Magikal Sky Daddy
I believe we should consider another definition of "God" other than the definition that seems to be prevalent of "Magic sky person".
The Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe is way beyond my full comprehension, but it's creator made a verbal statement on God that I interpreted essentially as this:
God is everything in existence, including any potential.
The full CTMU is linked in this article, and the article tries to explain the theory.
https://medium.com/@variantofone/explaining-the-ctmu-cognitive-theoretic-model-of-the-universe-163a89fc5841
The Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe is way beyond my full comprehension, but it's creator made a verbal statement on God that I interpreted essentially as this:
God is everything in existence, including any potential.
The full CTMU is linked in this article, and the article tries to explain the theory.
https://medium.com/@variantofone/explaining-the-ctmu-cognitive-theoretic-model-of-the-universe-163a89fc5841
Comments (106)
Then perhaps we should not try to address Her as though she has 'scientific' existence? God exists; Harry Potter exists; Judi Dench exists. But not all in the same way, and definitely not all in the literal sense of a simple dictionary definition. Words are ambiguous; they carry multiple meanings (sometimes connected; sometimes not). I suggest that a definition of God is not a useful thing to pursue. :chin:
We can change the word from "God" to "Reality" and reap the same responsibility.
If you've got a new concept to reference, you need a new name to do so with. 'God' is already taken, why re-use it here?
Are we meant to observe reality and to become more intelligent in order to strengthen our ability to report the nature of reality back to it's existence and "Strengthen the brain of reality",or no?
Then it would not be a god.
?r?d??f?n/Submit
verb
define again or differently.
No... I just made a ridiculous name and everyone has dismissed the theory completely with no reference to it what so ever.
As to why very smart members like Streetlight are quick to dismiss or ignore the sort of discussion you want about religion, I think there's a mix of reasons. (a) This forum is rife with people aggressively justifying their religious convictions with shoddy arguments and it gets tiring; (b) Philosophy of Religion has historically been a hotbed of really bad philosophizing and so people tend to start thinking about it derisively; (c) The two most absurdly dry and pedantic areas of philosophy at the moment are ethics and religion. The arguments being produced in these areas often take the form of frustrating self-righteousness and imperatives about how everyone else in philosophy should think and behave, and this tends to breed some contempt and wilful ignorance about contemporary work in these areas. It can get painfully boring and obnoxious to put in the energy necessary to talk deeply about these things--you have yourself admitted you don't have a very good grasp of the theory addressed in the OP.
I suppose I can accept that the conversation is exhausting. It's still important to me, and I feel like the information is useful, however I suppose I can't just get my hopes up that anyone will be willing to discuss anything anytime.
Perhaps we should say about any definition ever that the term in question "could be" something, instead of saying that it "is" something, but when I say something "is" something it's by means of current understandings of the term in question, not by means of what is true, 100% perfect understanding in some sort of "divine" sense of it.
Of course we don't have a perfect definition, that is why I'm aiming at one in the first place, but we don't get to opt out of observation simply because we only comprehend reality in the state that we are currently in. If definition is pointless then there is no point to learning anything and our entire existence is a complete misinterpretation that serves no purpose at all.
Many of us grew up in the fading age of the triple-decker universe: heaven up there, hell down there, earth in between. God was definitely Big Daddy. All this was very old school.
The Sky God was apparently a creator apart from his creation. God made the cosmos; did God then inhabit the cosmos, or did God exist outside the cosmos? Well, damned if I know. But that is one of the questions.
Another question which I am damned if I know or not is this: Is God co-terminus with the cosmos? God is everywhere the cosmos is. How big is God? As big as the Cosmos. How old is God? As long as time. ("Time is the magic length of God" Buffy St. Marie sang... "God is alive, magic is afoot...").
If God is coextensive with the material universe, is even one with the material universe yet more than a mere god of rocks, trees, hills, and rivers), is that consistent with OT/NT beliefs about God?
In one interpretation of the Gospel story of Jesus' birth, the Great God of heaven lay in a manger. God became Jesus. What about mein Gott in Himmel? if God lies in a manger, in flesh now appearing, then heaven must be empty. God gave up godhood to become human. Jesus wasn't a small graft of got inserted in the BVM by the Archangel. Jesus was God, lock stock and barrel.
This God, formerly sky god, Big Daddy, formerly coterminous with creation, etc. etc. etc., reduced himself to the most ungodly existence of humanity. This God, formerly immortal, invincible, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, omni-everything else, cashed it all in on behalf of humanity. Christ wasn't an affordable sacrifice of an offshoot of Jesse's Branch -- the death of Christ was the death of the whole kit and caboodle.
Now we have an invisible God spread over the earth who lacks the power and glory of heaven. God with us.
You like that version, Lif3r?
What do you prefer? God in the material world, or absent?
Take your pick. You're as qualified to edit God's profile as anybody else is.
(Then there's 'Jehovah', which sounds similar but is actually from a completely different source. That name originated in the Tetragrammaton of ancient Israel, which was a name constructed entirely of the consonants YHWH. This name was literally unpronounceable, or un-sayable - which was the point! The whole purpose was to avoid the profaning of the sacred name by enabling it to be casually spoken. The Wikipedia article notes that 'Religiously observant Jews and those who follow Talmudic Jewish traditions do not pronounce ?????, nor do they read aloud transliterated forms such as "Yahweh"; instead the word is substituted with a different term, whether used to address or to refer to the God of Israel. Common substitutions for Hebrew forms are hakadosh baruch hu ("The Holy One, Blessed Be He"), Adonai ("The Lord"), or HaShem ("The Name").)
