Communicating Annuls Perfection

[PsychoticEpisode]

Does God destroy his aura of perfection by communicating with His creations?

Does asking a question of your creations somehow blow away the spectre of perfection surrounding God? If God knows all, why communicate with us? What possible difference can our talks with God make in an unalterable plan, in which every move is known by the originator before it happens?

When God declares he is the beginnng and the end, how insignificant or unimportant are we? Would a perfect God need to make that announcement? If so why?

When God asks questions of us, again what does it really matter in the great scheme of things how we answer?

Perhaps God needs imperfection just to be perfect.

A perfect God should not be seen or heard from. In fact it might not be necessary for God to exist at all or at least give the appearance of such, once things are set in motion. If I believe in a perfect God is it necessary for Him to tell me He's perfect?

 

[NDS]

Very interesting topic.

I like to think about whether perfection really even exists. What is perfection, and can anything, including God, really ever be perfect.

For example, what if someone is the perfect golfer. What would that mean? Does it mean they literally can post a score of 18 on every golf course.

Then we can go even deeper. Did they score that 18 in a perfect way? Here's where it get's tricky, because one can score an 18 in literally infinity ways. I can hit line drives into the holes, or I can hit high fly balls into the holes. Or a mix between the two. I can the ball at a 19 degree angle, or a 20 degree angle, and so on. Which way is the best, or most perfect?

Also, one can bounce the ball off of trees into the hole. Or skip the ball off of a lake into the hole. The score is still perfect, 18, but the way it was attained can be very different each time. What does that mean? Maybe it means that perfection is like time, an illusion. A form of human perception which only exists in the mind of humans, like the color purple.

Is perfect an illusion? I'm not sure. Very interesting to think about though. I'm not totally sure I would want a perfect God yet.

Maybe God isn't perfect, because perfection doesn't really exist, like time.

 

[PsychoticEpisode]

I think God by communicating with us is basically inferring that He hasn't a clue as to what to expect.

If God is to be a perfect creator then He must have some ingrained imperfection because he doesn't really know what to expect. If He says He does then its either a lie or He enjoys useless banter..

 

[NDS]

Unless He knows the result before communicating.

For example, in exodus God wanted to free the Isrealites or whoever from the evil Pharoah. The only way to accomplish this goal is to communicate with Moses. In this case, God knew that Moses would respond, and did respond.

If God can tell the future, then the only reason he would communicate with any human is to get to fulfill the future result he desires. Even though he knows the result of his comminication, he still must go through the motions of communicating.

Again, this assumes that God knows exactly how a person will react if he communicates with them, which brings uo the question of free will. How can we have free will if God already knows the choice we will make in response to his communication?

What if God asked Moses to go save his people ten times. How many times out of ten would Moses choose to save the people? I don't know.

 

[lightgigantic]

NDS

NDS

Very interesting topic.

I like to think about whether perfection really even exists. What is perfection, and can anything, including God, really ever be perfect.

For example, what if someone is the perfect golfer. What would that mean? Does it mean they literally can post a score of 18 on every golf course.

Then we can go even deeper. Did they score that 18 in a perfect way? Here's where it get's tricky, because one can score an 18 in literally infinity ways. I can hit line drives into the holes, or I can hit high fly balls into the holes. Or a mix between the two. I can the ball at a 19 degree angle, or a 20 degree angle, and so on. Which way is the best, or most perfect?

There are a quite a few ways that god lies distinct from the living entity ... and these could be surmised as perfections.

For instance one name for god is acyuta or infallible. This means he is not subject to 4 fallibilities that we are .... namely

1. imperfect senses - not see a snake and step on it
2. make mistakes - see a rope and think it is a snake
3. fall into illusion - scream at the rope because one thinks it is a snake
4. cheating propensity - tell everyone that one wasn't really scared and new it was a rope all along

Another way is to understand that god is svarat (fully independent) and abhijnah (fully cognizant) - taken together, these mean that god has no obstacles to the fulfillment of his desire

Is perfect an illusion? I'm not sure. Very interesting to think about though. I'm not totally sure I would want a perfect God yet.

perfection, in the sense of being perfect like god, is definitely an illusion for us ... either in our conditioned or liberated states. Our perfection simply lies in being connected to god. Kind of like the perfection of the hand lies in it being functional and connected to the body. If our hand got severed from our arm we would literally empty our bank balance to stick it back on again. But if our hand got severed and there was no possibility of it being surgically re-attached, we probably wouldn't even bother to keep it in a jar.
In the same way, perfection (particularly in terms of relationship) can be assessed according to how functional it is ... in the same sense, dysfunctional becomes synonymous with imperfection.

