God-Originator-Sustainer, and Evil?

God as sustainer and I had mentioned it is like saying, "can the Earth exist without the universe?" To further this inquiry:

To me God is casting a shadow. We can measure this shadow, see this shadow, measure its angel in relation to the sun and the sidewalk it sits on. We can experience this shadow. God casts this shadow. Without God, the shadow would not be there. If God moved, the shadow would move. If God vanished, the shadow would vanish. God casts this shadow and so in a sense God is this shadow. However, the shadow is not God. We can see this shadow and scientists can learn about it, however we cannot see God and measure God in the same scientific manner. God is everything, but everything is not God.

When the sun dies out and the sidewalk eventually erodes away, the shadow will cease to be as well. But God will still remain.

In this sense, the shadow is temporary, the shadow is not real, the shadow is an illusion of what really is. The energy that is forming this shadow is simply a reflection of the absolute energy which is God. Energy takes many forms. Sometimes it looks like a tree, sometimes like the sky, sometimes like an atom. But it is the most fundamental form of this energy which is real, which is spirit to me. All other forms of this energy are not eternal and therefore not real in a sense, because they fade away, they are always changing, they are not permanent. 

What is real is that which is permanent, eternal and everlasting. What is real is this spirit of God. The spiritual energy. 

This is how God is the sustainer to me. This is why the world/physical/material is an illusion. 

So, how is God the sustainer? Because without God breathing, everything would cease. 

Now, God as originator, to me, is like this:

God, the spirit, exists everywhere and every when and is in fact is No Thing. This is why the spirit to me is very much synonymous with nothing. Nothing does not really mean non existence. Non existence does not really exist. 

Science kinda shows this now as well, that true non existence does not exist. What nothing is is simply the place where No Thing exists. Nothing measurable, nothing physical, nothing material. But something is always happening with nothing. It is constantly moving in a sense. 

To me, this is the spirit, God. One might also think of this as another form of energy, where energy takes the form of No Thing, or nothing.  Energy can also take the form of something, or anything, and in fact seems to want to do that all the time. 

Now, before anything was, only Nothing was. Everywhere. Every when. I would say this nothing means where the spirit of God is, however one could look at it as simply meaning the absence of everything measurable that we would call things/physical/material. 

Now for myself, this No Thing, or Spirit, must close itself in order to allow something to be born. It becomes unstable and In doing so, the vacuum from which Big Bang arose was born.  The vacuum is a place devoid of everything. Then this No Thing began to expand, began to pop inside of this vacuum, or "breath" and everything started to take affect. The space-time began to expand and gravity took hold, pulling virtual particles out of the nothing and into the something so that they became real particles. 

As gravity began to do this, particles began to behave in their environment of space-time --conforming and fitting into their environment (fighting for survival in a sense--to persist to exist), because they could not return to the nothing since gravity holds them...and dark energy kept pulling the space time further and further  and as this took place the particles began to not only interact with their new environment, but with each other, establishing "forces' and eventually all this behavior would come to be called what we see as the natural laws. 

 So, how is God the originator? Because without God's closing and subsequent breath, nothing would  still exist. 

   

And Evil?

I wouldn't view a God as "watching" as many Atheists seem to say. "Watching evil."

I think a God would be in everything. So, where is this God, when the girl is raped? I would say right there with her and maybe the only strength she has at the time. God is an INTERNAL force, not an external one, and a simple fundamental force, not a complex one. Structure always makes function limited, but "God" would have no structure, being a spirit.

Further, we can't make fair judgements about things we are not. I cannot say to you that this  cat is immoral because he flicks around a lizard. What kind of morality does the cat have? What kind processing does he use with information? It is an unfair judgement. Further, can I really say that this chimpanzee is immoral because it acts like a chimp? Should we throw him into chimp jail? Each species has a different way of things because they are different, and because we are not them we do not know how to fairly judge. We do not know what they see, how they process information or how much they feel. The same would be with "God". In a sense "God" is a different species, a different entity. Until we fully understand this entity, we cannot fairly judge it. 

I guess the main question is why doesn't this good God intervene and stop all the evil? I would think nothing could even move or even happen if that occurred. 

You would walk out of your house and most everything would be frozen in time, because there would be no more freedom of movement, freedom of choice. 

But I really like this woman and man team (An atheist show) and she asked a very good question-

If you are not moral, how do you know this God is moral? Well, for myself I know what evil looks like and I know what good looks like because I can see both evil and good. I would't know what the one looks like without the other. If I only knew evil and saw evil in the world...how would I know what good even was? or vice versa?

So, I know what evil is and what good is....but what I choose to do is the problem. I might not always choose to do good, because lets be honest we are all selfish sometimes. 

I think science tells us what is God and life experience and philosophical and mystical and spiritual inquiry leads us to understanding who is God. 

