Philosophy Now Forum

It's interesting to read about the intelligence of orangutans or porpoises. We assume that in some sense homo sapiens is at the pinnacle of evolution, or if you don't believe in evolution, at the pinnacle of God's creation. We assume we're the ones God is interested in, that we're the ones God wants to "save".

What if God exists and really loves porpoises more than any other earthly creature? What if porpoises imagine and believe in such a God? What if God wants to save the porpoises over any other creature?

Of course, we usually confine the debate to the existence of a God whose prime interest is in us precious human beings. But shouldn't the debate be widened to the question of the existence of a God who has other favorites, or no favorites? Or is there a God for every type of creature?

Some folks believe in life after death, and often also heaven and hell, for human beings. What about porpoises and orangutans? What about our favorite pets, such as beloved dogs or cats? What about mice and fleas and ticks? Where do folks draw the line? Why draw it at humans?

This reminds me of an amusing music video I saw a while back on YouTube. I think the song pretty much summed it all up.

Hmm...

It seems the underlying assumption for all these kind of scenarios is that God has a human like intelligence. He sits around thinking about this, thinking about that, choosing this, declining that, loving this, getting mad at that etc.

Some religious sects forbid even mentioning the word God, because to do so is to presume we know something about it. You know, at the moment we create or use a word we assign qualities and characteristics to whatever we're referring to.

Logically, it seems that if there is something of infinite scale that lies at the heart of everything, whatever it might be would likely be beyond our comprehension.

You know, even the broad word "intelligence" implies a reference to what we know, primarily us, and to a lesser extent similar creatures on one tiny little planet etc. A very limited data set, in comparison to the entire universe.

Would something of infinite scale at the center of everything have intelligence in a way that would remotely resemble what we mean by the word? Perhaps the qualities of such a thing would be so far beyond what we think of as intelligence, that we won't be inventing a word for it for thousands of years?

The God concept seems to capture something central about the experience of being a human being.

On one hand, we are able to conceive of a concept this huge, which seems pretty impressive, whether the concept is valid or not.

On the other hand, once we experience this concept, we are brought face to face with the vastness of what we don't know, how incredibly small we are etc.

The incredible largeness, and smallness, of human beings expressed at once in a three letter word. Very aesthetically pleasing if nothing else.

And to top it off, if we spell God backwards we get "dog", which hopefully illustrates that Whoever, Whatever, our DNA etc, has a sense of humor. If God simply must be like us, let him/her/it have a silly bone.

Mike Strand wrote:Why draw it at humans?

Because we don't have any way to understand other life forms. It is hard enough understanding each other via communication that understanding an animal requires interpreting their actions in our terms.

People think these lines of inquiry are intelligent however they are really insidious. All they do is attempt to undermine and devalue our existence and worse they end up devaluing other life forms as well because their existence is tied to ours. Almost no animal today survives unless we decide it will but if we view ourselves as only animals then we really lose appreciation of ourselves and we lose our role as protecting the other animals.

Apart from all that - you really are smarter than the other animals, we are abnormally different to the whole creation.

The future depends on mankind remaining special. You are special, I am special. The future is really at stake once we have devalued each other and decide that some other goal is more valuable and that stepping on and over other humans is acceptable in pursuing that goal. I know of no other religion that highlights how special we are than the one that has a God choosing to die for us.

Metadigital wrote:This reminds me of an amusing music video I saw a while back on YouTube. I think the song pretty much summed it all up.

Jeff Beck was in a song called "What god wants" , god wants war , etc, if there is a god ,, it is a vicious nasty piece of work ,, look at all the suffering over history , if there is a god it loves nothing better than watching people die a miserable death with lots of pain and suffering , for his entertainment.,,the more dead the better it would seem,,god must have had orgasms over the twin towers and the Indonesian Sunami,,
I concluded at some point in my teenage years that if there is a god it's such an arsehole I wouldn't want to know it anyway!!!

I think one should focus on the existence of one or more Gods whatsoever. To ask if a God is ours is stupid, I think, but then again, the author is probably an atheist? No?

Godfree wrote: I concluded at some point in my teenage years that if there is a god it's such an arsehole I wouldn't want to know it anyway!!!

Well, how do you feel about nature then, you know, reality?

The way I imagine it, the ancients had an experience of awe in regards to nature. They lived on the land, out in the weather, on the edge of survival every day, and thus their relationship with their environment was very direct and personal, in ways few modern humans can probably grasp. Perhaps the American Indians are the most easily accessible example.

As I see it, this reverential relationship with nature evolved over time in to religion and the God concept, as people moved in to towns, began retreating from nature, and human thought became more sophisticated and abstract.

Point being, the physical world of nature that science and atheists see as the real reality, has pretty much all the same characteristics as the Abrahamic gods.

Nature is saturated with unjust ruthless suffering on a vast unimaginable scale.

At the same time, nature is gloriously beautiful beyond words.

Nature breathes the glory of life in to us, and then rips it away without warning at the most inconvenient moments.

So, is nature good, or is nature bad? This typically dualistic human question is of course absurd.

Nature simply is.

Whether we call it God, or nature, what should our relationship be with something so vast, so whole, so everything, so impossible to judge or pigeon hole in to some nice tidy little dualistic human thought category?

