“You're all God in disguise. Jesus found that out, and they crucified him for saying so.”
– Alan Watts, Intelligent Mindlessness
Discussion
We are all Satoshi
They crucified Jesus because He said He was the Son of God, making Him equal to God the Father, God incarnate. Jesus didn't articulate that "You're all God in disguise." The closest He came to that was in John 10:38 when Jesus said, "Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’?" But he said this with a little g, not a big G, quoting Psalm 82:6, "I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’"
How can something be said with little or big letters? You let yourself be blinded. All Universe is one process and we are part of it. There is nothing else.
Language distinguishes between God, the sovereign, unlimited God of all things, and the gods He's created. In English, using a large case or small case first letter is how we distinguish between nouns and proper nouns. God is the highest and unlimited. gods are human individuals created by God. "How can something be said with little or big letters?" This is how.
If Jesus existed and preached, he did so orally. So listeners could not distinguish between "God" and "god". Anyways, religions were invented by humans to rule other humans. To understand the Universe one has to study hard sciences: math and physics, not ancient texts. The most plausible explanation to date, in my opinion, is Wolfram Physics. Alan Watts essentially tells the same story without math.
In the original Greek documenting Jesus Christ debate with religious leaders, and the Hebrew scripture Jesus quoted (Psalm 82:6) distinguishes between God the Most High (Elyon/Hypsistos), and gods (elohim / theoi), referencing humans or human judges in this context, so listeners could easily distinguish between God (Elyon/Hypsistos), and gods (elohim / theoi), in this context. You are again mistaken.
You're welcome.
To understand the universe, you must grok that it is the body of God, and that God is the center of all things. When you study the hard sciences, you are simply studying the body of God and how it works.
God is but a word. The Universe is one evolving computational process. I understand how it can be with no initial creators and no external maintainers. But we are fruits, observers and influencers of this process from within. What does it make us?
Close. God is The Word, Logos.
The believe that the universe didn't begin to exist violates the second law of thermodynamics.
It began from nothing and without a creator. Some call it Zen, I prefer Wolfram Physics. Can't explain all aspects of that theory here, but this guy does a pretty good job: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVwcxwu8hWKlx77UMXUYPbWauXlT6g9Xd
Everything that began to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.
do abstract numbers have a cause? did we invent 0 and 1, or merely discovered their existence? all we need to exist is information.
Since numbers are part of the universe, and since they began to exist as an element of the universe, they therefore have a cause.
"all we need to exist is information" Really? You also need food and love and air and God. You're assertion makes no sense.
All your mind/consciousness receives is sensory information. And it sends back commands/information to the rest of the body. There is no food, matter or energy, only informational state and rules to get to the next state (arrow of time). All the rest is an illusion in our mind.
All your mind and consciousness is composed of light, which interacts on a quantum interface of sorts with the brain relative to potential futures, relative to spiritual, psychological, and physical needs and wants, and modifies our DNA and RNA. This is more or less the field called epigenetics. Energy exists in many different forms, including food, obviously. Information is simply the abstract form of what exists relative to communication primarily as used by agents, since we live in a universe which does not and cannot exist without agency. Images in the mind in some sense are the first of two creation events, first imagerial, second in spiritual, psychological, and/or physical action relative to values in story. Since the substance of spirit, emerging from God The Spirit and The Word, is what all things are fundamentally composed of, They are the fundamental nature of reality. That which is illusion are lies, because they are separate from the fundamental nature of reality. It can be called perhaps, darkness, which is not The Light.
If you want to explore the nature of reality further, you can read my book. https://a.co/d/b8FXZ7i
It's called, The Nature of Reality: How to use the truth to free yourself from pain and suffering and get what you really want while turning Earth into Heaven
I am a computer scientist and a financial engineer. For me truth is a mathematical concept. God, love etc are rather psychological concepts. They sure can bring happiness into one's life, but won't explain reality. I am happy with my understanding, but thanks for the link! If interested, here is my attempt at explaining the topic:
https://medium.com/@goryachev/free-will-determinism-957f8b12fb8b
Math is another dimension of The Word.
We talk about the same thing. But what for you is a superintelligent omnipotent entity, for me - a basic search algorithm that simultaneously branches into all alternatives. The world appears a miraculous creation only from our particular 3d history, because this sequence evolved intelligent life. We are blind to countless dead-end branches. There is nothing but us guiding this pricess further and judging its success. We are the process.
*process
There is some overlap in what we're talking about. However, the main difference between my interpretation of reality and yours, is that mine is God Himself is a relational and personal master engineer who created the universe and all things through that engineering process and divine intervention to establish irreducibly complex advanced life. While your interpretation of the universe perceives the engineering and systems intelligence of the universe and how it works, but lacking relational and personal involvement with humanity. You perceive the universe as impersonal and human centric, while I see the universe as God created and exceptionally personal and intimate, God centric.
