Theistic Evolution

[El_Machinae]

Christian metaphysics, though, are testable because miracles are part of the folk-lore.

Being able to heal the sick is a staple of prophets and apostles (yeah, I know, it's not Paul healing the sick, it's the God working through Paul)

The lack of observable miracles is contrary to what occurred in the Bible, and attempts to explain it away are considered (by me) to be hand-waving.

 

[aneeshm]

The Hindus have long pondered the question of creation - of from who and where we have come .

Hindu sages have argued that to say that everything requires a creator is an unviable thing to say - who created the creator , and the creater's creator , and so on into an infinite regress . Finding this primitive idea of a need for a creator ridiculous , they rejected it .

Then they thought of the idea of an uncreated , ever-existing God - but this they thought an intellectual cop-out . If God could exist forever and be uncreated , then why cannot this universe , which is an expression of a non-dualistic God , also be uncreated and exist forever ? So they rejected the explanation in which many Christians and Muslims and Jews find solace - that of a self-created or self-subsisting eternal God .

Where , then , according to them , did the universe come from ?

And the answer is that it never came , and never went - it always was , and always will be .

To be more precise : the universe exists in cycles of the manifestation of and conversion to potentialities . The Hindu creation myth , the Purushasukta , should make it clearer . It states that the primordial purusha , or first consciousness , became divided within itself , and one part of it sacrificed another part of it in order to create the universe .

This is a metaphor - at the beginning of each cycle of creation , the potentialities which are inherent in consciousness are manifest in the form of the universe , and at its end , the universe will again dissolve into pure potentiality .

This is such a general creation myth that it can be variously interpreted by different Hindu and non-Hindu sects . All theories of creation and dissolution which had their origin in India are cyclic in nature , including the Jain and Buddhist ones .

This , however , immediately rules out the concept of an eternal hell or heaven - rather silly concepts , if you ask me , and the causes of much of the trouble in the world - because at the end of every cycle , all is dissolved in the pure consciousness which is God , ending all differentiation , including that between individual consciousnesses .




































Any questions ?

 

[El_Machinae]

Does your individual consciousness have a beginning and end, though?

 

[aneeshm]

The Hindu cycle of creation :

Cycles of time

There are four ages (called yugas):


The first lasts 1,728,000 years


The second lasts 1,296,000 years


The third lasts 864,000 years


The fourth lasts 432,000 years (this last age is Kali yuga, our present age beginning 5000 years ago)

Each age sees a decline in virtue (dharma) from the previous. As told in one parable, in the first golden age, dharma stood on four legs like a table, but in the second age it stood only on three, in the third age on two, and now in the present age only on one, thus all but one fourth of the world's virtue has vanished in the present age.

These four ages, as lengthy as they may seem, are only a small part of the great cycle of time:


4 ages = one mahayuga (great age), 4,320,000 yrs, after which creation will rest (return to a state of non-differentiation) for one mahayuga.


1000 mahayugas = one day of Brahma (or one kalpa), 4,320,000,000 years, after which Brahma sleeps and creation rests for one kalpa.


Brahma's lifetime = 100 years of his days and nights: 4.32 billion x 365 x 2 x 100 = 311 trillion yrs, after which Shiva dances, all things including Brahma dissolve and nothing exists for an equivalent time, then it all begins again.

Against such immense scale, one single lifetime becomes insignificant.

Because single lifetimes become irrelevant in this huge cycle ( with lives themselves cycling - in the form of reincarnation and escape from it in enlightened liberation ) , individual prophets do not have the same importance in Hinduism as in other revealed religions . The Vedas , the Hindu holy texts , are supposed to have no human author , they are supposed to be the word of God , chanting which is beneficial to man . They are called the shritu , meaning "that which is heard" , because the Vedic seers are supposed to have heard them , being spoken by nature or by God . Only the names of the people who have heard them are given - not the names of those who spoke . By the time the oral tradition was transferred to the written , all knowledge of how old this tradition was was lost .

Because of their utter generalness and their lack of any attempt to regulate life , they have always been kept at a distance when discussing philosophy . Religion , in India , did not stifle philosophy , it enriched it , because it did not try to control it . All philosophical schools of India attach primacy to the Vedas - and promptly forget all about them when discussing actual philosophy .

