Re: Theist turning into Agnostic or Atheist (confused)
Originally Posted by
Incense
No. The person is defining their idea of the divine. I can say Nature is God all the same.
If you go to an Alcoholics Anonymous page, you will see an explanation of the twelve steps, particularly the one about a higher power. It says that many atheists who participate define higher power as the universe or nature. Certainly any of those is a higher power. Is Higher-Power God? Maybe, maybe not, but that is a philosophical question for people who like to split hairs. In any case, "Consciousness is God" is not a meaningless or absurd statement.
Pranams,
The AA people are desperate, and they externalize the ability to help themselves in the form of their "higher power," which they call as such because AA is not a theistic organization. It can't be, since it has to be there for everyone. The point is, this is not a very good example when making a theological comparison.
From a Vedic standpoint, the statement that "consciousness is God" is problematic, like saying "heat is sun," "wetness is ocean," etc. One is an attribute, and the other is the thing possessing the attribute. In vedAnta, we do indeed have statements like "universe is God" or "He is the universe," but these are understood as referring to His indwelling relationship within the thing being described. It is not the case that such statements indicate that God = universe, for the universe is at most a tiny fragment of God's complete attributes. Similarly, the neo-Hindu saying that "consciousness is God" is problematic because consciousness does not completely define the concept of God, nor is it exclusive to God. Living entities also have consciousness, but they are not God.
Philosoraptor
"Wise men speak because they have something to say. Fools speak because they have to say something." - Plato
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