Thanks a lot. I was worried it was too long, but I was following a train of thought all the way through as best as I could.
I think there's a real danger in reductionist thinking when you start to reduce things to the point of "what if we're not even really here" .
At some point, things just must be. As a child it often drove me crazy trying to assume an alternative to anything happening at all. The absence of everything.
The universe is here, and things are happening. We accept a lot of processes as simply being the processes they are as the behavior of reality for some reason or another. If you touch some things, they move, but some things don't. Water evaporates. Fluid goes all over the place while solids do not. There is a difference between seeing and smelling. There's a difference between a well lit room and a room without light. Some reasons are more acceptable as just being what they are than others I suppose.
For me, there is just a natural behavior in the universe for some reason we don't understand that ends up happening.
There's not only no reason to consider a mind of some sort arranged things to happen as they do. I think when you bring a God into things, it complicates the issue and often ends up leaving one confused and trapped in circular logic(never mind the anthropic tinted goggles).
There's too much power in circular logic being used as a conclusion to some people's minds I think. It seems a self assertive explanation, a state of balance in paradox. And often it is posited as proof by the theist, though one could use the same logic in ridiculous examples.
I think when you break it down, it's a lot harder to accept a prime organizer or God happening
by itself than a giant
thing like reality happening all by itself that has certain rules and activities which obey laws of behavior.
I think it's more likely that a material thing (
at the most reduced level made up of almost pure and rudimentary components that are simply behaving within parameters established by what works and what doesn't) existed all along with no beginning, than that a vast and nearly infinitely complex awareness came about or has always been.
I think even abstractly that things start out at the bottom as less complicated, and move towards arrangements.
A god is just way too complicated a thing for me to imagine as being a universal constant. A god is the most complicated thing possible, even. Which betrays it for the human expectation it is.
I think consciousness is a very complicated and almost mechanical thing that can only be made possible through many simple components being arranged through trial and error.
I think a godless material universe is far more beautiful an idea aesthetically and full of far more meaning than a God is as well, when you really get down to considering it.
Which is what saddens me when theists dismiss the material world view as being bleak and without meaning. I truly find the idea of a universe with a loving god who arranged all things to be the bleak and meaningless view.
A Prime Mover turns
everything into a tool or construct, rather than a thing of such improbable complextiy and interconnected reaction that it takes the breath away for being so miraculous and seemingly improbable.
A god makes everything mundane and probable. The only mystery left is "How did God always exist by itself" at that point.
One can reason away meaning and importance with logic, but I think aesthetic elegance speaks for itself and I am just happy I can appreciate such things with emotion and pleasure and humor. I find it all captivating and so much more "spiritual" than any spiritualist can make things out to be with their talk of absolute meaning and souls and gods and worship.
I'd rather the universe be a miracle of inter related behavior than a giant construct created by some vast architect. That to me is precious and fragile and full of importance and meaning to be appreciated for it's elegance.
I think the universe has a very natural and material behavior to create order from chaos. We can demonstrate this with feedback loops of chaos and I find that more satisfying than any time I spent growing up worshiping God and wondering at his plans.
If you haven't watch it yet, I recommend you watch the BBC's Secret Life of Chaos. At least to the part with the flame and the video feedback. I found it to be quite an eye opening introduction.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HACkykFlIus
