What is the difference between God and Canada?
This is not a trick question.
Both cannot be seen or touched or smelled or detected with a microscope or any other instrument, but billions of people are firmly convinced that Canada exists. The same is true about God.
There are thousands of books - from legal texts to history books - in which we can learn a myriad of things about Canada. The same applies to God.
There are symbols and buildings and persons representing Canada ; again, the same can be said about God.
Atheists like me are convinced that Canada exists 'out there' whereas God is just a fiction, it 'exists' only in the minds of religious believers.
But what exactly is the difference? What is the ontological status of Canada and of God?
Is there any *proof* that Canada exists besides the belief of billions of people?
Both cannot be seen or touched or smelled or detected with a microscope or any other instrument, but billions of people are firmly convinced that Canada exists. The same is true about God.
There are thousands of books - from legal texts to history books - in which we can learn a myriad of things about Canada. The same applies to God.
There are symbols and buildings and persons representing Canada ; again, the same can be said about God.
Atheists like me are convinced that Canada exists 'out there' whereas God is just a fiction, it 'exists' only in the minds of religious believers.
But what exactly is the difference? What is the ontological status of Canada and of God?
Is there any *proof* that Canada exists besides the belief of billions of people?
Comments (108)
I guess would could say the ambition of “religion” is a little more of a stretch than that of “nation”. Both seems to highlight to me the proclivity of humans to attach unity to as far reaching a principle as possible and then to cling to it to their dying end.
Clearly there is something, something like a circle, and that something, like a circle, has many angles - and one just happens to be called Canada.
Note: Or a could just be making pointless analogies?
Here you go Chungus. Pictures!
Canada can lose in Hockey finals 1 - 3. God can't.
Canada is the type of thing that can exist by virtue of it being agreed to exist. As can 'marriage', 'the office of the president' etc. It's ontological status is that of a social fact. God is posited as having an existence independent of both society and human beings. 'His' ontological status is therefore more fundamental, metaphysically. So, the question is misframed. A God that exists only by virtue of agreement (as a social fact) is not a God at all (is in fact only the atheist conception of God), but a Canada that exists only by virtue of agreement is fully the Canada we know. It has cashed out its ontology as much as necessary for it to be what we understand it to be.
That is the upshot of my post: that even if we do not believe in God, all of us live in a web of beliefs, dealing with fictitious entities, whether you call them "imagined orders" or "social facts" or "institutional facts"... Canada, the Dollar, laws, human rights... all "exist" because millions of people assume/believe that they exist, and this assumption/belief creates a virtual reality that we can navigate and deal with without realizing that its "existence" is as fictitious as "Zeus" or "pink unicorn on the back of the moon"
Basically we’re talking about human culture and the issues surrounding the will of the individual and the social conventions of any given time. Certain ideas of nationality and civility fall in and out of favour just as Gods do. Zeus has gone, yet principles of Zeus remain carried into the body of a new God.
In this sense all gods and all nations are real expressions of human culture - which is a culmination of individual attitudes clashing with other attitudes and what nature is/does.
Any atheist with any sense would only claim that Canada is as real as it's supposed to be whereas God isn't. There's nothing more to it than that.
Not ‘as fictitious’ because Canada comprises vast tracts of real estate which possess a concrete reality that unicorns and Greek gods do not.
That said, you’re still on to something, but it has much more to do with ‘the nature of existence’ than with God per se. I think you’ve seen something akin to what Buddhists describe as ‘emptiness’ i.e. the absence of intrinsic reality.
(Although you might be interested in this.)
God exists but Canada doesn't. I've driven past those 'border signs'. Everyone speaks English, they have McDonald's and they drive the same cars. I went into several restaurants in Toronto and asked for Canadian Cuisine. I pretended to have a non-US accent, in case they were in on the whole pretense that there is a Canada. The shit they brought me I could have gotten in any diner in New Hampshire. And yeah, like Alaska would really be separated from the US by a different country...what are we cro-magnons?
I wouldn't say "Canada comprises" real estate, because real estate is owned.
Quoting Coben
Mon dieu, tabarnouche!
Of course that's Canada. We're naming that ground "Canada."
Do you think we can smell, taste, etc. "salt"? That's the same thing. "Salt" is what we're naming a particular "type" of substance. The name, the concept "salt," and even types--the notion that different "salt" is the same stuff somehow, are all ideas. That doesn't stop you from being able to taste salt. The word refers to something that's not an idea. Likewise with Canada, at least re one prominent sense of the term.
