Religion
The most important thing to understand in this conception of god is its non-sentience. If this is true, that god does not “think” but merely is, what does this imply concerning the recognition of god? What is prayer in a world without a being to pray to?
In truth, I believe that prayer does work. There are scientific studies that show that if one prays for someone, that person has, for instance, a better chance to recover from what ails them. How can this be, if there is not a being who can cure?
Given my conception of god, the answer is that, what one is doing when they pray is focusing their energy towards what they are praying to. Though the infinite fractal that is the universe, that person’s energy somehow influences the chaotic structure to help that person whom the first is praying for. Thus, by focusing on helping another, one can heal simply by manipulating the grand fractal of the universe.
Prayer, meditation, and spiritual focus are a mainstay of most spiritual systems. Logically, why would this be true if there was no reason for it? One answer would be that it is in our genetic makeup to feel an urge to pray. If this were true, though, why don’t dogs pray? Of course, perhaps they do and we simply don’t know about it, but it seems that only humans are capable of requesting help of a higher being or power. Thus, unless the cat while disappeared from sight is secretly meditating for the health of the next door friend cat, only conscious beings can focus is such a way. It is unlikely, then, that humans possess a special gene that allows us only to feel a desire to ask for spiritual help. If is not genes, then it must be something within our consciousness that can see the benefit of prayer.
What can we see that allows for prayer? The theist would state that it is god we see and thus we pray. The only argument that many of my Christian friends would espouse as to why they believed in god is that they have “felt” him. However, an equally valid response to this is that they have felt something. There does not need to be a “him (or her)” in this equation.
I think I wrote this as an inspired(?), probably drunk, addition to Life, the Universe, and Everything.