What is God?
I've been very interested in German idealism lately. As we know, the movement started with Kant. The problem with his philosophy is that he left his antimonies unsolved. In the heart of his understanding of the world were contradictions, and he failed to explain how we can properly understand contradictions aside from being brute facts. Fitche came next with his attempt to reconcile materialism with idealism. His ambiguity over whether we create the world or rather matter creates us was a flaw which Schelling noticed. Schelling presented the world as Nature. Surely there is a nature to our globe, but he posited a nature of the universe, and this nature was divine. God is like our great great great.. (to infinity) grandfather and (this is key) is more us than we are ourselves. Much Indian philosophy says the same, calling the Fatherhood/Origin "Perusa" or "Brahman". We are mostly Atman and the part of ourselves we experience as Ego is what has entered the world to gain virtue and good karma. If our Egos can do true good than we can have a superabundance of goodness in our being through the light of divinity and our good karma. This seems to me a splendid system and one superior to the Christian ideology.
The Christians say God is infinite goodness. I would argue that my theory of God has no upper limit to how good WE can be. The Christian God is limiting and limited. The idea of perfect perfection which we can conceptualize is doing good in the face of infinite pain and suffering. Now the theist God can't have this by pure possession. This is obvious. You cannt own perfect action as if it were a thing even if God is that thing. He is said to have free will but he is caught on the other horn in that he doesn't face infinite pain and gain perfection with his will. Christianity has a "nature view" of God where he just sits there with all goodness in him. This can't be right because perfection comes from action. The God that lives in us is perfect and infinite, but there are different infinities, and I believe we can believe in the unity of Atman and Brahma without being a pure Quietest and in fact we can add to God's perfection by perfecting ourselves. There is no limit on how good we can be. That's my theology in a nutshell. Take from it what you like.
The Christians say God is infinite goodness. I would argue that my theory of God has no upper limit to how good WE can be. The Christian God is limiting and limited. The idea of perfect perfection which we can conceptualize is doing good in the face of infinite pain and suffering. Now the theist God can't have this by pure possession. This is obvious. You cannt own perfect action as if it were a thing even if God is that thing. He is said to have free will but he is caught on the other horn in that he doesn't face infinite pain and gain perfection with his will. Christianity has a "nature view" of God where he just sits there with all goodness in him. This can't be right because perfection comes from action. The God that lives in us is perfect and infinite, but there are different infinities, and I believe we can believe in the unity of Atman and Brahma without being a pure Quietest and in fact we can add to God's perfection by perfecting ourselves. There is no limit on how good we can be. That's my theology in a nutshell. Take from it what you like.
Comments (25)
Death.
[i]"There is no god but Death, and Sleep is her prophet."
— Thus Spoke 180 Proof[/i]
:death: :flower:
So, entropy, in a way. The slow and inevitable process of what is in motion returning to a state of inactivity. Yet, what spurred the activity in the first place is just not even in the picture? Do you think that really makes sense to anyone?
I believe he explained it quite a bit in the idea that we cannot properly understand anything.
Other than that, yes. I agree with you.
Although I'd add a bit of math to the issue. Because everything is mathematics (not a representation) saying that God encompasses everything that is and will be, any idea that tries to define God is, by definition, wrong. What do you think about this proposal?
Quoting 180 Proof
Hey Zarathustra, come the f down.
There are higher states of thinking than our normal consciousness. Terminology can be rather fluid in any language. However Buddhists speak of satori as enlightement and the Nirvana as surpassing them all. The equivalent to nirvana in Hinduism is samadhi, but since they believe there is substantial good beyond the emptiness of nirvana, they claim they have found an even higher state: moksa. By integrating our sacred natures with our Egos we can become exactly what Christians say Jesus is, perfect God and perfect man. That is the end result of the universe
Big bang theory, for one. First there was nothing, then there was something. "Heat death of the universe", etc. You'd be competing with a lot of brilliant minds to oppose that. Aside from that most if not literally every single thing in existence. Generators and engines need to be activated to produce power. Boulders need to be rolled or otherwise be uphill (potential energy) to turn into kinetic (active) energy. Without extreme heat steam turns back into water and without some form of heat energy it turns back into ice. Not fun to think about but apparently that would appear to be how it is.
Sort of like the Son defeating or otherwise assuming the role of the Father? Not so. See the story of Chronos. Or as some speak of him, having different names. Save for one. So the silly story goes, his lady friend/female consort replaced his child with "a rock" .. you'd think even a normal human would be able to differentiate the two. Must have been a pretty good replica. Which opens up the possibility of how some tell of how god(s) are not "allowed" to directly interfere with the (permitted and permissible) lives and actions of mortals (by their own pleas it's said- I mean just think about it. The human mind is I don't want to say fragile, just, when several things go wrong many have tantrums so- imagine something actually unexplained..) and so introduces the idea of (a) Medusae.
Imagine. People, perhaps some related to you, used to actually believe such tales. Heh, makes for great lore though that's for sure.
