And here's the TED talk by Jill Bolte Taylor which Russell mentions.
What are your views on God, consciousness, spirituality or the Universe?
Same here. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Obviously the literal religious God is ridiculous when you start dissecting the contradictions in religious books. I believe in evolution. But there are other theories, such as a God who BECAME the world (ie big bang) instead of creating it which would make it neutral and non-judgemental. Since we don't know one way or another, I remain agnostic. That seems the most logical stance to me.
Reminds me of Joseph Campbell in Myths to Live By: And along with this there runs another realization; namely, that the social group into which the individual has been borne, which nourishes and protects him and which, for the greater part of his life, he must himself help to nourish and protect, was flourishing long before his own birth and will remain when he is gone…and through participation in which he will come to know the life that transcends death.we are the temporary manifestation of something greater, something complete and whole, something timeless and spaceless and absolute
This recognition of mortality and the requirement to transcend it is the first great impulse of mythology.
Shit, I have to get my fedora, pin-on neckbeard, and false gut for this. My opinions on God is that God does not exist. Show me proof, and I might believe, but of all the proof I have seen it is of a flawed book that is being slowly whittled away into more and more of a pale metaphor of what it used to be by the steady march of human science and progress. My opinions on consciousness is that it is nothing but the mind "running". A physical process that is just as able to be quantified as a fire, or any other chemical reaction. It's just a lot more complex. It doesn't answer why we experience, which is an interesting question, but I can't ever shake the thought that it's kind of a question that is based on the fact we are human, rather than one based in that we are observing that "we" are capable of having some extra-physical set of experiences, or that we are anything but the sum of our parts. The universe is not something I really have an opinion on. It exists, but you are going to have to have more specific questions before I can really say much about the thing in which I can only see the inside of. ___ Video responses: First video: "science can explain the mechanics, but not the why" This implies there is a why, that there is a nature of consciousness. We haven't seen any evidence of that, no reason to have a reason to exist in the first place. We don't need a why in order to exist, only a "how". The "why' can only be determined by each and every individual operating on a subjective basis, because it doesn't exist objectively, it's a concept in our minds, not a process in the universe. "fine tuned universe" is a better argument against God than for. A universe where the laws of physics were wrong for humans, yet we still came to be, is one that is more more likely in which you expect to see God. Secondly, it is well explained by the "puddle" analogy. A puddle finds itself in a hole and thinks "wow, I fit this hole perfectly, it is perfect for me, it must be made for me!" when, in reality, the puddle changes to fit the hole. If the universe had formed differently, we wouldn't be here, but perhaps a different set of life would, making that same exact argument. "it's perfect for us!" As to the stuff about Jesus, I can only think of cursing fig trees, bears mauling children, and the fact he directly stated that he wasn't there to overturn old testament claims such as "A raped women must marry her rapist, who must pay a property loss to her father". No perfect god, in any situation, would say that, or allow it in their holy book. No holy book should contain those words. The entire bible, the entire religion, is based on that old testament that makes those claims. I don't care if they are metaphors, just as I don't care if the sand you built your building on was supposed to be stone. It's still build on sand, and still shifty as hell. Yet here we are stating it exists? It's very bad at being an unknown force in that case. No, the question is "is there a god". "If you want to be atheist, be atheist, but everyone has to know that what I believe is true! I believe that without embracing some form of god/spiritual/higher figure, we will never be good people!"from the quantam to the cosmos, there is an unknown force behind things
the question is not is there a god, the question is is there suffering