But in any case, for our purposes here, I think that in popular culture, both 'Jupiter' (and even 'Jehovah') correspond with what many will take to be the meaning of the term 'deity' as a 'sky-father'. I don't want to disparage religious believers or put them down for that, as that is the level on which they understand it.
But if you study comparative religion, you will find that it contains many very different perspectives on the 'nature of the holy'. After all, the Greek philosophers concepts of the 'first cause' or 'demiurgus' or 'One' were never depicted as persons. But many of those ideas were synthesized into theology by providing a coherent philosophical account of the Divine very early in the Christian era, giving rise to different and sometimes even contradictory layers of meaning in Christianity itself.
I glanced at the CTMU article, and also looked up the author entry on Wikipedia. There are other, comparable ideas floating around the noosphere, like Robert Lanza's 'Biocentrism' and Bernard Haisch' 'God Theory', both by scientifically-educated but also (let's say) highly imaginative authors. Contrary to the wishes and hopes of the 'new atheists', religious ideas are not simply going to curl up and die in the light of scientific scrutiny, but will continue to be reborn in new cultural and symbolic guises.
Why is it important? If we call The CTMU theory 'God', what is it you're hoping will happen that will be beneficial? Your explanation here is limited, but my understanding of "... to further understand the difference between the current social dogmatic approach it'self and the nature of the "omnipresence" it references." is that you're suggesting that this CTMU theory might be what religions were getting at all along and if they could agree then that would remove some of the harms caused by religious dogma. Is that something like what you're saying here?
If so, then I think you have a very generous and unjustifiably homogeneous view of religion. I think that the history of religious war and persecution shows us quite terrifyingly clearly that getting to the core of what all religions might have in common is very much not the point of religion.
So the problem is at best you have have come across an interesting idea which is sufficiently well thought out that it could be the case, but since you have no way of demonstrating that it is more likely to be the case than any other competing idea, nor any argument that things would be better if we acted as if it were the case, then there's no discussion to be had really. It's like so many of these extremely speculative metaphysical theories, the only real response is "yeah... maybe..."
I read a bit about the CTMU theory, and mostly it's gibberish with words like "cognition" and "reflexive" generously mixed together in a rather sloppy bouquet of self-congratulatory pseudo-scientific quasi-philosophical righteousness. (if you think that sentence is verbose, try reading Chris Langan directly.
I think what he attempts to explain is quite interesting (the emergence of complexity) but he just gets lost in his own presumptions and offers nothing testable or of substance. One comes away from CTMU with the impression that the universe is itself capable of cognition and that it interacts with our own cognitive minds...
Here he's half right: our cognitive minds interact with the universe ("objective reality"), but the universe itself isn't "aware" of these interactions in any cognitive sense (i.e: it's not a thinking thing).
Now, you might object (or Langan might) and say: human minds are just matter in the universe, so obviously the universe is capable of doing cognition, but like the alchemists of old you would committing ye olde fallacy of composition: our brains have cognitive faculties, but the individual parts of our brains do not posses cognitive faculties on their own. It's a careful arrangement of matter (neural networks and their support structures) that actually does cognition (that actually "perceives" things and can make predictions) and the attributes of the whole (the mind/brain) are not the same as the attributes of its individual parts (a global feature of emergence Langan seems to have missed). If the universe is a big mind a la "pantheism", it's not as if we would be able to communicate with it any more than a parasitic amoeba communicates with the brain of its host. That which is above is not the same as that which is below; the alchemists were wrong.
Langan rightly guesses that cognition is an emergent feature that can be vaguely described as modeling the universe, but he seems to have no sweet clue how that actually happens and goes off the deep end by suggesting that reality itself is some kind of cognition-having entity, one which we interact with. There's no obvious way to test or explore these ideas, which relegates them to the same category of claims espoused by your average child of heavenly sky-father.
Not me.
Testability, or falsifiability, is not an attribute of any metaphysic. Falsifiability was devised to distinguish empirical science from metaphysical speculation (among other things. Except now even this sacrosanct principle is being challenged by string theorists.)
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I think a pretty good working metaphysic is that humans are the universe becoming aware of itself. I don't know how else it could go about doing that. Maybe 'the universe' felt like, I don't know, sleeping in until 11:00 am and then getting up and eating a lemon gelato. It's not going to be able to do that, unless it evolves into something like us.
On a more serious note, I think this basic idea is a good stand-in for the role played by God in Berkeley's esse est percipe. As you will recall, Berkeley's answer to the question, 'why doesn't everything vanish when nobody is perceiving it?' is that it is constantly being 'perceived by God'. Whereas in this model, human consciousness plays a formative role in the universe as a whole.
Now, you will say, this is absurd, because humans have only been around for, what, a couple of hundred thousand years, and the Universe is measurably billions of years old.
To which a response is: 'before' and 'billions' both imply a perspective - a perspective which provides a linear sense of time (hence, 'before' and 'after') and meaningful units in which time is measured. The mind provides or furnishes that. How, or whether, time is real apart from that 'primary intuition' is a meaningless question, as we have no way of conceiving it, or rather, in the absence of any such perspective, the notion of time itself is meaningless.
This actually has been noticed by physics.
(Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271 and elaborated in this Closer to Truth interview.)
Hat sellers do.
Quoting Lif3r
As an atheist, I care more about everything in existence than God.
