Is There Any Room For God In Modern Science?

Requests for intercession are made to relieve fear. Depending on your state of mind, a miraculous event could do just the opposite. It could be so mind threatening as to increase fear.

In addition to being able to tell what is the same and what is different we can also tell what a thing is for or how it works. So considering the quality of results we have to consider purpose.

Of course it is convenient to say things don't happen because you couldn't take it if they did. That could be construed right up there with saying it is magical. It certainly is the reason though many government secrets are kept, to protect the public. It is a perspective that is somewhat less judgmental than withholding a response to a request because the request was selfishly contrived. I don't think there is such a cause as selfless. As far as I am concerned god's judgment regarding man was made in creation, he saw that it was good, very good. The final judgment that restores perceptive balance is our last one.

 

Why did we even go into this tangent in the first place?

The facts are that a NDE can happen during CLINICAL DEATH.

It's called a NEAR Death Experience for a reason. If you have a problem with someone calling it a Death experience, well until you've had your own NDE, I would just not be so judgmental if i were you.

And it still doesn't matter how many degrees that you have in Science...you simply cannot prove or disprove the existence of God or an Afterlife once you're completely dead, meaning you have no shot at recovering. And you definitely can't prove or disprove it while alive. However, the NDE is the closest thing that we have got at the present time.

With that being said, what is truly defined as death is rather foggy. Different parts of the brain and body can still be functioning when someone is determined as Brain Dead. So even here, this is a rather biased viewpoint by Scientists as a classification of death.

"Brain death is used as an indicator of legal death in many jurisdictions, but it is defined inconsistently. Various parts of the brain may keep living when others die, and the term "brain death" has been used to refer to various combinations. For example, although a major medical dictionary[which?] says that "brain death" is synonymous with "cerebral death" (death of the cerebrum), the US National Library of Medicine Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) system defines brain death as including the brainstem. The distinctions can be important because, for example, in someone with a dead cerebrum but a living brainstem, the heartbeat and ventilation can continue unaided, whereas in whole-brain death (which includes brain stem death), only life support equipment would keep those functions going."

Could it be perhaps because mainstream Science views the brain as the creator of consciousness as the reason that they consider Brain Death to be real death, even though it really isn't the total cessation of every organ in the entire organism?

On a side note, Legal Death used to be defined historically as Clinical Death, which is the cessation of blood circulation, not Brain Death. So there has never been this cut and dry definition.

Death is a process, not a single event. a NEAR Death Experience should obviously be studied by Scientists because there is a universal commonality on a case to case basis around the globe of similar experiences that people go through during a NDE. Whether it's a hallucination or not is up for debate, and isn't a fact. Once they're COMPLETELY dead, obviously they aren't going to return to tell of their experience or lack-thereof. But the Near Death Experience is an opportunity to potentially be getting a peak at another dimension of experience and Consciousness.

The key is to find a willing participant who allows Scientists and Doctors to give them brain-scans during their NDE, which would be difficult, as it's hard to pin down when someone is going through a NDE.

But this explanation of it all being a hallucination is the same question of whether a psychedelic drug is opening your mind to new dimensions of experience or whether it's simply all merely a hallucination? I'm always going to side with the former. There's ALWAYS going to be hard data for any experience, no matter how normal or extraordinary, but this hard data is not in and of itself a complete explanation, it's rather just the physical representation of said event, whether it's an NDE or a Psychedelic Experience or a sexual experience or whatever else.

 

The goal is to find intelligent creatures period. There's no really good reason to believe such creatures exist, though. So how is this better than searching for other feasible intelligences, such as a Class IV civilization which would arguably be God?

I still don't see why "God" is off limits to science.

 

I think it follows from the definition that a Class IV civilization would be an intelligent civilization, presumably they are still constrained by the laws of physics though, I was suggesting they might appear like god(s) to us.

There are several facts which I have already addressed to suggest why it is reasonable to suspect there is probably life on other planets. However, I do kind of agree that when we talk about "intelligent" life, the current methods seem more like a shot in the dark.

 

Any cell that recovers from near death was never at any point really actually dead with zero activity

This is obvious. That's why it's called a NEAR Death Experience.

 

Oh, I was thinking they might appear as "God" to us. So intelligent it is aware of everyone's destiny on this Earth. Obviously that would be very intelligent, but is it impossible? I can imagine something so powerful it has the capacity to be disincarnate, not in this world, but still able to interact with the world, even if this "great power" is just the ability to use a computer, because we're all in a computer.

By the same token, couldn't I argue that it's reasonable to suspect intelligence can grow to such a point that it becomes indistinguishable from what you might call God? I don't see how anyone can say they've ascertained where the future is taking us. We could evolve into something completely foreign to ourselves. I mean we can have the capacity for so much information, seemingly a limitless supply. Where does the limit end before we have all information? And if you have all information, won't you be all-powerful? Therefore, could it be that something already possesses all information and power? Wouldn't this thing necessarily be aware of us?

I think it's kind of an interesting question to ask.

 

We have observed life on this planet and recognize many of the processess which allow life to flourish.

So no it is not the same token...