Basically - Why didn’t just God create everything perfect? Because to do that he’d have to duplicate himself, and he didn’t want just duplications of himself. He wanted children. This is the best analogy our human minds can have to understand —though it is not exactly like this surely— but something like this.

In order to create children he needed to provide space for them, so he had to remove himself from space- this created a vacuum …some of himself fell into the vacuum (deliberately?) and various universes popped up and out of existence-some interconnecting-until one, our own, through big bang formed fully.

This creation would suffer and frustrate. But in the suffering and frustrating, this creation would grow —evolve— and the spirit would become more like God with each step , closer to becoming one with God —the infinite,  illimitable, eternal conscious source. 

I don’t think this God interferes with the natural process or even intervenes to change the course of history…I think God speaks to us through life experience, music, prayer, meditation, other people, certain events, nature itself, dreams, feelings, intuitions.  This speaking can influence people and change them from inside and change their lives, but then they are taking active participation in this change.

A participation is essential. God is not a tyrant or a dictator or a controller. In a way he wants to guide, but can only do so through the spirit. Nature is set as a self-sustaining system created at the very beginning. It wasn't created such that it would need constant maintenance.

In fact the systems of nature are amazing, not wasteful, resourceful, cyclic, and better than any human systems that could ever be formed. 

So, Im a deist in that I believe in a God of first cause and a theist because I believe this Gods speaks. But I don’t think this God interferes or interrupts or as some call intervenes on the natural processes or the natural course of life or order of things.

I believe God is everything and nothing and that both nothing and everything are the same thing just in different forms, that God is in the plants, the bacteria, all the animals, in you and me, the universe itself. I believe this God has an conscious and creative aspect, I believe this God is infinite and illimitable, and much of its secrets would be found in nature itself —which importantly includes the human —and all animals—minds, the intellect and the intelligence and abilities.

But God is not just all these things. There is much more to this energy which we do not see. 

There may be an aspect to this energy which is like a mind, just not a mind that is anything like we know -without a consciousness or without our kinds of thoughts and emotions, and without a brain to hold it all.

MORALITY-

Many atheists like to say that we don't need the Bible to be moral beings. While I can be a moral person without my parents, I like to have their advice, guidance, experiences, inspiration and encouragement. This is the same with the Bible and God. Yes, we are humans, we make choices and we should exercise morality, but the Bible and God for most people is simply a source of faith, encouragement, inspiration, hope, love and guidance and companionship. It is this relationship which you cannot dissect under a microscope or analyze on a super computer with computations.

I can dissect your brain and learn how big it is and what parts it is made of and this will tell me nothing of how many languages you spoke, your favorite animals, your character or personality, if you lied a lot or who your best friends were. This will tell me nothing of your ability for maths or architectural design. There is a lot that can only be learned through a relationship, a connection and observation of without you are limited in what you can see and learn. Such is it with nature. If you don't have a constant connection with it, a relationship with it or observe it enough then how do you expect to understand it more fully? God is like this for many.

More.....

Bonobos are clearly a very compassionate ape. In fact they are said to be the most compassionate of all the animals, besides humans. We can clearly see that nature is evolving the ability to be compassionate, loving, to b as we would call moral. However to have the ability to be moral and to act morally are two different matters. 

The significance religions played in the role of love, compassion, self sacrifice, and unselfishness have to be taken into consideration when questioning the existence of morality. Would nature alone without religion have gotten us to where we are today morally? 
A recent scientific study revealed that we can learn to be more compassionate by simply acting compassionately. 
So, we can and do change our brain's wiring all the time
Without religions I have to seriously wonder where our species would be on the moral scale today. Not just doing something for someone because it suits you. That is an intellectual decision. But doing someone for something even when it doesn't suit you. 
If behavior can change our genomes and genes, than are behavior is changing us from the inside out and it is significant as to all the factors/pressures that are guiding us in the direction of more moral behavior for our future species to become a more moral society. 

While we have the natural ability now to act compassionately, religion often encourages and promotes this behavior. This in turn causes others to act more compassionately and to become more compassionate.

Science is really asking a different question than morality- science is asking what is the truth? Morality is asking what is right?

If it was true that by cutting open the brain of a chimpanzee and dissecting it you would find every truth of the universe, should you do it? 

This is what morality is asking- which provides good internal boundaries to differentiate between what I can do and what I should do.

Now, can a society exist morally without religion? Maybe? But science alone doesn’t tell us what is right. It tells us what is true. So, my question would be if we had a moral society with just science, from where is this morality coming from? And what would it look like? 

There is a human morality that evolves —it is changing— but it can get better or worse naturally- because we are changing as a species inside and out….and so in a sense morality is also changing all the time. even within religion. 

But it is religion that helped shaped our thoughts and emotions in our environment and so this did contribute to us evolving in a direction of being more moral, more compassionate. Religion everywhere, does;t matter where u go, some sense of religion developed everywhere.  

