Altariva

Ok, you posit its meaningless contribution to reality, if it exists. This is (finally!!!) a contribution to this topic! I can agree if you mean that "God" does not interact scientifically/tangibly with reality, and this is why I spoke about a "resonance": something which does not directly shows itself in a specifical way, but which is a sort of hybrid, whose "role" cannot be explained just by a singular method, but needs a deeper interpretation. (I wrote a more complete reflection in my mother-language, and I will soon translate it in order to let you discern on it).

Oh, excellent! So, by now, let's finally discuss about "what" God we think means: implicitly, we have to posit the hypothesys ""God" exist", but it's just a hypothesys, not a thesys we want to demonstrate or verify (here is the speculation!).

I posit mine, you posit yours: that's why I suggest you to write down yours here, in order to compare them to mine. I should have written "ethicality", sorry ("ethicity" is effectively meaningless...)

If you think it's meaningless, well, this is the proof you are not useful for this topic. You (general) are not enough open-minded. I investgate basing my reflections on philosophical speculations, so my "evidences" can be found only in the ethicity of my own speculations: if they are intelligible, philosophically sensate and logically correct (I mean their congruency), they can be considered relative proofs, and these in the area of speculation are meaningful evidences.

I had already specified that I do not mean "believing" in a religious way, so the definition of freedom you gave is in accord to mine: moreover, have I ever suggested to found a religion? No. Besides this, I think you (imatfaal) had just underlined a turning point for this discussion: you said "no evidence & no need to investigate", but why? Why there would be no need to investigate if just there is no evidence? Why should we abort this reflection only for the fact that we have not yet numbers and measures from which to start? We should try to make hypotheses instead, speculate assuming from time to time some possibilities. Now then I will clarify something: everyone is free to comment this topic, but the majority of you hasn't yet understood its core. I'm not trying to make you trust in "God", I'm not trying to convert you to any hypothetical religion: the original intent of this topic is not to discuss the existence of "God", but to speculate over what could be its hypothetical essence. So, comments like "no evidence & no need to investigate" disclose the fact that "some" users are not interested to speculate, and definitively are not useful to this discussion if what the want to say is just like this... Nevertheless, some interesting phrases came out anyhow: "no real gaps (...) require divine filling" for example helps "us" (who is interested in speculating) to understand that the definition of "God" is not so relevant for the study of the tangible/scientific sphere (in which I possibly include the mental one), so our speculation should move on a meta-scientific area of studies. In fact I'm interested to direct this discussion by ethical reflections: because effectively there are no measures able to confirm te existence/inexistence of "the higher concept", not the religion (as you correctly say, any form of dogmatism is undeniably toxic for us) but only the sense of morality could be able to help us redefining what "God" should possibly be nowadays. So, if there are no real gaps requiring God, it means "God" is over the only reality: it we posit it exists, then it should be more complex of (scientific) reality; if we posit it does not possibly exist, then our presence in this topic is superfluous, eventually pointless. I will repeat again and again: we are just speculating! We think that just because there is no scientific evidence of something's existence, it is not a sufficient condition to abort a reflection. So we speculate starting by the hypothesis "God exist": we don't want to discuss the eventuality of its existence/inexistence, because in fact there are no scientific evidences to start a discussion by, but anyhow we can try to imagine what it could/should be... or are you telling me that my curiosity is unjustified? I answer this: I'm curious to imagine "God", so I posit its existance and then try to describe what I think of it. If you posit its inexistance instead, I'm sorry to say this topic is not the appropriate place for you: also, by this your assumption there would not possibly grow any reflection, and this because of what the hypothesis of inexistance implicits. P.S.: I think a better section for my topic would have been "Speculations" if just I had seen that before.

Emplirical, empirical, empiricaaaaaal... I focused your way of thinking. We are not trying to confirm God existence, but just doing a speculative reflection on it, in fact the main question I stand starting this topic, was: "what should God be" (implicit: if it exists)

I desume you would be interested of the functioning of that "floating city", and this is propter of a man of science, and it's a good point of view, I agree (me too would be quite interested), so that help me to consider the condition "meta-scientific" to the definition of "God". Interesting, because it is exactly where I want you to move steps: thinking "God" in a mechanical way isn't a good idea, beacuse it would be replicable or generally reducible to a scientific function. Perfect, then what could be a "meta-scientific God"? To define this, it would be useful to know the scientific reality of the facts, so that we'll be able to describe an irreplicable entity, eventually helping our reasoning with scientific paragons, but with the idea that we are speaking of something which is over the "simple" science. (There is a difference between me and you: you are skeptical, while I am critic in my reasoning. )

Speaking about me and my opinion? DEFAULT POSITION? Are you serious? There is no "default position" which could be considered better or rightful than others: we all are here to make hypothesis, but you are just repeating the old seeing is believing school, not trying to improve a reasoning. Assuming as rightful only what you can measure by yourself is a extravagant way to say: "I'll be close in myself until you don't broke my shell"... be open-minded! Oh, really? Do you believe in the existence of Flying Spaghetti Monster? Wow! I personally didn't feel the need to consider its existence, but now that I've known sometthing which help me making an idea of it, when I will meet it I will know if the creature which is in front of me is really FSM or not. Only knowing we'll be able to enlight our doubts, and this is also referred to further doubts. Make your own idea of "God", then you will know "if" what will be in front of you could be it

Ahw, the old "seeing is believing" school, I see. Quoting Einstein: "we may think nothing is a miracle, or we may think everything is a miracle". Tell me, what kind of evidence would you like to touch? A man who tell you "I'm God" and materialize a floating city in fornt of you? It would be quite shocking, you don't say?, even considering that that circumstances would probably make you thinking him more like a demon... Or would you prefer him to show you what you want to see? I think it would be a glorious troll for you! The problem is that any tangible demonstration of its existence would violate your own free will, and this because of the theoretical assumption that God is almighty. But I think that also in those circumstances you will be skeptical... but even this wouldn't be a bad thing, mh...

