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That's how I prefer to think of a god...something confused just like us, but with more power, that looks down upon us with some mixture of curiosity and decent intentions. That would at least solve the whole problem of evil thing.
yuppers. The standard model.
I don't do the words "more power" tho
I call it "alive". our region of space is best described as "alive". Your notion matches that claim.
a few Atheist here (they know who they are) will not talk about "alive" because they know its valid. They also don't like that it does not match their personal agenda nor their personal need. It gives "them" theist ammo. they dont like that either.
That doesn't confront me because if thats how the universe works, thats how the universe works. What personal emotional need people have needs to be addressed, sure. But it needs to be addressed in terms of "why they need it" first; before anything else.
If I or anyone else could define God definitely in human language, than it would not be God we are defining. It is above and beyond what any mere mortal can put into words.
I will ask you this question to answer yours: can you describe the following image in words that someone who is blind and was born blind will understand:
How could you? Could you convey color to someone who is blind?
Thich Naht Hahn once said enlightenment is like the taste of mango: you can experience, but you can never explain it to someone who has never tried it.
What if a deaf person who was born deaf was on this board and asked you describe, in your own words, what this sounds like:
Could you? What would you say? (btw, that is a very underrated score)
I can only say a few very general things about GOD:
It is beyond humanity, is in some way or another everywhere (either by presence or because it is everything, I am not sure) and can be experienced by humans.
That is it. Any attempt to go beyond that in language is pointless. But God can be experienced. That is what mysticism is: personally experiencing GOD.
I prefer our own Nozz's definition, as it reflects the belief most often promoted / defended by theists here: "An invisible, conscious, intelligent agent responsible for the creation and maintenance of the universe". (If I recall correctly). And I would add, "which makes ownership and management claims on humans as to their belief, behavior and attitudes."
A very Western/Abrahamic-centric definition that is antiquated that most who have studied religion would disagree with.
Quote:
OP, we have a perfectly good term for the universe: "universe". Given that, why call the universe god? Most of us godless folk just see that as an attempt to sneak in an argument for god by pointing to something visible. Usually there is someone not far behind peddling some more specific invisible / abstract version of god built up from that. And it ends up looking suspiciously like my definition above.
And we have a definition for the chemical processes going on in the brain: chemical processes going on in the brain. And yet so many, including atheists label this process "love." Why? If all "love" is is a bunch of neurons firing, why label it "love" and push some kind of idiotic, romantic idea for it that is to the detriment of mankind and personal well-being?
I will cease labeling reality "God" when you stop labeling the chemical reaction that goes on in your brain as "love."
Why is that hilarious? If we couldn't agree on a definition of a word we could never get to the part about evaluating the reality of it. This is the crazy semantic game that GldnRule likes to play, defining god as anything and everything he wants it to be for a given argument.
Oy.
The problem with Fedora/reddit people is that they do not understand, no matter how many times we prove it, THAT GOD IS DEFINED DIFFERENTLY THROUGH THE AGES AND BY DIFFERENT PEOPLE THROUGH THE AGES!
Neither Gldnrule or myself went back in time and wrote this:
Nor did I go back to ancient China and wrote this, the best definition for God ever written:
"The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named is not the eternal name
The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth
The named is the mother of myriad things"
Tao te Ching, verse 1
If it can be defined completely, it is not God. This idea has been around for even longer than reddit/atheism, believer it or not. It is not us "playing semantic games" but rather us turning to things besides the Council of Hippo Bible the Fedora boys like to use to construct their straw god arguments.
If I or anyone else could define God definitely in human language, than it would not be God we are defining. It is above and beyond what any mere mortal can put into words.
And yet no one has faulted the definition I put into words. It is a definition that certainly encompasses the god most people of the words largest religions appear to believe in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by victorianpunk
I will ask you this question to answer yours: can you describe the following image in words that someone who is blind and was born blind will understand:
Probably yes. It would depend on the individual. I do not presume to know what someone will or will not understand just because they are born blind. I see people as individuals not categories. And the method I would use to explain something to ANYONE would depend on them as an individual.
The difference however with the blindness analogy is that I can at least start by evidencing the existence of light and color to the blind person. Because there is evidence of these things one can present to a blind person. This is where the analogy to god breaks down. Because you can not evidence the existence of a god before you go about describing it.
And that is no small difference, and no small failure in your analogy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by victorianpunk
A very Western/Abrahamic-centric definition that is antiquated that most who have studied religion would disagree with.
And yet no one on the forum, least of all you, has put much into disagreeing with it. But by all means show the faults in it because it very much does appear to describe what most people mean when they speak of a god or gods.
Quote:
Originally Posted by victorianpunk
And we have a definition for the chemical processes going on in the brain: chemical processes going on in the brain. And yet so many, including atheists label this process "love." Why?
Because while we have the definition "chemical processes going on in the brain".... we have many such processes and it is useful to have labels to distinguish between them. Your nonsense is similar to saying "We have a very useful word Object..... so why call this thing in your house "bed" and this thing "toaster".... when we have the word Object???".
Quote:
Originally Posted by victorianpunk
There is a difference between category definitions and specific definitions. "Chemical process in the brain" is a category definition. "Love" is a specific one.
So in other words you are only willing to stop using language incorrectly..... as and when we cease to use it correctly? This certainly explains your lack of ability to communicate your positions on the forum for sure.
If I or anyone else could define God definitely in human language, than it would not be God we are defining. It is above and beyond what any mere mortal can put into words.
I will ask you this question to answer yours: can you describe the following image in words that someone who is blind and was born blind will understand:
How could you? Could you convey color to someone who is blind?
Thich Naht Hahn once said enlightenment is like the taste of mango: you can experience, but you can never explain it to someone who has never tried it.
What if a deaf person who was born deaf was on this board and asked you describe, in your own words, what this sounds like:
Could you? What would you say? (btw, that is a very underrated score)
I can only say a few very general things about GOD:
It is beyond humanity, is in some way or another everywhere (either by presence or because it is everything, I am not sure) and can be experienced by humans.
That is it. Any attempt to go beyond that in language is pointless. But God can be experienced. That is what mysticism is: personally experiencing GOD.
In other words, you admit that "god" is something totally subjective, emotional, and psychological. In other words, it is something going on inside the human brain: chemical reactions, etc.
In other words, you admit that "god" is something totally subjective, emotional, and psychological. In other words, it is something going on inside the human brain: chemical reactions, etc.
::Sigh:: Freak can you tell me what human experience is NOT "something going on inside the human brain: chemical reactions, etc." This is a silly accusation.
In other words, you admit that "god" is something totally subjective, emotional, and psychological. In other words, it is something going on inside the human brain: chemical reactions, etc.
How do you possibly get that out of what I wrote?
So, does color not exist? No? Okay. Then describe it in words that someone who has been blind their entire life can understand.
Does sound not exist? Music? It does? Good. Now type out what "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg sounds like so that a deaf person, who was born deaf, can understand.
So, ask me how I can explain God to one who has never experienced it. I cannot. No one honestly can. All we can say is that it is vast, timeless, powerful beyond anything else and seems to operate on levels beyond human comprehension and it can be felt everywhere...whether or not is it everywhere and everything is a topic of debate, but at least it can seem to "inhabit" everything, even if it isn't everything. And it seems as though on some level it can be interacted with by humans.
Anything other than that cannot be expressed in human language, but can be experienced. Just as music cannot be expressed in language for those who have never experienced it or how color cannot be described to the blind.
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