No. We're not "meant" to do anything, least of all something which makes so little sense. Report the nature of reality back to its existence? "Hey, existence of reality! Listen up! Guess what I've just found out..." :brow:
That's exactly what you do every time you learn something. You are a part of the existence of reality. Your reach on reality is anyone or anything you communicate with. This process is called evolution.
Do you see how if the definition of God encompasses another definition there can be a bridge built between the people who care about the "Magik Sky Person" known as "God" and the people who care about everything in existence?
To formulate a ground breaking comprimise between two beliefs you have to think completely out of the box and bring your information back to the parties who fight.
That's alright, I don't depend on your continued interest in the discussion or on your ideals of a debate free from harsh words and ridicule, in which we can all hold hands and speak delicately to one another like little snowflakes.
So God is everything in existence? I feel like you just answered your own question.
I must ask, do you consider God to even be a possibility? If so, I would say that is the definition of faith. If not, how can you be so certain about something you cannot see? There are theories that modern governments spy on their citizens, do you believe or disbelieve that? Edward Snowden, just saying.
Yes, of course, so long as nothing about the concept makes it impossible. It's either possible and in the same category as the flying spaghetti monster, or it's impossible and in the same category as square circles. But of course, the concept is arguably one of the most vague and one of the most variable out there, so further clarification would be required.
Quoting MountainDwarf
You would be talking nonsense. Acknowledging possibilities is not an acceptable definition of faith. It's reasonable to acknowledge possibilities. It's not a matter of faith. A matter of faith would be extending your belief beyond that possibility based not on reason, but your own blind faith. That would be unreasonable. It would, in all likelihood, amount to wishful thinking.
Quoting MountainDwarf
Ah, you must be a novice, else you wouldn't ask such an ill-considered question. There are plenty of counterexamples consisting of things we do not see, yet which there is sufficient evidence to justify belief, but God is not one of them. Wind, bacteria, electrons, blood cells, consciousness, etc.
Quoting MountainDwarf
Where there is sufficient accessible evidence backing them up, I would believe them. Again, that's not faith. Faith in this scenario would be for the conspiracy theorist.
Having a theory, having some reason to doubt, having some evidence, or having grounds for investigation, does not in itself warrant jumping to a much stronger conclusion. If you fill that gap with faith, then you're no longer being reasonable. And that's the key difference.
It is not a matter of fact that God is or God is not. It is a reasonable belief that God is or God is not.
It is ignorant to disparage anyone’s beliefs that are not in conflict with fact or reason.
‘God’ - and I use quotes as here we are discussing a concept in traditional philosophy and not the subject of personal devotion - is indeed not something that exists, or a being, or an existing being. As Bill Vallicella puts it:
Or in the words of Pierre Whalen:
Or Terry Eagleton:
From your posts in this thread, it is clear that you don’t believe in God, and you can be assured that the God you don’t believe in, is not worthy of devotion. But whether that is actually ‘God’ is another matter.
What "disparaging" terms are you referring to?
Quoting Rank Amateur
Yeah it is. Why do you think otherwise?
Quoting Rank Amateur
It is a reasonable belief that God is or is not, as per the three fundamental laws of logic. As for whether it's a reasonable belief that God is, or whether it's a reasonable belief that God is not, that will depend on the reasoning. You can't justifiably determine that in advance.
Quoting Rank Amateur
But not otherwise? So what's the problem, then? Leaps of faith aren't reasonable. They are by nature in conflict with reason. If reason is the standard, then leaps of faith run into conflict with such a standard. Reason and faith are two categorically opposed ways of arriving at a belief, so, in terms of basis for belief, they would run into contradiction. All of which is, I think it's fair to say, indicative of a conflict between the one and the other. They're chalk and cheese, they're incompatible, they clash, you can't have your cake and eat it. You either use your capacity to reason to reach a conclusion or you disregard reason and take a leap of faith. Philosophy is an intellectual subject, and faith is more closely associated with religion. In the eyes of an intellectual with in interest in philosophy over religion, then faith should be viewed in a disparaging light. Faith is for the unthinking, for the uncritical, for those who do not care to examine, but want an easy answer to placate themselves. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living.
What makes you think that you can rule out 'God' as the subject of personal devotion from the discussion topic? Just because you take a different approach, it's therefore excluded from the discussion? And there are various interpretations of 'God', even if you narrow the parameters to traditional philosophy, not just a single interpretation: your preferred one. All interpretations are open to the public and all interpretations are up for discussion. They're not closed off with the exception of your personal preference.
You can't back up a traditional concept with a nontraditional minority interpretation. And 'God' is first and foremost a concept in general, relevant to both religion, obviously, and less obviously, philosophy. It's not just a concept in philosophy, let alone traditional philosophy.
For hundreds of years, throughout a large part of our history, if you were to have made it known that you denied the existence of God, then you would have been at risk of severe punishment, so your interpretation, traditionally, is not a widely accepted interpretation. And it has remained that way up to the present. So I think that the way that you've presented this select interpretation is misleading.
The three writers you quote from are all from contemporary times, and all express what is very much a contemporary view, and a minority view at that. So hardly the strongest foundation for what you seem to be offering up as a single, universally acceptable interpretation for a concept which is, in any case, as I rightly pointed out, an exceptionally ambiguous concept, subject to a multitude of varying interpretations from all across the spectrum.
Telling comment
Quoting S
Further telling comment.
Quoting S
That was a waste of bandwidth
Quoting S
Absolutely none of that is in anyway true.
