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A collection of mind softening personal musings, eclectic, but yet, mostly about humans, and from the hands of an anthrophobe who draws silly cartoons! Read all about our dearest compelling characters, and explore my questions as I keep posting for my own pleasure.
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Relativism in Religion?
Does the Universe reflect the attributes ancient cultures assigned to God?
It sounds Neoplatonist but the universe has been seen as God by various traditions some way or another. Simple answer, the universe was here before himanity, religion or philosophy, therefor, why isn't the eternal universe more closely bonded with God across all abrahamic faiths?
The majesty of the universe is self evident to me, it's awesome! If God is all things, or almighty, then surely, this universe is under his control, less powerful than he is, right? How do you prove that? Even smaller ideas if God and his Angels, Demons and Fairies will all require proof, given the attributes we have for them you might imagine it to be easy, but no, it's not! Why?
The mountains were shaped long before anyone proclaimed El Shaddai as their lord. We wrote stories setting ourselves above nature, but still; it's our biology that emerged from that what we call nature; it provided us the skills to develop literacy to question it. Nature and the universe are essentially the same, we contain stardust, ingredients from the cosmos. That's kind of like a DNA positive result, not forgetting the origin of DNA.
To represent a general definition of God, you should examine the following common words I gathered and narrowed down. Sifting through popular sources including: Merriam Webster, Britannia Dictionary, The Free Dictionary, I grouped common denominators leaving a clear picture:
Being, Spirit, Mind, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Worshipped.
The words 'Being, Spirit and Mind' encapsulate existence and consciousness, perfectly well—same meaning. Indeed, you can argue and reduce your soul here, but, the same consciousness and being central to the human being. It is not unreasonable to agree with materialists, who might argue that ancient devotees projected the human mind onto the universe in some act of anthropomorphism. Right or wrong, notions of the almighty in pantheism or panentheism aren't cognitive biases, but other perspectives.
If we consider worship, one of the popular key descriptive words; the act itself indicates a perception of a God—it's as if worship itself contributes to the existence of the deity. Faithful engagement with a perceived deity reflects back on to us, the relationship of devotee and deity. Absolutely, belief is powerful and effective and will often result with human ascribing attributions to their deities and defining them.
Cosmologists say the universe is unlimited energy/power, which relays to me, what religion has been calling omnipotence. Our galaxy alone is 100 000 light-years long. Photons, (light particles) move at a constant of 670 616 629 miles per hour. A light-year is the distance it travels in one earth year, typically about 6 trillion miles. NASA say we have hundreds of billions of galaxies in our observable universe, it is all powerful, given it is undeniably everything we know with much more packed away in the cupboard. The idea of omniscience is openly debated, while rejected by certain Eastern religions philosophy of mind, quantum mechanics continues to make slow progress.
We can't scientifically prove or disprove consciousness. However, the universe is believed to support basic microscopic life at the very least. Subatomic partical connected lightyears apart are connected by quantum entanglement. The universe does not have to meet our criteria to be supreme and almighty. Heracletus said that no man or god created this eternal cosmos, but that is refutable by the global religions, regardless of how such philosophers as he, unintentionally inspired their theologies from which they might argue.
Consider The Logos, Rhema, Panta Rhei, and Plato's Timaeus. We all know how Aristotle inspired Saint Thomas Aquinas. Christ was held synonymous with The Logos and Gnostic Christians pretty much copied and pasted Plato. If we simply put Hellenic/Jewish cross-cultural pollination under the lens it would explode!
Reference
The Old Etymological Dictionary (2021) Universe [Online] Available from: https://www.etymonline.com/word/universe#etymonline_v_4519
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