God is "dead"

[Yazata]

The word God or god by it's very definition and use in the English language defines a person. God is ALWAYS a who and not just a what.

...So anyone who uses the word God is axiomatically ascribing personhood to something, even if they insist God is just a force or metaphysical principle.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on 'God, concepts of' says this:

The most striking disagreement is between those who regard the divine reality as personal and those who do not. Theists believe that even though the object of their ultimate concern transcends all finite realities it is more like a person than anything else with which we are ordinarily familiar, and typically conceptualize it as a maximally perfect person. Persons are rational agents, however—beings who have beliefs about themselves and the world and act on the basis of them. The major theistic traditions have therefore described ultimate reality as an omniscient mind and an omnipotent will. Other religious traditions are non-theistic. Advaita Vedanta is an important example.

Advaita Vedanta's rejection of theism is a consequence of its insistence that “Brahman [ultimate reality] is without parts or attributes…one without a second.” (Shankara [traditional attribution], second half of the 8th century: 101) If the Brahman has no properties, it necessarily lacks the properties of omniscience, perfect goodness, omnipotence, and personhood, and cannot therefore be understood as God.

The rejection of theism also follows from Advaita's conviction that Brahman contains no internal diversity (“is without parts”) and is identical with the whole of reality (”is one without a second”). If Brahman is all there is, for example,then there is nothing outside Brahman that could serve as an object of its knowledge. And if it is devoid of internal diversity, there can be no self-knowledge either...

Otherwise, why use the word God at all to describe it? A mere nonconscious force, much like dark energy or gravity, would best be called just that--a force. To ascribe to it properties and traits of godhood is to automatically invest it with personal qualities and consciousness and purposive agency.

It's an important issue. That's one of the reasons why I have questions about how one moves from metaphysical ideas like 'first-cause' or 'sustainer of all that is' to 'God'. There seem to be a whole lot of additional assumptions being slipped in covertly without argument or even acknowledgement.

 

[wynn]

And, it doesn't address to the other faculties of the god. But still, talking only about this aspect of the analogy, which is the omnipresence, since, this omni-quality belongs only to a being of ultimate power, it is unappliable to address it to a mundane thing such as sunlight, and, if you intend on doing so, you gotta bring the bearer of the omni-quality down to the mundane level, or elevate the mundane object to the level of the deity. So it is a pretty weak analogy, after all...

All analogies are necessarily insufficient in some way; because with them, we are trying to explain one thing via comparison with another thing.

Explaining and understanding with the help of analogies requires an insight into the particular quality or characteristic that the analogous phenomenon has in some way in common with the phenomenon we are trying to explain and understand via the analogous one.

We can compare humans, bottles and giraffes in that they all have necks, but we don't fret that humans and giraffes aren't made of glass, or that bottles don't have a spine and aren't warm-blooded.

There is of course, also a non-analogical way to explain something, but that usually requires much more philosophical terminology and time.


Here are some more analogies to illustrate the dichotomy between the being and its potency:

a flower - its scent
a cook - the meal she cooks
a housemaid - the cleaned, tidied house
a writer - the book he wrote
an engineer - the engine he built
a fashion model - her beauty
a dentist - the tooth filling he made
a cat - catching a mouse
a dolphin - doing a backflip out of water

You are not coming back to that "particular subject in a particular environment" kind of reasoning are you? I am not even considering any other "world view" besides this one, i am totally disregarding it and understanding that it does not exist. The "seer and environment" are feeble attempts of argumentation, if we should accept them, we should accept every other situation that is similar, leading to an anarchy of situations to be analysed that over time will become unpractical. Not to say insufferable.

Refusing to look into problems of definining "reality" won't make them go away ....

the only tangible thing we have at our grasp is the claim itself, and that is what we should analyse

How do you propose to analyze it?

Do you de facto exclude out of your consideration issues like who is making the claim, where, when, to whom?

How? Explain this to me.
The only thing i stated is that, by cold skepticism, an answer based on faith is not entirely valid (to say the least), whether i have myself that faith or not.

