Asklemmy

Consciousness exists. This implies that either consciousness is some emergent property of sufficiently complex interconnected systems, or it's some universal force that complex interconnected systems "channel".

If it's emergent, it seems less presumptuous to assume that the most complex interconnected system of all, the universe itself, would develop consciousness. That universal consciousness might as well be called "God". If it's a universal force, it might as well be called "God". Anyway you slice it, a universal consciousness seems inevitable from a sober metaphysical analysis.

Lots of people have ascribed lots of culturally specific attributes to the universal consciousness which are obviously quite silly. The core statement that "I am that 'I am'" is really the only meaningful attribute we can identify.

Sort of, but it's more a comforting theory rather then a true belief. I came up with it when I was younger, doing a lot of psychedelics, and meditating often on the nature of existence and reality.

My theory is that God is everything. The earth, the stars, our fellow beings. All of reality makes up a complex web that I loosely refer to as a "consciousness" for lack of a better word. The nature of this "consciousness" is incomprehensible to us. It does not activly intervene in our daily lives, and operates on a scale beyond our comprehension. Mostly, it simply is. It is the oblivion from which our consciousness was once plucked, and it is where we will one day return.

In essence, each of us is a tiny fragment of reality experiencing itself. The meaning of life is to experience it. All of it. Joy, pleasure, and suffering. It is all a part of the whole of existence. When we die and return to the infinite our individuality is lost, but maybe God learns something about itself.

I saw something fitting a common description for God (in meditation). Yes, a total mystic vision.

(The creator of reality. A star (that also looks like a jewel) that emits poetry energy. And then I react to that energy by dreaming this dream that I call reality. Like contriving lyrics for an instrumental song.)

No intelligence or personhood as far as I can tell. Just a vast brainless mystico-cosmological gusher of energy.

In times of peace, I'm agnostic. In times of christofascism, I'm militantly atheist. People go to church or talk to God because it is an existential crisis. They are just scared of dying. Momento Mori.

Simple answer: I find I carry on believing in God in much the same way I believe in Science. A mixture of experience, logical coherence, testimony, teaching from people I trust, and connection with other things I know/believe, that makes - to my mind - God's reality overwhelmingly more likely than not.

I don't but, wow!? Is that your bedsheet?

I'm LDS some people might call us Mormon.

The short of it is I asked God and I felt his presence. Not like any earthly feeling, more like the burning the bible / new testament describes.

But even without any of that I'd still have believed / known. I just, always have if that makes sense? I might've gone a different direction in my beliefs but I'd still have known he's there.

The pattern looks like a boxershorts or Lederhose

There are definitions of "God" that I feel are hard to prove, but others that are easy. For example, of your definition is "God is the ultimate cause of the universe" then it's pretty trivial that if everything has a cause there must be an end of the chain. Of course, this the could be a computer program running the universe simulation or even just the laws of physics themselves if those are truly causeless. But nonetheless, it's still a somewhat satisfying definition of "God" so I'm comfortable saying I believe in God. Harder definitions include "God is an omnipotent being" (which most of God's traditional attributes can be derived from) and "God is the being described in the Bible/Qu'ran/other religious text" which I feel like are unprovable.

A lot of religious apologists will make arguments in favor of the easier definition and then try to claim that this means their specific view of God is real. Personally I think that's insane. Like "there must be some end of the chain of causality therefore God became a Jewish carpenter in the ancient Roman Empire." Even if you're Christian that should be a bad logical jump.

I believe in a god but it is strange lol. I will truly never understand the concept of being all knowing and powerful so my idea is he's either so bored with his existence he created us for entertainment or simply boredom. I imagine him similar to a comic book writer or tv show creator

Personally I'm a huge fan of the Alcoholics Anonymous understanding of "god" and I think it applies more widely.

In AA it is supposed to be A-religious so as to accommodate as many people as possible. To them, god is whatever higher power you need to put your faith into to do better. An entity who you are striving to make proud or you are asking for guidance or help, etc.

This genericized god idea kinda gives up the game to me as an atheist, but it doesn't mean it's bad. In fact it's made me believe in god as an idea.

There are plenty of studies on "manifesting" goals and how saying out loud to yourself or to someone at all substantially increases your chance of succeeding in your goal. This is just prayer or a magic spell or whatever else you wanna call it. I call it a ritual.

The fact that god is a made up idea has been uncontested in my mind for eons, however the psychological power of a belief in god is new to me and makes me appreciate the systems of religion more (doesn't excuse a lot of their bullshit).

I think I believe in something more like… biology and physics working together in some way to create our existence. I had a near death experience once when I was in ICU for several months. I met, a… thing, it was like a large glowing spark but its light didn’t travel away from its self, its glowing was contained to its “body”. I asked “is that me?” and the “room” we were in was filled with a sense of “no” it’s taken me ten years to process that experience and be able to talk about it, idk what that spark was but I’ve come to accept I believe that is the All Thing, it’s the eternal spark all sentient life stems from, I do believe access to long term memory is critical for being a part of the All Thing not simply being animated biology, like a mosquito for example.

I think the All Thing animates biology as a way to experience the physical world because it must “live” somewhere and we are all avatars, our thoughts are only important in the sense that they lead us to experiences and forming memories. I believe in nonduality and that physics is actually the closest humans will ever get to describing a god, an All Thing

Cos I've done drugs, and experienced heightened states of love, being, appreciation for nature and humanity, states that feel magical yet real, even if only temporarily.

The very fact those states of mind are achievable at all gives me a certain emotional grounding and inner certainty that reality has purpose, or at least meaning. As opposed to just being a happy accident of atoms and energy arranging themselves in this miraculous way to create life. That's just a logical explanation of how, not why.

We're almost all driven to look for meaning in life. Even if it's just to "find your own purpose", that journey presupposes you have one to begin with.

I guess I feel a belief in god without having much idea of what god is, or even what they want. But I don't believe at all that logic, science, reason etc. are things you have to choose instead of religious belief. They're things you have as well. You can't square the two - the Rubik's cube of logic doesn't twist that way.

I don't believe in the Christian god because there are too many contradictions and I don't think the divine truth is corruptable. Anything so corrupt it doesn't even agree with itself cannot be divine truth.