I'll give you a second chance if you want to try again.
It was all those comments of yours deserved for a reply.
Hmm. If that's your take, then I don't think you're best suited for discussion of an intellectual nature. Have you tried knitting? Maybe you'd be a natural pro, instead of a rank amateur.
I mean, what kind of person thinks that leaps of faith are reasonable? Or that they wouldn't run into conflict with reason, if reason is the standard by which we're judging the matter? That's delusional. And he's not even willing to explain himself.
What kind of person makes vague accusations of disparaging remarks, yet refuses to go into specifics? Why even bother? It's just hot air and virtue signalling. Lame.
Thomas Merton
“Reason is in fact the path to faith, and faith takes over when reason can say no more.”
There are 3 ways people can believe something to be true, and act accordingly
Fact - fact just is, 2 + 2 = 4. Other than if you are the POTUS facts are not arguable.
Reason - based on facts, one can believe something to be true by reason. Reason can not be in conflict with facts. It is not a fact, that unicorns do not exist on earth. But since we have looked in a lot of places, for a really long time, and not seen a unicorn it is reasonable to believe unicorns do not exist, and act accordingly
Faith, one is free to believe by faith alone something to be true and act accordingly. As long as such beliefs are not in conflict with faith or reason.
I restate my position that it is not a matter of fact that God is, or is not.
An that both God is, and God is not have reasonable arguments
It would be helpful if your inevitable disagreement to this position was supported with an accompanying argument.
The title of the thread is disparaging. It was, and is telling, that I had to point that out to you.
Then feel free to consider it. ...and believe in it if you want to.
[Edit: I misread your post the first time, and thought that you were saying that we should consider the definition stated in your thread-title, and were, as so many Atheists do, suggesting that that's what all Theists believe in.]
Of course that's the definition of the One-True-God for Atheists and other Biblical-Lliteralists. ...the One True God that Atheists so loudly believe in disbelieving in.
Michael Ossipoff
Alright, you meant that you're suggesting that there is God, and you were just saying that God isn't what you referred to in your thread-title.
Sure, many Theists would agree that, when God is referred to, what is meant is Reality, ...all that is.
I agree with that.
Why use that name? I usually don't, because it sounds anthropomorphic. But it expresses an impression about Reality, discussed in other threads.
I don't make assertions about the nature or character of Reality. It's a matter of impression,not assertion, argument or proof.
Michael Ossipoff
Some atheist: "God does not exist."
Hm.
Some theist: "God exists."
I didn't rule it out, I just made it clear the sense in which I was using the term.
Quoting S
It's not a non-traditional interpretation. It is the traditional interpretation which has now been obscured by popular misunderstanding. It is well-known that popular atheism usually begins by arguing against the most facile and literalistic interpretations of the nature of deity, which is why it so often seems a mirror image of the fundamentalism it is criticizing. But if belief in God were as ridiculous as popular atheism makes it out to be, then you would indeed have to be stupid to believe it. And for sure there are many silly religious beliefs, but the God of classical theism is not among them.
Quoting S
Indeed - and many mystics were persecuted on exactly these grounds. Modern American fundamentalists would think that Aquinas was close to atheism in many respects. And that is because they don't understand what they're arguing about.
It hinges on meaning of the word 'to exist'. It might sound obvious, but then, this is a philosophy forum. In my philosophy, 'what exists' is, generally speaking 'the phenomenal domain' - all the things you find in an encyclopedia, all the things the natural science occupy themselves with. But there are subjects which are not necessarily amongst them, for example, what is the nature of number? what is the nature of scientific laws? Do these exist? Don't answer too quickly.
Reason is that standard by which you're judging the matter. And that's where you're wrong.
Reason isn't applicable to everything. Only a True-Believing Science-Worshipper thinks thinks it is.
To try to apply reason, science or logic outside its legitimate range of applicability is in conflict with reason, science or logic.
Michael Ossipoff
Some may prefer Russell to Thomas Merton on this point.
“Philosophy is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation. All definite knowledge—so I should contend—belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man’s Land, exposed to attack from both sides; this No Man’s Land is philosophy.”
– Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Introductory, p. xiii.
If reason is the path to faith, then why, pray tell, don't we all have faith in a magical sky daddy? Why hasn't faith taken over for all of us? I'll tell you why. It's because reason is the path to being reasonable, not to making unreasonable leaps of faith. Making a leap of faith is following the path to some extent, and then wandering off into the wilderness, with faith as your little comfort blanket to allay that unpleasant feeling you get when it begins to dawn on you that you're lost. If you're a sensible type with an interest in truth, then when reason can say no more, you'll close the case, or suspend it pending a change in circumstance. If you're a rash type with an interest in fiction, then you may well invent a reason when there is no grounds for doing so. What the latter type does is an example of being unreasonable, and that isn't something to be worn as a badge of pride - something, perhaps, which your monk, in all his wisdom, has to failed to realise.
Quoting Rank Amateur
You haven't said anything new or remarkable so far. This is not what required explanation.
Quoting Rank Amateur
You seem to have misunderstood the problem, otherwise you would know that restating your position will do diddly-squat to resolve it.
Quoting Rank Amateur
You're in no position to make demands. You can start by going back and properly addressing what I've already said, otherwise you can save your breath, so to speak.
Thank you for sharing with us your unique knowledge of the necessary nature of the one true God, even though your God is only one of various different meanings being referred to when various different people mention God.
