You are the eyes of the Universe. (workbook #e)

An exploration into a different sort of perspective on the god ~ human relationship, one that starts with a mind experiment and ends in a beautiful mythical suggestion.

 

“Humanity is the most exquisite example of God’s need and desire to know itself.”

It begins with imagining creation from a god’s eye view.  If a god there be, what would, what could that god actually know about the universe? 

There was nothing to sense in the beginning.  Besides how could a substance-less God sense anything?

Seems to me, only by creating something, was there anything for god to observe.  But what would god observe with? 

It occurred to me that god could only experience its own creation, through the structures of that creation.  

Starting right at the 'big bang' along side energy, gravity, time and the ever evolving complexity of interactions in a growing cosmos.  

Considering God as a creation of our own human minds. (workbook #c)

This comes from a conversation over at CenterForInquiry discussion forum under the far ranging thread headed: Why Did You Choose Atheism?  It’s part of my workshop.

post #117 - Sep 4, 8:33 PM

Write4u comments: “Evolution is established science.”

I offered a slight adjustment.

Citizenschallenge:  Evolution is established by scientific evidence.    : -)

Now if only we really let that lesson soak in, as we think about who and what we are.

As for God, I would suggest that the evidence points to God being the product of our minds. And where did that come from you ask?

Responding to a Christian's missive - (workbook #b)

Unknown commented on "An Honest Look at The Limits To Growth (Ugo Bardi)" 

 Awaiting moderation.

Comment Rejected… on the grounds that I won’t be a billboard, I’m looking for serious dialogue!

but I will build a response post around it.

Since Mr. Unknown’s missive comes at a good time and I’m in this ‘workshop mode’  I’m going to dissect his allegations as an exercise in explaining my ideas.  He and others are invited to share responses, here or at the CFI Forum.

Aug 25, 2021:  Unknown commented on "An Honest Look at The Limits To Growth (Ugo Bardi)"

Mr Unknown writes:  Citizenschallenge, you have been tricked into believing the creator of this earth has limits to what he can and will do. 

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The “creator” of this Earth is star dust and the work of billions of years worth of physics, geology, biology and cumulative change over time, that is Evolution.

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Cc, I used to believe as you do and so started a recycling center in 1974 in N. Calif in southern Humboldt County. I wanted to save the planet but i had much much more to learn and i did. 

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Yes we certainly have plenty to learn when we’re still green behind the ears - oh but what fun years those were.  Fortunately, usually I took grandpa's advice: “Listen!  Even if you already know it all.  Shut up and listen, you just might learn something.”

You have created your own version of who I am, it does not fit the reality.  

Although I’ll admit I know about Humboldt county back in da day: “sinsemilla, send some to me-ia”    ;-). 

And okay it would have been nice to be part of helping save our biosphere, the planet will get by.  The global support systems we depend on, not so much.  It’s truly heartbreaking witnessing how horribly self-centered and greedy and self-destructive our generation wound up being.  Even after all we had learned about the ways of Earth.  

But, that’s another story.

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It took total surrender to the only one who rules heaven and earth. 

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What’s that even mean “taking total surrender”?  

Total surrender to the Bible?  Total surrender to a slick talking preacher who got his hooks into ya?

I didn’t need to surrender to anything, all I needed was to open my eyes and senses to observing, honest curiosity, learning and contemplating nature and Mother Earth.  

Observing, acting, thinking, learning, loving it and so on.   

It’s amazing how much mother nature can teach those who pay attention, sort of like the Bible told me: “Seek and ye shall find.”  Scientist sure have learned a great deal, we should pay attention to them.

Scientism: On getting lost within the Mindscape.

It’s an odd sensation, periodically rediscovering how some things that I find self-evident, seem absolutely foreign (if not invisible) to most others.  When I embraced the term “Mindscape” a couple years back, I thought I did a good job of capturing a metaphor for those universes of thoughts that we possess just beyond our physical brain with its neurons, synapses and electro-chemical cascades.  The seat of ego, emotions, thought, reflection, god seeking, knowledge seeking, love seeking, success thirsting, the sense of self, our life’s spirit, our soul, whatever labels you want to tag onto it.  

The world flowing through our physical senses and then getting sorted through our genetic and environmental filters before being reflected against the metaphorical retina of our brain and infusing through our body.  The thing that thinks it’s telling our body what to do, when most the time it’s the other way around.  The thing that believes it’s in control of us, or out of control, as the case may be.  The thing that is us, but has yet to be found by scientist or philosopher.  

