God is infinite consciousness. And, of course, the creator of all physicality.

Buddha, Jesus, all the rest have really never said else anything but that.

And they have also said extremely clearly that our mission is realization of this infinite consciousness. The punch line is that WE are God - but don't know it, or have the experience of it. Jesus, Buddha, did, but we're not quite there yet.

Anyway, when "one side", says that God is consciousness, and another side - e.g. atheist/physical materialists - say that there is no God, it seems seems a valid question to ask of them "OK, so exactly where does your consciousness - awareness - come from?" Some of the really hard core atheists like Daniel Dennett (a very intelligent guy) have been seemingly reduced to saying (his) consciousness does not exist.

So, that’s the question to anyone who thinks they are conscious and thinks that there is no God, i.e. explain the precise mechanisms how consciousness arises. It would seem that an "I dunnoh" would not necessarily put the burden of proof on believers in God to explain there belief.

(Yeah, I know about neural nets, and super speed computers, etc. and we all know they explain nothing about the mechanisms of how awareness arises.)

I've been saying the same thing for quite some time. If you deny that any spiritual principle exists, then you have to say that human consciousness is merely an emergent phenomenon that doesn't really exist as an independent entity, but is merely the sum of firing neurons that appears to be an entity. If you say that, then you are saying that you don't exist. And if you don't exist, I'm not sure why I should care about your opinion.

So to paraphrase Descartes: Je pense donc je crois.

I'm not atheist, but it doesn't seem that hard to believe that consciousness is an emergent process. What would be wrong with that? That wouldn't mean you don't exist ... why would it? There are plenty of things in the universe we know exist despite not understanding how.

I wouldn't say an understanding of the physical mechanisms of consciousness is necessary to justify atheism, but if you really believe that, why then isn't an understanding of the physical nature of God, or whatever you call It, necessary to justify theism? I don't think either side has a burden of proof to justify their belief, but if you think one side does, how is it not inconsistent to excuse the other?

I don't know is a very valid answer.

You make many assumptions (e.g. WE are god) that are very meaningless in my view.

The burden of proof is always with the people who say they know something.

E.g. If someone says the Jets will win the Super Bowl then it is fair to ask them; based on what?

If someone says "I don't have a clue who will win the SB' they don't have to provide any proof to back up their POV.

I have NO CLUE where awareness arises, if there is a 'god', a soul, what happens after death, etc...

NO CLUE. Thus no burden of proof.

Only a fool would deny that any spritual principle does or does NOT exist.

I have no clue is the only valid answer. Faith is only a romantic vision.

I disagree with your point about either side. Only agnostics have no burden of proof since they have no fixed belief other then 'I don't have a clue'.

While I enjoy discussing the various theories they are all just romantic notions in my view.

Sanjait:

I'm not atheist, but it doesn't seem that hard to believe that consciousness is an emergent process. What would be wrong with that? That wouldn't mean you don't exist ... why would it? There are plenty of things in the universe we know exist despite not understanding how.

I wouldn't say an understanding of the physical mechanisms of consciousness is necessary to justify atheism, but if you really believe that, why then isn't an understanding of the physical nature of God, or whatever you call It, necessary to justify theism? I don't think either side has a burden of proof to justify their belief, but if you think one side does, how is it not inconsistent to excuse the other?

I think I agree with you re belief/non-belief in God if you're saying its best considered a stalemate wrt to anything being "provable" either way.

jazzguitarman:

I don't know is a very valid answer.

You make many assumptions (e.g. WE are god) that are very meaningless in my view.

The burden of proof is always with the people who say they know something.

E.g. If someone says the Jets will win the Super Bowl then it is fair to ask them; based on what?

If someone says "I don't have a clue who will win the SB' they don't have to provide any proof to back up their POV.

I have NO CLUE where awareness arises, if there is a 'god', a soul, what happens after death, etc...

NO CLUE. Thus no burden of proof.

I'm not sure I disagree with anything you say, but I think I'm directing more to atheists who profess their firm belief in no God and only in materialism. When spiritual masters have said that consciousness is the key to God realization - as they have - and an atheist hasn't clue one as to where his consciousness comes from - then it seem at minimum there would be a gap in the atheist's position.

I reject the atheist's position just like I reject all religions. In other words as soon as someone claims to know something, one way or the other, they are just stating a romantic viewpoint.

Of course you are directing your comments towards atheists but I replied because I found that sad. i.e. you ignored the agnostic position and that is sad since it is the only sound position.

It's clear to me that the mind doesn't have a guiding mechanism in it to help it solve the vast majority of problems by itself.

Therefore, the mind is a freak accident of nature that was never meant to be.

Therefore, there are no gods.

"It's clear to me that the mind doesn't have a guiding mechanism in it to help it solve the vast majority of problems by itself. "

Speak for yourself, Philistine! ;- )

I am a scientist and an atheist but I don't buy your argument.

Saying that the human mind is a "freak accident that was never meant to be" implies that there are things that are meant to be. As a matter of fact nothing was ever meant to be.. and yet everything is. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

I think the term "Spiritual Master" runs into the very same difficulty of proof as God does. Using your logic Dennett and Hitchens might be considered atheists spiritual masters and they have made some very strong arguments against the existence of God.

celtic6:

I think I agree with you re belief/non-belief in God if you're saying its best considered a stalemate wrt to anything being "provable" either way.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. There are many ways to argue for or against something, but if we are going to call something "scientific" (basically synomymous with "provable" to me), then one's arguments must fall under the more rigorous rules of science. It's like a bubble in the wooly world of ideas, where things are just done in a more formal way. The benefit of that is it can be an extremely powerful way of understanding natural phenomena and objectively answering questions. The drawback is that it has little or no capability to address certain questions, like value judgments or the metaphysical.