Different Concepts of God - Theism, Pantheism, Panpsychism, etc

[Winston]

Deep thoughts from Darryl Sloan about who or what is God.

Darryl Sloan:
Discussing the idea of God from the perspectives of monotheism (God is a being), pantheism (God is the universe) and atheism (God is the Big Bang singularity). What light does modern science shed on this age-old question, especially in light of the motion of galaxies and the nature of energy?

[fschmidt]

What total bullshit. I gave up after 6 minutes. Winston seems to have a fondness for new age verbosity. None of the ideas here are new, except the ones that make no sense. Maimonides said God is formless and Spinoza invented pantheism. The best answer to who is God is in Exodus 3:14 where Moses asked God who he is and God answered "I AM WHO I AM".

[E_Irizarry]

God isn't self-creating; something greater than God created God. The universe is infinite.

Entrapy and entropy of energy (e.g life and death of life on planet Earth) are different forms of transitions of energy that have always existed (i.e. souls = form of energy) to balance the isotope of the universe.

nuff said. Good night.

[The_Hero_of_Men]

God isn't self-creating; something greater than God created God. The universe is infinite.

Entrapy and entropy of energy (e.g life and death of life on planet Earth) are different forms of transitions of energy that have always existed (i.e. souls = form of energy) to balance the isotope of the universe.

nuff said. Good night.

Most black people would rip you apart for saying something like this, because (as you may already know) most Black people are religious.

[MrPeabody]

What total bullshit. I gave up after 6 minutes. Winston seems to have a fondness for new age verbosity. None of the ideas here are new, except the ones that make no sense. Maimonides said God is formless and Spinoza invented pantheism. The best answer to who is God is in Exodus 3:14 where Moses asked God who he is and God answered "I AM WHO I AM".

I thought you were an atheist?

[fschmidt]

I thought you were an atheist?

I don't believe in a supernatural God, but I don't like calling myself an atheist anymore because atheists tend to be intolerant liberals. So my solution now is to call myself a Karaite since Karaites allow for individual interpretation of God and the Hebrew Bible. And so I define God as the laws of nature. I don't like the pantheist approach of Spinoza because defining God as the universe destroys the concept morality and leads to liberalism. God must be cause, not result, for morality to hold. Defining God as the laws of nature works for this.

[MrPeabody]

I thought you were an atheist?

I don't believe in a supernatural God, but I don't like calling myself an atheist anymore because atheists tend to be intolerant liberals. So my solution now is to call myself a Karaite since Karaites allow for individual interpretation of God and the Hebrew Bible. And so I define God as the laws of nature. I don't like the pantheist approach of Spinoza because defining God as the universe destroys the concept morality and leads to liberalism. God must be cause, not result, for morality to hold. Defining God as the laws of nature works for this.

It sounds tortured but good luck. If nature forms a burning bush that starts talking to people, it sounds to me like a good old fashioned supernatural god.

[Jeygonza]

What total bullshit. I gave up after 6 minutes. Winston seems to have a fondness for new age verbosity. None of the ideas here are new, except the ones that make no sense. Maimonides said God is formless and Spinoza invented pantheism. The best answer to who is God is in Exodus 3:14 where Moses asked God who he is and God answered "I AM WHO I AM".

Almighty God!! that's the best answer i ever read, i mean God answer and your.

[Jeygonza]

I thought you were an atheist?

I don't believe in a supernatural God, but I don't like calling myself an atheist anymore because atheists tend to be intolerant liberals. So my solution now is to call myself a Karaite since Karaites allow for individual interpretation of God and the Hebrew Bible. And so I define God as the laws of nature. I don't like the pantheist approach of Spinoza because defining God as the universe destroys the concept morality and leads to liberalism. God must be cause, not result, for morality to hold. Defining God as the laws of nature works for this.

Those who say do not believe in God just want to feel free to do whatever they want without feeling guilty. Evolution, energies and all the other crap must have come from somewhere. An organism does not evolve if it did not exist before, then who will believe in the evolution of course I am a being created by God ..

[The_Hero_of_Men]

I thought you were an atheist?

I don't believe in a supernatural God, but I don't like calling myself an atheist anymore because atheists tend to be intolerant liberals. So my solution now is to call myself a Karaite since Karaites allow for individual interpretation of God and the Hebrew Bible. And so I define God as the laws of nature. I don't like the pantheist approach of Spinoza because defining God as the universe destroys the concept morality and leads to liberalism. God must be cause, not result, for morality to hold. Defining God as the laws of nature works for this.

Those who say do not believe in God just want to feel free to do whatever they want without feeling guilty. Evolution, energies and all the other crap must have come from somewhere. An organism does not evolve if it did not exist before, then who will believe in the evolution of course I am a being created by God ..

That is not always true, Jeinmy. I personally know Atheists who don't believe in God or any god whatsoever, who also live good upstanding moral lives. One does not have to be religious or believe in a God to be good-- The religious do not have a monopoly on good moral values.

[Jeygonza]

I thought you were an atheist?

I don't believe in a supernatural God, but I don't like calling myself an atheist anymore because atheists tend to be intolerant liberals. So my solution now is to call myself a Karaite since Karaites allow for individual interpretation of God and the Hebrew Bible. And so I define God as the laws of nature. I don't like the pantheist approach of Spinoza because defining God as the universe destroys the concept morality and leads to liberalism. God must be cause, not result, for morality to hold. Defining God as the laws of nature works for this.

