may not have an origin in the first place?

The universe is too intelligently put together for me to take it as some random thing.

Most people feel that the universe is deterministic, so no one is asking you to take the universe as a random thing. In fact, you'll find no random things in it and generating truly random data is pretty much impossible. Proving that the universe is deterministic, however, is quite impossible too and proofs cannot be made out of what individuals feel they can accept as truth.