Could it be?

[justthinking]

Could it be that God is the generality that gives individualities their optimal power as individualities? Take time, for instance. The being of a thing is identical with its time-manifestation, but neither the being nor the time is isolable. An entity, such as a star, exists within larger whole systems, and these obtain a sui generis time as well. The Whole, equal to God, is the entire range of time, and thus is the Form of Time. It is reality, but on a different order. It is not bound to individual time-manifestations, and thus is in the world but not of the world.

An individual entity gains the fullest exercise of its nature by being interconnected and in context. God, perhaps, is that larger ecology. The Divine is not distant, because Time animates time where it is, and shifts being from isolate to participant in Being.

[3Sum]

Why would you call something like that a "god"?

[justthinking]

I think God may be the Whole of Nature because that wholeness is the only way to be Values. That is, vision of the Good requires, perhaps, identity as each individuality, each set of relations, and the whole. As we know, whole systems are jumps in order and kind, and I'm suggesting God may be the Good as it understands from the perspective, concurrently, of the particular and the universal.

[3Sum]

If god is the whole of nature he can't also be good, unless your definition of nature excludes everything bad or you have a different definition of bad than me.

F.e. natural disasters, diseases, murder, rape, famine etc. are bad in my book, and they're part of the nature (I made a whole thread disproving a theistic god based on the problem of evil).

Also, even if the nature was somehow all good I still don't see why you would call nature god. A vague definition of god is a highly powerful and intelligent being which created everything. So how can you equate nature (which would be his creation) and the creator himself? Did creator explode and somehow BECOME nature?

When you say "god" and you mean "nature" you create confusion because people already have a meaning ascribed to the word god, carved into their minds from childhood. It's as if I said that my cat is a dragon and that therefore a dragon exists. So did I just prove the existence of huge, flying fire-breathing reptiles? No. I redefined the word dragon to fit the being that is my cat.

That's why I always get the feeling that pantheists are somehow trying to "sneak" god into existence by equating him with something that every sane person would say exists, but what they don't realize is that they're simply changing the definition of the word god and by that they also change its meaning.

[HexHammer]

Could it be that God is the generality that gives individualities their optimal power as individualities? Take time, for instance. The being of a thing is identical with its time-manifestation, but neither the being nor the time is isolable. An entity, such as a star, exists within larger whole systems, and these obtain a sui generis time as well. The Whole, equal to God, is the entire range of time, and thus is the Form of Time. It is reality, but on a different order. It is not bound to individual time-manifestations, and thus is in the world but not of the world.

An individual entity gains the fullest exercise of its nature by being interconnected and in context. God, perhaps, is that larger ecology. The Divine is not distant, because Time animates time where it is, and shifts being from isolate to participant in Being.

Pure nonsense!

People living in remote places, unable to contact modern society, will live in primitive conditions or till they gain "equallity" where their surrounding people will teach them modern concepts in order to use them as a resource, else they only get exploited and kept down in ignorence.

[Skip]

The Whole, equal to God, is the entire range of time, and thus is the Form of Time. It is reality, but on a different order.

Then why give it a separate name and write stories about it that sound just like stories about kings - men with too much ego and power?

Is this just another promotion for Jehovah? The less credible the god concept become in the light of expanding knowledge, the farther away he's pushed, given vaster abilities and more abstract attributes - which, in turn, make him ever less credible. The temperamental, but imaginable, deity of a little desert tribe of 2600 years ago has already been elevated to world-wide absurdity and atrocity.

Why do you want so badly to cling to the God idea? It's had its 15 minutes. Why not let him go and move on?

[justthinking]

Perhaps I can respond to a couple of post replies here at once. Criticism is, of course, welcome, since it can possibly clarify thought.

I see the nexus of God/nature as good, since individual substances and essences are replete with Value. How is this more than an assertion? Because laws that are constant are those such as these: the synthesis of order/freedom, the intensity of a type's nature, its interconnectedness with the universal, and the truth, beauty, and viability that saturates actuality.

I see Nature as complete good, man as the only source of evil. For instance, a tornado is not evil. Human acts that blaspheme nature and reason are some degree of evil. And God is the purest spirit of the Good. Are these concepts outdated? On the contrary, they're quite cutting-edge.

[3Sum]

I see the nexus of God/nature as good, since individual substances and essences are replete with Value. How is this more than an assertion? Because laws that are constant are those such as these: the synthesis of order/freedom, the intensity of a type's nature, its interconnectedness with the universal, and the truth, beauty, and viability that saturates actuality.