Isn't Canada owned by its inhabitants? :chin:
You mean the real estate? I see how inhabitants would own the real estate, but I don't see how the inhabitants would own the country. Real estate is owned, bought and sold, the country is not.
There was a moment in history when all those trees and mountains and rivers... existed, but "Canada" did not exist. And an hour later nothing has changed except that all those trees and hills and rivers ... were part of "Canada", which just had been created by 'fiat'. And since that moment Canada exists in the minds of all those who share this belief
(There are about 30,000 people in Germany who are sure that the country "Federal Rep. of Germany" does NOT exist, they are called "Reichsbürger" because they believe that the German Reich never ceased but still lives on.
Now most people either accept 'canada' as real or they live far enough away so that it doesn't matter. The issue you are bringing up is perhaps better highlighted where there is more disagreement about the abstraction. I am sure on some Native Canadian reservations 'canada' seems more a kind of delusion of Eurpeans who have the power to make other pretend canada is real. But I would think there are even better examples. Like those islands that are contested by Russia and Japan. The Japanese say they are part of Japan, the Russians that they are part of Russia. Then you have the actual physical landscape.
Was the divine right of kings real? Well, it functioned as well as the concept of canada. It seemed real. It lead to consequences, people acted as if it was real. Was it?
Things that are no longer real when people do not think they are are not the same as salt. At least they shouldn't be to most realists.
Others might push this further to include things like salt, but even realists should acknowledge that canada is a quasi thing or less.
God can destroy your soul. Although some might argue that Canada can too.
But seriously, God can destroy your soul.
I think @Baden gave a very good, succinct account of the different ontological statuses of God and Canada. You seem to be insisting on one particular notion of "existence." Yes, in a sense, Canada is not "real" in that it does not exist apart from our collectively believing in it and acting as though it does. But it is a real idea that encompasses other ideas and other real things (i.e., it does encompass a certain landmass).
God is purported to be an independently existing being, and so his existence would not depend on our belief in him or our acting as though he existed.
In other words, Canada is a concept, and God (if he were real, which I don't believe he is) would be a thing.
The land that we called "Yogoslavia" didn't vanish. We just started calling it something else instead. We could do just the same thing with "salt." We could call it something else instead.
One thing that "Canada" refers to is a particular stretch of land.
Quoting Matias
And in the past the chemical that we currently call "salt" existed, but "salt," the name, the concept, etc. did not exist.
What you're pointing out about Canada is a truism about all language.
People say "Canada" and refer to the land all the time. When I say "I'm going to Canada," I'm saying that I'm going to a particular physical location on the Earth. I could give you that physical location by GPS coordinates, by latitude and longitude, etc.
That's not the only thing that people can refer to by "Canada," but it's ridiculous to say that people don't commonly refer to physical locations, land, etc. by the names of countries, cities, towns, etc.
Well, it probably did, but 'we' didn't know about it - so it wouldn't matter, much.
Sure, since mattering is a type of valuation. Only people value things.
Well, not people - just creatures; but I digress.
It is always worth keeping this in mind when trying to understand what things actually are.
God is also a word, but it is used to describe a thing which was used to patch up a whole in our understanding of how the world came to be. There seems to be no material evidence that such a thing exists in any sense.
In this context for believe I'm using this definition: accept (something) as true
As for real I'm using the definition: actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed
Non-human creatures that are capable of valuing things I'd consider people. I wouldn't say that persons are/personhood is necessarily limited to humans.
That's fair. :ok:
Carry on.
I am affirming.
I start by saying follow your conclusion to its end. (Alexmander)
Using this method I start with God's existence instead of end with this. If it contradicts reality then it must be false.
Because if this I only need to make one assumption, instead for the 2 atheism makes.
Octomes rasor (may have spelt this wrong)
And feal free to find contradicts with really because I haven't seen any yet but this could be just me
The irony.
We're both intelligent people and we both look at the evidence. We have already made our conclusions. We could not convice each other if we whated to.
Also yes it is Christians that is why "g" is upper case
The answer is yes, and if should say I'm Wesleyan to avoid confusion with other denominations.
How is existence a limitation ?
Hopefully you won't get to understand it first hand.
Well He is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent.
