Why bother dissecting my entire post if you're just going to say the same thing 17 times?
I understand what you're saying. I just don't agree.
Complex views of God
- Thread starter Pit
- Start date
Why bother dissecting my entire post if you're just going to say the same thing 17 times?
I understand what you're saying. I just don't agree.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
I thought that the topic of the thread is "complex views of God", and by extension, the range of different ways that the English word 'God' can be defined.
You keep using variations on this phrase "the basic definition". What is it? Tell us more about what this one-and-only correct definition is, where it originally came from, and how you personally know that it's in fact the only proper definition of 'God'.
We've already discussed that. (See my earlier post #18.)
My own view is that the present day meaning of the English word 'God' is a composite of ideas that are derived from a number of very different historical sources. Among the more prominent ones:
1. There's the original meaning of the Indo-European ancestor of the Old English word that evolved into our word 'God'. As Fraggle explained in another thread, that was something like 'being that is invoked'. There's a hint of magic in that. Perhaps another aspect of it is 'being that is worshipped' or sacrificed to, the powerful, hopefully auspicious but potentially dangerous supernatural being at the receiving end of invocations and ritual and prayer.
2. There's an historically separate line of influence coming from the Judeo-Christian tradition. During the early medieval period the Anglo-Saxons were gradually Christianized, to the point where it was simply assumed that the one God that's properly worshipped and invoked is the God that's revealed by the Catholic church and in the pages of the Bible. The medieval English may not have entirely stopped believing in the reality of the other gods, but over the centuries those gods were kind of demoted to the rank of demons, lesser and as time went on increasingly malevolent supernatural beings beneath the one Biblical God, which was now capitalized to distinguish it from all the others.
3. And still another influential source of ideas was the ancient Greco-Roman philosophical tradition. Early medieval Christianity was strongly influenced by late-antique Platonism, and in the high medieval period the revival of Aristotelianism rocked Christianity, leading to Aquinas' Aristotelian/Christian synthesis. So not only was God the supernatural person who spoke to Moses at Sinai, 'God' was simultaneously defined in terms of abstract philosophical functions, as first-cause, as the source of the Platonic formal universals, as designer, as basis for morality, as ground-of-being, as teleological goal. The Christian tradition made great use of the philosophical tradition for centuries, collapsing the biblical God together with the philosophical functions in hopes of producing a convincing argument why their God was the only possible true and correct one.
Unfortunately for the Christians, they later discovered that they had a tiger by the tail, when philosophy got out of control and started questioning their doctrines too, leading to a Renaissance-era crisis of skeptical doubt. And then the scientific revolution hit, stepped into the void, and the West lurched off in a whole new and historically unprecedented direction that leads to us today.
My definition of gods isn't that of the dictionary, which I listed, and then listed my own view of the gods for comparison.
If you say only the dictionary's is the genuine definition, you're saying my religious views, which do not correspond to it, are not legitimate religious views.
My whole point being you seem to think you have the right to demand that everyone agree that the standard definition of god is the only definition.
It isn't, we don't, there you have it.
I think that any time you are distinguishing, or clarifying, or outlining, you are defining.
But you're doing the same thing to him as you accuse him of.
Yazata,
Do you have any suggestion as to how we find these different ranges
without resorting to endless speculation?
Why not work with the definition of the word as it understood now?
At least until more information is discovered.
I'm not saying it is a ''correct'' definition, I'm saying it is the only definition.
If you have other definitions then reveal them.
Can you give an example of what another, hypothetical definition of ''God'' would be, just so that we're talking about the same thing?
jan.
Do you have any suggestion as to how we find these different ranges
without resorting to endless speculation?
Why not work with the definition of the word as it understood now?
At least until more information is discovered.
I'm not saying it is a ''correct'' definition, I'm saying it is the only definition.
If you have other definitions then reveal them.
Can you give an example of what another, hypothetical definition of ''God'' would be, just so that we're talking about the same thing?
jan.
You said you own ''dieties''. Right?
Either they ARE dieties, or NOT.
Your words, not mine.
jan.
You're the one who is pushing the word "concept", not me. You don't get to set the terms of the discussion.
I said it before and I'll say it again:
If you are honestly unable to comprehend what I am saying, why I am saying it and how it is relevant to this ridiculous semantic quibble you're trying to create then it is your problem, not mine.
Then the definition(s) that you find in dictionaries are also conceptual.
About to fall back on something like the Argument from the Origin of the Idea of God are we? It doesn't work. On the other hand there is excellent scientific evidence to suggest that the concept of God arose from natural cognitive processes as demonstrated in the lecture I linked to in this thread a short time ago. I invite you to watch it and participate in the discussion.
Rav,
If you wish to view the question that way, and can answer IT from that
perspective, then be my guest. But the question is exactly as it stands.
I've seen it, and I disagree with you.
You'll have to explain what it is you see.
Another thing I noticed is that he is preoccupied with ''religion''.
Scriptures, and previous to that, aural knowledge, was around long before
the modern era of the psycology of religion that he refers to.
I'm not interested in religion, regarding this debate. As far as I can see, religions change all the time, according to whoever has the upper hand.
I see the link you provided as ''religious''.
The only difference being he does not accept the basic definition, and part of his duty within his
religion is remove the definition of God from our minds.
I imagine if christianity was the rising thought process, his counterpart would be trying remove the current
thought form from minds.
