Has anyone heard about or read about his article called "Which is real? The Moon or God?" Here's the link:

Deepak Chopra: Which Is Real, the Moon or God?

I'd like to hear people's thoughts on this. I wasn't exactly sure where to put this thread, so here it is.

Let me know what you think about this!

I really like your reasoning, kennethamy! I'm wondering: is Chopra just trying very hard to rationalize his belief in god or a "higher consciousness" (and if so, is he wrong in that belief) or is he merely taking the wrong approach to his overall belief in god and should he be seeing it differently (in your opinion, of course)

Anyone else, jump in, please! I want to know what everyone is thinking about this!

That excerpt from the wikipedia article was interesting! Granted, wikipedia should sometimes be taken with a grain of salt, but in watching the Nightline debate between Chopra/Houston and Harris/Shermer, I am not very surprised that Chopra has been confronted by both the scientific and the religious community as someone who's views are rather... unorthodox and even unreasonable. I think Chopra, like many people who's ideas are generally viewed as lunacy has some valid points sprinkled in his views, but it seems to me, that he is confused, as kennethamy has said.

In the Nightline Face-off of "Does Satan Exist" (if you haven't seen it, youtube that right now, it's very interesting), Chopra says that belief is the mark of insecurity. This is brilliantly countered by a man in the audience who simply says "do you believe that?" and Chopra answers "yes" and the man says "Thank you" and sits down. Chopra seems to have taken an idea he had about spirituality and science and ran with it without some clear, concise thinking about what exactly he is preaching. Watch the Nightline Face-Off video and if you haven't seen the "Does God Have a Future" face-off versus Sam Harris and Michael Shermer, watch that as well. There are definitely some interesting ideas being talked about there.

That article was sent to me by someone who I hold a lot of respect for so I read it and watched the video, and I just wanted to hear other people's take on it. And I posted it just to start a conversation, really. Plus, the Nightline Face-off interested me, mainly because I like a lot of Sam Harris's work and ideas.

Well, I was, but what I meant was that the only reason that I paid any attention to the Nightline Faceoff, specifically was because of Sam Harris. The article and this post was intentionally and originally about Chopra's ideas and people's opinions about them. You're right though, he really shouldn't be taken seriously. I just wanted to start a conversation, really. I'm new to this website and wanted to start off with something.

YouTube - ABC Nightline Debate Commentary - Does God Have a Future?

here is a decent review of the ABC nightline debate(mentioned in the article).....at least from a Christian perspective

I don't give Veritas all that much credence because he is constantly dishonest and ignores corrections that are given to him. He will ask atheists questions and once they respond he pretends as if he got no responses. Then if he does respond to any they are only to those atheists who are complete morons.

I have watched almost all of his videos and he makes the same mistakes that ever apologetic makes and then some. He wants to make it seem like his channel is about some theistic / atheistic debate but it's really not.

As far as that video goes, abc doesn't actually care about the debate either, they just want to stir people up so they can sell ads.

I gotcha. I do, however, have a question that I just thought about. Chopra's concept of consciousness creating reality, or the idea that for the moon to exist, there has to be a consciousness to perceive it (as silly as it sounds) would make an argument for the existence of a universal, omni-present and time/space transcendent consciousness (or god) because, although humanity hasn't been around for long enough to make this true, that kind of consciousness could manifest these "events in consciousness" that Chopra talks about. Perhaps our consciousness wasn't the one that brought about the existence of the moon or the universe or the Earth itself (at least according to Chopra's views). He claims that for any physical object to exist in space, a consciousness has to perceive it, not that OUR consciousness has to perceive it.

His ideas make sense, but only if a higher consciousness/god figure exists...

Is that right?

Why would it be that God's consciousness creates the Moon? I understand that no more than I understand how Man's consciousness creates the Moon.

Well, according to Chopra, particles that make up the universe (he uses the example of the moon) are "only a superposition of possibility waves until a non-material observer causes them to collapse from one state, a wave, into another, a particle." He says that there needs to be an observer for there to be perceivable objects. Now, as crazy as that sounds, IF that "observer effect" had a shred of truth (hypothetically), then for the universe to exist at all, there had to have been an observer since the exact moment that the universe was created and Chopra calls that observer "god".

To be clear, I don't believe a word this man says. I just think it's interesting that he's been able to justify his belief in god with quantum physics... That's not generally a rationalization that theists use in their argument for the existence of god, so naturally I want to hear other people's opinions about it.