Michael Ossipoff
Not really. If you were just referring to the title, then you should have made that clear, and if you had have done so, then I probably wouldn't have given that remark much notice. But instead you caused me to wonder whether it was something that I had said. After all, your comment followed mine, and I have somewhat of a reputation for not mincing my words.
Who cares if it's disparaging? That's secondary to whether it hits the mark. Maybe not even secondary, but further down the list of what really matters. The truth isn't always pleasant, you know. Learn to deal with it. And yes, you are being sensitive.
Well, you didn't say "I". You said "we". ("we are discussing a concept in traditional philosophy and not the subject of personal devotion").
Quoting Wayfarer
On what grounds can you support such a claim? Can you show me evidence of this "tradition"? What historical record is there of a tradition amongst a group which do not consider themselves atheists, but in some sense consider themselves theists or believers, that God doesn't exist? How far back does it go? How widespread is it now? How widespread has it been historically?
At the very least, it's nontraditional relative to the mainstream tradition or traditions, which certainly do not posit that God doesn't exist. You'd have to be from another planet or something to make that claim. If you're going to claim that this interpretation that you've presented is traditional, then in future you should probably qualify that in some way for sake of clarity.
Mr. Ossipoff, please do yourself a favour and quit the propaganda-speak of "True-Believing Science-Worshippers".
I'm not trying to apply reason, science or logic outside of its legitimate range of applicability. So your comment has no bearing on my position. And if you think otherwise, then the burden lies with you.
I would, but I don't think you're interested.
If you're not willing to follow through, then don't waste my time in the first place. Otherwise you're basically just trolling. I don't want to have any dealings with such people and their excuses.
It hinges on the meaning of 'to exist'. As I said, it sounds a pedantic quibble, but it is a philosophy forum, and this is a basic question of ontology and metaphysics.
You will find in many places in the classical literature, Latin and Greek, reference to the One (sometimes depicted in Biblical terms, sometimes in philosophical - it's an uneasy marriage) as 'beyond being'. That is, after all, what 'transcendent' means. Now the way I parse this is that the word that has been translated as 'being' in these texts, ought to be translated as 'existence' - so, 'the first principle' is 'beyond existence', in the sense of not being subject to birth and death, not being composed of parts - in short, not having any of the attributes and characteristics that are predicated of all existing beings (a.k.a. 'the ten thousand things', the phenomenal domain, the manifest realm,)
The issue is, however, that since medieval times, ontology - the philosophy of the nature of being - has been 'flattened' in such a way that the conceptual space for such being-beyond-being has been lost, abandoned or rejected. So nowadays, we tend to think of 'existence' as a univocal and binary value - something either exists, or it doesn't. Our shorthand for 'what exists' is 'what is out there, somewhere'; added to which, Carl Sagan's aphorism, 'cosmos is all that exists'. So, 'what exists' is something that is 'out there', that occupies a position in space and time or which can have causal consequences that can be detected in the phenomenal domain; what can be measured or conceived by science. On that basis we're willing to believe that there are neutrinos or quarks and spend extraordinary sums on elaborate apparatus - the most expensive apparatus in history! - to pursue them. But that's in part because there's a conceptual space, a set of hypotheses, in which such entities can be considered real. Whereas the question of the real nature of being is of a different order - the answer is not 'out there somewhere'. It's never going to be discovered by the LHC or the Hubble, because it's not a phenomenal reality.
So, the arguments about whether there can be 'evidence' for such a being are beside the point. Not only beside the point, they betoken a misunderstanding of what is even being talked about. It's a category error of demanding empirical evidence for a metaphysical issue. But because of the influence of empiricism, this distinction is no longer even intelligible to us.
So - as to which tradition, or who has talked about it - it takes a bit of research. The problem is that the way that we - culture and society - think about the whole issue has itself been evolving and changing. We're nowadays instinctive naturalists who carry assumptions about what ought to be considered real, often without being aware of them.
But there are modern theological philosophers who represent the traditional understanding of God as 'being beyond being' - one being Paul Tillich:
Another is David Bentley Hart. But I should stress that in both cases, the respective authors are simply bringing up to date and re-stating an understanding that was ubiquitous in the early tradition.
So, the issue is that demanding 'evidence' for 'God' is a category error, in the sense that, for the believer, everything is evidence. Whereas with empirical evidence, you begin by excluding stuff - you're looking for a particular cause for a particular effect (polio, wheat rust, continental drift, whatever) and then looking for specific causes of those consequences. Whereas the idea of a 'first cause' is of a different order to that; but the whole sense of there being 'a different order' is what has now dropped out of the discourse.
Or it hinges on what this "God" you folk talk about is supposed to be?
It's not just about half a dozen or so quotes about obscure abstracts, but also about what people actually believe, and their actions.
Championing such obscure abstracts, and hijacking the terminology for the occasion, isn't particularly representative.
Also ask ministers, pundits, imams and pagans what their "God" is supposed to be, and their ($fulltime) apologists how they justify.
Seems the word "God" is up for grabs, maybe we all ought come up with something of our own. :)
Then, for the last time, and without further delay, please practice what you preach and present a revision of your original post - see here - with arguments in support of your unsubstantiated opinions.
To break it down (again):
Quoting Rank Amateur
I no longer care about this. You've clarified that you were referring to the title, and I'm not the least bit concerned about why it might be such a common thing.
