John Leslie - Alternative Concepts of God?

Is God, if there is a God, a personal, conscious, all-powerful Supreme Being? Some offer radically different concepts of 'God', exploring novel ideas of what God may be like. They challenge theism—the God of Judaism, Christianity and Islam—with radically new kinds of gods. Is this 'heresy'? Or enlarging our vision of what the Ultimate can be like?



John Andrew Leslie is a Canadian philosopher who focuses on explaining the world’s existence. He is University Professor Emeritus at the University of Guelph, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.


Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[steveclark]

Excellent talk with a great finishing line. TY!

[gsmith]

I’m here because of the Webb telescope. And plus it’s a great channel with topics that just explode the mind! Love it!

[raycosmic]

God = Creative Intelligence.

Creative Intelligence is omnipresent. We are all It, to an unknowable/inexhaustible extent, as the facets of a Diamond are 'both' distinct from each other 'and' the Diamond itself.

Love is the recognition of our shared Being.

I am That I am = I am That which is.
I = which
Am = is

Absolute = all-inclusive.

The Universe is the body of the Absolute.

[terrlee]

Well, I'm agnostic and I personally think every religion (and therefore the Gods from said religions) are simply man-made. If a God (or some kind of creator) exists, then it would have nothing to do with the religions on Earth.

[grnDestiny]

This is my most interesting topic as not many people are able to think beyond god, science or reincarnation and I have a few theories that took years to figure out. Imagination is more important than knowledge. You should ask this to more people.

[AMorgan]

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

[anwaypradhan]

The concept of God, the concept of spiritualism, the concept of supernaturalism, the concept of divinity, the concept of dual thought or dualism is idealistic influenced from idealism which forms an utopian world. The alternative to idealism or the alternative to naturalism is materialism. Being materialistic, if we can analyse the past, if we can learn from past, we would come to know that in the process of creating god, humans became self-alienated and projected their virtues onto this abstraction of perfection. They created a God-centered universe where the alleged sinfulness and evil of humanity would be contrasted to and lay prostrate before this wondrous entity. Moreover, Oppression used as a tool of religion, society uses religion as a form of social control, people behave well not only out of fear of their friends and families disapproving but also out of the desire to remain in their god’s good graces. Many scientific philosophers around the world says religion has also been used as a tool to uphold social inequality, racial inequality portraying Jesus as being white, also slavery was a form of justification based on many texts from the Bible. The scripture of Genesis, for instance, the story of Cain and Abel in which God marked Cain for murdering his brother which was interpreted meaning it marked him as a sinner with darker skin. During apartheid Afrikaners were convinced that they should be the separation of races, each race should have their own land, white people minority having a big land, the black majority having less land, and they insisted that their policies were approved by God because they were grounded in the Bible scriptures. If we be much more realistic or better to say, if we be materialistically realistic then we can conclude that the ruling classes used religion to give false hope and comfort to the poor and strengthen and keep their power.
The poor used religion as a form of protest against their economic conditions, to aid them in their economic alienation.
In both cases, religion, at its core, was a projection. It was a false projection and illusion, which found its genesis in economic inequality and material suffering. Although dialectical materialist argue that the advent of atheistic social state would extinguish the need for this projection and the need for religion. If we be materialistic, we would find that, with the expansion of the universe, there is the development of ideas, thoughts and philosophies. Every day, there is the new theory formed to replace the existing reality which becomes the truth for the time being. If such theories influenced from the materialistic scientific philosophy replaces the idealistic utopian world becomes applicable in economic, social and cultural life of human beings benifitting human beings in every ways, through every means; then such theories influenced from materialistic scientific philosophy becomes the truth. Looking through the mirror of materialism developing into dialectical materialism, to end the alienation, to end human sufferings, to free humankind from the shackles of guilt and self-degradation, to free the human world from poverty, illiteracy and every socio-economic and cultural barriers the concept of supernatural power and supernatural virtual world must be destroyed in order to reclaim the virtues that humankind innocently surrendered to the notion of a supreme being. There must be a “human-centered” world which must be created where the power of human will influenced from materialistic views would overcome and master every obstacles and barriers and human beings would survive as the dominating species without being destructive towards nature rather maintaining ecological ballance by mastering their own destiny.

