Is believing in the Universe a belief in a higher power?

I think the phrase higher power was a cop-out word used to placate people who do not want to have to believe in God to follow the twelve steps program.

I believe in something else, unknown forces maybe, I’m not a catholic, although I tried, I’m now much more a buddhist than anything else and that is working out nicely.

I believe in something else, something more? Something more than murder stories on the evening news or being totally discontented with your two year-old car because there’s a newer model on the tv, worshipping soul-less liers as they walk down the red carpet in their $8 000 shoes while a distant child takes his last breath because no-one could give him some clean water.

I believe in something else, because if there’s not..why bother?

FYI I really do believe in something else, either within or outside ourselves. So don’t let me depress you too much lol!!!

People believed that a higher power created everything long before we understood how vast the universe is. The mystery doesn’t lie in the size of the universe or in oddities such as black holes so much as with the fact that anything exists at all.

A grain of sand or a grain of rice alone is a puzzle for which we will never find an answer. To say that God created it is simply a way of accepting that it is a mystery, a mystery which is also acknowledged by science and which is in fact its driving force.

No, because the existence of the universe is a fact. It does not reqiure belief.

Are you saying that you worship the universe?

I don’t because it does not act with forethought, it just is.

Uh, no.

No, it just happens to be where we are, or at least where I think we are. I don’t worship the Universe, I just live here, or think that I am here. And I don’t know if or when “the universe” started, time is a tricky and relative thing. For most practical purposes, it doesn’t really matter when or if it started.

On a slightly side note, am I the only one who thinks Simon Helberg, from The Big Bang Theory, is a total hottie?

It makes me questions things, thats for sure.

Only if your definition also includes aliens and bombs. They are all more powerful than humans. But I do not see anyone worshipping bombs, except Bush.

Science: Trying to find out more about the world. Mysticism/Religion: Too local! Too provincial!

I think the mere fact that our universe exists is supernatural in itself.
Mind boggling hardly covers it.
Yes, I do believe it is magic and mystery and mystical above what science has shown us to date.
I also believe 1 billion percent that there are other planets with intelligent life, beyond a shadow of a doubt and would be thrilled beyond words to have this proven in my life time.

To believe we are the only beings of intelligence in the cosmos is beyond arrogant. I also believe that it is entirely possible we ARE offspring of ancient aliens that have visited us in the past. “God” is an alien, regardless of religious presentation.
I mean really…EVERY culture has stories of “Gods” descending from the skies.
There is plenty of evidence of this.
I’m wide open to all possibility.

Not to me. It’s interesting that you ask this, though, because I recently had this discussion with my aunt:

Aunt: God put you there for a reason.
Me: I’m not a believer.
Aunt: Do you believe in the universe?
Me: Yeah…
Aunt: Same thing, then.

I found this nonsensical.

Seems like a fallacy of equivocation to me.

I’m certain that there are concepts that are so above our current ability to comprehend that even if we asked if there is a god or not, would we be able to understand what the true definition of god really is if this was somehow communicated to us? I think we need to know what we are trying to define before we can even come to a discussion about whether the universe is divine or not.

Divinity would come with a deliberate purpose to me, but perhaps it is possible that if the universe is divine that it wasn’t always this way. We also have to try to define this divinity but I don’t think that rough estimates about the size and age of the universe by themselves mean divinity alone. To me a ‘higher power’ would mean some type of divinity. I guess in the end it comes down to not theism vs atheism, but the god of purpose vs the god of chaos.

The belief in a higher power is about the ultimate explanation of the explanation of the explanation of our universe.

@YARNLADY Aha, that may well be. Also, the Freemasons required that members profess a belief in a higher power. But we know that many of America’s Founding Fathers were both Masons and deists bordering on atheism.

@lemming If you lean toward Buddhist then you must believe that the Universe and all that is in it, including you, are indeed the Higher Power. That was the essential teaching of the Buddha, as noted here profession of faith pretty well sums up my beliefs. Try it on for size.

@flutherother That’s an excellent point. A grain of rice is every bit as mysterious as the Universe. A quark, small as it is, is a mystery. One plank length is a mystery beyond belief.

@marinelife Worship the Universe. No. I do not believe it desires my worship. But I most definitely am awestruck by it. The Universe may actually be a sentient force. But if it is, it requires no worship. The Buddha called it the force of Love. Pure love was, in his eyes, the creative force that guided how the Universe unfolded.

@Blackberry Thanks.

@Kardamom You’re quite right that we can’t even “prove” that anything outside our own imagination exists. Nor can we “prove” the rather strange sounding theory of current cosmology, “In the beginning, there was nothing. Than it exploded.” There may have been an infinite series of Universes, the death of one triggering the creation of the next. It may be speculative, but it fascinates me to speculate about it. Now Simon Helberg good looks and charm strike me as very real.