However even though he dose have one limitation that most don't know of and it is he is a static being. That is his nature/personally cannot change. Thus he cannot do something that would different from his own nature.
If your question was the best you can do, you got the best answer. Don't act smart and then cry afterwards.
Canadais going to defeat the Warriors.
Also, as a Canadian, currently standing in Canada, it exists-but does Australia exist? No one here seems to know...
There's a clear ontological difference between God prima facie and Canada and the likes. Problem dissolved.
Omnipotent: "can" implies the ability to thus he may not do it but still has the ability to do it and yes he can make a rock so big he can't lift it, it is called hell because hell is a place were God has no power.
Omnipresent : Thus if he can do anything he can be always everywhere without interfering with the order universe.
Omnibenevolent: actually omnibenevolent means infinite benevolence and benevolence means. the quality of being well meaning; kindness.
So we're are the contradicts because I haven't seen them.
That's all you focused on in that post of mine? Yes, perhaps I should have written, you don't just mean the land. Ief you'd responded to, or perhaps read, the rest of the post you would see what I was getting at. The point is not what people are referring to, but as in the fucking context of the OP, the ontology of the abstractions. Yes, pantheists are referring to the universe when they say God, but does God exist. Does divine right? What was Texas during the war between Mexico and the US over that land? Did Texas exist? But lovely chance to remake a point made several times and ignore anything that might be interesting or tricky, oh outrages for no use person..
I think Baden is on the right track, but not quite there.
But first, an acknowledgement: "Canada," as others have observed before me, is simply a word. It's possible to define that word in ways that make the answer to the question anything from idiotically obvious (say, by geographic borders) to unutterably obtuse. I am going to try to motivate a general idea of what Canada is (if not a formal definition as such) that seems most meaningful to me.
I will start with two premises:
1. There are observable things that seem somehow related to Canada: Canadians, buildings, banknotes, geographic territories, and so on. I am going to refer to these as "Canadian things."
2. Not only are these things real; so too are the relationships between them.
Now consider an ant colony. One might say, as has been said of Canada, that no-one has ever seen an ant colony. Almost everyone has seen ants, and probably anthills too. Maybe most of us have also seen pictures of the more complex things that ants build if we happen to enjoy watching wildlife documentaries. All these we might call "ant colony things." No-one has ever seen an ant colony. Yet the concept of an "ant-colony" is clearly a useful one. It seems to organize all these individual observations into a meaningful whole.
Baden says Quoting Baden
Our agreement (and in particular, the agreement of Canadians) that Canada exists is clearly an important organizing principle controlling how all the Canadian things (and in particular, the Canadians) interact with each other. Arguably, it is the central organizing principle. Without such a belief, they would not build the buildings that they do, respond to borders the way they do, print the banknotes that they do, and so on.
But, I would argue, there is at least one sense in which Canada exists that goes beyond a mere consensual belief. Because all of these Canadian things interacting the way they do, there is a recognizable social, economic, and geographic system that we may call "Canada."
So Canada is a real, physical thing that exists in much the same way that an atom, or a protein molecule, or an atmosphere exists: as an organized system of components. The same can be said of anything we encounter in the phenomenal world other than a fundamental particle.
Of course, like an atmosphere, the exact boundaries of Canada (in anything other than the most literal sense) are very difficult to specify. To provide an exacting and completely comprehensive definition of what Canada is would be an enormously complex exercise in synthesizing disciplines as varied as sociology and geology. But that is not what this forum is about, and I think you get the general gist of what I am saying.
As for what God is, that's easy:
I am the one true God.
No more need be said.
[quote=Wikipedia]A country is a region that is identified as a distinct entity in political geography. A country may be an independent sovereign state or part of a larger state,[1] as a non-sovereign or formerly sovereign political division, or a geographic region associated with sets of previously independent or differently associated people with distinct political characteristics. Regardless of the physical geography, in the modern internationally accepted legal definition as defined by the League of Nations in 1937 and reaffirmed by the United Nations in 1945, a resident of a country is subject to the independent exercise[clarification needed] of legal jurisdiction.[citation needed] There is no hard and fast definition of what regions are countries and which are not. [/quote]
And this is how Wikipedia defines "political geography":
[quote=Wikipedia]Political geography is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. Conventionally, for the purposes of analysis, political geography adopts a three-scale structure with the study of the state at the centre, the study of international relations (or geopolitics) above it, and the study of localities below it. The primary concerns of the subdiscipline can be summarized as the inter-relationships between people, state, and territory. [/quote]
Go figure. But it might be easier to understand what God is
Wouldn't something have to objectively exist as a prerequisite, to be believed in?