"the synthesis of order/freedom"?!?! "the intensity of a type's nature"?!?!??!!? " its interconnectedness with the universal, and the truth, beauty, and viability that saturates actuality." Ok, what the actual fuck? Is that supposed to be an argument? Cause it sounds like Deepak Chopra's kind of fanatical fluff with no substance.

I see Nature as complete good, man as the only source of evil.

I guess that's where our fundamental disagreement lies. I see nature as indifferent, infact, it is incapable of caring and being anything else other than indifferent.

And I definitely don't see it as complete good. Black plague? Smallpox? Cancer? Aids? Volcano eruptions? Earthquakes? Floods? Famine? Tornados? Nature doesn't care if you enjoy its beauty or die because of it, moreover nature CAN'T care.

Also, is man not part of the nature?

And God is the purest spirit of the Good.

Define a spirit and provide evidence of such a thing existing.

[Arising_uk]

Just thinking but one could try reading Spinoza on these things.

[attofishpi]

Just thinking but one could try reading Spinoza on these things.

It's not nice to see that the moderators see it fit to stifle free expression by removing posts, rendering mute a voice attempting to clarify that which is apparent evidence of God and certainly where a post receives no argument to the contrary.
Lets start burning books shall we?

It appeared to me that Spinoza was grappling with the concept of a God from the common misconception and that is, that God is all good in its 'perfection'. Such a condition of thought is wrought with contradiction.
Aside from that kudos to the man.

[Arising_uk]

Just thinking but one could try reading Spinoza on these things.

It's not nice to see that the moderators see it fit to stifle free expression by removing posts, rendering mute a voice attempting to clarify that which is apparent evidence of God and certainly where a post receives no argument to the contrary.
Lets start burning books shall we?

What are you talking about? And what is this evidence apparent?

It appeared to me that Spinoza was grappling with the concept of a God from the common misconception and that is, that God is all good in its 'perfection'. Such a condition of thought is wrought with contradiction.
...

Where does he say this?

[attofishpi]

What are you talking about?

Im not sure what you are questioning, please be specific.

And what is this evidence apparent?

The evidence that i posted and which was removed by the moderators.

It appeared to me that Spinoza was grappling with the concept of a God from the common misconception and that is, that God is all good in its 'perfection'. Such a condition of thought is wrought with contradiction.
...

Where does he say this?

Spinoza's ->
Ethical or Moral Science
Part I Of God's existence and attributes
"That he should not have been able to give more would contradict his omnipotence; that he should not have been willing to give more, when he could well do so, savours of ill-will, which is nowise in God, who is all goodness and perfection."

[Svetoslav]

I think that categories such as good and evil are irrelevant to a God who is supposed to be the wholeness aka the universe. Could it be that all good comes from God? Absolutely yes. Exactly the same with all evil. Still the categories of good and evil are extremely subjective and short-sighted.
God as creator of the universe is incapable of any will, self-awareness, and thought. Neither God chose to create or not to create the universe. The only thing that God is capable of is being simultaneously the absolute existence or inexistence. And exactly that OR in the middle is the universe we can see. So in terms God is not the universe, but the universe is everything God could be.

[HexHammer]

I see Nature as complete good, man as the only source of evil. For instance, a tornado is not evil. Human acts that blaspheme nature and reason are some degree of evil. And God is the purest spirit of the Good. Are these concepts outdated? On the contrary, they're quite cutting-edge.

Demagouges such as politicians, heavily exploids helplessly naive and stupid people who thinks the concept of evil is black and white, thus luring the simple minded to do horrible things, because they believe if they are good, they can do nothing wrong.

The war in Iraq was highly illegal, there was NEVER any proof that Sadam had ANY connection to 9/11, nor did he have any weapons of mass destruction.

Naive and stupid people are both a curse and a blessing, as they will always do wrong things in their simplemindedness, but one can exploit them heavily if one is cynical enough.

[attofishpi]

God as creator of the universe is incapable of any will, self-awareness, and thought. Neither God chose to create or not to create the universe. The only thing that God is capable of is being simultaneously the absolute existence or inexistence. And exactly that OR in the middle is the universe we can see. So in terms God is not the universe, but the universe is everything God could be.

You contradict yourself at the outset. One cannot be the creator of something if one has no will.

Why bother to ascribe to something that you describe as nothing more than existence and reality the name, God?