"Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" -Occam's Razor

Everything you are attempting to achieve in your "spiritual practices" can be accomplished without any reference to "God". To add this term is unnecessary and likely to confuse your listeners, most of whom are likely to define "God" conventionally as a supreme being existing outside of (and controlling) normal matter, time and space.

Ayn Rand defined God as a word or concept to simply mean "the highest good". Humans' more complex minds with their abstract thought systems that go from a premise (I call it the singularity or origin point) to an open-ended continuum to infinity, and the ability to improvise invented explanations for the unknown, led to inserting a wild card into trying to understand existence itself.

Seeing our own creativity and intelligence in designing anything we use in our lives crossed over into positing a super brain in creating everything around us in the Cosmos. At the hypothetical infinity terminus it is thus conceptualized as infinite (omni-present), everlasting (immortal), all-powerful (omnipotent), all-knowing (omniscient)--all the things we limited mortals aren't but aspire to be. And that allows us to say "God only knows" where we fall short, and ascribe to God anything we don't understand.

Once having personified the unknown into a character endowed with consciousness and will--an extension of our own living attributes--we also endowed it with the best and worst personality traits, like fatherly love but also anger, vindictiveness, jealousy and a demand for total obedience. We romanticized it as the creator of everything that demands our worship. And for thousands of years this notion clothed in powerlust has enslaved mankind's mind and heart (intellect and emotions) in endless conflict and misery and wars over whose God is the real one. From an abstract metaphor we have made it into a belief in an actual entity.

Our conceptual faculty, that works so brilliantly in every other area of living and building and producing and advancing and understanding and creating, on this one point hangs from a skyhook the idea of a mysterious, invisible creator that somehow exists outside of our known space and time and must have pre-existed the beginning of the Universe and of existence itself.

The energy that pervades the Cosmos, the reality that encompasses all that exists, the natural causes that our science has identified, are all ascribed to and encapsulated in that one notion, God. What a concept! And our own built-in striving for self-preservation and continuity thus posits a survival after death, an immortality in some other realm, an ascent to “heaven” and return to the creator.

But wait for it. So if God is the highest good, there must also be its antithesis, the greatest evil, personified by Satan or Lucifer or the devil, who likewise contends for the hearts and minds of these humans—two cosmic forces evenly matched and locked in an eternal contest.

These, then, are the symbols of what is relevant only to living things: values--that which supports life or endangers it. The knowledge of good and evil is possible only to a conceptual being, namely mankind’s highly evolved and still evolving brain. It has turned a fantasy tale into a belief that can operate only by disconnecting the critical faculty and substituting “faith”. Yet faith is the mind-killer, the voluntary abdication of rational thought.

It’s like the microbe that infests an ant’s brain and makes it climb to the top of a blade of grass in order to be eaten by a cow in whose stomach the microbe fulfills its own life replication cycle. It is fascinating to contemplate how the God virus (see the book of that title by Darrel W. Ray) and the God delusion (see the book of that tiitle by Richard Dawkins) have infected humanity, and not in our best interest. Faith shuts down inquiry and makes questioning itself a sin or, in extreme cases, heresy punishable by death.

Yet our evolving minds have found answers to many of the Universe’s previously unknown aspects, from the laws of physics to life’s dynamics, and will continue to gain understandings about both the outer Universe and the inner workings of our brains. If we find someday that we are actually carriers of some cosmic power, little relay stations of some universal intelligence, we will then at least know and understand it as fact, not just believe and fantasize in a fear-induced haze.

At some level of enlightenment we may yet reach the point where ideas (memes) will not manipulate us into mutually destructive behaviors; where individually and cooperatively we can reason our way to a life-enhancing modus vivendi and our evolution itself may reach the stars. Then we shall become like the gods we once imagined. Let us not impede that path with skyhook fables.