"The logical picture of the facts is the thought."
http://www.kfs.org/jonathan/witt/t3en.html
To "believe in something" is merely to hold a picture in one's mind. The existence of a picture in and of itself does not imply that the picture corresponds to facts outside one's own mind.
I can, after all, draw a picture of a dragon on a piece of paper. It does not follow from this that dragons objectively exist.
Well, yes - it does follow.
What does not follow is that they can be found outside in the street - which would be subjective.
How do you conceive what does not objectively exist? It's void of even void.
Clearly, every belief exists as a belief. But what then is a belief? Beliefs are propositional attitudes, and most beliefs, such as a belief in God or dragons, are propositional attitudes regarding the existence of other things (as Russell famously acknowledged, we can get into difficulties when a belief is a propositional attitude regarding itself... but that's a different problem).
As for how we may conceive of that which does not objectively exist, I don't think we need to wind up with "a void of even void." We may, perhaps, simply paint a picture that recomposes many different real-world elements that we have encountered. Dragons, for example, recompose the elements of reptilian scales, cyclopean size, and so on. All of which exist, but the totality of which does not. That seems fairly reasonable to me.
To say that that we cannot believe in that which is not objectively real creates all sorts of problems; the most obvious being what do we do when two different beliefs are flatly contradictory?
Say, a belief in an all powerful, all knowing, and all benevolent God on the one hand; and a belief in pain and suffering on the other?
Another, arguably even deeper problem you have just created is that if everything that can be believed in is automatically true, then all all propositions are true. Because all propositions are true and are only true, the only logic that is applicable for describing such a world is a monovalent logic in which all propositions are true, and all inferences are therefore valid.
Therefore, according to the rules that you have set up, I can begin with any premise, know that that premise is true, and validly conclude from it that you are wrong... which will also be true.
The moon is made of green cheese
Therefore Shamshir is wrong.
QED.
Yes. I tackle (what I consider to be) one issue at a time when responding.
Sometimes people do just mean the land, though. It depends on the occasion, on what the person has in mind on that occasion.
Crawling across my face.
Therefore the moon is a rhubarb tree,
Somewhere deep in space.
Therefore Shamshir’s soundly right
Therefore Shamshir’s wrong.
Therefore we all get to sing
This monovalent song.[/i]
I only do words though. Perhaps someone else could provide the music? I know there's a creative thread around here somewhere...
Actually now I do have a ditty in my head. Although I'm not entirely sure my subconscious didn't dredge it up from somewhere else. Though where, exactly, I have no idea... Plus I don't have the musical skills to write it down or do a recording I wouldn't be embarrassed to share with others...
A thing that outlines another thing, supposedly.
Are beliefs propositional? To an extent, everything is - this statement being indicative of that.
So why does it matter?
Quoting Theologian
Again, I get your incentive.
But I am inclined to repeat myself and say that the totality of it clearly exists, as the idea of dragons clearly exists. That it is not evident in the way that dogs are evident is irrelevant.
To paint something, it is required that that something exists, otherwise as I noted - it is void of void.
Quoting Theologian
I don't see a problem. Relativity allows for both beliefs to hold true.
Jon ate the apple and Jon did not eat the apple, are equally right.
You can't reference something that, for lack of a better word, isn't.
So both beliefs reference something that is; that is objectively real.
A neat trick you could employ here is "It is objectively real, that there is no objective reality".
And what that self-defeating position shows, if I should stand by my earlier statements, is the flux of things. It confirms and denies itself, one after the other. That's natural; life kills and death births.
Quoting Theologian
All propositions are true, but not only true. That's flux.
Quoting Theologian
Sure, in a way.
You know, I've thought about it some more, and I can see that it is necessary for me to recant on something I said in my previous post. I said that:
Quoting Theologian
While I still stand by that - so far as it goes - I accept that it is not a wholly satisfactory response to the point you were making.
Where I think I was more on point was in the observation that the world you're describing is one of monovalent truth, and in which all arguments are valid. I don't think you dispute this. Incidentally, that means my own argument form is automatically valid, and everything I'm saying is true. Therefore you're wrong.