[ChuckBrowntheClown]

The I am, which shows his omnipresence. Always has been, always is, always will be.

[actuallynph]

Understanding god as a scientific minded person to me means collective intelligence, recursiveness and agency. You need to bring those together in your head and you’ll see something interesting emerge.

[mortimerhasbeengud]

It's good for everyone to share their thoughts on God. I'd prefer it if people read Leslie's books over the last 45 years to get an idea what he is talking about? You could then agree or disagree. Leslie did study some physics and corresponded with some of the 20th century's physicists to gain their views on the universe. Most (I think) will be pleased with his ideas.

[aminomar]

mentor and expand my horizons ! ultimate reality, .... !

[kallianpublico]

Alternative concepts of God necessarily involve alternative concepts of being.
Who was the God of the people that sacrificed animals? Who was the God of the Aztecs? Who is the God of genetic manipulation? Who is the God of nuclear power? Who is the God of capitalism? The God of gays, Trans, racists?
Every type of Being requires a sustaining social network and natural environment. There are prerequisites to being. You cannot act like a Christian without knowing the Golden rule. Even with the political tides against you, you can be a Christian.
What then do you need to know to be, act, like a Democrat? A capitalist, a socialist, etcetera? Is there a social and natural environment that allows you to be, or does survival of the fittest come into play?
Certainly Christians can be forced to accept gay marriage, but does that no longer make them Christian? Being in the world with others necessarily entails sacrifice, but it also requires conviction. The God of sacrifice and conviction is one being. How that being acts entails a reckoning with suicide. Do we possess the courage and faith to accept our own torture and murder? Or do we fight? How do we judge? By political, religious or ad hoc standards?
We act by knowledge, will or ignorance. In which is God more present? Does God honor the blood of the martyr more than the blood of the soldier?
What's the difference between a martyr and a suicide? A soldier and a suicide? Courage or despair? Fear or abandon? Or is it just P.R., public relations?

[MrSanford]

I believe God exists Simply in belief and faith which, those phenomenon being real in and of themselves-doesn’t discount his existence in that realness. He is the catalyst of human consciousness

[russellbarndt]

These are many if not most of my thoughts and questions over 35 years starting out with "the Born again" experience in evangelical Christianity from 19 years old to 25 with years of age. Then reading and studying all the seemly different concepts to question a possible spirit realm outside our know material world. Now at 59 a solid Taoist accepting a simpler view of an unarmed creative force of nature allowing a consciousness to see virtue as a natural way to view or respond once born into the knowledge of a universe and to know that conscious knowledge will stop just as it started - with breath then no breath. Death completes Birth no consciousness god needed only virtue in return for the experience in view of nature being balanced. Now after that I feel our consciousness bleeds out into light as " it" runs empty of what ever Brain and Mind (mind being conceptual thinking) provides for us to know about while breathing....

[jamesruscheinski]

Is it possible to go beyond mathematics? What might mathematical principles say about existence?

[divertissementmonas]

John Leslie ought to realize that it wouldn't have mattered if Aquinas had lived longer. He put down his pen on the 6th December 1273 and said "I can not; such things have been revealed to me that all that I have written seems to me as so much straw." Aquinas had what can be called 'tacit knowledge' and what he certainly knew could not be explained to any one else. Like John Leslie, I appreciate Aquinas...

[cvsree]

We don't need any alternative concept of God

God is defined as Consciousness that drives all life

Our mind is a lower form if consciousness. Yoga says, when we surrender our mind to higher consciousness, we realise God

[Gollapudi]

If God does exist who created him!? . I still believe in God but this question is just another crazy question when we question the universe.

[mrshankerbillletmein]

Only if God reveals Himself can anything be known of Him I think.

[JustAThought]

Universal God:

My thought: God is our explanation for the causation of reality.

Since we do exist in our reality and God is our vision for the creation of reality, then God does exist. We just do not have knowledge of the nature of God.