I can imagine two possibilities. One is that you sincerely can’t imagine a universe without the existence of God; that God is a logical necessity. But I have no trouble imagining a universe that exists all by itself, just obeying the laws of nature. So I would have to conclude, in that case, that you were simply attaching the meaningless label “God” to some other aspect of the universe, such as the fact that it exists. The other possibility is that there is actually some difference between the universe-with-God and the materialist universe. So what is it? How could I tell? What is it about the existence of God that has some effect on the universe? I’m not trying to spring some sort of logical trap; I sincerely want to know. [...]
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Sean Carroll would like to know what god means ...
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Some of the comments there are really interesting.
ReplyDeleteI agree with John Baez's comment,
But to me - just me - “god” is a desperate attempt to take the awesome inexhaustible mystery of the universe - the fact that the deeper you go in any direction, the more you find - the blinding beauty and heart-rending tragedy of it all - and package it into a kind of “thing”.