Fitche, Schelling, and Hegel have given me a new outtake on God. Materialism was fine for a while (a long time actually), but it leads to despair. The way I saw God before was as if he was an abstraction very foreign to me. Now what spurred the activity of the universe? Schelling speculated matter and space expand (Big Bang?), and thus in an instant create time and light (which are contractions). I personally like this aesthetic of the German Romantics. Time happens immediately with the expansion of matter. Matter needs time and makes what it needs as it expands. It's all simultaneous. This theory makes the world self-consistent in itself in the sense that science could explain the origin of everything using it's methods alone. But the full explanation of reality must be in God who is embedded in everything and even closer to me than I am to myself because he is all around me, and is therefore (in a sense) even more myself than I am myself. The last part really helps me spiritually, although it is a different way from traditional Christianity. Schelling said reason contracts the emotions into focus, but love itself expands. This reaching out with love is something I want to work on in my relationship with God. Although the relationship with God seems paradoxical in the way I've explained it, I don't want it just to just reason about him. I desire spiritual development
Considering that Einstein thought we were made of matter and energy, his views of religion may well be in accord with what I've been saying:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/07/11/do-scientists-pray-einstein-letter-science-religion/?fbclid=IwAR0SL0xC4gEkquoHxpaCpq88toObqK4B9YsyHMJEb3Pe3NMFtI3QD8QmXVs
I would rather dialogue with Christians though. There are things I can learn and debating them hasn't really gotten anywhere I've noticed. According to Jain philosophy there are seven things that could be said about a claim:
Arguably it (that is, some thing) exists.
Arguably it does not exist
Arguably it both exists and doesn't exist
Arguably nothing can be asserted about it
Arguably it exists and it is non-assertible
Arguably it doesn't exist, and it is non-assertible
Finally, arguably it exists, it doesn't exist, and it is non-assertible
This is a system that was set up to help show that there is some truth in most religions and philosophies, and uses these 7-tier logic to say that there are shades of truth everywhere. This doesn't deny distortion of truth is possible, but it helps lead the way to more mutual understanding. They were a more peaceful religion compared to other faiths in the past.
Finally, you might consider this theory about how science sees the origin of the universe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology
You believe there is one "truth, way, and (the) life", and no one may reach God without these things, correct? As long as your savior is savior for the message and fulfillment of prophecy and not just owing to being a powerful, ethnically familiar figure- I'm sure we seek the same things at the end of the day.
I do not know how to process the idea of a savior. With regard to morality I still think in Catholic terms. I didn't believe in God until I was 8 and beginning Catholic homeschooling. I was in essence an atheist by the time I turned 18. Thoughts of a God "out there" and "above me" I find strange and impossible to process, so once people say someone within this "out there and above you" Godhead became a home sapein and died for my sake, all I can do is scratch my head. If I put it in the mythical categories of my mind, those ideas can be useful but I doubt I believe them in the same way you do. The problem in theology and to an extent philosophy is that too often people are not using the same ideas although they are using the same words in the conversation. The last time I was read Spinoza it seemed like he was saying God is in no way "out there" but solely and completely inside consciousness and created and continues to create creation solely and entirely through us (which btw organically led to Kant). Logical thoughts are spiritual and they are like a consummation whenever I have them, which is why I read philosophy. That's where I will spend my time
:up: You da man!
I'm not sure if this off topic but my two cents worth is this:
Since you've compared Hinduism to Christianity, I'll try and stay within the limits so set. Hinduism too, like Christianity, subscribes to the notion of goodness in god, gods to be accurate. However, the two diverge when it comes to evil.
I can only guess here but from the bits of information I gathered, Hinduism views as a natural part, an aspect, of the universe, part and parcel, so to speak, of the cosmos and thus to be accepted despite how unpalatable that proposition is.
Christianity, on the other hand, treats evil as something alien to the universe, foreign to it, an external malevolent force, and thus an entity to rally against in order that it may be eradicated, destroyed, and at no point to even think of it as a fact of our universe we must learn to accept.
This critical difference between the two faiths comes to the fore when we examine their respective conceptions of what god is. Christianity's take on god as, like you said, infinitely good sits in contrast to the Hindu gods who are not assigned such an epithet.
At some level, in some respect, it's fair to say that the Christian god is too perfect to be real (idealism?) and the Hindu god is too real to be perfect (realism?). In the former case, one has to contend with the possibility of a nonexistent deity and in the latter case we're left to wonder whether such a deity is worthy of worship.
Antinomies can’t be solved. That’s what makes them ‘antinomies’.
God really may be too real to be perfect. That's a great observation. But I don't really think in terms of worship. I'm not sure I can even understand what that means. The concept of unity, however, of every thing is an idea someone can use with meditation, light drugs like marijuana or nicotine, or just a good book on mysticism in order to gain a sense of spirituality about one's life.
Well I know that Kant thought his four puzzles could not be solved. That's what was wrong with his system and it took latter thinkers to find answers to them. If you wish to discuss them here, this thread isn't a bad place for that..
Any suggestions as to who they were, and what solutions they proposed? You don’t need to spell it out but a reference would be helpful.
The four antimonies are
1) that space and time must be infinite and finite in their directions. Hawking showed how time could start itself and there are many theories of space that use multiple dimensions that avoid Kant's arguments
2) that space is infinite and finite at the same time. I've struggled with this, but they say
calculus now solves this
3) that everything is determined, yet we have free will. Compatibilist theories have been around since Augustine, but newer thinkers give more detail on it than he did (Dennett comes to mind)
4) that the world needs a God and doesn't need a God. This one, well, will always be subject to debate, although Edward Feser claimed he solved it lol
By worship, I meant something much broader than what the word itself means - things like whether god is too human in the sense has character flaws or is indifferent or is morally ambiguous or is not powerful enough wouldn't be awesome enough to worship. Worship here stands for those qualities that make god god, a being so magnificent, so perfect, so whole, that just the thought of him sends us down on our knees unable to do anything but worship, worship, worship. You could say that worship in the way I used it functions as an index of how majestic god is.
Judaism is not really the origin of religion however. John Paul II said in one of his books "The indigenous peoples of Australia boast a history tens of thousands of years old, and their ethnic and religious tradition is older than that of Abraham and Moses." That leaves Islam as the "death of religion". I think that all depends on who keeps power within that religion