You say:
Quoting Shamshir
But that's not just a "neat trick:" it's a fundamental problem with your position. What you call "flux" I'm more tempted to call paradox. Except it isn't even a true paradox. If you're right, it automatically implies that you're wrong. But the fact that you're wrong does not in and of itself imply that you're right, because you could just be wrong for all the reasons I just explained. It's purely and simply a self-defeating proposition.
It's the same as saying "All truths are relative." The most obvious problem with that being that merely by the use of the universal quantifier, "All," you have explicitly stated that this is not a relative, but universal truth. Again, it's self defeating.
I think that the nub of the matter is here, when you say:
Quoting Shamshir
To show why this is problematic, suppose we take this all a little more literally, and think in concrete, physical terms. I don't accept that the act of pointing implies that something is there where you are pointing - except perhaps the "where" itself. So again, in a concrete, literal sense, you could just be pointing at an empty vacuum. Though you are, of course, entitled to observe that the vacuum itself could not exist without the space for it to be in, and that without that space, there is no "where" to point at.
I would say that the set of all possible propositions constitutes logical space. I would also say that assigning a value of "false" to a particular space is analogous to vacuum. You're pointing at a space where there is nothing. It's not a "void of void." I'm not entirely sure that a void of void is an incoherent or otherwise problematic concept, but even if it is, I don't think that's a problem I need to deal with here. Because we're just talking about a regular void, a vacuum if you will. A value of "False" in a well defined logical space. We're all agreed that the space exists. It's just a question of what's in it.
I began with an a priori analytic argument in which I pointed out that your position can only be self-defeating. But I would like to conclude with an a posteriori synthetic argument.
Have you ever been... dare I say it... wrong? Have you ever, for example, gotten up to go to the fridge to get a drink, thinking that there was one there, only to discover that there... wasn't?
Or gone down to the pub, thinking that they were open, only to discover that they were closed?
Because... if anything like that has ever happened to you, it would seem that you do actually need something other than a monovalent algebra with which to accurately describe the reality in which you live.
Incidentally... You ever play Mage: The Ascension?
Could be. Could be that it's the opposite.
But to be possibly either, it has to be both - is the absurdity I'm espousing.
So to me, we're both right in a way - and we're both wrong in a way.
Certainly, I understand the validity of every comment I am dissentive towards, if based on the author's meaning - though my vehemency masks that, and that's part of the game; the whole flux-crux-back-and-forth. It'd be awfully boring, and I believe incomprehensible, if I should be solely right - as then everything is nulled to a still frame, and it'd be kind of impossible for me to propose anything.
So yeah, in a way I'm wrong; I would have to be.
Quoting Theologian
As aforementioned, I get it - based on your perspective, but your paradox is not paradoxical to me.
I've reconciled every paradox I've come across, so I'm neither livid nor avid of them.
Here's another something: Take an object, make that object move in all directions with equal speed and that object won't move. The object is both moving and not moving. That's a subtle flux, one that applies to that 'neat trick'.
Going back to that 'neat trick':
Everything being objective allows for everything to be subjective by consequence; so the statement is just a trick of perspective, asking whether you view the whole or the sum of the parts.
When you outline one, you inadvertently outline the other, with the same outline.
Remove the distinction and the homogeneous relationship dissipates.
Because I'm possibly a bad illustrator, try and think of it through the whole 'wavelength and particle' idea.
Maybe that explains it better.
Quoting Theologian
Not only self-defeating. But sure enough that's half of what it is, consequent of the other half.
Quoting Theologian
Have I been wrong? In a way, to this day.
Have I gotten up to go to the fridge to get a drink, thinking that there was one there, only to discover that there...wasn't? Not that I can remember, no.
I'm a fumbling child, and that's my dance.
Quoting Theologian
Incidentally... no.
But I might, now that you've mentioned it... got tips?
My only tip is that I'm referring to the old pen and paper role playing game from the 90's.
Oh, and try it: you'll love it.
:eyes:
It would be self-defeating if being relative and being universal are mutually exclusive. They are not always. Depends entirely upon how one is using the terms "truths" and "relative".
Meaning is relative to language use. Truths(on some views) are a product thereof.
But "Canada" is not a piece of land, it is above all a fairly complex set of *institutions*, therefore it is an institutional fact, just like "US Dollar". There is no objective reality *out there* that corresponds to these institutions, unlike salt or Mount Robson which exist regardless of whether we think about it or have an intentional stance towards it or not.
