Who Is God?

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

Perhaps God is just the will to perceive your own environment in a more transcendental way one is used to. I you or me are not willfull within this desire there is no god existent. If i deny the exstitence of god, then god is not existent anymore. If i wish for having an existing god it shapes after my personal experiences and views and after the ways this religion does work. As for example i don't wish for having a god , then god was never existent as i do.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

Not only this, if you're not capable to do this, please visit a psychologist, to give you the right therapy. Due to the fact that this is a could be indicator for a neurosis.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

Why don't we accept modern scientific psychology , where this is just a selfstimulated projection of self-hypnosis.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by SimpleGuy »

If this wouldn't be the case Sigmund Freud would have never existed.
Belindi
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Belindi »

SimpleGuy wrote:
Perhaps God is just the will to perceive your own environment in a more transcendental way one is used to.
Approximates pretty well to :

A religion is (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3)
formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that ( 5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.

Clifford Geertz The Interpretation of Cultures page97

My copy enlarges the spaces between his items. I note that while SimpleGuy places the paradigm within psychology Geertz places his as anthropology. Geertz had already specified how human psychology is based in men's biological evolution which is never apart from culture.
Fooloso4
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Fooloso4 »

To ask about one’s place in the universe creates displacement from here and now. By attempting to relate to an unimaginable vastness one risks neglecting relations with one another and our moral responsibility to each other.

We are earthly not cosmic entities. My place in the universe has nothing to do with cosmic purposes, God given or otherwise. I make my place, a place that shelters those I love and where my garden grows.
Dark Matter
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Dark Matter »

Everything has a risk.

We are earthly entities, but we are also cosmic entities. The quantum world is as much in us as we are in the cosmos: at bottom, there is no multiplicity of things and beings. To become mature is to live more intensely in the present, at the same time escaping from the limitations of the present.
Fooloso4
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Fooloso4 »

DM:
Everything has a risk.

We are earthly entities, but we are also cosmic entities. The quantum world is as much in us as we are in the cosmos: at bottom, there is no multiplicity of things and beings. To become mature is to live more intensely in the present, at the same time escaping from the limitations of the present.
Spare us the inanities. The risk only exists if one’s head and heart are elsewhere. There is no quantum world in us. The quantum world is merely a colloquialism, a way of referring to natural processes at a certain scale. We do not live “at bottom”. We cannot even say what is “at bottom”. Things and beings do make a world of difference to us, or at least to some of us, specifically earthly things and human beings. There is no escape from our limits, escape exists only in the fantasies of those who cannot abide this world. An escape to an insular world of retreat, cramped and closed off,without fresh air or light, that imagines itself to be without bounds; where all one’s fears and anxieties, all one’s needs and desires, find satisfying answers.
Dark Matter
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Dark Matter »

Fooloso4 wrote: April 2nd, 2018, 10:36 am To ask about one’s place in the universe creates displacement from here and now. By attempting to relate to an unimaginable vastness one risks neglecting relations with one another and our moral responsibility to each other.

We are earthly not cosmic entities. My place in the universe has nothing to do with cosmic purposes, God given or otherwise. I make my place, a place that shelters those I love and where my garden grows.
Dark Matter wrote: April 2nd, 2018, 12:36 pm Everything has a risk.

We are earthly entities, but we are also cosmic entities. The quantum world is as much in us as we are in the cosmos: at bottom, there is no multiplicity of things and beings. To become mature is to live more intensely in the present, at the same time escaping from the limitations of the present.
These posts represent radically different perspectives. I’ll let others decide which one is more conducive to peaceful coexistence and human progress.
Belindi
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Belindi »

Fooloso4 wrote: April 2nd, 2018, 10:36 am To ask about one’s place in the universe creates displacement from here and now. By attempting to relate to an unimaginable vastness one risks neglecting relations with one another and our moral responsibility to each other.