This is necessary because once that is removed it is easy to get your thought process in.
jan.
jan.
If you wish to view the question that way, and can answer IT from that
perspective, then be my guest. But the question is exactly as it stands.
I've seen it, and I disagree with you.
You'll have to explain what it is you see.
Another thing I noticed is that he is preoccupied with ''religion''.
Scriptures, and previous to that, aural knowledge, was around long before
the modern era of the psycology of religion that he refers to.
I'm not interested in religion, regarding this debate. As far as I can see, religions change all the time, according to whoever has the upper hand.
I see the link you provided as ''religious''.
The only difference being he does not accept the basic definition, and part of his duty within his
religion is remove the definition of God from our minds.
I imagine if christianity was the rising thought process, his counterpart would be trying remove the current
thought form from minds.
This is necessary because once that is removed it is easy to get your thought process in.
jan.
jan.
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Rav,
a little more on the link you gave me.
His closing speech was very revealing, I thought.
His emphasis on ''science and religion'' conflict. Twice.
His guarentee that kids be taught in the future, by curriculum, the nonsense he spoke.
That he was there to do ''work''. He did a job.
The second to last question where the questioner put himself in the position
of devils advocate. The speaker couldn't answer the question, yet it was in the same vain as his presentation.
jan.
a little more on the link you gave me.
His closing speech was very revealing, I thought.
His emphasis on ''science and religion'' conflict. Twice.
His guarentee that kids be taught in the future, by curriculum, the nonsense he spoke.
That he was there to do ''work''. He did a job.
The second to last question where the questioner put himself in the position
of devils advocate. The speaker couldn't answer the question, yet it was in the same vain as his presentation.
jan.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Not everyone uses the word 'God'. And not everyone who does would describe the meaning of the word 'God' in the same way.
Even individual people will often use the word differently at different times. On one occasion somebody might use 'God' to mean 'Yahweh', the central character in the Bible, while on another occasion the same individual might use 'God' to mean 'first cause', which isn't the same idea at all. The individual perhaps unconsciously tries to equate the two ideas, probably due to living in a culture in which a particular religious view is simply assumed.
Right, I hold that opinion myself. But in my opinion what the cognitive arguments point towards isn't an innate hard-wired concept of 'God', but rather an innate tendency towards religiosity which in turn can take many forms, theistic or not.
I don't think that there's any single unitary concept of 'God' out there in the world. Whether or not people use that word, and if they do use it, what they understand the word to mean, is a question of historical circumstance. 'God' is an English language word after all, and not everyone in the world speaks English. Whatever language they do speak, there probably is a traditional word or words that mean something similar to 'god', 'deity' or 'divinity'. But there are going to be significant differences in meaning and nuance as well, between their traditional concepts and the Judeo-Christian complex of conceptions that some people apparently just assume is universally normative.
It's intellectually indefensible to simply equate all of the world's many concepts of deity and then to give them all a theological spin derived from one's own native religion.
(Edit: That objection wasn't directed at you, Rav. It was sort of broadly directed at a tendency that exists out there that may or may not be illustrated by Jan. I was basically agreeing with your post and using it as a jumping-off pont to better clarify my own views on the subject.)
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Would you mind posting all your thoughts in the thread I started for them? It makes more sense to discuss this there.
Yazata,
First cause is an aspect of Yahweh, it is part of what makes Yahweh ''God''.
You don't have to think ''human'' everytime you relate to people.
What makes you think religion needs be involved?
What else does ''God'' mean?
So you're saying that other concepts of God don't hold Him to be the supreme being, the origin of the universe?
Yaz, I'm not getting you.
Maybe if you give some definitions of God as expressed by other cultures, that would clear things up.
jan.
First cause is an aspect of Yahweh, it is part of what makes Yahweh ''God''.
You don't have to think ''human'' everytime you relate to people.
What makes you think religion needs be involved?
What else does ''God'' mean?
So you're saying that other concepts of God don't hold Him to be the supreme being, the origin of the universe?
Yaz, I'm not getting you.
Maybe if you give some definitions of God as expressed by other cultures, that would clear things up.
jan.
You're absolutely right. I'd say that mysticism, superstition and pretty much any belief that could be characterized as paranormal ultimately emerges from the same place. This is of course not proof of the non-existence of such phenomena, only the fact that we can not reasonably trust our intuition when it comes to trying to make a determination about the reality of such things. Of course many people feel otherwise which leads to a situation where no matter what they "know" they must also accept the validity of what other people "know" even if there is a direct conflict, otherwise they are calling into question the very premise they use to justify their own certainty (which is that they can intuit an objective truth). But there are of course those who believe that there is no such thing as an objective truth; that we may actually be living in world where two mutually exclusive realities can exist simultaneously. Such people might further argue that such contradictions are only apparent rather than real and are ultimately an artifact of the feeble human mind's attempt to make sense of a world it can't hope to comprehend. But to me that's kinda like saying that every aspect of reality exists in a superposition of all possible states and that it can collapse into a definite state according to the beliefs of a particular individual without collapsing globally for everyone. In this scenario I guess one could view God as the ultimate superposition; all possible things to all possible people (which would include, interestingly enough, being existent and non-existent simultaneously but always existent in the more abstract sense of being that which allows the superposition to exist in the first place (but then, suddenly, we have a definite truth don't we?)).
Now look what I've done. I went off the deep end... These are the kinds of posts I usually type out but don't submit these days, but what the hell
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