Unlike *brute facts* like salt or Mount Robson, institutional facts only 'exist' because there is collective intentionality.
Put simply: if people cease to believe in an *institutional fact* is ceases to exist. "US Dollar" or "Canada" have no existence whatsoever outside this collective intentionality.
So when people use "Canada" to refer to the physical extent of land (and buildings, trees, etc, on it), you just say what, that they're wrong to use the term that way?
Quoting Theologian
Quoting creativesoul
I can't deny that that was an unstated premise of my argument. But I would assert that to say that truth is relative is precisely to deny its universality. At least in my experience, that is normally what it is taken to mean. See:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/
Would you accept that "no truths are universal" is a self defeating proposition?
Can you find an example of an instance in which the assertion that truth is relative means something other than that it is not universal?
I personally do not call true statements "truths". That's more a practice of logicians and those who do not draw and maintain the distinction between what sorts of things can be true and what makes them so. I find calling true statements and/or valid conclusions "truths" a bad habit. On my view truth is correspondence with what's happened and/or is happening, and it is presupposed within all thought/belief and statements thereof.
The assertion "truth is relative" could be saying something along the lines of correspondence is a kind of relationship between thought/belief about what's happened/happening and what's happened/happening. If correspondence is a relationship, and all relationships are relative, and truth is correspondence, then truth is relative.
I would have no issue at all with such a claim.
However, it is quite often the case that when someone says "truth is relative" they are working from a conflation of truth and belief. Such talk is accompanied by saying things like "his truth", "her truth", "your truth", and "my truth"...
I agree with you that "no truths are universal" can be self-defeating. Just not always.
Hmm... I'm going to have to go think about that. I may get back to you.
Sure.
True statements are so regardless of whether or not any particular individual speaker believes them.
With that in mind, some folk will say that truths(true statements) are universal, because they are true regardless of who utters them.
As before, it all depends upon the terminological framework of the speaker.
Well, one truth I'm going to utter right now is that I'm not familiar with all the terminology you're using, so I was planning on doing a search on some of it. I'm not going to take a position on something I'm not at least reasonably confident I understand. Feel free to elucidate further if you wish.
Though right now another truth is that I'm kinda tired, so it's adios from me for a bit!
The piece of land existed before Canda came into being, and it will exist if , say, Canada ceases to exist because they fusion with the USA.
- When you read in the newspaper that "Canada is a member of NATO" or that "Canada is part of a trade agreement", or that "Canada beats the USA" (in sport), do you think that the rivers, mountains, hill, trees.... are doing this?
Again: "Canada" is an institutional fact; the land with its rivers, trees and so on is secondary, because Canada in the sense of "Canadian piece of land" only exists because an institution called "Canada" exists. If the institution Canada disappears, the piece of land called Canada will disappear too, but not the brute facts: the trees, rivers, hills etc... they will revert to the status quo ante , what they have been before humans showed up and created an imaginary entity called "Canada".
And if this example with Canada is too difficult for you and confuses you , rephrase my question in the OP: "What is the difference between God and the Euro ?" (you know: the currency in many countries in Europe)
(It really seems to me that you have never heard about "institutions" or "institutional facts".
That would be quite a gap in your philosophical education...
https://yandoo.wordpress.com/tag/institutional-facts/
You're ignoring the question I'm asking you.
People can and do sometimes use "Canada" to refer to the land, where that's all they have in mind on those occasions. This is a fact. I'm an example of someone who does this. That land, the land that we're naming "Canada" in those instances, has a particular area (3.855 million mi²), a particular length of coastline (202,080 km), etc.
You said this is wrong. So when we use "Canada" that way, you'd say that we're simply using the word wrong?
I don't think he means to say that you're using the word wrong, but that what Canada references is separate from itself, as it seemingly cannot reference itself.
I don't understand what you're saying there, unfortunately.
Shell and filling.
God and Canada are both equally valid heuristics for moral guidance and community. People can get together and decide that they exist to make life easier and more comfortable. Different renditions of these heuristics and completely different ones can all compete with each other in the world of wisdom.
I did not choose "Canada" as an example of an object but as an example of a set of institutions. My guess is that you keep harping on the topic "naming objects" because it is your pet subject and you have nothing to say about the topic I had in mind with my original post.