 

[lightgigantic]

Does God destroy his aura of perfection by communicating with His creations?

Does asking a question of your creations somehow blow away the spectre of perfection surrounding God? If God knows all, why communicate with us?

are all of our issues of communication, even in the everyday sense, simply related to issues of acquiring information?
I mean what does it generally take to convice a person of something or get them to trust something? Surely sciforums is testimony that mere
provision of information alone is not sufficient.

What possible difference can our talks with God make in an unalterable plan, in which every move is known by the originator before it happens?

Depends whether those talks can result in us repositioning our values

When God declares he is the beginnng and the end, how insignificant or unimportant are we? Would a perfect God need to make that announcement? If so why?

What is the necessity for us to be significant and important?

When God asks questions of us, again what does it really matter in the great scheme of things how we answer?

in terms that our mind follows our speech and our actions follow our mind, I should think its obvious.

Perhaps God needs imperfection just to be perfect.

this is correct in the sense that a being can not lay claim to to omnipotence unless they can exhibit all potencies, including the fallible (or imperfect) potency - and that is precisely what we are - infinitesimal part and parcels of god

A perfect God should not be seen or heard from. In fact it might not be necessary for God to exist at all or at least give the appearance of such, once things are set in motion. If I believe in a perfect God is it necessary for Him to tell me He's perfect?

If we are so imperfect as to become (potentially eternally) socialized around a way of life that is bereft of his knowledge (or even knowledge of our own true selves), yes it would be an absolute necessity.

There is an aspect of perfection that you are neglecting - would a perfectly moral god simply sit back in silence while his part and parcels rot in a false concept of life?

 

[greenberg]

What is the necessity for us to be significant and important?

For us to act in a certain way as opposed to another, we have to hold that we matter, that what we do matters.

If we hold that we are insignificant and unimportant, we won't care about what we do or what happens to us, we will act without rational and moral discrimination and we will sooner or later become insane.

In order to maintain a set of priorities and values in life, we have to hold that what we do matters in some way or another, but is significant enough to move us to choose one course of action over another.

 

[Simon Anders]

Does God destroy his aura of perfection by communicating with His creations?

Does asking a question of your creations somehow blow away the spectre of perfection surrounding God? If God knows all, why communicate with us? What possible difference can our talks with God make in an unalterable plan, in which every move is known by the originator before it happens?

When God declares he is the beginnng and the end, how insignificant or unimportant are we? Would a perfect God need to make that announcement? If so why?

When God asks questions of us, again what does it really matter in the great scheme of things how we answer?

Perhaps God needs imperfection just to be perfect.

A perfect God should not be seen or heard from. In fact it might not be necessary for God to exist at all or at least give the appearance of such, once things are set in motion. If I believe in a perfect God is it necessary for Him to tell me He's perfect?

So maybe God is not perfect and makes boo boos. This seems hard for theists and non-theists to imagine.
But why not?
Daddy makes mistakes.
Kings and presidents too.
There is a lot of anxiety about a deity that makes mistakes.
Daddy must be perfect or else..........?
We've been swimming in the theologists of the monotheisms so long even atheists can feel it is sinful think there might be a fallible God.

 

[lightgigantic]

So maybe God is not perfect and makes boo boos. This seems hard for theists and non-theists to imagine.
But why not?
Daddy makes mistakes.
Kings and presidents too.
There is a lot of anxiety about a deity that makes mistakes.
Daddy must be perfect or else..........?
We've been swimming in the theologists of the monotheisms so long even atheists can feel it is sinful think there might be a fallible God.

You could say that the essential unique quality of god is that he is the cause of all causes. IOW if god is not the cause of all causes, you have a valid reason for not worshiping god (unless it's to stick a few more feathers in your cap or whatever).
So a big distinction between god and say one's King or daddy is that they are obviously not the cause of all causes. Even in paradigms which accept certain persons as representatives of god (and thus worthy of the same respect as god since they act as a transparent medium to approaching god) there are distinctions between visaya representations of god (ie cause of all causes) and asraya representations of god (literally means those who take shelter of the cause of all causes) ... and the distinction is essentially one of determining exactly who is and isn't capable of making mistakes. It's kind of like a king who may have a diplomat working on his behalf in a foreign country. For as long as the diplomat represents the interests of the king, he is accepted as practically non-different from the king in that foreign country. But as soon as he makes a mistake, lets say of publicly switching allegiances or something (ie he abandons taking shelter of the King), then he has no capacity to represent the king. In the same way, who ever we want to accept as a reliable authority for representing the authority of god, their authority only remains valid to the degree that they continue to take shelter of god .... and even then, they can never act in the capacity of being the cause of all causes.