Quoting Rank Amateur
Your wording is ambiguous, but I addressed multiple interpretations in my reply. It's waiting for you to clarify which interpretation you meant, whether you agree or disagree, and why, given my explanation. The "why" is notably absent from your original comment, as you can see. And it is likewise absent from your empty dismissive reply. It is a bare assertion. And, as the late Christopher Hitchens said, what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence, which you seem to agree with, despite having done the opposite here in this discussion.
Quoting Rank Amateur
You can forget about whether or not it's ignorant, or whether it's disparaging, and start with an argument in support of your apparent suggestion that to believe that there's a God, or to believe that there's no God, is not in conflict with fact or reason, despite the basis for belief being left as yet unexamined.
And if that's not what you were suggesting, then it's waiting on you to clarify what you were suggesting, if anything. And if you weren't suggesting anything further, then I see little to no relevance in your above comment. The beliefs about God of those who have participated in this discussion are probably a mixture of being in conflict with reason and not being in conflict with reason. You need to be specific or you're not saying anything worth getting into.
p1 - by definition facts are. I.e. 2 + 2 = 4, the cat is on the chair, the earth is round.
P2 - facts do not stay in dispute by reasonable, sensible, and intelligent beings.
P3 - many, many very reasonable, sensible and intelligent beings have been in dispute over the existence of God for a very long time
Therefore: God is, or God is not is not a matter of fact
There is absolutely nothing ambiguous in the statement it is reasonable to believe that God does and does not exist. Since it is not a matter of fact, and there are multiple perfectly rational arguments for both positions, reasonable people can, and in fact, do hold either position. This is not a difficult concept. Christopher Hitchens has made a good living off this very concept.
If it is not, it very well should be a definition of ignorance to dismiss, disparage, or degrade the beliefs of others, without any other basis than you disagree with them.
My statement is, one can believe by faith alone what one chooses to, with no further support, with the caveat that this belief is not in conflict with fact or reason.
I have stated and supported the position that whether or not God is or is not is not a matter of fact. I have stated, and assume the hundreds of years of intelligent philosophical discussion support the position that there are reasonable arguments both for and against God is. So neither position is in conflict with reason.
The only thing reasonable theism is in direct conflict with on this post is the readily apparent self elevation of your beliefs to fact and absolute truth.
It is a lot easier to bash popular religion, that’s for sure.
Trying to support your conclusion is a lost cause. It's self-evidently absurd to claim that there's no fact of the matter. Either there's a god or there isn't, and whichever it is, [i]that's[/I] the fact. What else would you call it?? (Not that that would make any real difference. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet).
.
Call it what you want, but “True-Believing Science-Worshippers” isn’t an exaggeration.
.
There are actually people who believe that science, logic and “reason” are universally-applicable.
.
You know, people who fervently and loudly believe that faith is in conflict with reason. Maybe you know someone like that.
.
.
You’ve been repeatedly saying that faith conflicts with reason. Alright, then share some of your reason with us. Tell us how reason contradicts all religion, all religious faith, all of whatever various meanings people mean when referring to God, or faith in God.
.
Hint: Don’t just disprove your SkyDaddy belief that the common loud variety of Atheists, like other Fundamentalist Biblical-Literalists, have so devotedly, fervently and loudly latched-onto.
.
Michael Ossipoff
You're far too overconfident in your own abilities, given your propensity to deny in the strongest possible terms this, that and the other. Anyway, you absolutely certainly completely categorically 100% don't have a clue what you're talking about and your responses are a waste of my time, so I'll be ending our discussion here.
Of course, and so it would make a lot more sense if you could confine your comments to a particular specific belief, if you feel a need to make an issue of the beliefs of others who don't bother attacking you. In other words, maybe a good rule would be to know, and specifically say, what you're criticizing or disagreeing with.
Now, there are professed Theists who come to your door and give you a bad time if you don't convert to their religion. They do attack you. So, feel free to criticize their religion, because they "open the door" to the issue (to use a court term).
But at least be specific about what you're criticizing.
What's not just about that? What is it that you're talking about what it's about? What you're criticizing? You speak of what people actually believe, but then you need to clearly specify what people or beliefs you're referring to and criticizing.
"It's about" everyone,who is religious, or so you mean to imply?
But isn't that what you need to do first, and then specify what particular belief(s) you're making an issue about?
I mean, you're the one making an issue of their beliefs that you aren't specifying..
I don't know why I bother answering this never-ending spew from self-styled scientific debunkers and Defenders of Science.
Translation: Different people (including loud self-esteem-problem Atheists) use it with different meanings..
Go for it. And then maybe even quiet down until you have something definite to say.
Michael Ossipoff
:up: :up: :up: :grin:
.
1. Because some of us are befuddled by a belief in what we incorrectly imagine to be reason.
.
2. If reason is the path to (toward) faith, that needn’t mean that everyone reasonable continues past reason along that path, to an interest in what’s outside reason’s purview.
.
“…when reason can say no more.” But maybe not everyone wants to pursue more.
.
3. You’re equating faith with “SkyDaddy”. If you’d said that at the beginning of this thread, maybe that could be excusable. But you’re still saying it even after several people have explained to you, many times, in various ways, with many quotes from respected writers, that your SkyDaddy doesn’t define or characterize what faith is about, or what is meant when people speak of God. SkyDaddy is what Biblical Literalists like you have devotedly latched onto. You want to attribute it to Theists in general. It’s been more than amply explained to you that you’re wrong.
.
Your continued repetition of something that you’ve been amply corrected about suggests that you don’t qualify for a reply here. I won’t waste time replying to you again. I don’t know why anyone else here would.
.
Then close it, instead of saying things that you can’t support.
