The God Question, a TV series bringing together world renowned contributors on both sides of the debate on God and science, explores the question of whether there is design evident in the universe.
The series, a Scottish venture that promises to reach 170 million potential viewers internationally, features figures of note in the intelligent design community, including Stephen Meyer, Douglas Axe, Bill Dembski, John Lennox, Steve Fuller, and Denyse O’Leary. It also includes thinkers on the other side of the debate, such as Peter Atkins, Michael Ruse, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and many others. Theistic evolutionists including Denis Alexander, Francis Collins, and Ken Miller also star. For a complete list of contributors, see here.
Divided into three programs, dealing with “The Cosmos,” “Life and Evolution,” and “Mind and Consciousness,” the series is spectacularly produced and commendably provides a fair and balanced discussion of the issues it unpacks.
Wherever you currently stand on “The God Question” or the question of evolution and design, you will find this TV series intellectually stimulating and challenging. Note too that it has now been produced as a DVD (which you can purchase here) and comes with a companion study guide for small group discussion.
One religion says that the God is awareness. Another
religion says that God is all pervading cosmic energy. Another religion says
that God is light and another religion says that God is fire etc. Like this,
different created items of this universe were taken as the basic real God.
Hence quarrels started, which were intensified by debates. People sitting
before a dining table are quarrelling with each other since one says that the
vessel is gold, another says that the plate is gold, another says that the
spoon is gold and another says that the tumbler is gold. This quarrel will
never end because no item on the dining table is gold! Everyone is treating a
particular item as gold. Treating an item as gold is totally different from the
actual item to be gold.
Similarly, the reality is that God is unimaginable,
who is beyond this imaginable universe. The simple reason for this is that the
universe is fundamentally constituted of space or volume, which is the basic
subtle energy and God is beyond the space since God has no dimensions. Now you
can treat any meritorious item of the creation as God based on the merits liked
by you neglecting the defects. The awareness is not God because it is not all
pervading. The cosmic energy is not God because it is inert. The light and fire
also cannot be God for the same reason that they are inert. But any of these
items can be treated as God for the sake of meditation and worship.
Such worship is
called as the worship of representative model (Pratika Upasana). The direct
worship (Sakshat Upasana) is also possible when God enters a human being to
give right direction through propagation of right spiritual knowledge. In such
case also, every such human being is God and the unimaginable God exists in
such every human being. The human being is only the medium of God, but such
charged human being can be treated as real God like the electrified wire being
treated as the electricity itself.
Hence Krishna,
Buddha, Jesus, Mohammad etc becomes God and there need not be any quarrel in
this point also for the sake of world peace based on the harmony of religions.
This fundamental concept is revealed since simultaneously it is fortunate that
today there is confidence on the receiving power of the stable and steady
scientific analysis of human beings.
God exists at the
boundary of universe
Unimaginable boundary
of the universe is the proof of God
Today, the logical analysis is not only sharp but also
steady due to experimental verification of every concept. The receiving nature
of the people is quite stable due to the scientific analysis. People are not
fast in applying the theoretical tautology to arrive at hasty conclusions. In
view of the stability of the phase of intelligence, the projection of the real
unimaginable nature of God will not face the danger of non-existence. The
scientist may not believe any miracle and may say that nothing is unimaginable.
But the scientist must accept the unimaginable boundary of the universe.
The scientist may argue like this:- “When the universe
is imaginable made of imaginable cosmic energy as the fundamental cause, how
can you say that the boundary of the universe is unimaginable? Just like the
ocean is water, the boundary of the ocean must be also be the same water.
Hence, the boundary of the imaginable universe must be also imaginable”. This
type of argument is not acceptable if you analyze the subtle point of the
boundary. When you reach the edge of the ocean and stand on it, you must find
water on one side and the land, which is not water on the other side. The
knowledge of both water and land is necessary to fix the boundary of the ocean.
Land is not water. If land is also water, then the boundary of the ocean is not
achieved. Similarly, when you reach the boundary of the imaginable universe,
you must perceive the imaginable nature of the universe on one side and the
unimaginable nature on the other side. If the unimaginable nature is also
imaginable, then the boundary of imaginable nature is not achieved.