I guess you could argue that bonobos don’t have a religion, and yet they are more compassionate creatures than the other non human primates and so in evolution we have a gradual increase in compassion and therefore will be more moral. But evolution doesn’t have a moral goal. If we left it just to nature and evolution than it could go one way or the other. (Although u could argue evolution in a sense did have goal  because in fact we are here and more moral now than before, but you could say it was an accidental goal). See, if morality happened by accident and chance in nature than we can’t leave it to nature to direct us now since we are more evolved now morally. Now, we have a moral obligation. What a dilemma nature put us in:)

 And so if we left it to nature, do we really want accidental morals? Maybe genetic drift and draft will bend in our favor and maybe not, perhaps the animals will naturally select the others that are kinder, and maybe not.

So, there does need to be an intention of morality in order to keep one.

So again—what does this morality look like with only science and nature guiding it? 

I’m sure we would need some sort of construct outside of both governing behavior.  But I guess you could say that is secular law which keep order in society even today —our democracy.

But then how did these secular laws get here? They got her out of humans who evolved in an environment with religious moralities. So what would we look like now if we had not developed any sense of religion prior? How would our morals have evolved? Would we be more compassionate people now?

It seems to me we would have done whatever suited us most. We wouldn’t have been changing our thoughts of selfishness to that of thinking of the other’s pain and so would empathy even have evolved and existed now as it does today? 

So, my worry is —and I think at the crust of most people’s concerns essentially— is it is easy to blame one thing for all the problems and say just rip it out —but answers are never that black and white or that simple. When u rip something out like anyone whose built anything can tell you -you are left with a mess. 

And if we take religion out now altogether (which practically would never happen unless it was voted on, made into law and mandated, which would be wrong—)  then how would our morals continue to evolve not just accidentally but intentionally? 

On what principles would we be bound as a group (which religion serves?) and by that I don’t mean our morals can’t evolve without religion, but just what would this really look like? 

And would it really be better for us if people didn’t have pastors or rabbis to go to when in emotional need?

Or people didn’t have a church to go to and sing at every sunday?

Or people didn’t have a common faith that is shared which is a very strong thing in making things happen —good or bad— (which is probably one of there reasons religion evolved and survived in the first place). 

S0-

The creation story scientifically is not fact -true, so science has a say. BUT that doesn’t address the morality or who substitutes the rabbis and pastors or where we go for community, or where we go to sing on sundays or how we bond with a group of similar beliefs. 

By taking our religion out altogether because it is not scientific, leaves a huge void. Because religion isn’t just about God vs no God or the creation story vs evolution, it is about much much more than that. All the intangibles which science doesn’t deal with …..

Purpose, dignity, morals, community, fellowship, love, unified goals

And an atheist can say, well I make my own purpose and that works for me. Well great. It works for you. But everyone is not you. 

So, now people don’t believes in God —like that is going to happen— and people don’t believe in the creation story -yeah— BUT emotional problems rise because no one is there to help them through it, as pastor and rabbis would have been, for example. 

By ripping out religion, you are not cleaning up all the messes. Essentially what you are doing is creating a whole new and different kind of mess. 

Now if science could address really the issues of all the above intangibles then maybe we'd get somewhere, but the problem is science isn;t in that business and scientists would have no time to study the mysteries of the universe --and so all we'd be left with is a void.

#2

It is true we are evolving into higher moral beings, maybe? Like was mentioned. BUT- couldn't you argue that evolution is a part of the environment itself, and evolution is influenced by this environment, and therefore religion has been this environmental influence that has been influencing our genes and our evolutionary morals. If the religion was evil only, our genes and evolution would have gone that way.

Our thoughts are evolving too, and changing --and what influences this? our environment, --the religion and ideas and culture of that environment-- and so when the humanist says we are evolving into more moral species....what is that from? strictly our genes?> no, our genes plus our environment which has influenced our thoughts and emotion which is directly impacted by our religious and cultural upbringing. 

The Congo has a code of morals too, but they also have a sense of religion in this moral code--which is what influences their thoughts and emotions on an evolutionary level....the question becomes, what religious-culture do u want influencing your genes and your evolutionary tree/species.

#3

Now biological evolution to me seems to have more than just genetic drift or draft, pressures, isolation or natural selection. It seems cultural environment would play a big role in the development of consciousness and its expressions.

 The culture of ones species will influence the natural tendency and perhaps change it in an individual or wipe it out/flourish in natural selection.

This comes about from wondering where we would be as a species without the spiritual message of The Christ, The Buddha, The Hindu Guru, The Moses. At the core of their teachings we see love, selflessness. We see this when Christ says what you do to the least of these you do to me, and that in me we will be one, so in essence you do it to yourself. You see this when Buddha says compassion and detachment from the physical delusion will release you from the cycle of rebirth and suffering. We see this when the Indian Gurus say 

We see this when Moses says  

It is this aspect of religions which have greatly influenced our cultural environment and thus our own thoughts and actions.

