God and existence are identical.

Hi every human with reason and intelligence, in particular I am addressing atheists, can you accept that before anything else there is God and He is essentially existence itself, so that God and existence are identical, and anything not God is created by God.

I have discussed this issue with atheists almost forever, but eventuallu they stopped their dialogue with me, for example one atheist called DocSavage.

So, I long for better atheists than DocSavage.

If no atheists come forward, that means they don't have reason and intelligence to dialog with me.

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hartfire

Can't do it concisely, because it's not a matter of soundbites, slogans or mêmes.

I considered the God-is-All idea for quite a few years.

If matter and energy were discovered to have some form of consciousness, then yes, one could say that matter and consciousness are all one.
Vedantists (the inner esoteric core of Hinduism) assert this idea and consider consciousness to be God.
Historically, that idea has existed since at least the earliest of the Vedas, around 3,000 years, earlier if we count verbal transmission of memorised chants. The name they give it is Atman. The English translation, "God", doesn't correspond precisely to the Sanskrit meaning. There is no exact equivalent.
Vedantists believe matter arose out of consciousness due to it's wish to experience itself.

In physics, we now know that all is either potential or kinetic energy existing in time and space.
We also know that what we call matter (or potential energy) occupies only infinitesimal space, most of space being empty.
The scales of atoms and subatomic particles are so exponentially small we can only perceive them via instruments created to be far more powerful than our senses, and able to measure the evidence.

So far, no one has been able to measure or quantify consciousness.

The nearest equivalent is measuring the electrical signals and activity in the brain. The electrical wavelengths correspond accurately with:
alpha - profound focus/ 'the zone' - meditation, concentration, discovery, creativity;
beta - normal waking awareness;
gamma - sleep;
or theta - coma
Within each of these states is a variable spectrum.

Observing this, it can be tempting to define consciousness as the subjective result of multiple sequences of miniscule bio-electrical and bio-chemical flows down synapses.
If this view of consciousness turned out to be accurate, then all consciousness, including that of animals, would be the result of the physical processes of evolution.
In other words, the reverse of what Hindus and Vedantists believe.
I am more inclined to accept this physical view of things,
but I freely acknowledge that it may be a very long time before we can prove it.

However, if it did turn out that consciousness was the origin of the physical world, I would not wish to call it God.
The word God denotes intentional power and knowledge. I see no evidence for this.
The universe on its cosmic scale does not care
about the tiny blip of life that evolves and dies on this remote planet
on an outer arm of a vast galaxy,
a galaxy which is only one of countless billions,
existing for a time that will be over in what is,
in universal time,
less than a hiccup.

We are so utterly absorbed in our human existences that we forget how insignificant we are in the larger picture of the cosmos.

Abstraction · 61-69, M

@hartfire Although from a slightly different perspective I agree with a lot of your thoughts here.
One interesting perspective: On a scale of size, you are correct. We are completely insignificant.
But size isn't everything. Let's try another scale, perhaps more imporant - complexity.
On a scale of complexity, the most complex thing in the universe we have found so far is the human brain - and even more so when we add the dimension of consciousness, which as you suggest, the best neuroscientists are still grappling to understand. Compared to us a supernova that dwarfs us is simply an unaware pinball machine of forces. I think it was Sir Roger Penrose but it may be someone else said: 'We* are the universe becoming aware of its own existence.' It took 13.7 billion years to develop this. Just a thought I like to ponder.

*It doesn't imply alone. It doesn't exclude other forms of consciousness.

hartfire

@Abstraction I love that quote!

"We* are the universe becoming aware of its own existence."

Yes, all life forms, collectively, are in the process of evolving consciousness by differing means and with differing levels of complexity.
- But it's hard to avoid the reality of our subjectivity; we have a vested interest in studying ourselves.
We often project ideas of "less than" onto animals, which later prove to be huge under-estimations.
We increasingly discover that many animals are just as emotional as us: experience very similar emotions (hormones, drives, bonds, etc): can work out far more complex tasks that we realise: and thrive better with environmental and cognitive enrichment.

