Friday, September 11, 2009

God.

Fairly controversial title that.

A few experiences and discussions with some of my more theistic friends led me to stumble upon the following real/rational-isation. The only analogy I can think of describe it is part of chaos theory, which pretty much defeats the purpose of making it easier to understand, but the actual thought is pretty easy to get a handle on anyway. Still, onward with the analogy.

From the wikipedia entry: "Chaos theory is a branch of mathematics which studies the behavior of certain dynamic systems that may be highly sensitive to initial conditions." Normally called the butterfly effect, small changes = large effects.

This leads to a principle - if you have a large number of end behaviours and don't comprehend the underlying formula, the behaviour is random. If you know the formula (and the initial conditions), the behaviours aren't random. This is the 'God moves in mysterious ways' argument.

- - -

In ages past, all natural phenomena were explained by being due to various Gods. As science offered a natural explanation of them, the domain of God was reduced. I don't see them as being exclusive. My concept of God is one that is synonymous with the concepts of natural law. God is everything, and therefore the interactions between everything - from this come omniscience and omnipotence - this is the theistic argument. Humans, some other primates and dolphins all have a consciousness (self-awareness here) contained within a few cubic inches. The universe itself has a consciousness of sorts in its cyclical nature; from the simple things like day/night which can be accurately predicted to the minute, to the complicated ones weather which we struggle to predict even a few days in advance.

I do not say that this universe is aligned with a particular moral compass. It is aligned with a force of a kind though, an incomprehensible arrangement of natural laws which would take another universes worth of computers to predict, though ultimately I think is a structured place - and I have no qualms about calling that force God.

NB: This doesn't leave much wiggle room for me on the subject of a soul. I don't know about it: most times I am a determinist, but occasionally when I am a little more conscious I feel there is a little piece of will - part of self but not of self - like being comfortably at home in another country - struggling to push a domino one way or the other inside my head, interrupting or assisting the chain already in place. I haven't had enough experience to call it though.

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