Many near death experiences include encounters with God, Jesus, beings of light, etc. For this reason, I don't believe it's possible to remove God. All we can really say is that, from the NDE literature, there is very little evidence of a wrathful old testament God that punishes.
All I really want is a name change. The word 'God' is hopelessly bound to an idea that isn't what you are talking about. That idea has enormous pull, and anyone in the West who talks about 'God' is likely to get understood as talking about the traditional Christian God.
There is evidence that many atheists go to heaven and some Christians and atheists get a little bit too close to hell, to close for comfort. That really implies that a few people have to change their evil ways.
If you mean hellish NDE's, I understand that studies don't show any indication that these happen to 'bad' people.Of course, you can assume their evil is somehow concealed, but there are obvious alternative explanations for hellish NDE's.
Given the failure of physicists to explain how the laws of physics were created or how the physics constants are set, and given that God continues to make appearances, there is no reason to dismiss God.
Again, this is a semantic issue. The 'God' of the Bible has (and still does) fueled enormous cruelty,
we really need a new word.
The idea that we are separate entities from God, or each other, flies in the face of NDE research and also doesn't sit well quantum physics, quantum entanglement and quantum field theory. I maintain my position that we are all part of God akin to individual senses of the Creator. That would reaffirm that God an Infinite Intelligence, Infinite consciousness that is irreducible. By irreducible, I mean that God is infinite consciousness, that consciousness cannot be created without a soul, a soul is always part of God. It would mean that each of us is a tiny spark of the divine Creator.
I am very cautious about using religious language. Part of the problem is that it always sounds as if we know far more than we really do. I mean, we don't know for sure that the community of coupled conscious entities that you like to call 'God' actually exists - though I agree the evidence does point that way. We certainly don't know if it is infinite, nor do we know what a soul is, unless we understand it as simply a disembodied mind.
I used to have a materialistic POV, and one of the big problems with that - as exemplified by the podcast - is that people assume they know far more than they really do - I suspect this may also be a problem nowadays with science generally. Therefore, I am reluctant to see us fall into the same trap with a new understanding of reality.
If I am right in describing a spirit as having qualities similar to a quantum field, that quantum field can be trapped in a potential energy well, then it would mean that we simply have to locate possible potential energy wells in the cells of the living organism in order to figure out how the spirit connects to the physical body. When we die and our spirit leaves the body, the particle component drops away leaving only the quantum field, which is traditionally referred to as the spirit or the soul. Only then do we become unified.
I am very cautious about connecting anything spiritual with physics. Quantum mechanics and quantum fields follow strict mathematical laws, with a random component thrown in. In that sense, they are mechanistic. To me, there is nothing mind-like about mechanism, and indeed materialism is endlessly stuck because it wants to explain consciousness mechanistically, but that doesn't make sense.
I agree, it is tempting to think that QM has something important to tell us about the relationship between mind and matter, but I don't think it is at all obvious. Remember that the quantum field that describes the particles of our bodies, continues to describe those particles after a person becomes a corpse! The idea of the quantum field just flying away after death doesn't fit with physics. Indeed, the concept of the quantum field applies to all matter, dead or alive.
I am a great believer in keeping a very open mind about all this!
David