Back to what was said earlier:

More to the point,if you neglect the issue mentioned above, there is absolutely no value in you asking such questions since you have no means to analyze such an answer.

IOW regardless if I answer yes or no, you are still left to either accept or reject my answer on faith since you have no functioning further avenue of inquiry to work out if I am being truthful or not.

IOW just like you are left to either accept or reject god from the position of faith, you are also left with no alternative but to accept or reject on faith the answer to this question you ask.

Kind of like me asking if you can operate an automated external defibrillator (AED) and being totally clueless even what purpose its used for, much less how to recognize an authorized operator.

Let's say you know nothing of organic chemistry. You are of course able to pick up a book in organic chemistry and read the table of contents and the index, and you see there the terms "aliphatic compounds" and "cyclopropane."
Simply from reading these terms, you can ask the question "Is an aliphatic compound a cyclopropane?"
If, after that, you close down the book, remaining as ignorant of organic chemistry as you were before, and insist on someone answering that question to you - how meaningful is such insistence?

 

[wynn]

It's an important issue. That's one of the reasons why I have questions about how one moves from metaphysical ideas like 'first-cause' or 'sustainer of all that is' to 'God'. There seem to be a whole lot of additional assumptions being slipped in covertly without argument or even acknowledgement.

Maybe on the part of some theists. And certainly on your part.

 

[wynn]

But the limits of human understanding as they currently exist are insufficient to know and exclude the existence of all contenders.


If one can imagine a god with omni-attributes, then one can imagine innumerable demigods with demi-attributes. One can also imagine that among the capabilities of the demigods would be ability to read and manipulate human thought, thereby determining the perception of reality for any and all human beings. So the necessity for an imagined god to hijack your mind to be able to dictate its proof of existence could just as easily be accomplished by imagined demigods. In either imagined case the thoughts are no longer your own and no longer qualify as an independent validation.

Indeed, more importantly, this same could be going all along in all other matters anyway, so independent validation could be nothing but a pipe dream.

 

[Dazz]

Does employing such skepticism make you happy and give you a sense that you're living a meaningful life?

It satisfies me pretty well, i do not hold the answers to the questions that humanity can't answer, no. But at least, i do not pretend i have, nor, bother myself to answer, all i do is trying to not hold myself to the same place, believe on the same myths, mankind was, is, and will be led to believe regarding such answers.

And if not, what do you see as the cause of your dissatisfaction despite employing skepticism?

The only cause to any dissatisfaction i may hold is toward any religious person implying their superiority among the rest of the world, simply because their religion preaches that they are special, leaving them on the same place as the neanderthals that feared thunders in bygone ages.

Or do you hold that happiness and meaning are outside of your power to do anything about, and that humans simply have no choice but to resign themselves to whatever kind or level of happiness and meaning they currently have?

Happiness, meaning are things that YOU should bring to your life, not anyone else.

What problems do you see in the fact that there exist religious diversity and religious elitism/exclusivism?
Can you summarize is some key points?

Any kind of elitism leads to prejudice and segregation, what to say about religious elitism? When the very religion preaches superiority, it's subjects being led to believe that they are special/superior. Cram this together with the feeling that elitism itself brings. No wonder why Christianism has led the world to what it has led in the past, and keeps on leading nowadays.

 

[wynn]

This is the view held by that 60% (not some made up 99%) of theists who believe in a personal god, and this is primarily Christians. About half of all Jews and Muslims believe in a personal relationship with a god, while none of them typically attribute to god actual anthropomorphic characteristics.

God is non-physical, non-corporeal, and eternal. A corollary belief is that God is utterly unlike man, and can in no way be considered anthropomorphic, as stated in Maimonides' Thirteen Principles of Faith. All statements in the Hebrew Bible and in rabbinic literature which use anthropomorphism are held to be linguistic conceits or metaphors, as it would otherwise have been impossible to talk about God at all. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Judaism#The_nature_of_God

In Islam, God is beyond all comprehension or equal and does not resemble any of his creations in any way. Thus, Muslims are not iconodules and are not expected to visualize God. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptions_of_God#Islam​

Without considering the typical Jewish and Islamic focus on piety, focusing on their apparent impersonalism and anti-anthropomorphism can be a bit problematic.