Which vision of reality leads to authentic hope and meaning? I think it's one that includes the loving, good God, Jesus Christ, who reminds that we're not alone.
Yeah, I get it. We are arguing the nature of God.
You can't see that the most thorough and perfect way to create anything is to try all possible alternatives. Yet this is exactly what the Universe is doing every step of the way, including how the modern quantum computers work. No need for super intelligence or meaning, just blind branching into all the variants. This is God in a sense that it created and keeps evolving all that exist. All inanimate matter, plants, animals and humans are integral parts of this God. Because we all are engaged in the same energy optimization process.
Electrons solving for levels to occupy in molecules and corporations making decisions to optimize taxes are two examples of the same basic principle. People like myself structured and traded synthetic CDOs with a similar genetic algorithm, to squeeze every last bit of profit from the financial markets until they crashed. That's evolution too. We are all God, same as Jesus. That's what Alan Watts meant.
You think this view makes me alone and hopeless? Afraid to die? Just the opposite! I know I am more than this mind and this physical body, in fact, I accept that there is no "I", but only the eternal process. My current perspective is only "part I", with everyone else being the other parts. And I am happy for the opportunity to observe and *minimally* participate in this multiplayer process that will go on for millennia. I know this game won't end with my death, I'll just lose one perspective and sooner or later gain another.
I don't think we're arguing the nature of God. I think you're elevating the "Universe" and it's processes into the place that belongs to God, alone.
Obviously trying every possible solution is a way to iterate towards what works. But that is an inefficient method relative to the other methods that exist, whether in a systematic sense, or in the sense of agency. The highest method for determining the path forward is to see it, based on Light and Truth.
For instance, the physical constants weren't iterated. They're an immutable dimension of the fabric of the universe from it's inception that are the playing field upon which much of existence operates. They were created by the Light, and implemented. Trying all possible alternatives is a viable path if one doesn't have perfect information, but God has perfect information so iteration isn't necessary as a precondition of the existence of the universe. However, as a physical and computational process, iteration is used all the time, but that's because they don't have agency, that is, the light to see what's most real.
Iteration is the process used when people don't immediately see what works. I think you're conflating the process (iterating to find what works most efficiently) with first principles (that which works and those most fundamental general truths). They aren't the same.
I didn't say your process makes you alone and hopeless. I'm speaking to a general outcome that a worldview of materialism, absent a transcendent connection to the Creator of All Things leads to. Can people with only a materialistic worldview find companionship and hope? Sure, but subjectively and not in objective, eternal ways, only in temporary ways.
Bitcoin for instance is a powerful way to find hope for the future, but Bitcoin is temporary while God is eternal. The hope of Bitcoin may last for hundreds of thousands of years, but it's not eternal and there is no relationship with Bitcoin. It is a tool. While God is eternal, being also a person, and so people can build their lives on Jesus Christ, who is Hope, the only truly Unstoppable Force and Immovable Object.
I didn't say you were afraid to die, but now that you mention it, yes, anyone without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ would be afraid to die, because He is the only path to the Father, God the Father. But the fear of death in some sense is really masking a fear of hell. Jesus Christ gave His life, and was resurrected from the dead by the Holy Spirit, to save all people from hell through the free gift and offer of salvation and relationship with Him that leads to restoration of perfect rightness with God the Father.
2 Corinthians 5:21:
"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
Your meta physic reminds me of the buddhist meta physic, reincarnating over and over again, ad infinitum, which leads to hopelessness because it doesn't speak to the fundamental truth of God, which is that improvement in relationship with Jesus Christ is possible, even inevitable because through Him the Holy Spirit makes you a new creation, and brings you from glory to glory. A meta physic of "there is no "I", absolves you of ultimate and immediate responsibility for yourself and your choices. Fortunately, that is not the reality we actually exist within. You cannot say, "I know," while also saying, "there is no "I." This, my friend is a performative contradiction.
Thank you for engaging in this discussion/debate in good faith though! I really appreciate it!
I too appreciate the debate even though we are unlikely to ever agree. You preach monotheistic dogma, and your only arguments are capitalized words and quotes from supposed authorities. My method is scientific, so what I learned is the result of studying modern math, physics, biology and informatics, including real world experiments. Stephen Wolfram et al explain this much more thoroughly, but I can try my best.
I did not say "iterations", I said "branching". World's history simultaneously evolves along many parallel paths, and the observers (you and me) merge these paths into shared reality. This is what happens in dual slit experiments or when quantum state is measured. This is how quantum computers instantly find complex molecules where a normal, iterative, computer would spend years. Because this is how nature does it.