@deniThat’s exactly what I am getting at. Thanks.

@ragingloli Whadda ya mean. The whole Military Industrial Complex and all the legion of politicians their lobbyist bribe talk to (remember, according to the SCOTUS, money is speech.) worship the Higher Power of bombs.

@hiphiphopflipflapflop Great link. Thanks. I thoroughly enjoyed Feynman’s thoughts on the matter, which follow closely with my own.

@Coloma It would seem that Richard Feynman’s talk, linked immediately above, shows that as a scientist he feels the mystery and fascination with what it there just as you do.

@augustlan I would have to agree that was nonsensical unless she believes the Universe is a sentient force and brings this and that aspect of itself into being on its on volition and not by simply exercising the natural laws it operates by,\\

@AdamF As the discussion above shows, it may or may not be depending on what the Universe turns out to be.

@Paradox25 Interesting and accurate exposition. No wonder you chose Paradox as part of your screen name. :-)

@mattbrowne The argument that everything must have a creator, therefore there must be a God seems to me a fallacy of circular logic. If it is true everything must have a creator to be created (to exist), then God must have a creator and so on in infinite regression. That logic leads nowhere.

Feelings of ineffable awe and wonderment at the immensity and majesty of the universe is not belief in a supernatural deity. So if we refer to both these worldviews as “belief in a higher power” we can readily commit a fallacy of equivocation by conflating two distinct perspectives, even if we don’t mean to. Of course this doesn’t stop you from referring to both as such. All I’m doing is pointing out the potential cost.

Which, by the way Jerry Coyne even has a term for. He refers to it as “pulling an Ecklund” (although the context is different from yours, as I don’t see this as your aim):

“A maneuver to bolster religion by including secular ‘spirituality’ within its ambit.”

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/huffpo-science-section-engages-in-dishonest-quote-mining/

@ETpro Ya I’m just getting into it, I’m focusing on the meditation part now, don’t really have anyone teaching me the principles, although I’ve started going to classes.

I think you can believe almost everything science tells us, and still believe in a higher power. It’s just acknowleging that we have only studied and ‘know’ only a very tiny part of the universe, and there is so much more that we cannot even comprehend. Science is great at measuring facts about the universe, but it doesn’t tell us why…like why is there constant rules that allow for organisation, like why gravity?

I have a feeling I’m not going to be able to suggest anything that you haven’t thought of already, but I hope humanity moves away from this sterile view of the universe where it is ours to master and instead we just sit back in awe and admit that it is beyond our grasp, or divine, or one big question mark forever.

@lemming A few thoughts…

“I think you can believe almost everything science tells us, and still believe in a higher power.”

Sure.

“It’s just acknowleging that we have only studied and ‘know’ only a very tiny part of the universe, and there is so much more that we cannot even comprehend.”

But believing in a higher power isn’t “just” doing that. It’s saying, we don’t comprehend the entirety of the universe, therefore I can fill that gap with any unsubstantiated belief I wish. That’s simply a non sequitur. If we don’t understand something, we don’t understand it. Nothing more.

“Science is great at measuring facts about the universe, but it doesn’t tell us why…like why is there constant rules that allow for organisation, like why gravity?”

But if you want to know the answer to that question, you’re going to need to keep applying the scientific method. Right?

”...I hope humanity moves away from this sterile view of the universe where it is ours to master and instead we just sit back in awe and admit that it is beyond our grasp, or divine, or one big question mark forever.”

Are you saying you’d prefer humanity to move away from the scientific approach, which is responsible for demonstrating just how amazing the universe actually is, and instead embrace some form of ignorant awe?

Ok, little did I know my answer was going to be scrutinised like that lol.

I don’t believe in saying that there is a God who appreciates when we do this, but gets pissed when we do that etc. I don’t believe in filling the gap with whatever we can come up with, but just acknowledging the gap. Once we acknowledge there is much we don’t know, we sort of have to trust is things we don’t know. Belief in the unknown?

The scientific method hasn’t come up with any reason to explain why there is organisation in the universe instead of, disorganisation… the fundamental laws of nature on which everything is based on, like gravity, are still unexplained, as far as I know, right?

Once again, for your last argument, I never said we need to embrace any mystical idea..just realise we don’t know everything and we never will.

@ETpro – I said that the belief in a higher power is about the ultimate explanation of the explanation of the explanation of our universe. I didn’t say an explanation of our universe requires a higher power. That’s a significant difference. I didn’t say that everything must have a creator. There are no definite answers when it comes to ultimate explanations. There are only beliefs or the confession that we don’t know.