 

[wynn]

The only cause to any dissatisfaction i may hold is toward any religious person implying their superiority among the rest of the world, simply because their religion preaches that they are special, leaving them on the same place as the neanderthals that feared thunders in bygone ages.
/.../
Any kind of elitism leads to prejudice and segregation, what to say about religious elitism? When the very religion preaches superiority, it's subjects being led to believe that they are special/superior. Cram this together with the feeling that elitism itself brings. No wonder why Christianism has led the world to what it has led in the past, and keeps on leading nowadays.

And for you in particular, this means what, in practice? That you will lose your job, be fed polluted food, lose your pension, ......?


You said - "Happiness, meaning are things that YOU should bring to your life, not anyone else" - so how come you are concerned that some other people are on the level of neanderthals?

 

[Magical Realist]

Advaita Vedanta's rejection of theism is a consequence of its insistence that “Brahman [ultimate reality] is without parts or attributes…one without a second.” (Shankara [traditional attribution], second half of the 8th century: 101) If the Brahman has no properties, it necessarily lacks the properties of omniscience, perfect goodness, omnipotence, and personhood, and cannot therefore be understood as God.

The rejection of theism also follows from Advaita's conviction that Brahman contains no internal diversity (“is without parts”) and is identical with the whole of reality (”is one without a second”). If Brahman is all there is, for example,then there is nothing outside Brahman that could serve as an object of its knowledge. And if it is devoid of internal diversity, there can be no self-knowledge either...

If Advaita Vedanta "rejects theism" then it seems they would be rejecting the concept of God as well, at least as it is used in the English language. Brahman for them sounds more a like metaphysical concept, something akin to Being as used by Heidegger. The problem with making a metaphysical concept into a religion though, as I soon found out with Being, is before you know it you are STILL ascribing personal attributes to this category it by definition already excludes. Humans are hopelessly personal in this respect, perhaps involuntarily projecting all sorts of personal traits on the ultimate principle/being. Subtil perhaps, but still there. They may pray to Brahman/Being. They may have a poster of Braham anthropomorphized as some person or avatar/animal. https://www.google.com/search?safe...qkIDYAQ&ved=0CBcQsyU&biw=854&bih=421#imgdii=_Brahman/Being is not value neutral say like matter or energy is. It aims towards goodness and beauty and perfection. It has teleological potencies--it purposes and intends and creates and imposes order over undifferentiated chaos.

 

[wynn]

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on 'God, concepts of' says this:


Quote Originally Posted by SEP
The most striking disagreement is between those who regard the divine reality as personal and those who do not. Theists believe that even though the object of their ultimate concern transcends all finite realities it is more like a person than anything else with which we are ordinarily familiar, and typically conceptualize it as a maximally perfect person. Persons are rational agents, however—beings who have beliefs about themselves and the world and act on the basis of them. The major theistic traditions have therefore described ultimate reality as an omniscient mind and an omnipotent will. Other religious traditions are non-theistic. Advaita Vedanta is an important example.

Advaita Vedanta's rejection of theism is a consequence of its insistence that “Brahman [ultimate reality] is without parts or attributes…one without a second.” (Shankara [traditional attribution], second half of the 8th century: 101) If the Brahman has no properties, it necessarily lacks the properties of omniscience, perfect goodness, omnipotence, and personhood, and cannot therefore be understood as God.

The rejection of theism also follows from Advaita's conviction that Brahman contains no internal diversity (“is without parts”) and is identical with the whole of reality (”is one without a second”). If Brahman is all there is, for example,then there is nothing outside Brahman that could serve as an object of its knowledge. And if it is devoid of internal diversity, there can be no self-knowledge either...

I'm glad you're bringing this up! We're getting somewhere.

This introduces a very good topic that deserves a thread of its own.