When reason can say no more, then don’t keep on saying more about what reason says.
(When I don’t reply to S., that doesn’t mean that he’s said something irrefutable. It’s just that he’s demonstrated that he doesn’t rate a reply.)
.
Michael Ossipoff
Regarding religion, I'd say it's unprovable, un-assertable matters. But I don't know if "speculation" is the right word. "Speculation" implies wondering about which potentially-provable factual way it is.
I thought it was more a matter of impression and feeling.
There are the 5 arguments, but I don't consider it a matter for assertion or argument, and certainly not proof. There are interesting discussions about it. That's what I call them instead of arguments. Some of the discussions seem convincing, and some others seem possibly convincing in some form. I consider some of those discussions to be intriguing and interesting.
You said that the matter is indeterminate. With respect to proof, argument and assertion, sure.
But faith means believing something that isn't provable, and something that you wouldn't assert or argue. (...though of course you could tell what suggests an impression about it.)
Regarding that matter, and the impressions that I've expressed about it, I can't prove it, I don't assert it or argue for it. ...and I don't doubt it.
Russell must not have spoken to many religious people if he regards it as a matter of speculation about what the potentially-provable truth of the matter is.
I'm not criticizing him. No doubt he was very good at what he was good at.
Continuing the Russell quote:
Yes, I've often been saying that metaphysics has much in common with science. ...for example, as regards the requirements and desiderata such as falsifiability and no-brute-facts.
Then that's Russell's notion about what religion is. It sounds more like that of the religious-promoters who knock on my door, than like the authors I agree with.
No. Definite things can be reliably said in metaphysics. Sure, no one can disprove an unfalsifiable, unverifiable assertion of a brute-fact, in metaphysics. But isn't that true in physics too? A difference is that physics has more opportunity for a mountain of experimental evidence to pile up, but, in principle an unfalsifiable proposition remains un-disprovable. ...discreditable, but not disprovable....just as in metaphysics.
But even though I can't prove that Materialism's unverifiable, unfalsifiable brute-fact isn't true, I can tell you why it's an unverifiable, unfalsifiable brute-fact. That's the best that you can do in metaphysics. Discredit a discreditable proposal.
He's all wrong there. Philosophy is full of dogma. And not all Theists espouse or express dogma.
Michael Ossipoff
Of course, and that's representative of the distinction I made between sensible types and fantasists. Don't get me wrong, I love a bit of fantasy - Lord of The Rings, Star Wars, and so on - but I'm sensible enough to recognise fantasies as such, proportioning my belief to the evidence instead of leaping blindly beyond it. The problem with theists is that they blur the lines and yet think that they can cling on to credibility. Well, I'm sorry, but that's just not how it works. A man who feels he needs a God of the gaps is like a man who can walk perfectly well yet feels he needs crutches. A sorry sight to see.
Presumably unlike J R R Tolkien himself, who went to mass every day.
No, for the very reason that he was a devout Roman Catholic, he obviously could not have proportioned his belief to the evidence, and must therefore be excluded from that statement of mine which you've quoted, because, for one thing, there is no evidence strong enough to warrant belief in transubstantiation. Clearly that's where faith comes in.
No Catholic ought ever to try and prove transubstantiation to be literally true. As I understand it, part of the articles of faith is that it is a miraculous process, which by definition requires no naturalistic warrant.
You might like the quote I posted into another thread just now:
'“Half the people in the world think that the metaphors of their religious traditions are facts. And the other half contends that they are not facts at all. As a result we have people who consider themselves 'believers' because they accept metaphors as facts, and others who classify themselves as 'atheists' because they think religious metaphors are lies.” ~ Joseph Campbell
Yes, because they'll inevitably fail. It would be a wild goose chase.
Quoting Wayfarer
And "faith" is the key word there. My initial comment which drew your reply mentioned proportioning belief to the evidence. In your reply, you said that J. R. R. Tolkien, a devout Roman Catholic, must be included. But you're mistaken, it's quite the contrary, because having faith in the occurrence of miracles is pretty much the opposite of proportioning belief to the evidence.
I know this will fall on deaf ears, but the notion that such things require empirical evidence is a misunderstanding of the dynamics of faith. I mean, a lot of atheists say that it is absurd that believers should believe in a God for which there can't be 'physical evidence'. But the whole objection is based on a misunderstanding of what belief stands for in the first place. But, again, I have learned that it is as pointless to discuss such things with internet atheists, as it is to discuss evolutionary biology with young-earth creationists. :-)
You are standing at your front door about to open it.
You can not say at that moment in time it is a fact your spouse is not waiting on the other side
with a gun about to kill you.
You can by reason believe it to be true, that it is safe to open the door. You haven't done anything to warrant being killed by your spouse, you haven't had an argument - however spouses with similar reasoned arguments have been shot before.
So when you turn that knob - it is an act of faith.
Fall on deaf ears? No, on the contrary, you're preaching to the choir. I accept that such things do not require evidence, generally speaking, and certainly not if they're to be taken as a matter of faith. But that's where the distinction I've mentioned kicks in. It only becomes a problem if someone tries to have their cake and eat it, if someone demands special treatment. And in my experience, theists all to often act that way, even if they aren't so explicit about it. You can put your faith in miracles, and you're entitled to do so, but then you lose credibility in the context of reasoned discussion, which is what philosophy is all about, is it not? Philosophy is for thinkers, religious faith is for wishful thinkers.