Please, underline what precisely you don't understand of my reflection: I will clarify, but I need to know what you need to be clarified of.

Mh, I'm interested to deepen the comprehension of the verb "rule": could it be that everything we do in predestinated or strictly decided or redirected by "God"? No, I think not. In fact I intend that verb more likely "observing what happens, without directly interfering to everyone's will": could it be that God is like a sort of giant eye? Please, no. This definition is not so exhaustive to define this entity as "God"! So it must be something higher, if we want to assume its existence: not just a supervisor, but something higher, mh... what about a resonance between relativity, absoluteness and a sort of vector which interconnects them (in a mere mixture they will mutually annihilate themselves) generating armony between contraries, also operating a sort of absolution of the relative? Obviously, I will explain this better in a second time

Sorry for the extreme continuity of the paragraphs ^^" I think I must clarify something: when I say "freedom derives from our capability of believing" I do not implicitly mean "in God". You say it depends on lack of restrictions: I thought it was something like that, but if you are simply free form any kind of limit, well, it is just a lower interpretation of Freedom. Try to reflect: I kill someone because I can do it, I'm free to do it, no one obstacles me (apart probably the one who in being killed, maybe), but effectively this is just a "decision" (to kill) I do in order to do something. Taken apart, a decision is just a product of freedom: just think about recent neuroscientific theories on the free will (i.e.: Gazzaniga), it seems to be a product of some biological interchange of substances and processes in brain which anticipate the consciousness of the decision. I mean, if you base your freedom on the consciousness of being free to decide something indipendently from others (persons, but also law), consciousness which is maximized much less are the limits to your capability to act, well, your interpretation of freedom is merely built on your "perception" of liberty. On the other hand, the act of believing in something (example: you believe that F=m*a) expresses a hypothesis, and I think that is precisely this which allow us to assert our freedom: I'm not free because of my unbounded decisions, but whereas I am able to theorize (make a hypothesys in order to verify a thesys I thought before) something only me myself can understand in that particular way. I have to answer to my "why" if I want to comprehend the reality of free will: then, if I believe in something, it means I have understood it in a personal way, so the next step is to get others sympathetic to my vision, and this not by imposition of will, but with cooperation. The key to understand freedom, I think, is effectively to see it not just in a individualistic way, but more like a matrix (please, do not quote the movies...), something which expects a sort of interconnection beetwen individuals. There, the capability of believing is the capability of expressing in a deeper way our ideals (from "banana is yellow" to "God is love"). I would like to end with "Simple, you don't say?", but it would sound quite ironical...

I agree with you when you speak about the dogmatism which is frequently attributed to "God" and everything concerning the divine sphere... but, the reason I started this topic is effectively to go over this idea: you all are right when speak about inconsistecy of this particular conception of "God", then why not try to redefine it in a modern and acceptable way? You say it isn't necessary to describe the world or other things, and OK, I agree, in fact I appreciate science because of its capacity to reveal what physically concern the reality, and also psychology for its progresses in studying mental ones, and the integration between them I personally think is quite brilliant! Then, as lot of intellectuals affirm, "what is the place of God?", and also "does still exist leftovers for him?" Probably I know what you are going to answer, so I clarify: if we assume the inexistence of something which could be called "God", the only action we'll make is to not consider the whole range of possibilities ("it does not exist, so why should I deepen such absurd ideas?"), but in this case you won't achieve any enlightenment; on the other hand, you know you cannot accept a definition of God such the traditional one, this becouse of your scientific (or simply, more rational) background, so you would ask yourself about its eventual necessity for explaining something, but you know that apart few advices or spiritual consolations it would be completely pointless... and this because, effectively, we have still a instrument to fathom the reality (a fantastic one: science!), so any extra one seems to be useless, eventually self-defeating. In this way we understand that "God" isn't precisely something able to help us to describe the fact of things: if it want to exist, it must be something different... I say: maybe. As it seems, some of you says something like: "when we don't want anyone to question it"... well, very well kick-off! I mean that if we want to answer in a precise way to the question on its reality (not perfect, but precise will be enough), we must question it, and whenever it seems to not exist, keep questioning: because, as it happens in science, if we stop deepening the fact, no answer would be able to satisfy our rationality (but also our ethics)! In a way it would sound somewhat epic, I appeal to you: let's find the last corner left for God! Just keep seeking, because our freedom derives from our capability of believing!

I think everyone registered in this forum - or at least any majority - would agree with me if I say that it is almost necessary to develop a definition of "God" and whatever is divine able to include and integrate what is purely scientific. This because a mere religious meaning of God is no longer exhaustive if referred to our contemporary: by now, human societies need a spiritual ideal able to sublime science, art and philosophy into the same "being". In other words, we need to redifine what is divine in order to create a system more comprehensive of everybody's acception of life: simply, the solution is a web of ideas which considers every kind of discipline and integrate different notions and opinions in the name of omnicomprehension and totality, and again, unity. My personal hint is to organize the establishment of a comunity which interest is to "renew God": I think traditions are no more able to hold the weight of such a definition, and what we need for is exactly to let our soul, reason and personal ethics shout "what we think God should be"; and this without the fear of any solemn judgement, because the prerogative of "God" is go(o)dness - irony. I hope some of you would like this enterprise, so to "forge" a sort of study commettee P.S.: obviousluy, I will write my personal opinion about God very soon, but first I'd like to read some comments.