I do not accept non-nature based belief systems. In other words, I accept as truth only that which is quantifiable and observable. Speculation and postulation about spirits, ghosts or some spectral intelligence which, no matter what the argument, sits at a meta-level unknowable to humans is, to me, simply a waste of time. If it will not change the temperature of the room or cause a chemical or physical reaction in matter, it does not concern me.
The stock in trade of those who deal in matters spiritual seems to be faith in things unseen and a world of possibilities. Maybe there is a God. Maybe God is inside us. Maybe we are all God. Maybe God is just another intelligent being like us, who created us as an experiment.
If we humans ever create a digital machine or network with even the most rudimentary ability to question, to think laterally in a cloud of fuzzy logic like we humans do, surely it will encounter the same fundamental metaphysical quandaries. Who created me? Why am I here? What makes me "me"? Do I have free will?
Imagine a programmer or computer scientist trying to convince an artificial intelligence that it doesn't actually exist, that it is a collection of circuits and wires and algorithms that, when powered down, amount to nothing but a hill of sand, plastic and metal bits. What if the artificial intelligence accepts this, but still queries the existence of a "God" who created it, with powers of omniscience and omnipresence? We would then have to explain that we too are just cellular constructs, who went on to create a digital construct in our own image. But still, no Gods, we.
In the context of my argument, we all agree that the machine is just a machine, that there is no God in its creation, only more machines. And, yet, the machine will never believe that. And trying to convince it of what is "real" would be as pointless, just as its own digression into the spiritual is pointless, as concerns a machine.
My point, if I indeed have one, is that, in the final analysis, there is nothing but the world of matter and energy. No greater intelligence, no plan, no spirits or deities. But even if "God" him or herself appeared and told us that he was not God, that there is no point, and we should all just go have a drink and find a warm companion, who would believe it?
It was a man who wrote these words, not God:
"And though I have the gift of prophesy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity [love], I am nothing." KJV Bible, I Cor. 13:2
I can read the Bible and appreciate it as a work of men, the same as the Quran or Bhagavad Gita. And what this wise man was saying, to me, is this: knowledge and faith are merely pastimes of the mind. The only component of our "soul" is our love for each other. Spend your time learning the heart of man, not the mind of God.
The stock in trade of those who deal in matters spiritual seems to be faith in things unseen and a world of possibilities. Maybe there is a God. Maybe God is inside us. Maybe we are all God. Maybe God is just another intelligent being like us, who created us as an experiment.
If we humans ever create a digital machine or network with even the most rudimentary ability to question, to think laterally in a cloud of fuzzy logic like we humans do, surely it will encounter the same fundamental metaphysical quandaries. Who created me? Why am I here? What makes me "me"? Do I have free will?
Imagine a programmer or computer scientist trying to convince an artificial intelligence that it doesn't actually exist, that it is a collection of circuits and wires and algorithms that, when powered down, amount to nothing but a hill of sand, plastic and metal bits. What if the artificial intelligence accepts this, but still queries the existence of a "God" who created it, with powers of omniscience and omnipresence? We would then have to explain that we too are just cellular constructs, who went on to create a digital construct in our own image. But still, no Gods, we.
In the context of my argument, we all agree that the machine is just a machine, that there is no God in its creation, only more machines. And, yet, the machine will never believe that. And trying to convince it of what is "real" would be as pointless, just as its own digression into the spiritual is pointless, as concerns a machine.
My point, if I indeed have one, is that, in the final analysis, there is nothing but the world of matter and energy. No greater intelligence, no plan, no spirits or deities. But even if "God" him or herself appeared and told us that he was not God, that there is no point, and we should all just go have a drink and find a warm companion, who would believe it?
It was a man who wrote these words, not God:
"And though I have the gift of prophesy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity [love], I am nothing." KJV Bible, I Cor. 13:2
I can read the Bible and appreciate it as a work of men, the same as the Quran or Bhagavad Gita. And what this wise man was saying, to me, is this: knowledge and faith are merely pastimes of the mind. The only component of our "soul" is our love for each other. Spend your time learning the heart of man, not the mind of God.
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