@lemming Sorry if that came across as the fluther equivalent of “throwing down the gauntlet”. :)

Thanks for clarifying. Your position makes much more sense to me now.

@AdamF I beg to differ. Eastern religions teach that the Universe and all that is in it IS god. Quantum physics tells us that when particles at the quantum level interact, they become “entangled”. That means that once they have interacted, something done to one at a remote distance will instantaneously affect the other. This appears to be distance independent. Since all that is was flung out of the big bang, all particles could be entangled, producing a neural network so much larger than any brain that it staggers the imagination.

Now, it takes more than just a lot of neural nodes to make a sentient brain. You have to have some very specific neural structures that self teach. But an the number of neural nodes the big bang would have produced, plenty of those would have occurred by random combinations. So the Universe could be sentient.

That, of course, provides no answer to what caused the Big Bang and what gave rise to all the laws that govern things at the quantum, subatomic level and at the classical physics level of visible matter energy space and time. Before the strict scientists here take me to task, let me say I make no claim that the Universe IS sentient; only that it could be. Also, I refuse to speculate about what came before the Universe. The idea of rules that wrote themselves and nothing exploding into everything is no more nor less incredible to me than the idea that some preexisting vast intelligence was uncreated and guided creation.

lemming The Universe is there for us to master, but at the same time, it’;s awesome power and unpredictability mean that at any moment it may become master of us. If a star anywhere within 50 light years of Earth were to experience a Gamma Ray Burst that happened to be aimed at the Earth, all life here would be wiped out. When our sun runs out of primary fuel in about 5 billion years, it will become a Red Giant and will expand out till its corona encompasses the Earth, melting our entire planet and swallowing it up into the sun’s enormous mass. That’s the kind of higher power that AdamF would be quite right to label as a fallacy of equivocation if that were what I was saying.

@mattbrowne I didn’t say an explanation of our Universe requires a higher power either. Where’s the conflict?

@ETpro “I beg to differ. Eastern religions teach that the Universe and all that is in it IS god.”

Okay. But the question wasn’t, “Do some religions see the universe as god?”. It was, “So does believing in the Universe amount to belief in a higher power….”.

“But an the number of neural nodes the big bang would have produced, plenty of those would have occurred by random combinations. So the Universe could be sentient.”

Well…sure if we use words like “could be”, we can posit anything, no matter how far fetched.

@AdamF I don’t wish to just argue for argument’s sake. I gave you a solid explanation physics to show how it is possible the Universe is sentient. That;s not just wild speculation. It is a postulate, as yet unproven.I did not intend the question as any sort of logical trap. If you think it is a fallacy of equivocation then it’s fair for you to deal with it as such. That wasn’t my intent, and I don’t agree that it is such a fallacy.

@ETpro – You wrote in response that the argument that everything must have a creator, therefore there must be a God seems to me a fallacy of circular logic. I just wanted to make clear that this wasn’t my argument. I agree that it’s a fallacy. We cannot make claims with a “must have” part.

I’m late to this question, but…

To literally answer the question: ‘higher power,’ to me, means simply a power that is greater than my own. (Gods fall in this category, certainly. But I don’t see the two as equivalent, I don’t see saying ‘higher power’ as a way to avoid the G word… It’s saying rectangle instead of square. Or liquid instead of water.) So: Yes. I think believing in the Universe, assuming you don’t believe you’re more powerful than the Universe, and I definitely don’t, is believing in a higher power. Whatever you think the Universe is.

Me, I happen to believe it’s not energetic deadness—no idea what it is, no idea what part of it I am, and even if I did have an idea, I don’t know that I’d be able to describe it adequately in a human medium. But I think it’s something.

I know that when I’m having a hard time in my (tiny) life, I look up at night and try to see through the florescence-haze, or go find new thoughts/ideas/wonders/facts about the Universe, or just stare at my own hand and try to imagine the fuzziness that the electrons, protrons, neutrons, seem to be happily existing in, and then try to stare at the air around me and imagine how full it is, and then close my eyes and try to imagine what all those zeros stretching out the estimates of the size of it all mean, try to imagine breadth, the minuteness, the intricacy, the whatever else could be out there.

And when I do that, somehow, coming back to think about my tiny self, my tiny life, I can breathe again. So I guess, in a way, it’s my spritual—to trust the Universe, and keep marching my tiny life within it.

@mattbrowne Clarification noted.

@DancingMind Glad you droped in. And thatnk for backing up my claim that this question is not a fallacy of equivocation. I find the same comfort you mention in the awesome expanse and grandeur of the Universe—in it’s higher power.

@ETpro All I was trying to point out was that the word “higher power” is polysemic.

It was not an attack on your question, but my response to your question.

@AdamF Duly noted.