People that believe in the Universe

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Shtove

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What I mean by the title is essentially I don’t understand how people don’t believe in God but believe the Universe is divine in some way. I’ll hear people say “the Universe wanted it to happen” or things like that and it doesn’t make sense to me.
 
In Babylon 5, the Minbari believe that the Universe is sentient, if not divine.

It is a very popular meme among crypto-theists who wish to avoid mentioning God, and causing offense.

It was used exactly once in the heavily Enlightenment-influenced Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which I nevertheless enjoyed.
 
Shtove said:
it doesn’t make sense to me.
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The whole thing is kind of incomprehensible without God. We are told that about 13.79 years ago, the entropy of the universe was at a minimum and then came the BB with entropy increasing every second. Supposedly, from that compressed singularity point, we have free will, love of our neighbor, the ability to record and analyze historical events and the ability to reflect upon the laws of nature. Consciousness, love and free will would have to be a part of the universe, but does this spark of awareness make us divine or share somehow in the divine and where did it come from?
 
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If the entropy was at a minimum at the time of the BB, then it is difficult to see what came before. The cyclic theory might somehow involve a violation of the second law. In any case, getting back to the OP, there could be a belief that consciousness and self awareness are in some sense contrary to pure materialism, and that this spark of perception is somehow a reflection of the divine, if not the divine itself.
 
Shtove said:
What I mean by the title is essentially I don’t understand how people don’t believe in God but believe the Universe is divine in some way. I’ll hear people say “the Universe wanted it to happen” or things like that and it doesn’t make sense to me.
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We are made from star stuff. We are parts of the universe that have become self aware.

I think that if I discovered that it had all been designed, it would be such a disapointment. It would be like seeing a magnificent landscape and thinking ‘wow, how magnificicent is nature!’ And then finding out that someone had landscaped it. It would be like someone showing you the plans and the designs and everything happening behind the curtain.
 
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I’ve had a person say to me I deny that Jesus existed but
this person interjected that “the Universe is 2000X greater
than your God!”
 
13.79 years ago?

Funny, but I seem to recall, in January of 2007 the world was no less entropic than it is now?

(Sorry, couldn’t resist!!!). :)🙂

ICXC NIKA
 
If you believe the universe consists of matter (and energy) then you can’t believe it is ‘divine’. But given as @Freddy says, we are self-aware parts of the universe I suppose we have to be open to the possibility that other, larger parts are self aware also. But that would make ‘the universe’ or that part of it self-aware, not divine.

So to answer the OP, I don’t know either.
 
It’s called pantheism. Everything is God. To be consistent, a pantheists needs to believe that the toilet is divine as well, as a part of the universe.

Sadly the idea was very common in post-WW2 American thought, from beatniks and hippies to philosophy professors. IDK, maybe a little bit old fashioned today.
 
BlueKumul said:
It’s called pantheism. Everything is God. To be consistent, a pantheists needs to believe that the toilet is divine as well, as a part of the universe.
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Why? An atom is part of the universe but isn’t conscious. But as a part of a greater whole allows consciousness.

Looks like we’re heading towards emergent properties…
 
You know what else doesn’t make sense? that the universe doesn’t follow the universal laws of physics. Those laws say that given its age since the big bang, the rate of accelerated expansion of the universe is still too high and the universe should have torn itself apart and become a soup of particles. Why it hasn’t is a scientific mystery. So the atheists are not better off in understanding the universe than us believers.
 
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Everything we see is an illusion made by the mind in an image from sensor (name removed by moderator)ut - can it be trusted - man has one of the worst eye sights of all animals.
You can look at the old slit experiment - that when you are observing the photon it becomes a bullet going threw one slit but if you don’t observe it its a wave and passes through both slits and they have found this same quantum action actually happening at our level which has been proven to happen in large compounds of hundreds of atoms its quite possible that human mind and observation has brought things into existence - we truly don’t understand our consciousness or how it plays a role in the universe - did we bring it into existence when we observed it - it would of been in wave form until observed if the experiments are correct. But there are many arguments against it. Maybe we are bring it in to existence because we expect it to be there. This is a misery in quantum Physics and I don’t think it has been resolved. Yes I know crazy stuff.

Einstein called it spooky physics - is the moon there if no one is observing it.
 
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The Universe looks so awetastic to people’s puny human senses that some people automatically imbue it with godlike powers, same as how people used to worship the sun and moon.
If they had faith, they’d realize that the glories of the Universe that we can see are just one teeny and not particularly impressive example of what God is capable of making, rather than the Universe actually being God.

But as usual, those with no faith are kind of a lost cause till they get some.
 
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Perhaps these people have not come to terms that God created everything. Pray for them and their souls!
 
It’s called pantheism. It’s derived from Hinduism. In my opinion it sounds foolish to credit the universe for something happening, as if the universe were a conscious entity. :roll_eyes:
 
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Shtove said:
What I mean by the title is essentially I don’t understand how people don’t believe in God but believe the Universe is divine in some way. I’ll hear people say “the Universe wanted it to happen” or things like that and it doesn’t make sense to me
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The “Universe” is a New Age concept that comes from Buddhism. It is a God-substitute for folks who are allergic to he idea of being answerable to a personal God.
The concept is essentially irrational, because God-like powers are attributed to the Universe, which is a mysterious force that doesn’t even have intelligence, yet is alleged to perform all sorts of feats that require God-like intelligence. Go figure.
 
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And now, I was just reading, the philosopher Dan Dennett says that consciousness is an illusion as well.
 
Agreed. But belief in Gd, and particularly the religious systems that derive from this belief, seem just as irrational to me when analyzed. Still we believe.
 
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