 

[wynn]

If Advaita Vedanta "rejects theism" then it seems they would be rejecting the concept of God as well, at least as it is used in the English language. Brahman for them sounds more a like metaphysical concept, something akin to Being as used by Heidegger. The problem with making a metaphysical concept into a religion though, as I soon found out with Being, is before you know it you are STILL ascribing personal attributes to this category it by definition already excludes. Humans are hopelessly personal in this respect, perhaps involuntarily projecting all sorts of personal traits on the ultimate principle/being. Subtil perhaps, but still there. They may pray to Brahman/Being. They may have a poster of Braham anthropomorphized as some person or avatar/animal. Brahman/Being is not value neutral say like matter or energy is. It aims towards goodness and perfection. It has teleological capabilities--it purposes and intends and creates and imposes order over undifferentiated chaos.

Advaita philosophy cannot explain though how this originally perfect, whole and propertiless Brahman comes into the state where it sees itself as numerous separate entities that suffer.


I suspect that Advaita philosophy proceeded from the bottom up: Seeing that there are so many beings, and that those beings suffer, how could this problem of suffering be solved? One seeming solution is to declare that separation and separate existence is an illusion, and that thus, suffering is an illusion too.

 

[Dazz]

All analogies are necessarily insufficient in some way; because with them, we are trying to explain one thing via comparison with another thing.

Explaining and understanding with the help of analogies requires an insight into the particular quality or characteristic that the analogous phenomenon has in some way in common with the phenomenon we are trying to explain and understand via the analogous one.

The very analogy used is weak. The wind or the air itself would have been a better choice, regarding omnipresence.

Refusing to look into problems of definining "reality" won't make them go away ....

This means exactly what? Are we resorting to nihilism?

How do you propose to analyze it?

Do you de facto exclude out of your consideration issues like who is making the claim, where, when, to whom?

Is really there no how to analyse an object (the claim) without anlysing the origin of the object (the claimer)? In this specific case we are discussing the possibility of a non existence of a superior deity which possesses all the omniqualities. The claim here is that such thing exists, a claim made not only by a single subject/individual, this claim makes almost unreachable to consider the "who is making the claim, where, when, to whom", simply because of the sheer amount of subjectivity implied in this specific claim. The only way to make a somewhat appliable analysis is on the very claim itself on the whole.

Let's say you know nothing of organic chemistry. You are of course able to pick up a book in organic chemistry and read the table of contents and the index, and you see there the terms "aliphatic compounds" and "cyclopropane."
Simply from reading these terms, you can ask the question "Is an aliphatic compound a cyclopropane?"
If, after that, you close down the book, remaining as ignorant of organic chemistry as you were before, and insist on someone answering that question to you - how meaningful is such insistence?

I concede this point. But still, faith is not enough proof to anything.

And for you in particular, this means what, in practice? That you will lose your job, be fed polluted food, lose your pension, ......?


You said - "Happiness, meaning are things that YOU should bring to your life, not anyone else" - so how come you are concerned that some other people are on the level of neanderthals?

I'm sorrily missing the point here... How does this relate to the OP and what was the pun intended? I humbly apologise.

 

[Syne]

personal god (plural personal gods)

1. "A deity who can be related to or thought of as a person, through an anthropomorphized persona, rather than an impersonal, and faceless, force of nature—an example of a personal god is the Abrahamic God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—and a god with whom one cannot have a personal relationship."----http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/personal_god

And? This clearly makes the distinction that a personal god is one that "can be related to...through an anthropomorphized persona", not that it is equivalent to anthropomorphism (which seems to be what you are arguing).

Maybe you are confused by the oddly placed aside. Here:

A deity who can be related to or thought of as a person, through an anthropomorphized persona, rather than an impersonal, and faceless, force of nature and a god with whom one cannot have a personal relationship. - http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/personal_god​

See, this description directly contrasts personal god with one with whom one cannot have a personal relationship.

“I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it.”

― Albert Einstein

Non sequitur appeal to authority that does nothing to support your interpretation of a personal god.

per·son·al (pûrs-nl)
adj.
6. Relating to or having the nature of a person or self-conscious being: belief in a personal God.

per·son·al adjective \ˈpərs-nəl, ˈpər-sə-nəl\

5a : being rational and self-conscious <personal, responsive government is still possible — John Fischer>

b : having the qualities of a person rather than a thing or abstraction <a personal devil>

relate to someone or something

to understand, accept, or feel kinship with someone or something. He relates to people well. I really don't relate to your thinking at all.