In all other matters, it may well be true that J. R. R. Tolkien proportioned his belief to the evidence, but his Roman Catholicism, as we should both agree, is not an example of that, but an example of religious faith. And if faith in miracles can be permitted, then you open the floodgates to all kinds of wild imaginings, so I make sure to keep that kind of faith away from my serious thinking.
Nice try at muddying the waters, but I can see through what you're doing. Is poker a game of luck? In a similar vein to your rhetoric, one could make the argument that it is, but that would of course be misleading, as anyone who knows a thing or two about poker will attest. Is luck involved? Yes. But it's way more than that, and there's a gulf between flipping a coin and a game of poker.
I'm not required to defend a claim I haven't made, and I haven't made the claim that reason contradicts all religion or all of whatever various meanings people mean when referring to God or faith in God.
I've already shared some of my reason with you, so why don't you address that, instead of expecting me to repeat myself?
What indeed has Athens to do with Jerusalem?
But anyway, I'll give you some undeserved generosity by explaining it again.
The conflict between faith and reason is in how you obtain belief. They're as much in conflict as two people are in conflict if one of them believes that crawling all the way to town is the fastest way of getting there and the other believes that driving all the way to town is the fastest way of getting there. Now, obviously, these two ways of getting to town are incompatible. They're two categorically different ways of getting to town. You can't simultaneously crawl all the way there [i]and[/I] drive all the way there. It's either one or the other, and only one can be the fastest way. Now, imagine if there were a whole group of people who were on one side of the divide, let's call them crawlers, and a whole 'nother group of people on the other side, let's call them drivers. Does that remind you of anything? It should do. Just as if you drive all the way, then there is no need of crawling there, if you reason to a conclusion, then there is no need of taking a leap of faith to it. So those putting forward the leap of faith option will clash with those who have reasoned their way there, even if for no other reason than how to get there. But, of course, in reality, it is more than that which these two groups clash over. Typically, it is more prevalent amongst theists to take and endorse leaps of faith, and it is not unusual for faith to be cited as a basis for belief in God. That's not typically the case with atheists or agnostics, methodologically. Not only will they likely clash in terms of [i]how[/I] to get there, but where [I]"there"[/I] even is or should be.
But I'm probably wasting my time explaining this to you. I predict that you'll stick to your guns regardless, like one of those True Believers you like to rant about.
Like say Aquinas?
Not the best example, given that he was a more of a scholastic than a fideist, but even scholasticism is restrained by dogma and tradition, which can be distinguished from open rational enquiry. What underpins this predetermined course? And predetermined it certainly seems. Wishful thinking is one possible candidate. I'm not convinced that Aquinas was lead by his faculty of reason to believe in God. Rather, it seems that he used his faculty of reason to come up with arguments in defence of God. I think that his belief, first and foremost, had a psychological basis.
You can't disprove the unobservable.
Quoting S
You think I just believe because? You don't even know me.
Quoting S
Define leap of faith.
Quoting S
So you're saying you put your faith in reason?
Quoting S
I do it all the time.
Quoting S
That is, until someone gives you a reason to believe.
Quoting S
1300 pages of well thought placating can be found in any good volume of systematic theology.
Quoting S
And Nietzsche went crazy, I wonder why.
The Catholics say that God is ever present in all times and places, which to my thinking is a claim that God is all of existence. But then they still seem to want to think of God as a "thing" something separate and distinct from everything else.
In my view, it's helpful to consider not just the competing claims, but to focus instead on the medium which all claims are made of, thought. That is, shift the focus from the content of thought to the nature of thought.
If it is true that thought operates by dividing a single unified reality in to conceptual parts, then there is a built in bias for the Magic Sky Daddy thesis in all it's forms.
As example, consider the noun. We observe the world and our minds instinctively experience what we're observing as being a collection of separate "things". This process of division is so fundamental to the human condition that it's natural that it would also be applied to the very largest of scales, such as gods. God becomes just another thing, a very big thing, but still a thing separate and distinct from other things.
Some religions feel that the only way to escape this perception of division is to step outside of the medium which is creating it, thought.
Please explain how you think it logically follows from your above quoted premise that it is not a matter of fact that God is or God is not.
Quoting MountainDwarf
I didn't say anything about you, in particular. I said that leaps of faith aren't reasonable, and I stand by that claim. It strikes me as self-evident. Reasoning is about using your intellectual faculties to make the connections to get from A to B to C etc. and eventually reach a conclusion. Taking a leap of faith does not require that same level of intellectual rigour. It leaps past those connections, requiring the bare minimum of thought. If you have taken a leap if faith, then by implication, what I said applies to you. If you don't like that, tough.
Quoting MountainDwarf
Why? I don't think it's that ambiguous. But anyway, I've described it above.
Quoting MountainDwarf
No. So you're putting words in my mouth?
Quoting MountainDwarf
Then you're unreasonable all the time. That's not a crime, but it will affect how people think of you.
Quoting MountainDwarf
I was talking about reason, not "a" reason. Your comment, like your others, is disconnected from what I actually said. Your reading comprehension doesn't seem all that great. If someone were to give me a reason to believe, then that could form either part of a valid argument or a leap of faith, the latter of which is like jumping to a conclusion. Your comment doesn't contribute anything towards or against the point that I made.
Quoting MountainDwarf
There is reason to believe that he might have had a sexually transmitted infection, and that that was what caused his brain functionality to deteriorate. But you don't care about that, do you? You were just looking to score a cheap point. Your suggestion is ignorant, lazy, and ideologically motivated.