The Beagle Speaks

I just received the following blog comment reply to my last post. It came from 'BeagleFury' who is, in fact Trent Tobler. Trent is a friend of mine from a long time ago when I worked at Simutronics. It turns out that this coincidence fit my previous post quite nicely. Trent is a brilliant engineer and, occasionally, a deep thinker. What follows is his response to my last post.


Hello again, John. I don't mind if you want to refer to me by my real name. My pitiful BeagleFury blog should state that I am Trent (Tobler). Maybe not though. :)

It also appears I've drawn myself into a religious argument -- I usually save those for the Mormon missionaries, but oh well. ;-)

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It weakens the term 'god' if it is completely relative to a person. If anything can be god, what reason is there even to use the word? "Give me a few gods so god can go buy a god to replace the god broken by god." Maybe in a poetic setting, one might use the term to describe something that categorically can not be described. Most people have a creative potential (artistic talent). Most people have capabilities that are dwarfed by the capabilities of others (They have a 'greater power'), while others deserve respect, awe, and in some capacity, worship. To refer to them as 'gods' seems allegorical, not categorical, and should be understood this way.

I certainly grant that a 'universe' god could have one or more properties of 'godliness' in a commonly accepted form -- It is why I think you deserve the benefit of doubt when it comes to believing you are honest in your oath for free masonry. The alternative implication being that you only said it because you had to in order to join the organization -- and in doing so, were not completely honest.

However, to state that I 'believe' a universe similar to yours exists, that I must therefore believe in a god and also be a theist is presumptuous. (1) it implies that I actually have a belief in a particular set of laws of universe (I have few that I actually would term a belief -- "Willingness to entertain" would be a more appropriate description of concepts that I have no chance of actually verifying myself.) (2) it implies that I also accept the weaker definition of god. I prefer to keep the term a bit more tight so I don't have to qualify my statements to more precisely describe what it is to which I am referring (It's bad enough that it is necessary to say Christian god vs. God of Islam vs. Zeus vs. the Wicca Goddess vs. ... when discussing the divine.)

In any case, I guess the requirement to believe in a greater power is more than a microwatt vs. megawatt debate? :) Oh, and the "spiritual energy" -- this isn't E=mc^2? Probably not. It seems rather common to define terms to the way you want them to mean rather than a rigorous definition, in religious contexts. :)

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So, one of the points raised by Trent I want to address. There is this notion that my use of Pantheism as a valid definition of God is somehow outside the mainstream or the norm. I do not think that is the case at all. It can be found in Platonic thought, Neo-Platonism, Zoroastrian Paganism, Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Native American beliefs, and many other points of view. I do not honestly believe I am redefining the term, I am simply defining it relative to these beliefs systems as opposed to certain popular versions of Christianity and Islamic beliefs.

Even within Christianity beliefs are widely varied. In fact, you might think that those who follow Judaism would be the strongest deists of all yet I have been told repeatedly that my pantheistic views match the beliefs expressed in Kabala. (That said, I still do not understand this concept at all.) I do believe that Gnostic Christianity can easily be interpreted as being pantheistic in flavor.

When I went to the altar and professed my belief in God I was not personally playing a semantics game. I did struggle with the question at the time and I finally came to terms that I was going to adopt a model that I have been generally in agreement for quite some time. I quoted a lengthy section in the previous blog post from some of the Seth material about the God concept. I have to admit that I am rather unabashedly a New Ager. Yep, you caught me. I don't believe in material reality. Of course, last I checked, most guys into quantum physics don't believe in material reality either.

I do not believe that consciousness arises from and is merely an epiphenomenon of matter. Rather, I believe that matter is an epiphenomenon of consciousness. I believe that consciousness and matter are so intertwined, so entangled, that to attempt to separate the two is rather missing the point.

In short, I am a New Age mystic with strong leanings towards Zen Buddhism and Hindu beliefs. I believe in the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, the quantum uncertainty principle, the implicate and explicate order, and the relativistic reality of reality as experienced by each individual consciousness within Universe.