There were no pre-set ideal parameters for our Universe to exist. All such parameters happen at once, but we only sample a small corner of a much larger Universe ("Ruliad" in Wolfram's terminology) where they are just right for us to exist. There can be other corners where other intelligent beings appeared too, we don't know. So this is not about humans per se. We may be just a stepping stone to the next level of intelligence, what we call AI, that will go on conquering the galaxy. As Neanderthals were a stepping stone to Homo Sapiens. Who knows. So the cycle of reincarnations is not necessarily dull and hopeless.
Being only "part I" does not absolve us from responsibility for our choices. We constantly inherit the world from ourselves, so we do descend into Hell when we make it hotter with CO2 emissions etc. Or we can make it Heaven by solving hunger and other problems. This is my way of understanding Karma - it is collective!
What I know as a person, yes, will die with my body. But I hope some of my words and deeds will have an imprint on the collective "I" and carry on making a difference. I prefer this Hope to an imaginary one!
You're trying to set up a fools choice of God verses science, but you don't understand science is God's handwriting. Whether or not you believe it is your choice, I wash my hands of it.
"My method is scientific." Based on the number of performative contradictions and faulty assumptions in your logic, and notwithstanding your inability to grasp basic reality, like the existence of matter and energy and food, and your failure to acknowledge the evidence of the beginning of the universe, your method isn't scientific by any stretch of the imagination but pseudo science and something akin to scientism worship, to the core.
If you're going to worship science, at least worship real science, not a tenuous grasp of it, at best.
You don't break the law, the law breaks you. I wish you the best Swap Market.
Since every person is a creation of God The Word, Elyon, each person is the will of God.
The New Testament scholarship of Jesus Christ, his existence and teaching, isn't even debated by any secular scholar worth his salt. You can find a basic introduction to the physical evidence of Jesus Christ in the book, "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel, and then you can expand your search from there. "If" is only a word used by someone who hasn't done their research.
You're welcome.
A more astute question would be, "Are you letting yourself be blinded?" But asserting that, "You're letting yourself be blinded" based on the first principle that all things are connected, which is true, but an incomplete worldview. All things are connected, but not all things are the same. Since God makes distinctions, it behooves us to make distinctions in kind, category, and beyond. You are greatly mistaken.
Also, on a grammatical level, if you're going to chide me on using "little or big letters," then it would behoove you to stop using them too, or else you find yourself in performative contradiction. But I'm comfortable using little and big letters, because I know what they mean.
Blasphemy
Didn’t know alan watts was a satanist
The Buddhist influence really can rub me the wrong way sometimes too.
Yet, He does tell us “be therefore perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect.”
Would the lord tell us to do something if it is impossible?
I will try to be perfect as he was. Yet I am a sinner who falls short, who only can be forgiven thanks to Christ. It’s a mystery and that’s why we have faith.
The Bible makes it very clear that we are God’s creation, not gods ourselves. I have no patience for people that try to blur those lines. What did Satan tell Eve in the garden? Gotta be on the lookout for false prophets that look to deceive us and cause our fall.
True, I agree. I am obviously not God or a part of God, yet He calls us to seek Him in humility and repentance through His Son Jesus as His children correct?
The kind of Hindu concept of “realizing you are god” seems to be a kind of self aggrandizing source of moral decay throughout the West today.
To be a child of God is not to be God or equal to God. Yet it comes with its own “realization” that I think the Buddhists like Watts are referring to.
This insight into the divine and the human is as unique and profound as Dubai charter dubai.
OPs paraphrased quote is the TRUTH. "Little g" gods are fractal emanations of "Big G." The only limitation is consciousness.
Most of the "Little g's" in the 3-D Earth MATRIX simulation have FALLEN so far away from the Light and from Consciousness, into a simulated trap (3-D Earth) powered by dark spirits, Controllers, that have hijacked their Light through ancestral bloodline hijacks which remove aspects of their soul's memory and through mental indoctrination and control.
The mind control unconsciously suppresses their own Light (de-lusion) and replaces it with SHADOWS of illusion whereby Little g's CHOOSE to BELIEVE that 3-D Earth existence is the "real" reality and their avatars their real identities, when in Truth, these are simply illusory aspects of Little g's hijacked minds, projecting a false reality of spiritual psychosis. The more married one is to their psychosis, the more "real" they perceive 3-D Earth as being.
If "Little g" doesnt become AWARE that their MIND has been hijacked and begin to recognize and take their power back from the Controllers, "Little g's" consciousness remains indefinitely trapped (and often foolishly contented) in the illusion .