An institution is an abstract concept made concrete, visible, by the people and objects that make it manifest. Communism is a concept. Capitalism is. They can be made manifest by imbuing them with energy.
Your initial post was nothing about that.
So you were wanting to talk about God as an "institution" as well?
Why didn't you mention anything about this in the initial post in the thread? The subject line of the thread is "What is the difference between God and Canada," and you write, "Both cannot be seen or touched or smelled or detected with a microscope or any other instrument, but billions of people are firmly convinced that Canada exists. The same is true about God."
In one common sense of "Canada," you certainly can see and touch and smell it.
You sad nothing about only wanting to discuss the senses that you can't see or touch, etc. (and it would hardly be a revelation to say "I only want to discuss the senses that you can't see, touch, etc. . . . So, my first claim is that you can't see, touch, etc. Canada in those senses"), and you said nothing about wanting to discuss Canada or God as an "institution."
>> No, you cannot.
People who claim to do so are deluded. What they can touch and smell are objects (trees, hills, rivers...) they believe (!) to be parts of Canada.
It is the same with other institutions.
Can you touch "POTUS" ? No, you can touch a person who is the POTUS at a given moment. Can you touch "US Dollar". No you can touch coins and bills that people believe to be US Dollars. Twenty years later, when cash will have disappeared, "US Dollar" will still "exist" but you can't touch it anymore.
Therefore if people (atheists, to be precise) claim that the difference between God and Canada is that the former is purely fictitious whereas the latter is real and can be touched or smelled, they are erroneously reifying a concept, in this case an institution.
That is the difference between "salt" and "Canada": if all human beings disappeared tomorrow, sodium chloride would still exist (although nobody would be left to call it "salt". But "Canada" would vanish with the human race, because "Canada" is an invention of human brains.
Right. So when we use "Canada" to refer to a particular area of land, your answer is that we're simply deluded? That's what I've been trying to ask you, but you don't seem to want to answer that.
Or is this one of your favorite pastimes: playing silly games with newbies, to scare them away?
You are correct: my post was written from the perspective of an atheist. I take it to be self-evident that the theistic deity, whatever its name may be, is a socially constructed fiction. Well... even if I were a Christian, I'd say that my (!) God is the fundamental reality, whereas Zeus and Ganesha and Ishtar ... are just figments of imagination, or collective imagination , to be precise.
I am busy on atheist forums like agnostic.com or Reddit/atheism and whenever I mention that all those institutional facts that we use and take for granted every day (our country, the US Dollar or Euro, laws etc....) are fictitious as well, as fictitious as "god", I often get angry replies like "Are you kidding??, I know that Canada exists because I am a Canadian so I should know, and the Dollar exists also, I can touch it" , and so on.
Therefore I am sure that a lot of people are quite confused about the ontological status of these all too familiar institutions that are part of our daily lives.
So are you using "God" as a metonym for religion, "the church," etc. ? You're not referring to a supposed entity?
You're definitely right about that.
When we say God exists, we say he exists unlike all the possible existence and the " long list of binary consideration ".
You can argue that we don't understand how he exists and that the sentence " God exists " cannot be understood and it is an emotional conviction which amplifies into a belief.
But in my opinion, we cannot understand God through reason but through another medium which can be experienced second hand but cannot be expressed in logical terms.
How do you prove anything tangible exists?
What do you mean Canada? The surface of earth and things in it controlled by the Canadian government? The people of Canada? The government of Canada? All the biodiversity of Canada? Does it include the hyrdopsphere and atmosphere?
If you just mean Canada, you know, that place, then you have two options. You can either take the word of most other people in this world, or you'll have to fly to Canada yourself to experience that beautiful country in person.
God on the other hand does not accept visitors, not alive ones at least.
All of this and more. Everything that is so to speak tagged with the idea "Canada". It is this mental tag that makes all the rivers, hills, prairies, institutions , people etc. Canadian.
Canada therefore is above all a set of institutions, it's an "institutional fact" in the sense of Searle, like a curreny (Dollar, Euro) or an office (POTUS) or a rite like marriage. All these "things" are institutional, they do not exist independently of human minds like planets or viruses exist, but they are not subjective either (they do not depend on the will, preference, whim or whatever of any given subject).
read the whole comment
That's a bunch of different things. We can't really paint them all with the same brush.
Part of the brilliant argument here is that "You're using the word wrong above," "You're simply deluded."
:lol: