Do you believe in God?

Why don't we forget worship.  I don't see how a creator would have to be worshiped in order to be thought of as "God"  My point was, do you really believe that you would be capable of creating and managing a universe simply because the creator could (if there is one)  I don't understand your logic here and I tend to think from what you wrote that your position is more an emotional one than one you really believe.

Right this very moment? No I clearly can't make a universe, but I see no reason why I couldn't learn how to do it. If I want to bring in past life stuff then I certainly have known people who could do that so yeah, I don't see why not.

Right this very moment? No I clearly can't make a universe, but I see no reason why I couldn't learn how to do it. If I want to bring in past life stuff then I certainly have known people who could do that so yeah, I don't see why not.

And although there is certainly a component that is emotional, that emotionality is what has allowed me to achieve what I have with magic thus far, even though I'm thinking I'm going to need to seriously change m approach these days if I want any chance of achieving my goals with it, and that there's a very real chance that I might die before succeeding. But my grit was what allowed me to do what was supposed to be impossible in the first place. Not just in this life but long, long before this. So the idea of figuring out how to build a universe really isn't that far of a stretch for me given the "impossible" stuff I've already done. All it would take is some time and effort.

Why don't we forget worship.  I don't see how a creator would have to be worshiped in order to be thought of as "God"  My point was, do you really believe that you would be capable of creating and managing a universe simply because the creator could (if there is one)  I don't understand your logic here and I tend to think from what you wrote that your position is more an emotional one than one you really believe.

In my view we should also forget 'creator'. From my perspective, it is a role, like a job-description for one sector of whatever would comprise a whole. I often come across the term 'creator' here and there used as a drop-in replacement for the term 'God'. However from my perspective it seems a rather narrow and incomplete categorisation, one which might distract away from something - I cannot say what - more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCyq8CeQLTQ

I can't fathom how you could know that it was "The Creator" rather than "something pretending to be the creator", and thus chose that it can't be known.

Back from a long hiatus, might have a good post inc. soon.

God is a loaded term, To the average, say, American where I live, it would invoke the judeo-christian god and all concomittant beliefs / baggage to a specific domination, to which I would say no.

If one means the "source", some sort of universal transcendent "thing" which may be difficult to describe, but yet may be denied by "atheists" then I would say, very yes.

One of the biggest issues with the concept of a big G God "person" is the implicit claim that they are a philosophical authority that you are obligated to obey. Which itself brings up the logically fallacious concept of authority itself. In reality there can be no such thing as a philosophical authority, only functional authority, which derives from violence and thus power.

I was originally going to go into a whole bunch of technical detail about what I remember about energy techniques relating to "creation" combined with experiments I've done in this life that suggests those things are possible and a brief thing from m the third time I got spirited away in this life since uniquely that one was kinda voluntary, lasted the longest, and was done by someone who claimed to be a goddess. I learned some interesting things over there but apparently I didn't save any of what I'd written so far, which is unfortunate.

[Laird]

Hey, Mediochre, a question for you to kind of get at your challenge to philosophical authority from an angle I think is worth trying: do you believe in such a thing as "wisdom"? If so, what do you think it is? I don't mean in terms of specific "nuggets of wisdom", but in general; in the abstract.

Hey, Mediochre, a question for you to kind of get at your challenge to philosophical authority from an angle I think is worth trying: do you believe in such a thing as "wisdom"? If so, what do you think it is? I don't mean in terms of specific "nuggets of wisdom", but in general; in the abstract.

Yeah I do think wisdom can be a thing. And keep in mind that  the definition of authority I'm using is "the one who has the right to rule you and whom you must obey" which shouldn't be mistaken for expertise. Logically speaking authority cannot exist since you always have the option of just not obeying and doing your own thing. Which is why philosophical authority can't exist and also why functional real world authority must be based entirely on violence and power. Its a "you'll do what I say or else" style of authority because that's the only way to make it work. But yes, I do think general wisdom can be a thing, though you could argue its just a refinement of regular knowledge to include more subtlety.

Yes, I think some form of intelligence exists, that we might call God. At the same time I have to say that I put the odds at this being true at maybe 80% or higher.

Once again I defer to our good friend Manjit’s magnificent description of such an entity...

"And I can't help but feel that the universe, reality, consciousness, being, divinity or whatever....... is just so much more mysterious, awesome, magical, astonishing, incomprehensible, mind-shattering than anything humankind has conceived of."

Manjit’s description included a ‘fucking’ somewhere, possibly before the word ‘mysterious’.