I’ve discovered that suggesting we should categorize it differently than the stuff of atoms and the laws of physics invites the wildest mental gymnastics intent on drawing the discussion away from the essence of acknowledging the ephemeral nature of our human mind, that thing that animates our bodies during our short dance across physical reality’s stage, or more specifically, Earth - and then disappears when we die.

Intellectually Confronting Faith-Based thinking and Dogma Driven Tribalism.

Here we are election eve and I simply want to say hello and let folks know I'm still around.  A bit battered but knowing I gave it a pretty good shot.  Could have been better, but not stranded within this party of one, it is what it is.  Nowadays, besides being crowded by work and obligations, I'm drained by the enduring general apathy, not just towards what I've written, worse towards our Democratic principles of pluralism, enlightened self-interest, and rational constructive dialogue over demagogic  hate mongering and fantasy thinking.  

Watching our inept Senators at the Kavanaugh's hearing knocked me off my pins (as Stephen Schneider would have said).  I can't fathom their failure to seize the moment - then October 25th.  Hello, this stuff has lasting consequences!  The election campaigns seemed like the same tired old shit, with the same tire money pitches and nothing to really motivate, even Obama seemed more promise than substance.  

For now, I'm going to take a stroll down memory lane and collect what, for me, were important efforts to enunciate my position, starting with side one of the pamphlet I passed out at the 2018 Colorado Democratic Assembly and Convention. 

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(Originally posted April 13, 2018)

I'm at my fourth Colorado Democratic Assembly and I've always been a pamphleteer.  Not the easiest for a private shy sort of guy.  So I've been rather passive, offering my pages and ready for dialogue but not stepping forward to engage people.  Time passes, we learn more with every day and this year I've promised myself to step it up a little and reach out to people to introduce the topic and establish an interest before offering my flier. 

Had a little practice during the short district assembly this evening.  At first looking at the 350+ District 3 delegates it seemed the crowd of the usual old folks, and not that many young faces.  But, then I started spotting them.  Not in the numbers I had hoped.  Then I heard a couple powerful speeches by young speakers.  Followed by a few good conversations,
as in 'yippy, they get it.'  I realized their small number way under-represented the energy and substance and power they possess.

It was fun.  I'm feeling a little better already and I'm looking forward to tomorrow.  Here's side one, a lifetime's distillation.  I'll share side two tomorrow, now I'm going to bed, it's late and tomorrow will be a long busy day.

The Memes Courier

    Colorado Democratic Assembly -  April 13, 2018  

      

Intellectually Confronting Faith-Based thinking and Dogma Driven Tribalism.

The opposing sides: Children of the Intellectual Enlightenment vs Faith-based dogmatism spearheaded by the evangelical movement (driven by wannabe oligarchs).  Winning at the polls is only half our challenge when well over a third of our country fully supports this amoral president and his white supremest bullying and his attacks upon our government and democratic institutions.  

Beyond winning in the 2018 elections, we need to nurture a massive grassroots movement of informed and engaged voters who are willing to confront faith-based delusional thinking on an individual level, while also standing behind those we elect to make sure they get their jobs done.

Faith-based thinking demands a rejection of serious science along with hostility towards learning from down to Earth evidence.  This attitude is enabled and reinforced by a constant flow of contrived high pitched fear-mongering and paranoid machinations towards “the other” be it different people or ideas.

Why have we allowed their religion and God a free pass?

I am an Earth Centrist.

I've finally found a label I can wholeheartedly embrace and explain and defend.  I am an Earth Centrist !

The reason I'm posting this is because it's some thoughts I've been working on for decades and I'm finally getting close and I want to share even if it's far from finished.  Curious to see if anyone wants to bounce it around.

I am a fiercely independent guy and feeling more like H. Haller all the time so I don't make great internet intros, but feedback and networking is a requirement of life.  It's fine and poetic to be the sound of one hand clapping, but I'm concerned with finding out if any of this resonates with any one of the few who'll read it. Some of you folks know many people within the climate science communication and politics interface, one of them is looking for me.  Please help us connect.  

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated in comments or email.

Thank you.   citizenschallenge at gmail com

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( revisited and revised 7/31/2018 )

I've finally found a label I can wholeheartedly embrace and explain and defend.