Without this teaching of selflessness, compassion or kindness would we have evolved to be those things?

Whether God exists or not or if any of the spiritual teachers existed in their entirety of how they are described traditionally is besides the point here.

Of course with each teacher we find people elaborating with mythology and superstition, but the core of this teaching is what ids central and important for discussion.

If we look at the Chimpanzees and we see their nature. Some female will kill the babies of other mothers and teach their young to do this. That is their nature. However, culturally most do not do this. So, if within their culture they determined that females killing other babies would not be accepted, meaning the males would beat on that particular female to protect his young. This aspect of their nature may change. Females with that tendency may not do it for fear of beating or death. Their nature would not express itself. Eventually that nature may die out or linger in some unexpressed. ‘

Behavior changes thought patterns and vice versa.

If we take human beings and look at the aspect of conscious unselfishness and its influences in our own evolution what would we find?

Changes in behavior and changes in thought. Females and males mating with those who adhered best to their culture and sometimes just with those who treated them better. 

So, this thought pattern and behavior is being perpetuated by natural selection for better or worse.

If we didn’t have this thought pattern in our consciousness of being unselfish, we wouldn’t act accordingly because our nature would not necessarily direct that outcome.

Bonobos are the most empathetic of all non human primates, arguably all the animals besides humans. They are this way partly because of their nature, but a big part of its success is the culture they live in. The culture dominated by the females and sociability  promotes this emotion. Had they needed to fight for food this emotion may soon die out. 

But because the culture permits empathy to flourish it does little by little more and more.

This is the point with spiritual teaching. It is a conscious thought toward a positive value which if within the culture it will be promoted and will more likely survival, flourishing within the majority of the species in that culture.

So, if we had not the teachings of selflessness, compassion within the spiritual framework, would these qualities have even had survived? Especially against the odds of a harsh environment demanding from us to be selfless and ruthless in order to survive?

And if these qualities faded, even if to our betterment to be so to live in harmony and mutual benefit, would we even possess the ability to exhibit these qualities and overcome our violent ancestral genetic past like that of the Chimpanzee?

To be selfless and compassionate takes much more work than its opposite.

And if these teachings vanished today would we eventually revert back to the behavior of the jungle?

And only be compassionate when it best suited us which could mean our very fabric of culture would influence the quality to the very few to exhibit or nonexistence altogether?

#4 When we look at the Bible:

In Jewish tradition it is God who writes the first five commandments and Moses who writes the last five commandments. The reasons this is important is because it shows us the partnership in arriving at morality.

It is not God commanding like a drill sergeant and you like a robot who must follow in morality, it is humankind who must exercise his morality in a real relationship with humanity and with God. 

The laws that are written then are seen in better light. They are not a rock solid form, but a form that is to be understood as man who wrote laws perhaps sometimes inspired by God, sometimes inspired by nature, but often times simply just trying to allow the culture to survive given the times and hardships that presented themselves. Does this mean every law is morally perfect? I do not think so. In fact I don’t think the word or concept or perfection even exists in Jewish tradition. The laws were realistic for their time. That is all we can derive from them. God wants us to learn from them and progress as moral beings, exercising our morality ourselves, our own consciousness.

Paul teaches us in general that it is our consciousness fundamentally that will guide us and it is our own consciousness that is judged.

I think the same can be said of all religions. Spiritual and moral lessons are not given as absolutes rather as man’s best attempts in inspiration and intuition of God and nature and the humanity around him. We are as moral agents to read these and understand and appreciate that these stories, these laws, these lessons of spirituality were then given by man, not God himself, in attempts and in his understanding of things. Sometime true and sometimes misguided. 

When we seen slavery, or rape condoned, or killing of near tribes in the Bible then we shouldn’t see this as God condoning these things, rather man trying to bring some kind of order into a world that already possesses these things, given his knowledge or lack of, and given his time. These things were over 3,000-4,000 thousand years ago.

However in regards to killing of tribes. Hebrews were not in the habit of killing off other tribes. We only see a strong detest for the Cannanites. I think it is likely, these Cannanites acted in a similar fashion to the Hebrews which is why they acted back as such. It is also possible that they saw them as a great threat to that which is good, because of all the evil they did. 

This was a completely different time. 

Hebrew people are not the only people who did questionable things. In fact neighboring cultures and tribes were worse in many ways. 

Roman law punished woman for abortion and contraception. Men could abort heir unwanted girls by leaving them out into the wild. Romans treated woman much worse than Hebrew law. Hebrews were quite kind to woman in many respects. 

Phoenicians sacrificed children a lot, burning babies at their alter. 

All ancient cultures had slaves.