First, how do you suppose any of this contradicts what Christians believe a personal god is? That is the litmus test here, not an atheist's supposed definition. Second, if a personal god is simply one that is anthropomorphized, then why do we not call a similarly anthropomorphized pet a personal pet? It is because we are not attributing to that pet a personhood that can be related to just as another human can. Again:

Personal relationships with God may be described in the same ways as human relationships - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_god​

_________________________________________________________


Regardless of an atheist trying to make religious claims being preposterous, this digression into a personal god is completely superfluous. While I do not claim a personal god (one that interacts, as a god, with people directly), for those who do believe in a personal god, that god does "reveal" itself to them, as self-reported. So either way, this answers the OP.

 

[Yazata]

If Advaita Vedanta "rejects theism" then it seems they would be rejecting the concept of God as well

The author is saying that because personal attributes don't apply, Brahman "cannot therefore be understood as God". So he seems to be saying that in his opinion at least, God and theism are necessarily such that ultimate being is imagined as being a person. If it isn't being conceived as a person, it isn't the God of theism.

It's possible to disagree with that, I guess. Some people do seem to use the word 'God' to refer to impersonal divine principles. I think that we see that in the Neoplatonist tradition, where our reality of change and multiplicity somehow emanates, Advaita-style, from the primordial unity of 'the One'. My impression is that the word 'God' is sometimes used in that way, but it's probably an atypical use of the word.

The problem with making a metaphysical concept into a religion though, as I soon found out with Being, is before you know it you are STILL ascribing personal attributes to this category it by definition already excludes.

Human beings seem to naturally think in personalistic terms. It's easier (and far more enjoyable) to hang out with friends than it is to study calculus. (Despite interacting with other people being a much more complex data-processing task.) It's hard for many people to care deeply about something, unless that something is acting like a person somehow. That's typically what speaks most directly to our emotions. People seek purpose, caring and love, not just in their own lives but on the universal scale as well.

I guess that it's possible for some people to experience religious passions directed at impersonal objects and principles, but that's probably less common and more difficult. As you say, there may still a covert personalism involved in some cases, as when we say that God isn't unlike ourselves like a rock is unlike a person, but rather by being psychologically like a ourselves and incomparably more besides.

Humans are hopelessly personal in this respect, perhaps involuntarily projecting all sorts of personal traits on the ultimate principle/being. Subtil perhaps, but still there. They may pray to Brahman/Being. They may have a poster of Braham anthropomorphized as some person or avatar/animal. Brahman/Being is not value neutral say like matter or energy is. It aims towards goodness and beauty and perfection. It has teleological potencies--it purposes and intends and creates and imposes order over undifferentiated chaos.

I was wondering what the mystery ingredient is, the secret religious sauce, that turns a super-powered space-alien or an abstract metaphysical principle into a divinity that's thought of as a suitable and proper object for human religious devotion. Personhood, or something closely related to it such as ultimate ("omni-") emotional evocativeness, seems as if it might be part of that puzzle.

 

[wynn]

Regardless of an atheist trying to make religious claims being preposterous, this digression into a personal god is completely superfluous. While I do not claim a personal god (one that interacts, as a god, with people directly), for those who do believe in a personal god, that god does "reveal" itself to them, as self-reported. So either way, this answers the OP.

Given the OP's tone and attitude, I'm not sure whether there is much to answer.
Perhaps, to retort in the same curt manner - "God reveals Himself to some people, if and when He so chooses. If you're not one of those people, tough luck."

As usual, at least some posters here have tried to make more sense of the problem that the OP hints at than the OP itself does.

 

[Syne]

Say, a "particular person in a particular environment" can also have a transcendent meeting with his/her god, would it make the occurrence factual? No, it wouldn't. As much as a "particular person in a particular environment" can also verify that there is no evidence of a superior deity, being actually existent. Yes, we observe these two 'facts', BUT, one of them does not give evidence to prove itself, what to say about it's bigger context?