Your questions are interesting philosophy questions, although some of them seem like you are more or less repeating, so I'm just going to respond to the one question.

Again, seems to rest on the definition of God. Putting on my Philosophy hat, I don't think you can maintain monotheism and suggest intelligence could grow to be God by some of the classical definitions used such as 'First Cause' or 'Unmoved Mover'. These descriptions suggests an irreducible complexity to the God(s) where suggesting it grows to become... inheritenly suggests it can be reduced.

 

And is constantly becoming doesn't suggest that. Strange that a small change in syntax alters the probable proportion of everything.

 

We have observed intelligence on this planet and know that it comes in higher and lower orders. So how does pondering the existence of a higher order of being rely on any less evidence than aliens? It's the same thing. It's just seeing the way things are and wondering if there is more of it.

 

Because you are not relying on any physical laws and interactions when you are pondering the existence of a Supernatural Deity.

 

It isn't a physical law that the more intelligence something has the more power it has? It seems to be true.

So you're saying it is scientific to look for aliens, but it isn't scientific to look for aliens that are more intelligent than us, because to conceive of something more intelligent than us does not conform to any physical laws. All I'm doing is conceiving of something more intelligent than us, that could be indistinguishable from physical laws.

Maybe you're right. Who really has the power here, us or bugs? If anything disappeared from here we'd all be in big trouble. So what really are the odds that aliens exist? Is it a law that any time there is life it gives rises to all the necessary lifeforms it requires in order for life here on earth to thrive? Is it a law that where rivers flow, life will spring about in abundance? Is it a law that every momentous event over the course of history that must have been necessary for us to be here, or we would not, necessarily, be here, also must have occurred to some alien race somewhere out in space?

Why can't we meditate on God, then, without it having to be associated with a bunch of lunatics who are simply claiming the highest intelligence for their own? It seems like we're missing something fundamental when we completely reject the idea of God as if it belongs to someone else. If we're talking about the highest power, I think it could be argued that most religious people aren't God's favorite people. I mean, wow, all I'm saying is that maybe the highest intelligence isn't all about murder and hate, despite what religion has given us. Could it be???

 

I have never heard that claim. There is probably a fair amount of correlation to show intelligence and power can be closely linked to the other but I don't know of any causation necessarily between them. For instance, a cheetah is a much more powerful runner than a human but less intelligent. Stephen Hawking is much more intelligent than the average person but confined to a wheel chair and a computer he has to talk through.

No, that's not what I am saying, I don't follow how you even arrived at that conclusion. Your inability to comprehend is probably why, in part, we are not really getting anywhere with this discussion. However you do raise interesting questions here and there.

Simplified:

Water on planet = Potential for life

This is the thought regardless if it's a simple organism, or an alien species which is more advanced than us by any metric you wish to consider.

 

That's not really the kind of power I'm talking about. I'm talking about the ability to manipulate one's environment.

Well it was a question, because I'm not really sure what you're talking about. It's hard for me to believe you think it's okay to look for intelligent life, but not okay to look for the most intelligent life you can imagine. I'm wondering why the search for a Class IV intelligence is off limits.

We're not just talking about life, though; we're talking about intelligent life. You think the odds are so good that intelligent life is out there, it makes our search for intelligent life a scientific endeavor?

 

I never said Class IV is off limits...


Here is this which I think is good reasoning to narrowing down the planets and a reason to look for extraterrestrial life.

However, in regards to intelligent aliens, When I said "looking for intelligent life is a shot in the dark" and comparing it to the search for hypothetical particles such as the graviton, I was suggesting that the probability is not all that great at finding them, most likely not within our lifetime, unless they happen to be significantly more advanced. So we don't need to discuss that point further, we're in agreement there.

 

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/10/26/dying-senior-scientist-shares-insider-truth-about-area-51-aliens-ufos-anti-gravity/

 

You should provide some descriptions and context when you post these links. I found the first video interesting until the guy said the aliens take 45 years to get here to Earth and then the video corrects him underneath with text to say 45 mins, that's kinda sketch. I had to stop it after that, but if there is any segment really worth watching past the 11 mins mark, lemme know.

The 2nd guy just seems kooky.

 

But God is off limits? What if there's no trivial difference between Class IV and what people think of as God? I guess it's a moot point. I could really care less if people call it God or not. But what some people define as God could just be a highly advanced lifeform.

 

I'm responding to a Supernatural Creator of the Universe in regards to God. God as "highly advanced lifeform" still has to answer to the regressive question of where did the highly advanced lifeform come from? ... And At that point we're getting more into like Ancient Aliens type defintion of "God(s)."

These classes (Class IV) are in regards to Advanced Civilizations, so we're automatically excluding all monotheistic conceptions of "God" if you want to attempt to conflate them.

 

But maybe it originates in the same place it ends up. Perhaps there is a way that is most intelligent to be, it creates us, and life returns to it.

I don't think we can properly define a civilization, because we think as individuals. There could sort of be a civilization with hive mind, but there would be a question of whether or not they were ever individuals anymore.

 

I am completely fine with the term civilization being used.