We are earthly not cosmic entities. My place in the universe has nothing to do with cosmic purposes, God given or otherwise. I make my place, a place that shelters those I love and where my garden grows.
That works well until a life problem overtakes your ability to make sense of it where your garden grows. At such times, e.g. marriage breakdown, bereavement, loss of career, genocide, and so on we most of us look to philosophy, science, or religion to help us to understand what doesn't fit with one's everyday model of reality. It's not asking one's place in the universe that creates the lost feeling it's uncomprehsible disaster.
Fooloso4
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Fooloso4 »

DM:
These posts represent radically different perspectives. I’ll let others decide which one is more conducive to peaceful coexistence and human progress.
Yes, they are radically different. Most of us would simply leave it there, but as your posts have demonstrated since the time you have been here is that you are not satisfied to leave it there. As to which perspective is more conducive to peaceful coexistence and human progress, they should be judged by their fruit, but that is not entirely fair since different people may share the same perspective and act in very different ways. Forum rules forbid me from saying more.
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jerlands
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by jerlands »

Fooloso4 wrote: April 2nd, 2018, 10:36 am We are earthly not cosmic entities. My place in the universe has nothing to do with cosmic purposes, God given or otherwise. I make my place, a place that shelters those I love and where my garden grows.
I believe this is flat out wrong. The earth was formed from all which gives life and form, that is to say, there are boundaries but no true separation between the earth and the stellar system because it's just one big thing.
"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." - Mark Twain
Fooloso4
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Belindi:
That works well until a life problem overtakes your ability to make sense of it where your garden grows.
I agree. I am a big fan of the story of Job and what it says about human things, but I think it is also instructive to those who look to God for what it says about Godly things. We can’t make sense of why things happen as they do, and that inability can increase one’s suffering and despair. But I do not strive to make sense of it. I do not think that this is the only way or the best way, but it is my way.
It's not asking one's place in the universe that creates the lost feeling it's uncomprehsible disaster.
I agree that crisis can create the feeling of loss, but it is not the only reason why one may feel lost. Those who are not grounded can get lost. Those who forget the human perspective can get lost. Those who neglect the human things in favor of something higher can get lost. The story of Thales is that he fell in a hole while contemplating the heavens. The story of some people is that they step over or step on human beings in search of meaning elsewhere.

These are, of course, not mutually exclusive perspectives, and that is why I said it is a risk. I agree with Nietzsche when he says if you desire something higher then learn to elevate yourself. He reminds us that stories of God and the cosmos are human stories, human creations, human all too human. The question is, to what end do we invent them? They can be effective in giving us solace, effective when they tell us to care for ourselves, each other, and the earth, but they can be disastrous if when in looking beyond man one overlooks man.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Sy Borg »

Dark Matter wrote: April 2nd, 2018, 2:17 am In other words, you don’t have one.
Is it possible not to have a place in the universe? My understanding is that the only way to leave this universe is via a black hole.

Why do you think "having a place in the universe" matters? What difference does it make? Why would the act of convincing yourself that the uncertain is true give you place a "place in the universe"?
Belindi
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Belindi »

Fooloso4 wrote:
These are, of course, not mutually exclusive perspectives, and that is why I said it is a risk. I agree with Nietzsche when he says if you desire something higher then learn to elevate yourself. He reminds us that stories of God and the cosmos are human stories, human creations, human all too human. The question is, to what end do we invent them? They can be effective in giving us solace, effective when they tell us to care for ourselves, each other, and the earth, but they can be disastrous if when in looking beyond man one overlooks man.
I agree they're not mutually exclusive. I think we invent the myths to explain to us how we ought to feel. I've been reading Clifford Geertz, and he says that religion is for showing us the tone and degree of mood we need and the direction of motivation. Obviously societies vary in the specific moods and motivations that are enjoined. I cannot but agree.

By overlooking man do you refer to being too other-worldly like ,as you said, Thales falling into a hole? Or do you mean by overlooking man that man makes gods and religions? Or both? I'd say both.
I find that science and philosophy are more consoling than religion, as science and philosophy demand no suspension of disbelief. However I do long for a reasonable religion and I try to seek for it; now and again something makes sense.

I recall what you and Greta say about peak experiences, and it seemed to me that the effect of these for you was to combine mood and motivation.
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