Shermer: Are consciousness, free will and God insoluble mysteries?

I don't think it is a matter of having regard for the universe, I think that is placing such a god outside the universe looking in (or down, or upon). The universe, to my way of thinking, is within - a living part of - that which we might call God. Thus everything that happens within is "felt" - in some form of feedback - by the so-called Prime Mover.

One of the problems here is that we are accustomed to thinking in terms of three dimensions. Another, regardless of religious belief or lack thereof, at least in the Western tradition, is this idea of god as being somehow separate. Especially the atheists. They hold some of the strongest beliefs about the nature of god. After all, if one is opposed to something, one must picture it clearly, is that not so?

But, as I discovered on a personal journey, there is no distance at all. What we seek, what we discuss, what we ignore, is right here. When we think of some form of influence on activity within living cells, for example, we don't need to look outside, like say the gravitational field of Jupiter. We are not astrologers, after all.What we are is people who observe the world around us, and the influences are right here, within this world. That doesn't imply that only the material world exists, rather, only the material is directly observable. Just as there are ultra-violet and infra-red, outside our human eyesight, there is more to explore, right here, just a hair's breadth away.