I thought they were "only" 33 000 000 … imagine them having a convention … the registration process would take for ever.

@PontifexMarximus
It is a free agency. You can imagine, invent and launch a new God any day in Hinduism. How big, how popular will depend on your resources... money, connections, power..

@St-Sinner I wouldn't be able to keep up with the artwork. These gods are really funky. They get a job in Bollywood with audition any time.

@PontifexMarximus
Correct
Literally speaking, every 3 people (in the 1.2 billion) have one God in India

@St-Sinner Reminds me … I should read Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things

@PontifexMarximus
She is sooooo very good.

@SukantoSirkar You should read the story of Félix d’Hérelle. [de.wikipedia.org]
This guy had faith, blind faith. The sort of faith I like.

or she or it

God to me is the energy of the Sun - that's what really created life on earth.

@SukantoSirkar what is your feeling about the Brahman concept?

@SukantoSirkar I’ve never thought much of the soul concept as presented by traditional Christianity. The question in my mind is “Who or what is it that has a soul?” It would make more sense to say that the body is under observation and supervision by conscious awareness. I engage in these intuitive speculations only because I see no way that conscious awareness could spring from a mass of cells, no matter how many neurons are firing. It follows that our personal identity as a body, along with the physical universe of our perception is an illusion. Those ancient Indian sages were pretty astute IMO. The same idea has been espoused by various eminent physicists.

I personally do not think in terms of magic or the supernatural. Everything is natural but we can not truly understand nature with our symbolic model of matter moving through space and time. The implications of existence are absolutely staggering when met head-on without blinders. Faith in science is a blinder. Fantasizing about gods and goddesses is a blinder. Rote belief in scripture is a blinder.

Maybe humanity sometimes needs a mental blinder in the same way it needs sunglasses. It’s easy to see the blinders worn by others, but maybe we ourselves are wearing blinders and don’t even know it.

@SukantoSirkar There is no scientific proof that deep conscious awareness arises from the body, and no one alive has the slightest understanding as to how such a thing could happen. It’s not called the “hard problem” for nothing. Saying that conscious awareness evolved explains nothing. The crucial point is that no one knows what it IS.

I agree that the concept of universal consciousness has not been established as truth by science, and it might never be. It is however a valid area for metaphysical speculation. Many of the most creative and celebrated physicists have espoused the concept.

I’ve never heard about some greater consciousness fueling lesser consciousnesses. There is just consciousness period, the same for everyone at all times.

@SukantoSirkar You have not explained what consciousness is or how it works. Your description is circular. No one alive knows.

[consc.net]

[bigthink.com]

You are mixing together bodily sentience and deep conscious awareness. They are different. A robot can be made sentient by giving it detectors for seeing, hearing, etc. A robot can be switched off or disassembled and it loses its sentience, just as does an organic body. A robot however does not, can not, and probably will never have deep conscious awareness, no matter how many switches are turned on and off. Conscious awareness can not be defined or measured—it can only be experienced.

Here are some opinions from some of the greatest scientists who ever lived:

Max Planck said in 1944, "As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter".

"Nobel Prize–winning physicist Eugene Wigner says that “the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is an ultimate reality.”" from "Mind to Matter: The Astonishing Science of How Your Brain Creates Material Reality" by Dawson Church, Dr. Joe Dispenza

Edwin Schrodinger:

“Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else”.

Sir Arthur Eddington:

“The universe is of the nature of a thought or sensation in a universal Mind... To put the conclusion crudely — the stuff of the world is mind-stuff.

“We are no longer tempted to condemn the spiritual aspects of our nature as illusory because of their lack of concreteness.

“The scientific answer is relevant so far as concerns the sense-impressions... For the rest the human spirit must turn to the unseen world to which it itself belongs.”