Every scientific advance reveals that reality is not only complex it is vastly more complex than our ability to model even its behavior much less the underlying mechanisms. What we do see, with increasing clarity, a fundamental process where simple systems combine to form more complex ones. Given the resources available in time, space, raw materials and energy it suggests that non only anything can happen but that everything must happen. In this sense the cosmos appears to be a vast self organizing system. Now whether this can be considered a form of intelligence is more of a metaphysical question than a scientific one. In any case it opens the opportunity to consider that the behavior of reality follows a set of rules and that these rules lead to increasingly complex structures and systems. A.C. Clark observed "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." It may also be the case that "Any phenomena that is indistinguishable from intelligence IS intelligence." It's kind of a variation on the Turing test. It is a big leap to consider that the cosmos its self is intelligence because among other considerations we would need to revisit the definition of intelligence. Regardless, it should be a subject of study and understanding rather than veneration and worship.

The response can only be one of two: Either you don't get Objectivism or just GobbelyGook.

This continual effort by many to marry religious belief with fact and reason based Objectivism, regardless of how flowery the language, is simply emotionally caused fear of reliance on self. Self doubt indoctrination.

It takes faith to believe in God, without faith one will continue to have an emptiness that never fulfills one's quest for peace. There is an answer.

@cksawyer - I appreciate your intention but question your accepting the theist's term GOD.

Rand reclaimed "selfishness" because it captures something we have no other good word for and it exposes the corruption of conventional use of that term - deserving a formal challenge.
Most people can get the idea of selfish meaning respecting yourself and respecting the same responsibility by all others. And that yield trust and freedom with a proper government securing our rights.

I see no such argument for the term GOD unless we use it to describe man. After all, god is a concept formed from human capacity for creation of things, knowledge, power and presence, but invalidated by putting the word "all" in front of those valuable attributes.

I find it easiest to explain to people by asking them what they would think if I answered a question about how tall I am with, "I'm all tall." If they can see the nonsense and contradiction in terms of that, we can then talk about the same flaw in the terms: all powerful, all knowing and all present - omnipotent, omniscient & omnipresence. It's just nonsense dressed up as profound.

Perhaps Gaia is what you seek. What you describe has little to do with reality and nothing to do with Objectivism. God and Objectivism are entirely incompatible.

Do I detect a move to Hollywood?

The question you really need to ask yourself is not what, but why. Why have civilizations throughout humanity's existence derived for themselves the notion of a god?

Answer: for purpose and value judgment. They seek to answer the age-old question each of us must confront: What is my relationship to everything and everyone else in the Universe. What is my purpose? If I accept that I am self-directed, I accept that my future is mine to control, so what options are open to me and in what timespan? Look at every religion's definition of "god" and it will be tied up in how they see themselves in relation to the rest of the universe.

I distrust any attempt to define God.

What is reality? Existence. The sum of existents. Therefore, your definition becomes god is the sum of existents. The sum of existents is finite. Therefore, according to your definition, god is finite.

Even considering the possibility of an apt characterization, one can still misunderstand that characterization. Allowing for the possibility of erroneous characterizations, one can commit a factual error about god. Since man is neither omniscient nor infallible, does this hold true for his knowledge of god as well?

The writings above form an idealistic, Platonic understanding of metaphysics, quite unlike the Aristotelian metaphysical model. The last sentence sounds more like the mechanisms of a process control system than an integrated understanding. This is not meant as a slight.

To any of you still engaged in this discussion. This is a quote from a letter by Ayn Rand published in the "The Letters of Ayn Rand" collection:

"Perhaps a philosophical statement could be made defining God and man's relation to God in a way which would not be demeaning to man and his life on earth."

This is exactly what I have endeavored to do...me, the most spiritual atheist you will ever meet. Lol

I spoke on this thread about ARI and currently running OCON-2016. At 1pm today Greg Salmieri, a brilliant, delightful newer philosopher will be speaking on "Being Objective about Objectivism". Here's the blurb:

Philosophy is a demanding discipline that requires intellectual rigor and scrupulous honesty, and Objectivism is an especially demanding philosophy. It takes years of disciplined thought to understand and evaluate its principles and to incorporate them into one’s life. And the work continues across a lifetime as one uses the philosophy to keep integrated an ever growing body of knowledge (checking one’s premises as necessary). Join Gregory Salmieri as he discusses how to be objective about Objectivism, including the need to be mindful of which philosophical principles you know to be true, how you know this, and what questions remain for you to answer. He pays special attention to common mistakes enthusiastic students make when approaching the philosophy, and he emphasizes the need for the members of an Objectivist group or movement to respect one another’s cognitive needs and context of knowledge.