All that said, I feel completely comfortable saying a prayer to the Supreme Architect of the Universe as a self-aware, conscious, co-creator in the same.

If the point is that it is somehow ‘unfair’ to exclude self-proclaimed atheists from the club, well then so be it.

I struggled far more with the concept of ‘joining’ a club than I ever did dealing with the God concept. I have been, in the past, such a nonconformist that I took it to such an extent that I was contrary simply for the sake of being contrary. What brought me to my senses was the realization that I had just excluded myself from all beneficial life experiences that involved joining with a group of like minded individuals simply because I was trying to be contrary. I was such a non-conformist that I had become a conformist to the non-conformist lifestyle.

Upon examining the principles of Freemasonry and finding nothing within it that I found objectionable (and a great deal of things which matched my personal sense of morality quite closely) I decide I could join the organization. My experience has been almost entirely positive and I greatly enjoy the sense of fraternity and fellowship that I experience within the order.

I don’t even mind that it is, in a sense, exclusionary when the exclusions are limited to people of good character, who are well recommended, profess a belief in a higher power, and are generally interested in improving themselves as individuals and society as a whole. (Now, having said all that, I refuse to define myself simply by joining an institution. Were I to disband tomorrow I am commited that I would not lose the tiniest bit of idenity or loss in the process. I am only aligned with the organization so long as it is aligned with my personal beliefs. When those beliefs diverge is when I will happily disentangle myself from the Institution.)

Members are required to be tolerant in regards to the beliefs of others and expected to be of general service to mankind. If the only outstanding sticking point is that I have to be able to profess a belief in deity, verbalized in the generic fashion as ‘the Great Architect of the Universe’ I really don’t have a great struggle.

I struggled more strongly with the repeated references to the Old Testament in our ritualistic ceremony. And, no matter how many times your are told they are ‘purely symbolic’ the rational mind often objects. I have learned to view this internal objection like a Zen koan riddle that I must personally struggle with to break through to a greater truth. I chose a Western path to enlightenment because I consider myself a product of Western culture. Had I been born in the East I would almost for certain have been deeply enmeshed in Buddhism or Hinduism entirely.

I love the history of our Institution and the great strides it has made in advancing civilization over the years. I do often suspect that great truths have been lost as we find in history civilizations that operated peacefully for thousands of years while in this modern age we struggle to keep the peace for ten years at a time.

For those few remaining materialists in the world I only ask that you show me how to get rid of quantum entanglement without the aid of a conscious observer and I will relinquish myself to your machine.

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After making this post I received the following comment reply from BeagleFury that I would like to include here. I quote enjoyed Trent's response.
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BeagleFury wrote:

Nice post, John.

I agree that there are valid definitions of a god-like universe that are consistant with the term 'god'. Anyone who states that you can't be a theist unless you believe in a toga wearing guy with a long white beard, who had a kid and decided to kill him may have too narrow a definition of what it means to be a god.

Also -- many of your notions have always been a bit outside the mainstream or norm, John. I think you prefer it this way. :)

Anyway, given your list of religions, a thought just struck me. Can you be a spiritual atheist? I think the answer is yes. One can believe in the supernatural without believing in a god. So, maybe the question might be does the universe include a spiritual realm? The second question would be, does the universe include a god? Perhaps they should be separate questions, rather than a single one.

This relates to something Tom Accuosti quoted in a comment to the prior blog entry about believing in the architecture, more than the architect. Seems appropriate in that context.

P.S. The way you solve the conciousness quantum entanglement problem is to assert that our conscious minds are as much linked to the quantum wave as the particle is. I think it's likely that the quantum collapse is less a collapse and more a solution search for mathematical self-consistancy -- I guess this means I subscribe to the multi-universe model (But I don't really think of it as being multi-universe, rather, our consciousness is aware of an infinitely tiny aspect of the whole -- the mathematical chaos defined by the universe.)