A radical idea about God

[_Tchild]

I'm trying to figure out what I believe after the recent fiasco of learning the truth (or lie) of Mormonism.

I've toyed with the idea that rather than God being the cause of creation, God may actually be the ultimate result after millions of years of evolution. In other words, as we (humans) evolve over time, WE become God...with God being the sum of all totals which is us.So rather than God being a cause, he's more of an effect. As more of us come to know truth, we count ourselves as part of that God. God is attained over time, and God is more of an awareness than an actual physical being. Coming to understand God may take many lives.

I've also toyed with the idea that eternity is NOW and we are, in fact, progressing through the different levels of "kingdoms" (for lack of a better term) and have been for many many thousands of generations. Our separateness from God is an illusion. Once we personally shatter that illusion, we become part of this "God".

Make sense? What are your thoughts?

That is basically how I view it also. Maybe that is how "eternity" stays fresh and does not stagnate: Awareness or consciousness evolves and forms infinite variety and expression. God itself (the sum consciousness of all) doesn't know how it will turn out, because there is no future (the notion of a future is a construct of the mind, as is time itself) and nothing beyond the NOW and this moment to know ahead of time.

This moment NOW is the freshest, most alive and perfect moment that could possibly be. And that is how every moment is always; perfect.

What is out harmony is not reality itself, but our notions of what reality should be (the egoic mind), or how it should unfold.

[_Uncle Dale]

...
nothing beyond the NOW and this moment to know ahead of time.
...

I tend to agree.

And yet we are comfortable living our lives as though there were a
past and a future: as though each one of us is a totally independent
entity, functioning for no particular purpose, in a purposeless cosmos.

We enjoy conquering things -- possessing things -- controlling things.

Perhaps a little too much. And perhaps in such a way that we cannot
fathom who we are, amidst all that conniving and striving.

UD

[_Lincoln Cannon]

I've toyed with the idea that rather than God being the cause of creation, God may actually be the ultimate result after millions of years of evolution. In other words, as we (humans) evolve over time, WE become God...with God being the sum of all totals which is us. So rather than God being a cause, he's more of an effect.

Joe, you may appreciate the New God Argument. It formalizes the idea you seem to be expressing here.

[_Tarski]

I'm trying to figure out what I believe after the recent fiasco of learning the truth (or lie) of Mormonism.

I've toyed with the idea that rather than God being the cause of creation, God may actually be the ultimate result after millions of years of evolution. In other words, as we (humans) evolve over time, WE become God...with God being the sum of all totals which is us.So rather than God being a cause, he's more of an effect. As more of us come to know truth, we count ourselves as part of that God. God is attained over time, and God is more of an awareness than an actual physical being. Coming to understand God may take many lives.

I've also toyed with the idea that eternity is NOW and we are, in fact, progressing through the different levels of "kingdoms" (for lack of a better term) and have been for many many thousands of generations. Our separateness from God is an illusion. Once we personally shatter that illusion, we become part of this "God".

Make sense? What are your thoughts?

Omega Point
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_Point

[_Tobin]

Thank you for the post Joe Shmuckatelly. This is not far off my own views on the subject as well.

My view is that God is naturally arising and must have arisen long ago simply given the age of our universe. Imagine any intelligent life that evolved even a few billion years ago. Given our rate of technological advancement, they certainly would have evolved to a point where they would possess attributes that we would characterize as Godlike. I believe this is what men experience as God and that the scriptures are their accounts and perceptions of these encounters. I also believe this reflects the view that Joseph Smith gave us of God when he stated that God the Father arose an another world billions of years ago.

[_huckelberry]

Dale, "oneness of all things" that does not sound to me like much of a definition of God. But I get the idea you did not intend a definition but perhaps a direction for contemplation. I think there is sense in that suggestion.

"new god argument" Sorry I cannot see any reason to suppose that post humans on some planet somewhere would have anything to do with our creation. If creation of humans depends upon post humans than the process is lacking a way to start.

"Omega point" my reading of Mr Chardin is that his idea lies well within traditional Catholicism. Aquinas would see the form creation was moving towards to be a fundamental part of the what gives creation form in its path from the eternal God and towards its return to the eternal God. Omega point is not Aquinas phrase of course. I think there is a possibility that Tilliards phrase suggests a greater unity in the final state than some pictures of hell and heaven. It still depends upon the conception of the traditional eternal God ,creator of heaven and earth.

[_bcspace]

I've toyed with the idea that rather than God being the cause of creation, God may actually be the ultimate result after millions of years of evolution.

Make sense? What are your thoughts?

I've postulated this very thing myself and I note that it does not conflict with LDS doctrine in any way.

[_Uncle Dale]

Dale, "oneness of all things" that does not sound to me like much of a definition of God. But I get the idea you did not intend a definition but perhaps a direction for contemplation. I think there is sense in that suggestion.

"new god argument" Sorry I cannot see any reason to suppose that post humans on some planet somewhere would have anything to do with our creation. If creation of humans depends upon post humans than the process is lacking a way to start.

"Omega point" my reading of Mr Chardin is that his idea lies well within traditional Catholicism. Aquinas would see the form creation was moving towards to be a fundamental part of the what gives creation form in its path from the eternal God and towards its return to the eternal God. Omega point is not Aquinas phrase of course. I think there is a possibility that Tilliards phrase suggests a greater unity in the final state than some pictures of hell and heaven. It still depends upon the conception of the traditional eternal God ,creator of heaven and earth.

Aquinas was something of a mystic in his later years, and probably
would have agreed that his earlier attempts at defining God were
less useful than the life of prayer and absorption in the Divine.

But orthodox Catholicism is always careful to point out that the
saint's mystical union with God is not a total merger -- that our
own human natures never become indistinguishably Divine.

I think that Eastern Orthodox doctrines regarding theosis are less
confining than their RCC counterparts, and would allow for the
introduction of some vocabulary consistent with the Unity of all
things -- outside of temporality, at least.

"The oneness of all things" is an inexact term, as I alluded to
previously. The very notion of "things" as objects in space-time
precludes their having an actual, all-encompassing unity.

Still, that term may be used as a starting point, for attempts at
communicating mystical union, as well as the precept of time
being a creation of our own imperfect perceptions as human beings.

Uncle Dale