EDIT : I forgot to mention that Hindu cosmology is the only religions cosmology which gets the timescale of the universe right - currently estimated at billions of years , which neatly corresponds with one day and night of Brahma .

 

[aneeshm]

Does your individual consciousness have a beginning and end, though?

When the primordial consciousness is divided on itself , the little divisions all think they have an indepenedne consciousness of their own - and thus they do . Are they really divided ? Does their division constitute their beginning ? And when all this dissolved in the primordial consciousness , will the realisation of being the promirdial consciousness be an end ?

I don't know , and the only way to know is to attain to liberation - which might take a bit of time .

 

[El_Machinae]

When I split a stick of butter, I now have two individual sticks of butter.

At least ... it sure seems that way ...

 

[JoeM]

Where , then , according to them , did the universe come from ?

And the answer is that it never came , and never went - it always was , and always will be .

That is not actually an answer, it is saying that the question has no meaning. Since in Christianity time is also created by God, it's actually the same response to the question.

This is a metaphor - at the beginning of each cycle of creation , the potentialities which are inherent in consciousness are manifest in the form of the universe , and at its end , the universe will again dissolve into pure potentiality .

I'm glad this seems like a normal sentence to someone, if not for me.

What 'potentialities' are inherent in consciousness?

 

[El_Machinae]

Consciousness is altered by probabilistic events. This means that, until these events take place, all consciousness is in potential.

 

[aneeshm]

When I split a stick of butter, I now have two individual sticks of butter.

At least ... it sure seems that way ...

Think about it more in terms of schizophrenia ( sp? ) - you think there are actually two people , whereas there is only one , and the cure consists of making the two realise that there is only one and reconciling the perceived division with the actual unity . It is rather difficult to explain to someone with no previous exposure to these ideas .

 

[brennan]

Hindu sages have argued that to say that everything requires a creator is an unviable thing to say - who created the creator , and the creater's creator , and so on into an infinite regress . Finding this primitive idea of a need for a creator ridiculous , they rejected it .

Then they thought of the idea of an uncreated , ever-existing God - but this they thought an intellectual cop-out . If God could exist forever and be uncreated , then why cannot this universe , which is an expression of a non-dualistic God , also be uncreated and exist forever ? So they rejected the explanation in which many Christians and Muslims and Jews find solace - that of a self-created or self-subsisting eternal God .

Where , then , according to them , did the universe come from ?

And the answer is that it never came , and never went - it always was , and always will be .

Remarkably similar to my viewpoint. The idea that there must have been some 'act of creation' is human arrogance, based upon the argument that humans make things therefore all things must have been made - obviously fallacious.

Additionally the comforting idea that there is a God and that He created everything for a purpose is a crutch for the intellectual cowardice of 'believers'. (I'm with J.P Sartre on this one - even if he is French )

 

[warpus]

I find the Hindu creation myth to be far more appealing than the Christian/Jewish myth, from what I've read in these last couple posts.

It isn't entirely logical but it is far more logical than what I was taught in Sunday school.

Also, it seems to be fully compatible with the theory of evolution, as well as the theory of the big bang... but correct me if I'm wrong

 

[aneeshm]

I find the Hindu creation myth to be far more appealing than the Christian/Jewish myth, from what I've read in these last couple posts.

It isn't entirely logical but it is far more logical than what I was taught in Sunday school.

Also, it seems to be fully compatible with the theory of evolution, as well as the theory of the big bang... but correct me if I'm wrong

You are correct . It is compatible with the theory of evolution and the big bang . The myth itself is so ridiculous if you take it literally that even orthodox Hindus , including priests , consider it a metaphor , and they always have . Maybe the ridiculous aspect was deliberately stressed by the authors so that it could never be read an anything but a metaphor , and thus could not cause the sort of problems literal creationism is causing today in the Christian world .

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Additionally the comforting idea that there is a God and that He created everything for a purpose is a crutch for the intellectual cowardice of 'believers'.

