God

The belief of God is obviously a popular notion. But there is substance to that belief only when you know what kind of "God" you do or don't believe in. Unless you know what exactly what you mean when you say "God," you can't really understand any other statement that you make about... it.

But how easy is it to indicate what you mean by "God," even in vague terms? One problem I have with the Christian faith, is that it claims that "God" is omnipotent (all-powerful, able to do anything), omnibenevolent (all-loving), omniscient (all-knowing), and the creator of all that exists. It's not hard to tell that there are contradictions in this standard. If such a God created the universe, being all-knowing, (I'll use the word "he" just so it's less confusing) he must have known about all the suffering there would be in this world. Yet God still created it, as it is. He did not create a more promising version of the universe or simply choose not to create the universe. Why is this?

It could be that God did not know about all the suffering that would occur. But that would make God not all-knowing. It could be that God doesn't mind all the suffering, but that would make him less than all-loving. It could be that God could not have created a more pleasant world than this one. But that would seem to make God less than all-powerful. The only way to resolve this problem is to conclude that God can only do what is possible and that this really is the best of all possible words. But this is hard to believe, since we can easily idealize a better world pretty easily. For example, we are able to make human brains more emotionally developed, which reduces the chances of psychopathology, and in return, would result in an immediate decrease of certain crimes related to sadastic homocides. Is this inaccurate in some way?

This attempt to "model" God may seem somewhat rough. Have I forgotten that God is described as "surpassing human standing?" No... people say this a lot. But within a few moments, they are describing very specific properties of this previously unfathomable deity.

You can't have your heavenly cake and eat it, too. If you believe that God cannot be described in human language, then don't speak of him. Or if you do, understand that you are using no more than metaphors, and don't fall into the trap of pretending that you know what they mean. That is harder than it sounds. One reason to love God is that God is all-loving. But if you think we really don't know what that means, it isn't clear why God deserves your love, or why you should think of divine love as being anything like its human counterpart.

But if you do think descriptions of God are better than vague metaphors, then you have to take seriously the conceptual problems that come up. The trouble is that many people bounce back and forth between these two options, resorting to the mysterious God only when they confront a problem with the usual non-mysterious understanding of him.

Universal Awareness and Consciousness

This universe we live in, is it aware about its existence? Does the universe know that it exists? We are a part of the universe, and we are aware of our existence in this universe... How about the universe itself? Is there an universal consciousness which knows about itself?

If yes, then when was this consciousness born? During the big bang? So does it die? Or was the big bang explosion itself the death of this self aware consciousness? Are we living in a debris, where the death resulted in the creation of low level consciousness like ours?

Or is there is a multiverse that exists beyond our local big bang universe, and this multiverse is a self aware, indestructible consciousness that has no birth or death? Because birth/death is a concept of time, and this time in turn is a concept (or rather illusion) created in our local big bang universe…?

Small particles seem to have awareness, and awareness can lead to self initiated actions. There is no scientific law which can define what awareness can do. For instance, no scientific law can predict whether I want to have tea or coffee right now.

Similarly, the uncertainty in the predictability of the actions of particles like electrons indicate the presence of self awareness/ consciousness in them. All matter finally boils down to these particles… So, does this mean that the universe is self aware and this awareness is spread across all things that make up this universe, and at all levels starting from the smallest particles to the universe itself, and universe is is the highest level of awareness? Not only you and me, but everything in the universe is self aware? Just because a stone cannot move or respond, that does not mean it is not self aware... All that means is that it may not have any physical expression of its awareness.

If the universe is self aware, then what is your/my awareness all about? Probably a low level awareness, that becomes complete and gets a true picture when it can realize the higher level universal awareness? Or are we a part of that real universal awareness, I mean our awareness itself is the universal awareness, our awareness is itself a proof that universe is self aware, except that our awareness is only limited by our definition of self with an identity with our body.

...so if we define our true self to be the universe, then our awareness will become the universal awareness.