Del,
The only reason I even made the point is I've known a couple of extreme believers (in the absence of God, that is!). I was just clarifying my definition and saying you were apparently not of the zealous non-believer type (which I now regret calling a true atheist). You certainly can use the word to describe yourself!!!
Actually, I have Hermetic leanings and believe things exist to the extent that they are believed in for the people that believe in them. I think that reality is a continuous function, not a step function. As a practical matter this means that all things exist as a matter of degrees. Quantum Mechanics supports this belief.
Newly discovered states of matter using laser confinement support this as well. I think by creating these states of matter, we make them more real in both a physical and metaphysical way. To that extent I believe it. I believe, that by thinking and doing things we create them in the reality and, sometimes, there appears to be a more than mechanistic method to this.
Using your Zeus example, by discussing and acting as though Zeus exists, we create manifestions of his existence. Using the principle of equivalence, it is very difficult to prove, without a mechanism, the relative or absolute existence (non-existence) of Zeus. We have a list of observed phenomena and things we put into the category of causation by Zeus. If everyone in that culture believes it, it is true.
I've suggested (and others, it turns out, through history) that it may be MORE than wishful thinking or mass hysteria. I did a calculation (using mathematics) that proved it was almost certain (99% chance) that at the end of one year, out of a group of 100 people that at least one of them would have something happen to them at 1 in million chance, if there were only 27 things per day that could happen at 1 in a million chance every day. This is the space in which a God works, if it works.
My name cosmic+force is a play on my belief that there is a force of self-organization. It is animistic. It is not intelligent in the way we know it, but it is an optimizing resonance through unlikely intermediaries. It works in strange ways and produces strange coincidences that are ironic and tutorial. Maybe it is dumb luck and I miss all the non-ironic and non-tutorial weird things. That could be. |