I am an Earth Centrist !

Meaning that Earth and her physical processes and the pageant of her evolution are my touchstones.  Understanding evolution and the biosphere I'm part of and how we got here is the foundation of all my reality. 

Religions, God, political beliefs, they are all products of the human mindscape, generations of imaginings built upon previous generations of imaginings, all the way down.  

Something real and to be reckoned with, yet in the end, it's only our mindscapes at work.  While the real creation keeps on unfolding outside of our heads regardless and we're left to hang on for dear life.

In a way that mindscape is a product of Earth's evolution, yet it's certainly distinct and slightly separate from Earth's physical biological processes, something unique, ineffable, yet with the power to manifest personal gods and Earth shattering physical events.  

I suggest most people are unaware of the Map v Territory Problem, thus society commits the same ME FIRST self-destructive errors that it has repeated for thousands of years, never learning a god-damned thing.  

Just as mega-corporations that have grown big enough to destroy governments, so too our mega-species has become big enough to destroy our life sustaining biosphere.  

That evolving creature that has existed since Earth bounced back from the last big comet strike about 65 million years ago.  

The one that had achieved a splendid plateau 8-10 thousand years ago, but that now humanity has reset to something the likes of which Earth has not experienced in hundreds of millions of years.  It’ll take a few decades and centuries to fully blossom, but it is as down to Earth physically certain as tomorrow's sunrise.  Such a tragedy, yet that is where we find ourselves in 2018.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Then there's the God v Science question.

Knowledge of God is the ultimate in personal intimate relationship, your experience can not be transferred to, or replicated for, others.  

Religions are human constructs for enabling people to reconcile themselves with the seasons and hardships of their lives and to enable human societies to function in a civil organized manner. 

A God, if there be one, is All Things to All People, well beyond all human* understanding as the Holy Books warn us (* read petty, fearful, greedy, self-serving humans) individuals.  

If you are fortunate enough to be touched by God, that is your gift alone, something for you in your unique life.  It is not a recipe for your neighbors or the world.

Science on the other hand is humanity’s recipe for learning about the physical world and its processes as honestly as possible.

Science is:

Learning is the goal.

Fidelity to physical facts is the gold standard.  

Free Speech doesn’t mean it’s okay to lie and slander with malicious intent.

Informed constructive skepticism is the rule.

Mistakes are for learning.   

Dishonest bluster and bullying is a crime.

Calling out Trump's Rev. Burns and GOP absolutism

       Occasionally I write a column for the Four Corners Free Press out of Cortez, Colorado.  For their August issue I decided to write about the Republican platform, but while doing research I wound up getting side-tracked by their absolutism.  The new GOP demonstrates a contrived sense of superiority, which seems based on a fanciful notion that they alone understand "God" - even worse a conviction that they are somehow God's Chosen People.  Cementing that impression was reverend Burns' off-the-wall GOP convention invocation.

Here I repost my August FCFP column though I've added a couple lines specifically calling out Rev. Burns and pointing out that the God he's praying to is merely a reflection of his own petty partisan bigotry.  It is something that has nothing to do with any ultimate God of Creation and Time, Life and Love! 

It's ludicrous to think the creator of this universe would be picking sides like some trumpeting politician, oh but how the self-certain certainly do. 

( I include a copy of Burns' prayer at the end, along with a collection of quotes and links to interesting articles that look at reverend Burns.)

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Considering the GOP platform and Trump's Rev. Burns

The GOP Convention gave me a reason to read the 2016 Republican Platform which is the distillation of their rank and file’s world outlook along with their wish list, so it’s worth paying attention to. I had intended to report on it’s sketchy content.  Instead, I found myself overwhelmed by their attitude, which needs to be considered before the content can make sense.

For someone like me, a liberty loving rationalist who’s into the scientific enlightenment, the one that rescued humanity from religious superstition, someone who believes in evidence-based constructive learning about each other and this Earth from which we were born and which we shall all die back into, it’s a horrific document.

What made it especially frightening is its absolute self-certainty, along with a disregard, if not hatred, for all who are outside of their religious/philosophical tribe. It reads like there’s no more room for reason with this new Republican crowd, it’s their way or else, consequences be damned.

Here’s how they start: “We believe in American exceptionalism. We believe the United States of America is unlike any other nation on earth.”