(( Completely unrelated, but I have another interpretation of Global Warming. It's not a new one, but here you go: The Earth has a fever. Think about it, what do human bodies do when infected by a destructive, malicious, and mindless threat? They burn it the f*** up. Earth, as a whole, may well realize that as the only confirmed living planet it has a duty to preserve life by destroying the biggest threat to it. Eh, even if it's BS, it's fun to think. ))
I like this interpretation. Anything that involves celestial sentience is something I support.
Yes. It wouldn't even have to necessarially involve Earth being sentient, it could just be combined natural instinct. ( Though as a supporter of Intelligent Design, I prefer the idea of celestial sentience too. )
Well, if I were to make a comparison between sentiences and computer languages... Particularly hierarchy of level. Us young mortal creatures, we are relatively quite far removed from the essence of the Universe itself ((although then you factor in astral projection... don't get me started on that)) and we can only really comprehend our own sentience, and perhaps "sentiences" we create, and maybe the sentiences of other creatures. But planets would be a lower level, closer to the Universe's essence, and possess a kind of sentience incomprehensible to us, and stars perhaps at a lower level. Then you move to larger scales of nebulae ((my first thoughts on celestial sentience were nebula-based)) and galaxies, then clusters and superclusters, while also ((or alternatively)) moving to smaller scales of molecules and atoms -- the assembly code and binary trinary digits of our Universe.
Also, I'd really like to see how something like THIS ticks, if indeed celestial sentience is true. To be entirely honest, if we're searching for deities I say we look there.
Yeah, I suppose... There's always the notion that the universe runs on a higher level but I guess past a certain point human reasoning fails and any argument over descriptors becomes mere semantics. (( As per astral projection, I don't think human methods of it, ie the ones reported and purported by various "paranormal investigators", are legitimate/real/true/whatever term you want to use for the opposite of a lie. Do I think it's possible? Well, that heavily depends on what we're referring to as astral projection. To me, that implies a "ventriloquism of conscious" in which one is able to displace one's consciousness from their body without doing so completely (ie without dying/leaving behind a brain-dead body) and then, do the even more improbable tasks of manifesting that consciousness in any form tangible or ethereal
and being able to perceive things from said form. I simply think it's out of the realm of human ability, especially these days. If it existed prior in history, I cannot with any certainty confirm or deny, but I can say that no recent (past 4 centuries or so) account seems to stand up to scrutiny or else simply lacks evidence.))
Meh. There's nothing so far that, to my comprehension, explicitly suggests that the Creator/Designer of the Universe exists
within it. ( Personally, I feel that it's the opposite... but there's multiple fields of study and multiple viewpoints, likely as not we're not gonna know. To elaborate, because I feel I should though, I think the universe exists within the imaginative consciousness of an intelligent and creative being who may or may not be all that ever exists, and that God as we think of him is simply his manifestation within his consciousness, for the purpose of communication/direct interaction with his creations. I can't argue this, don't have the idea fully figured out, and don't expect much agreement. Whether God is the demiurge, the chaos, both, or neither ( or something that doesn't fit in or is some combination of all the prior options) is all a mystery to me, but ultimately, from my perspective, it doesn't matter because all would result in no observable difference in the universe as it is. )
However, there could be a whole bunch of fascinating stuff that would make scientists explode from the sheer amount of
GLORIOUS DATA. ( As an additional note,
this XKCD comic, which quite adequately makes my next point:
http://xkcd.com/638/ Even if we were to find evidence of God, we might not perceive that we had, and barring evidence in the ways we expect, many stop searching. And here's where I go back to theist ideology: I think that any interaction between man and God is at his discretion and it is up to his will whether or not we can understand it. I think he has, very many times, communicated with mankind - or various members thereof- in ways we
do understand and we can only take on faith what we know. That's with all knowledge though and still no reason to stop trying to find things out, but you know that don't you? :p )