Those who say do not believe in God just want to feel free to do whatever they want without feeling guilty. Evolution, energies and all the other crap must have come from somewhere. An organism does not evolve if it did not exist before, then who will believe in the evolution of course I am a being created by God ..

That is not always true, Jeinmy. I personally know Atheists who don't believe in God or any god whatsoever, who also live good upstanding moral lives. One does not have to be religious or believe in a God to be good-- The religious do not have a monopoly on good moral values.

You are right, I agree with you, but they represent only a small part of atheists

[E_Irizarry]

God isn't self-creating; something greater than God created God. The universe is infinite.

Entrapy and entropy of energy (e.g life and death of life on planet Earth) are different forms of transitions of energy that have always existed (i.e. souls = form of energy) to balance the isotope of the universe.

nuff said. Good night.

Most black people would rip you apart for saying something like this, because (as you may already know) most Black people are religious.

They would try to rip me apart. I told you; Black people and I are incongruent to each other. They and I do not coincide with each other very well, yet I'm still identified as one when ethnically and nationality-wise I'm not.

Jeinmy thinks F Schmidt's answer is the best. This again proves that women dont' have a scientific mind and cannot internalize eloquent profound concepts. This is not an attack at F Schmidt because he forever has my respect based on his factual opinion about Chile that he and I share.

[The_Hero_of_Men]

I thought you were an atheist?

I don't believe in a supernatural God, but I don't like calling myself an atheist anymore because atheists tend to be intolerant liberals. So my solution now is to call myself a Karaite since Karaites allow for individual interpretation of God and the Hebrew Bible. And so I define God as the laws of nature. I don't like the pantheist approach of Spinoza because defining God as the universe destroys the concept morality and leads to liberalism. God must be cause, not result, for morality to hold. Defining God as the laws of nature works for this.

Those who say do not believe in God just want to feel free to do whatever they want without feeling guilty. Evolution, energies and all the other crap must have come from somewhere. An organism does not evolve if it did not exist before, then who will believe in the evolution of course I am a being created by God ..

That is not always true, Jeinmy. I personally know Atheists who don't believe in God or any god whatsoever, who also live good upstanding moral lives. One does not have to be religious or believe in a God to be good-- The religious do not have a monopoly on good moral values.

You are right, I agree with you, but they represent only a small part of atheists

Just like there are Bible-believing Christians that are some of the worst people imaginable, like Hitler-- he claimed to be a Christian, and look at what he did during World War II (I do not know how good you are with world history; even i could be wrong in some of what I am telling you)! I read an excerpt from his book, "Mein Kampf (My Struggle)" in which he said that by exterminating the Jews, he felt that he was doing the work of his Savior (Jesus Christ). If people who don't believe in God were/are so evil, Jeinmy, then explain to me why is there very little/no historical evidence of Atheists owning Negro slaves? Why is there no historical evidence of Atheists murdering/mistreating Negro slave men, while raping/impregnating Negro slave women? Even if they were there (they most likely were), the ratio of Atheist slave owners to Christian slave owners was...This might be an exaggeration, but for every possible Atheist slave owner, there were probably 1,000+ Christian slave owners, and they say that the Negro slave trade is one of the greatest blights on American History. Also, there was this white-supremacist organization founded during after the American Civil War called the Ku Klux Klan (KKK for short). The KKK was mainly formed (and currently is staffed) by racists who (*GASP!*) believe in God and are Bible-believing Christians (They are, as far as I know). There are/were very few Atheist members, as far as I know. Some of the worst atrocities in world/human history can be attributed to Bible-believing Christians/people who believe in God: The Spanish Inquisition, The Crusades, and the Salem Witchcraft Trials of the late 17th century (these are the ones I can think of right now, but there are others). In all of these historical slaughters, innocent people-- men, women, and/or (most likely) children were massacred, tortured, and killed-- all by PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IN GOD, not Atheists. There is a quote out there: "Without religion, good people will do good things and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things, that takes religion." Here is another one: "Man has never done evil so happily when he does it from a religious conviction."
Yes, there are Atheists who are rotten people, but with them, what you see is what you get. Even if every Atheist in the world were evil, and only a few Christians were evil, then, technically, it could be said that more Atheists are evil than those who believe in God. However, it goes deeper than that: People who believe in God outnumber Atheists in the world about 20 to 1. Let's say that there are 7 billion people in the world, and 20% of them are Atheists, and the rest believe in God.


7,000,000,000(.20)*= 1,400,000,000 Atheists

7,000,000,000-1,400,000,000= 5,600,000,000 people who believe in God

1.4 billion Atheists versus 5.6 billion people who believe in God. Even if all 1.4 billion Atheists were evil, there are more people who believe in God, so at least 26% of evil Christians would exceed the entire Atheist population. Those figures are assuming that my numbers are correct, and even if they are not, I was doing it to make a general point. Since there are so few Atheists in the world and so many Christians, unless the percentage of evil, rotten Christians is low enough/negligible, then the number of hypocrite Christians at least will be equal (if not superior) to the entire Atheist world population. It's all about Proportion! I am not slamming Christians, don't get me wrong, because most of them ARE real (which I highly respect). My math here is assuming all Atheists are rotten people (which they are not).

This is something to consider.

[fschmidt]

It sounds tortured but good luck. If nature forms a burning bush that starts talking to people, it sounds to me like a good old fashioned supernatural god.

I just don't take it all literally.

[Winston]

Episode of Closer to Truth examines different concepts of God, such as Pantheism - the belief that God is everything - and others.



Episode on Pantheism.