When the unimaginable nature cannot be imagined by
your intelligence, it means you have never reached the boundary of the imaginable
universe. Unless you perceive both imaginable and unimaginable natures, the
boundary of the imaginable nature is not achieved. Hence the boundary of the
universe is always unimaginable from the other side. Some scientists say that
the diameter of the universe is 200 billion light years.
Another scientist laughed at this by asking that if he
travels all this diameter and reach the compound wall of universe, what is
present beyond such compound wall? One scientist says that the universe is
constantly expanding! This is again a laughable concept since it finally means
that you can never achieve the boundary of the universe. Hence, by all means
the scientist has to accept the existence of the unimaginable entity, which is
the other side of the boundary of the universe. It is not the boundary if the
other side is not achieved. The scientist has stable and steady intelligence to
realize the truth in this argument unlike a theoretical ancient tautologist.
The unimaginable item, which is beyond the boundary of this imaginable universe
is called as God.
When this
universe is projected from God, you will touch God on reaching the edge of the
universe. You can never touch God since He is unimaginable. It means that you
can never reach the boundary of this universe. Today this fundamental concept
is revealed due to confidence on the stable and steady analytical faculty of
real scientists. Ofcourse, foolish conservative scientists also exist even
today in small number and this is inevitable at any time. Moreover, today there
is lot of demand for the revelation of this basic concept in view of the
violent terrorism that arose from the differences between the religions.
Why unimaginability of
God is not stressed earlier
The real and absolute nature of God is unimaginable.
The previous preachers know this point very well since they performed several
miracles, which were unimaginable events only. The miracles stand as practical
proof for the existence of unimaginable entity that performs the unimaginable
events. When the preachers were performing so many miracles, can’t they know
the existence of unimaginable item?. It is very simple and no effort is
necessary for the performer of the miracles to understand the existence of unimaginable
entity and to propagate the same concept. In such case, why the preachers did
not say that God is unimaginable?
There may be difficulty to believe this concept by
looking at others performing the miracles. But there should be no trace of difficulty
of the performer himself to understand this concept, which is demonstrated by
himself. Even demons performed miracles, but they were unable to grasp the
concept due to their devilish nature of ignorance. Thus, demons can be excused
but not the intellectual preachers in revealing this concept. There must be
some strong reason for the preachers in not revealing this concept inspite of
the demonstration by themselves. Such strong reason is that the intellectual
level of ancient people was simply constituted by the conclusions of
theoretical logic exercised through debates and discussions only. There was no
experimental phase to arrive at steady conclusions. Today, lot of practical
evidence is required to contradict any concept. In the ancient times mere sharp
logic was sufficient to contradict the concept.
There was no steadiness in the establishment of the
concept and the fate of the concept was depending on simply the intellectual
sharpness of anybody. In such time, if God was declared as unimaginable, the
immediate danger was the possibility of non-existence of the unimaginable
items. In such case, the very basic existence of God becomes critical to be
believed. In fact, before the arrival of Shankara the fast logic of
intelligence ended in the final conclusion that everything is unreal including
God. The theory of relativity was applied to every item of the creation with
high speed. At any step, the cause is real and the product is unreal since the
reality of the product is based on the reality of the cause. But the cause
itself is the product of another cause.
This analysis
went on ad-infinitum and the final conclusion was that everything is unreal
(Shunyavada of Buddhists). In such situation, if you say that the ultimate
cause is unimaginable, people would just laugh at it by saying that the
unimaginable ultimate cause must be disposed more conveniently as unreal. The
word ‘unimaginable’ indirectly means negation of a logical answer. With this
fear, Shankara proposed God as pure awareness having no attributes (Nirguna).
Later on Ramanuja and Madhva also proposed God as awareness with attributes as
qualified (Saguna). This difference is
immaterial because the basically real unimaginable God was not projected. Only
mediated God was presented, who was the awareness charged by unimaginable God.
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