Logically, if we hate the Abrahamic god, we should also hate nature as well, shouldn't we? Logically, if we wish to go to war with God, we should also declare war upon the inescapable reality that envelopes us, yes?

In what way would this be a sensible, logical, rationale thing to do?

My mother was a nice polite sweet lady who never hurt anybody, and yet she died a long slow painful death from Parkinsons. Whether it was nature or God that committed this injustice, who will be served if I ball my fist and shake it skyward in rage?

Religion has been addressing these kinds of questions central to our existence for thousands of years before the invention of science.

And though I do agree that an enormous pile of inane crapola byproduct was generated in the process, the essence of the response to reality that religion arrived at is highly rational.

Worship. Reverence. Awe. Surrender.

Whether we want to call reality God, or nature, these emotions are a very relevant, healthy and reality based response to the situation we find ourselves in.

Typist - well posted. If anything wants war - it is nature with its tooth and claw.

I agree with Wootah -- Typist, your post is excellent, especially your perspective on Worship, Reverence, Awe, and Surrender as human responses relevant and appropriate to our existence in this universe.

I would add something like "Creativity" to this list, because we can use our brains and better instincts, limited as they are, to solve many if not all of the problems of surviving on this planet and living together in better ways. We are not totally helpless. Science and human institutions have done a lot to help our lot.

Wootah wrote:Typist - well posted. If anything wants war - it is nature with its tooth and claw.

Firstly I have just been told off by Typist for my spelling,,and low and behold"rationale"
And the reason most cultures around the world ended up with some sort of religion , is because religion was invented before man spread across the globe,, taking their religion with them.
Nature is not supposed to be all knowing and all powerfull, nature doesn't sit there and decide if one should live or die.

That was a good post, Typist.

I've long argued that the god of the Old Testament isn't good nor evil, but simply is. His personality was based on the personality of the desert, and calling the desert evil is sort of pointless.

Now, there are those who'd claim that God is all good. These are either people who haven't thought the matter through enough or simply have a different definition of good.

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Nature is built around circles and cycles, and perhaps we can see one here as well.

First, in ancient prehistory, there was a direct personal relationship with nature, arising from full immersion.

Then, this direct experience was abstracted, conceptualized, and ossified in to religions.

As the dominant religions developed their pile of abstractions to huge heights, they pulled us deeper in to the conceptual experience, and distanced us more and more from nature.

With the industrial revolution, a product of this conceptualization process, the distance from nature began to increasingly threaten our survival with various forms of pollution etc.

And now in this century, we awaken from the dream to discover our civilization staring in to the abyss. We're beginning to learn that rediscovering a direct personal relationship with nature will be an essential part of pulling back from the brink.

A child plays in the woods. Then they grow in to adulthood and go out in to the world and do all kinds of crazy things. And then in advancing years, bored with (or terrified by) all the silly dramas of the human mind, they return to the woods.

A circle.

Personal.

Global.

Imho, relationship with nature is the one true universal religion.

Hmm, the one true way, that sounds familiar.

Somebody build a church, publish our holy book, launch an invasion upon the infidels!!

Oh my, I've ruined it now.

The human condition. Enduring. Comical.

The wheel continues turning, round and round.

Metadigital wrote:That was a good post, Typist.

I've long argued that the god of the Old Testament isn't good nor evil, but simply is. His personality was based on the personality of the desert, and calling the desert evil is sort of pointless.

Now, there are those who'd claim that God is all good. These are either people who haven't thought the matter through enough or simply have a different definition of good.

The point for me is that we all worship something1 and worshiping biological nature is to be worshiping the most violent activity on earth - a process of billions of years of death. So I would be surprised if our definitions of what is good correlated if the very basis of your notion of good is that which occurs in nature.

I regard morality as supernatural and whilst we need to look case by case to determined what is good and moral I would assert that the by far and away general rule is that which is good and moral is not natural but counter to doing what is natural - hence super natural. That's why I called marriage supernatural in a recent thread.

1- whilst the word worship might be offensive for some it is a label I find useful in enabling people to question how attached they are to what they believe.

The point for me is that we all worship something1 and worshiping biological nature is to be worshiping the most violent activity on earth - a process of billions of years of death.

Yes, a billion years of death. And a billion years of creation too. Our dualistic human minds conceptually divides this in to "death" and "creation" but in the real world, it's one seamless thing.

We can try to say life is good and death is bad, but life isn't possible without death, so we get ourselves in to trouble pretty quickly.

I regard morality as supernatural and whilst we need to look case by case to determined what is good and moral I would assert that the by far and away general rule is that which is good and moral is not natural but counter to doing what is natural - hence super natural.

Dog packs have all kinds of rituals they attend to endlessly in order to maintain the cohesion of the group which is essential to their hunting and survival etc. We are social creatures too, and our morality serves the same purpose. All very natural.

However, it's true, it doesn't feel natural to the individual, who would prefer to be, well, a god, with the universe revolving around them.

if god exists could it actually be the devil in disguise ,
how would you know if it's a super natural powerful being like a god or DEVIL
you would be easily fooled by such a beast ,
the believers of this world could actually all be worshiping the DEVIL and
just being deceived by the evil one .!!!