3 ms·
> The religious person is left with a mystery which is no less than the mystery with which science leaves us As a Hindu I find this baffling. For the Hindu the
by triyambakam 4y ago
> The religious person is left with a mystery which is no less than the mystery with which science leaves us
As a Hindu I find this baffling. For the Hindu there is a consistency across science and religion, and sometimes the line between the two isn't clear. They work together harmoniously to form my worldview.
Based on the cursory information I have about the author's background, I am assuming he was exposed to Western Christianity growing up.
I find that this breeds a very narrow minded form of atheism, one that rejects a very specific idea of what God is.
I have a suspicion that if many of the atheists in the West were exposed to the full metaphysical understanding of the Eternal Dharma they may not be atheists, or at least be a different kind of atheist than simply a Not-Christian.
In Hinduism God is not a man or a woman, but instead the energy that is manifest in every atom of every universe. God is the universal wave function.
- packetlost 4y agoAssigning a personification to a concept is a common theme among many religions throughout the world. To that end, Christianity and those based on it are more of an outlier than the norm.
- uh_uh 4y agoSame question remains: why does that energy exist?
- zmgsabst 4y agoThat’s true of Christianity, as well: The philosophy of Christianity is rooted deeply in Platonic ideas — where “God” as the ultimate ideal is embodied both in a human (“Jesus”) and in the happening of the world (“Holy Spirit”). I can’t claim to be an expert in Hinduism — but to my limited understanding, it’s akin to saying that Brahman manifests both through avatars and the actions of deities, as forces of nature.
- bergenty 4y agoI’m Hindu too but why come up with some random bullshit rather than try to figure out what is happening. If you want to call god the universe just say universe. The value of Hinduism is in cultural heritage and providing a pathway for life. It’s in tapping into the mysticism and indulging in the rituals to make life interesting.
- triyambakam 4y agoIs this question directed at me, or the article's author? If me, how do you mean that I am not figuring out what is happening? I have it figured out. I agree that Hinduism has cultural value and guidance for life but I don't see how what I said is contrary to that.
- bergenty 4y agoSorry but at you. What do you even mean by god is the universal wave function. That means nothing. What is a wave function? Like in the uncertainty principle?
- layer8 4y ago> God is the universal wave function. I suspect that that's disingenious, because calling it "God" implies that you think it is actually in some way more than what the universal wave function is in physics. Because otherwise why would you have a problem with an atheist physisist who believes the wave function describes the universe, and there is not more to it than that mathematical desciption?
- saulpw 4y agoBecause for some reason the universal wave function results in a subjective experience. If you can math that, I'll concede that Math = God.
- layer8 4y agoHow would “God” explain subjective experience? That just seems a stand-in for a non-explanation, a bit similar to how the terms “dark matter” and “dark energy” are used as stand-ins for as yet unexplained phenomena. Personally, I see no problem with subjective experience. I believe what makes it difficult to grasp for a conscious subject is mostly the recursivity of it: You not only have an experience (perception), you also have an experience (perception) of having an experience. And those levels of experience each have a lot of texture/structure. This is probably evolutionary useful to have, and the (literally ;)) mind-boggling physical complexity of the brain certainly allows for it.
- saulpw 4y agoWell, it's not difficult for me to grasp that I have a subjective experience. It just is. And it's not that I'm self-aware about it; it seems extremely reasonable to empathize that animals without any self-consciousness or self-awareness also have a subjective experience. But it just doesn't follow from anything. We can talk all day about intelligence, computation, and sensory input, even recursive or internal sensory input (e.g. sensing thought). But it does not explain why I have an experience, and why a highly-predictive neural network does not. Or if it does, how the hell does it?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mr_toad 4y ago> In Hinduism God is not a man or a woman, but instead the energy that is manifest in every atom of every universe. God is the universal wave function. Greg Egan called this the Church of the God that Makes No Difference.
- pellucide 4y agoWhat did I just read? You just adapted(and adopted) some random currently known physics fact with your version of God.
- triyambakam 4y agoThis is Hindu metaphysics. Modern physics is simply rediscovering what has already been known in Hinduism.