Neither "give evidence to prove itself", as the scientific method does not support proof of a negative. Religion can, at best, be handled through the social-sciences, which largely relies on self-reported data, in lieu of the goose egg the more rigorous sciences can provide on the subject.

 

[wynn]

I was wondering what the mystery ingredient is, the secret religious sauce, that turns a super-powered space-alien or an abstract metaphysical principle into a divinity that's a suitable and proper object for human religious devotion.

Again, you are assuming that a person's necessarily theism develops in in this way - from an abstract metaphysical principle into a divinity that's a suitable and proper object for human religious devotion.

If you look at actual religious people, it usually appears to be the other way around: first they believe God is a being that's a suitable and proper object for human religious devotion, and only later on do some of them develop notions of God as an abstract metaphysical principle.

 

[Syne]

And an omnipotent god could always imbue humans with any necessarily capacity for understanding.

If one can imagine a god with omni-attributes, then one can imagine innumerable demigods with demi-attributes. One can also imagine that among the capabilities of the demigods would be ability to read and manipulate human thought, thereby determining the perception of reality for any and all human beings. So the necessity for an imagined god to hijack your mind to be able to dictate its proof of existence could just as easily be accomplished by imagined demigods. In either imagined case the thoughts are no longer your own and no longer qualify as an independent validation.

You presuppose an ability to "manipulate human thought", which would violate free will.

 

[wynn]

The very analogy used is weak. The wind or the air itself would have been a better choice, regarding omnipresence.

Have you looked at the analogies I've posted?

This means exactly what? Are we resorting to nihilism?

No, but that in defining "reality," we must account for the specifics of the whole biological and philosophical apparatus with which we cognize something as "real."

Is really there no how to analyse an object (the claim) without anlysing the origin of the object (the claimer)?

How do you propose to do this?

And also, how do you propose to analyze a claim without bringing in issues of who it is that analyzes the claim?

In this specific case we are discussing the possibility of a non existence of a superior deity which possesses all the omniqualities. The claim here is that such thing exists, a claim made not only by a single subject/individual, this claim makes almost unreachable to consider the "who is making the claim, where, when, to whom", simply because of the sheer amount of subjectivity implied in this specific claim. The only way to make a somewhat appliable analysis is on the very claim itself on the whole.

Not at all. Your approach is a sure way to end up in confusion.

I concede this point.

The point is that being ignorant of a topic and insisting on remaining ignorant of said topic, it is absurd to pose questions about it and insist to get answers to those questions.

Similar often takes place when people discuss theology: they insist on not learning anything more about it, and yet pose questions about it and insist that those questions be answered in terms of their currently existing knowledge. When this doesn't work out, they conclude that God doesn't exist, that theists are all liars and deluded etc.

But still, faith is not enough proof to anything.

Who is claiming that faith is proof of something?

I'm sorrily missing the point here... How does this relate to the OP and what was the pun intended? I humbly apologise.

The OP is making several complex claims and poses a complex question, which I have tried to untangle.

You and another poster have noted the dangers and threats of belief in God. I'm looking for what your actual concerns are in all this - concerns as they pertain to you personally, not on some abstract level. My inquiry is for the purpose of elucidating a particular epistemological issue that repeatedly comes up in these discussions.

 

[Syne]

It's an important issue. That's one of the reasons why I have questions about how one moves from metaphysical ideas like 'first-cause' or 'sustainer of all that is' to 'God'. There seem to be a whole lot of additional assumptions being slipped in covertly without argument or even acknowledgement.

Which is why I asked:

But here is a question for you. What makes us value human life (reverence for life) over other existences?

I was attempting to explain this very thing by engaging something you may understand and be able to explain/describe. But it seems you really do not genuinely care to learn when you can just assume whatever you like.

 

[Syne]

Without considering the typical Jewish and Islamic focus on piety, focusing on their apparent impersonalism and anti-anthropomorphism can be a bit problematic.

Serving a god is different from having a relationship with a god, just as doing your duty at work differs from having a personal relationship with your boss. It could be argued that not having a personal relationship shows more reverence or respect for said authority.