We humans believe we have the most complex layerings and functions of consciousness on Earth - but we've only barely begun to research alternative languages, means of communication and ways of detecting evidence of consciousness.
So I hold this notion of our "superiority" with a proviso that we don't know how-much-we-don't-know. We might never grasp the immensity of our ignorance. Not just the facts not yet known, but the ways we ignore the potentials for knowing via lack of curiosity, denial, arrogance, genuine error or unknowingly cling to mistaken beliefs. It some aspects costs us energy and many negative consequences to deliberately ignore and avoid knowing.
For many of us, if an idea challenges our preconceptions too much, we experience the discomfort of "cognitive dissonance",
a fulcrum moment or bifurcation event,
in which we can choose to plunge into the new,
in order to understand and come to terms with it,
or turn away for the sake of mental and emotional comfort.

Canadian botanists have discovered how different species of trees communicate with each other via pheromones transmitted through their root systems over thousands of kilometers - so that some species flower and seed on the exact same day regardless of their latitude, altitude and local conditions.
Can we be sure that this is just a bio-chemical chain reaction? Or could it count as language in a very specific way?
Or how about the 3D pulses and tones that dolphins communicate with via their mouth, ears and melon (specialised 3D sonar receptor)?

I find the concept of the Semitic God an incredible mystery. It makes no sense to me, either a priori or a posteriori.
But I can see great value in it as a means of creating social cohesion, mutual trust between strangers of similar faiths, and a shared morality that many find practical as a guide to life.

Abstraction · 61-69, M

@hartfire

But I hold that notion with a proviso that we still don't know how much we don't know. We might never grasp the immensity of our ignorance.

A brilliant long piece I captured from Dr. Charles L Harper which touches on levels, consciousness, emergence and what we don't comprehend. Sorry, long but stunningly good.

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
"Einstein once said that a symphony is very different to an air pressure curve. A physicist would measure a symphony as a movement of waves of pressure in the air. If you were a garden slug, Mozart for you would be something like an air pressure curve... A slug has the ability to know vibrations but not to know language and certainly not music, and not beauty, and not the kind of yearning and creativity that animated a composer like Mozart. So a slug cannot know about Mozart.
For me one of the haunting questions is, are we like slugs? Does reality keep going up? Does it have richness of new levels above us so that we're like slugs - and there's stuff like Mozart beyond us?
EMERGENCE
There is a tendency for scientists - there is a kind of a physics imperialism - to go in the direction of 'nothing but' that which we can manipulate and understand most easily - that's what it really is. It's nothing but... Quarks, atoms, whatever.
But actually the emergent levels - understanding the life of a slug, or the creativity and consciousness of a composer, understanding language that allows us to be creative in our social interactions - these are all levels of reality. And that which we know emerges through the way that matter organises itself in these ascending levels of complexity.
TOP DOWN CAUSATION
One interesting thing is the question of top down causation, and it's not clear to science how top down causation works. For us it's trivial. We decide to pick something up, we decide and we pick it up. But physics doesn't actually understand that yet. There is no proper theory for top-down causation.
We know that a composer has thoughts in the composer's mind that leads to creativity on paper and that organises symphonies and at many junctures it moves atoms in the air. So the creativity of the composer's mind is acting down all these levels, to the slug, through the air pressure curve.
And it is a trivial observation, but it is actually a mystery that physics doesn't really know. The best subject for understanding the way of modelling nature scientifically at a basic level doesn't really explain how these causes would percolate down." Charles Harper - Can Emergence Explain Reality?
Better to listen than read probably.

hartfire

@Abstraction Wonderful things to consider.
Unfortunately I'm called to attend to other things right now,
but I'll get back to you with a reply sometime in the next 24hrs.
So delicious to have this calibre of conversation!

hartfire

@Abstraction Well reasoned.
I chatted with physicists and it's true that most are very open minded - and it is the philosophers and neurologists who tend to have a mistakenly closed idea about the theories and discoveries from physics.
That talk set me thinking anew about the topic.
Very interesting.