You can get it via Lifestream along with all the other general sessions - 9 in all. They are available live as well as on demand until the end of July.

I was puzzled, at a very young age, as to what God was and why we needed one. I could never wrap my mind around the subject. The more I thought about it, the less I cared. I am in awe of how humans have evolved and their potential for accomplishment. I am not shocked at their failures and animalistic natures. In the big picture, the trend is towards a creature that is more what we call human but this realization may be realized many millennia in the future. It is a good sign that we can contemplate such and as we replace mysticism with rationality, it will come to be. It is our responsibility, as the most evolved creature to "be God" and the frightening reality of such makes us want to grant it to some supernatural being. It is man that must make mankind and his dealings more harmonious with other men and his environment better, as scary as that may seem.

Related to this whole discussion of philosophical issues and what Rand and Objectivism have to contribute....

I just watched the Livestream of the first two 10am general sessions from OCON - Sat & Sun.

I highly recommend them for significant insight.

They cost $195 for the whole conference worth of general sessions - running through Thursday.

The first addresses the Objectivist Movement 2.0.
This is NOT Objectivism 2.0 as they emphasized. But rather its about increasing awareness and appreciation for Rand and her philosophy as an effective movement on a ever growing scale to have significant influence.

The second addresses issues of "sanctioning" and interacting with other groups to advance the movement in our culture.

The first defines the terms and gives insight into the goals, strategies, tactics and open issues.

The second discusses the history of conflicts and the reasoning behind some of them - more openly that in the past. All private conversations are not revealed, as is appropriate, but many issues are clarified.

The next four: Mon-Thurs. should provide equally informative and enlightening. It demonstrates an approach to the issues - not just conclusions. It demonstrated thinking principles in action.

Happy Freedom Day Everybody!

CK you can have your feelings of awe and wonder but have to ground them properly in reality as you are trying to do but you must drop the language of religion and mysticism.
Go to www.smartshill.com and read the essay on Being in the Universe. It will ground your views, properly link you to reality, and show you the proper source of awe and wonder is man. .
Good luck.

"...But it does me no injury
for my neighbor to say
there are twenty gods, or no God.
It neither picks my pocket
nor breaks my leg." It occurs to me that God is whatever you wish, or want him to be - its a basic personal choice, as long as hes not whispering to you to kill people.

my own personal integration of "spirituality" with my
love of reality is really quite similar. . the only question
which I Must Answer is "what do I do next?" . that
requires my complete attention as reality appears
to me, and my understanding -- as best I can -- of
cause-and-effect, the natural laws of reality and of
humankind within it, and an appreciation of the
harmonies which are possible consequences.
I stand in rapt attention as reality unfolds, pleasing
and amazing me with its complexity, beauty, its
enticing inviting character. . God is the known, the
unknown, the all. -- j
.

That you all for all your comments, thoughts and counter-arguments. I am having a blast, and learning and sharpening with you participation - all of you.

I will reread and continue to consider and ponder many of your responses.

I am definitely getting what I sought in this post.

I LOVE this stuff!! Onward and Upward.....

If you have not read or listened to Nathaniel Branden's lecture on God, then I think you are missing the core issue involved.

Since I posted the God Question, the contributions seemed like they would never end. Because of your post, I can't help but quote Godfather 3; "Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in."

I can see you have given this much thought. The only thing I might suggest from an Objectivist standpoint is that you are trying to reconcile reason with mysticism. Can't be done. However, there is still much in the universe that remains unexplained. In an attempt to do so multiple theories have been put forth by various scientists most revolving around ways to express observations in mathematical form. Just like Einstein created a breakthrough which led to an entirely new aspect of physics, so might there be another such happening either among some of the theories already put forth or perhaps a theory yet to be presented. Much of Quantum Physics is so contrary to what is generally accepted by human senses that mystical qualities are often attached to them.

Sounds like you're aiming at the concept Robert Heinlein summarized with the phrase "Thou art God." (See Stranger in a Strange Land.)