 

[Simon Anders]

You could say that the essential unique quality of god is that he is the cause of all causes. IOW if god is not the cause of all causes, you have a valid reason for not worshiping god (unless it's to stick a few more feathers in your cap or whatever).
So a big distinction between god and say one's King or daddy is that they are obviously not the cause of all causes. Even in paradigms which accept certain persons as representatives of god (and thus worthy of the same respect as god since they act as a transparent medium to approaching god) there are distinctions between visaya representations of god (ie cause of all causes) and asraya representations of god (literally means those who take shelter of the cause of all causes) ... and the distinction is essentially one of determining exactly who is and isn't capable of making mistakes. It's kind of like a king who may have a diplomat working on his behalf in a foreign country. For as long as the diplomat represents the interests of the king, he is accepted as practically non-different from the king in that foreign country. But as soon as he makes a mistake, lets say of publicly switching allegiances or something (ie he abandons taking shelter of the King), then he has no capacity to represent the king. In the same way, who ever we want to accept as a reliable authority for representing the authority of god, their authority only remains valid to the degree that they continue to take shelter of god .... and even then, they can never act in the capacity of being the cause of all causes.

What I meant with Daddy and King's was that we project similar things on God. I think God made mistakes and learns from them. In this way at least some of us are made in God's image.

 

[lightgigantic]

What I meant with Daddy and King's was that we project similar things on God.

how do you know it doesn't work the other way?
How do you know that we don't project god's potency on kings, etc?
Or more specifically, how could something be the cause of all causes and still make mistakes?

 

[Simon Anders]

how do you know it doesn't work the other way?
How do you know that we don't project god's potency on kings, etc?
Or more specifically, how could something be the cause of all causes and still make mistakes?

Actually I do think the patterns with projections onto human figures is patterned on orginal relationships with God. But it is easy to show the kind of mechanism involved with most people by going the other way. They tend to be more conscious of a range of possible relations with other humans and their own ability to distort these. At least some people.

God is a being. Life is confusing. You believe in a perfect never making mistakes God. I don't. I don't think either of us will prove the other wrong.

 

[lightgigantic]

Actually I do think the patterns with projections onto human figures is patterned on orginal relationships with God. But it is easy to show the kind of mechanism involved with most people by going the other way.

so because it is easy does that make it valid?
I mean I could easily show you how a chimpanzee could press the keys on a typewriter, but that doesn't mean every typed manuscript was made by a chimpanzee.

They tend to be more conscious of a range of possible relations with other humans and their own ability to distort these. At least some people.

Most people are not conscious of the range of relations with god, so its not clear at which end the distortion lies

God is a being. Life is confusing. You believe in a perfect never making mistakes God. I don't. I don't think either of us will prove the other wrong.

logic can never come to a conclusion (western philosophy is testimony to that)
....only practice that can culminate in direct perception.
The question is actually answered by examining whether either of us have recourse to a type of discipline that can culminate in direct perception ... otherwise to constantly talk of "it could be like this ... it could be like that" ... this can go on for eternity

 

[Simon Anders]

so because it is easy does that make it valid?

Well, obviously I think so. I think you are reacting, understandibly, to what I am saying as if it were an attempt at proof. My intention is to raise a possibility by reminding people of their experiences or the experiences of others they know in relation to fathers and leaders IN THE CONTEXT of a discussion of God. This is to give them or you - though I really have absolutely no hope in relation to you - a specific momentary experience. From this experience they might reevaluate the source and truth of their assumptions that God must be infallible. This re-evaluation may or may not take place.

So, again. I hoped to inspire an experience that might lead to something.

logic can never come to a conclusion (western philosophy is testimony to that)
....only practice that can culminate in direct perception.

I would word it differently, but I more or less agree.

The question is actually answered by examining whether either of us have recourse to a type of discipline that can culminate in direct perception ... otherwise to constantly talk of "it could be like this ... it could be like that" ... this can go on for eternity

Actually with me it cannot. On the other hand, I am not merely speculating. I would hope that others would open to the possibility that God might be fallible, but I know from my own experience how it is.

 

[NDS]

I agree with Simon here. A perfect God scares me in a way. I'm not sure I want to serve a robot.

 

[greenberg]

how do you know it doesn't work the other way?
How do you know that we don't project god's potency on kings, etc?
Or more specifically, how could something be the cause of all causes and still make mistakes?

I think the projections go both ways - on the one hand, we project human qualities onto God, and on the other hand we project God's qualities onto humans. And the way we make these projections has a lot to do with our particular experiences with theism, theists, our own spiritual practice and general life experience.