I do rather tire of this argument. I can't say if you came by it honestly, but I think in a lot of cases it is just a way for nonbelievers to feel superior to believers. I don't "need" a belief in a created universe. I can't speak for everyone, but I can handle an arbitrary, self-created universe. It rather appeals to my romantic side, even.

 

[El_Machinae]

Think about it more in terms of schizophrenia ( sp? ) - you think there are actually two people , whereas there is only one , and the cure consists of making the two realise that there is only one and reconciling the perceived division with the actual unity . It is rather difficult to explain to someone with no previous exposure to these ideas .

I think this analogy is very startling and vivid.
Is it accurate? Are there any obvious holes in the analogy I should be aware of?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

You have to understand that days to God are not necessarily days to humans. A day to him is like an eon to us. Thus, when it says "on the first day" in Genesis, it means 'in the first eon", thus the next "day" would be the next significant change in the universe, ie "day 2," so on and so forth. It's not meant to be taken literally word for word, I think that's where so many atheists and evolutionists lose [ the possibility for creationism to hold any kind of believability].

 

[brennan]

I do rather tire of this argument. I can't say if you came by it honestly, but I think in a lot of cases it is just a way for nonbelievers to feel superior to believers. I don't "need" a belief in a created universe. I can't speak for everyone, but I can handle an arbitrary, self-created universe. It rather appeals to my romantic side, even.

What do you mean by 'came by it honestly'?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

What do you mean by 'came by it honestly'?

I mean that if, based on all the believers you know, you really feel that they depend on their belief in creation or an afterlife to face life, then your belief is sincere and I will respect it. If, instead, you are just parroting what other atheists have said, just to feel smug and better than believers, then you are arrogant. I don't know which you are, of course, so I just said that those in the second group are, for lack of a better word, tiresome. I can only speak for myself, but I in no way require any belief as a crutch.

 

[aneeshm]

I think this analogy is very startling and vivid.
Is it accurate? Are there any obvious holes in the analogy I should be aware of?

It's not fully accurate - a schizophreniac actually has a problem , whereas the problem of feeling separate from God ( or primordial consciousness , whichever you prefer to call it ) is completely self-caused - the only reason that a consciousness like ours perceives itself as separate is because it has thought itself to be separate - because creating its own reality , even if it is one of self-delusion , is one of the powers possessed by pure consciousness itself .

As for any holes in it - I don't know of any . Think of an omnipotent being which is deluded into thinking that it is dual . Because it has the power to create that reality , it becomes so - in the perception of the omnipotent being . A return to omnipotence implies an acceptance of non-duality . I can think of only one hole in this - that omnipotence implies omniscience . This can be overcome by stating that the only power possessed by primordial consciousness is over itself and its own reality , due to which it appears to itself as omnipotence ( if you control your own reality , it will appear to you that you are omnipotent ) .

 

[Sidhe]

I do rather tire of this argument. I can't say if you came by it honestly, but I think in a lot of cases it is just a way for nonbelievers to feel superior to believers. I don't "need" a belief in a created universe. I can't speak for everyone, but I can handle an arbitrary, self-created universe. It rather appeals to my romantic side, even.

That explains perfection

I think it comes from the statistics about religous people having lower IQ's than non religous people, as IQ is often a reflection of your educational standard, I'd say the more educated you are the less religous you are likely to be; I wonder if there are more atheists at Uni than believers to back up my statistical ruminations?

Disclaimer^^ I do not support my own or anyone elses hypothesis, just trying to demonstrate we're the argument arrives from.

I will point out that Religous people like to make themselves feel superior too, in fact the whole religious message hinges on the fact that only those who believe can become a member of the select club and gain enterance to the hallowed VIP room, so it most deifinitely works both ways. In other words you started it

 

[mdwh]

if the bible isn't the word of god then it is just a bunch of boring losely tied together stories. The 3 little pigs is a good story with good advice for living, but i don't see anyone worshiping the third little pig.

This seems the sort of thing a literal-Bible-believing Christian would say! - I.e., that things are only worthwhile if they are written by God?

Assuming you're an atheist, then presumably you don't think that all written material is equivalent to "3 little pigs"?

I don't know why some Christians believe Jesus is the son of God, without believing the Bible to be written by God, but I don't see it as any more strange - in both cases, I see people believing in things without evidence.