Good input. Thanks.
I believe in God , first because existence organizes. Nothing tends inertially "toward" disorganization. Even chaos at the quantum level must sum to coherent states for anything to exist. Even illusion. As with Einstein's famous dictum: "The incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it's comprehensible."
This organizational tendency of the "known" universe extends to the human mind, which - being in, and as much a part of the universe as anything else - derives "meaning" from "information" that it abstracts from its environment: "Let us make man in our image...." as if Genesis were a pact?
Organization and its antithesis. Good and evil.
That the laws of phyisics are "statistical" in nature.... Number: Invention, or discovery?
And although it appears to be largely politically inspired, as you've made reference to, and cannot necessarily be viewed as entirely historical, I yet believe in The Bible as an ethics platform because it attests to the most effective human endeavor yet to realize God.
Society needs standards which are not relative. The Ten Commandments cohere in this rolewell.
Finally, I believe that Judeo-Christian civilization - particularly as embodied in America - is, despite its human imperfections, yet the greatest force for good on Earth. Hence I believe in the God of Abraham, Issac and Israel.
Thank you for your post. It was illuminating to see what guides your thoughts.
It is the deepest, deepest mystery to me that there is anything here at all. Yes, physicists hypothesize that the universe came from a random quantum fluxuation such that the net energy of the universe is zero, with no violation of conservation laws. But what caused the rules of the universe to exist such that a random quantum fluxuation was even possible?
The notion of a first cause is meaningless to me, because the question of why there was a first cause at all can always be asked, as can the question of why the first cause had such characteristics that it produced this particular universe. In your language, what series of events gave God the power to organize?
I have not turned to God as an answer to this mystery. I don't know why. I guess that solution just does not present itself to me as one that will organize my life any better than it is already organized. It is not useful to me.
As far as society needing standards that are not relative, I cannot even conceive of a "standard" that is not relative to at least one subjectivity. The question then becomes why that subjectivity chose that morality and what is inherent in that morality that it compels agreement by all subjectivities. Is there a rule that transceneds even God that says: "The Rules of God, however they may be at any particular time, are the Rules that ever conscious existent in the Universe is morally compelled to follow?" If the answer to that question is yes, where did that standard come from, since it is independent of God? If the answer is no, then that makes the Rules of God no better or worse than the Rules of any one of us.
I, too, believe that America is a great force of how I see Good in the world, but I am under no illusion that my belief on this matter is divorced from the fact that I grew up in America.