For example, someone who grows up as the disadvantaged or abused party in a volatile and violent social environment where people, including those who claim to know God, are unpredictable and unreliable - such a person will possibly end up thinking God must be like that too and thus have a straining and negative relationship with God.
Whereas someone growing up in a theist family who has always been included into the Fold, seen as worthy as opposed to those in the outgroup - such a person will possibly have a positive and exclusivist relationship with God, believing that God is discriminative against those in the outgroup in the same way their family and ingroup were (e.g. the way KKK believes God hates black people the same way some white people do).

On the other hand, when a person thinks they cannot live without their spouse, parther, friend, child, or that they couldn't find happiness with anyone else but that one person, or when a battered wife believes her husband is always right, or when a hostage is convinced they must do as the assaulter demands, or when people insist that doctor so and so is the best doctor there could ever be - those are cases of projecting God's potencies onto humans.

 

[greenberg]

I would hope that others would open to the possibility that God might be fallible, but I know from my own experience how it is.

From my own experience, I have never been much concerned about whether God is fallible or not. What troubles me the most is whether God is good or evil or neither and what consequences this might have for me.
If God is good, then even if he is or appears to be fallible, this fallibility is of no harmful consequence. If God is evil or neither good nor evil, then I am at a loss regardless whether he is fallible or not.

The whole fallibility of God issue has always been rather abstract to me, though. The only way I can see it was pertinent in my life was in scenarios like these where the theist would argue to the effect of: "I am a theist. I know God. God is infallible. Therefore, I am infallible, too. If I tell you, Greenberg, that you are bad and unworthy person, then this is infallibly true and you are obligated to believe it and do as I tell you."

 

[Myles]

Assuming we are talking specifically about the Abrahamic god then those who believe in him must surely be aware of his fallibility. The OT proves it.

He created everything but made a hash of the job.So he sent a flood to cvover his mistakes, and started again. It was no better second time around because his world was still permeated by sin, a fact he would have forseen in the first instance had he been infallible. Next he created a son who came to earth to redeem us all by dint of a blood sacrifice. This didn't work either because the world is still full of sinners.

But I understand he'll be back. Let's hope he finally gets it right !

 

[lightgigantic]

simon

Originally Posted by lightgigantic
so because it is easy does that make it valid?
”
Well, obviously I think so. I think you are reacting, understandibly, to what I am saying as if it were an attempt at proof.

well you dressed it up as a proof there

My intention is to raise a possibility by reminding people of their experiences or the experiences of others they know in relation to fathers and leaders IN THE CONTEXT of a discussion of God. This is to give them or you - though I really have absolutely no hope in relation to you - a specific momentary experience. From this experience they might reevaluate the source and truth of their assumptions that God must be infallible. This re-evaluation may or may not take place.

and you dress it up as a proof here
so why suggest that bringing in issues for determining the validity of proof is not valid?

“
The question is actually answered by examining whether either of us have recourse to a type of discipline that can culminate in direct perception ... otherwise to constantly talk of "it could be like this ... it could be like that" ... this can go on for eternity
”
Actually with me it cannot.

I'm not sure what you mean?
with you it cannot go on for eternity?

On the other hand, I am not merely speculating. I would hope that others would open to the possibility that God might be fallible, but I know from my own experience how it is.

so you have direct perception (ie a claim) that god is fallible and methodology (a means others can apply to also determine the claim)?
Or do you simply have an array of premises to suggest god is fallible? (ie an argument of logic)

 

[PsychoticEpisode]

There is an aspect of perfection that you are neglecting - would a perfectly moral god simply sit back in silence while his part and parcels rot in a false concept of life?

He should. To communicate or reiterate his moral standards to us is an admission that He didn't get us right. Of course one can say He may have deliberately wanted us to not meet his level of morality but then we're right back to having God complaining about something He already knew.

The easiest thing to say is that God does not know the future. So much for prophesy and prediction if that's the case. So much for omiscience. So much for omnipotence. So much for any religious manuscript.

One reason a God might not communicate with us in dialogue form is because there are questions He can't answer or the answer requires a lie. One in particular might be "Why am I here?".

How does a perfect God answer that question? First off, He would know its going to be asked. Secondly it would be impossible for Him to make it sound sensible. How does anyone or any god explain that He created something knowing full well how it will all play out. It's as nonsensical as it can get. God's best alternative would be to not communicate.

Hey, I'm an atheist because I see more reason not to be the other choice. Half the time when I make an argument there are elements in my words that may support god's existence. It is a result of something I've always maintained but only after considerable reflection. God makes more sense if you believe He simply wants nothing to do with us, be invisible, deaf, mute and non interfering. Absolute non communicative is perfection.

All we are left with is speculation which is evident in spades in the religion subforum. I do it along with everyone else.