Who Is God?

[Sy Borg]

Greta to be an agnostic I think you have to have quite a charitable definition of no one really knows.
For example if I invented a God which I knew was an invention. Then logically I should be agnostic to my own invention because I can't actually prove my invention isn't real.
I could go further and say my God is a square circle. I don't know for a fact that God isn't a square circle so I should be agnostic.
For me this definition of agnostic is meaningless. I should actually be agnostic to everything including the belief that I should be agnostic to everything.
But in practical terms I have lots of knowledge of humans making stuff up, either deliberately or accidentally. I also don't believe in square circles.

Eduk, I can think of various ways in which something like God, or gods, might exist without invoking sex-obsessed cosmic father figures or new age mysterianism.

For example, what if this isn't the first universe? What if entities in earlier universes evolved to the point of surviving the heat death of their old universe and are still existent in a form in which we are not familiar?

What if God is emerging and evolving, and has so far progressed to sentient biology in this part of the galaxy? What if God does not yet exist, other than as a potential?

What if there's other dimensions that are "deeper", less temporal? What if the universe is an electron of another universe? What if our senses are merely practical and less in touch with actual reality than we ever imagined?

No doubt there are other naturalistic possibilities not listed. So I remain agnostic and keen to learn more of what science can show us. As DM would no doubt point out, there's also learning to be had via introspection, and perhaps the hard part is theoretically marrying the subjective and the objective (outside of the present moment) - the inside and the outside, being and environment.

[Dark Matter]

What if there's other dimensions that are "deeper", less temporal? What if the universe is an electron of another universe? What if our senses are merely practical and less in touch with actual reality than we ever imagined?

No doubt there are other naturalistic possibilities not listed. So I remain agnostic and keen to learn more of what science can show us. As DM would no doubt point out, there's also learning to be had via introspection, and perhaps the hard part is theoretically marrying the subjective and the objective (outside of the present moment) - the inside and the outside, being and environment.

Very well said. Thank you.

Our understanding of the world changed radically a little more than a hundred years ago. Philosophy and religion haven't kept up. Sadly, it seems most people, even most scientists, see the world through the eyes of 19th century positivism.

[Spectrum]

Greta to be an agnostic I think you have to have quite a charitable definition of no one really knows.
For example if I invented a God which I knew was an invention. Then logically I should be agnostic to my own invention because I can't actually prove my invention isn't real.
I could go further and say my God is a square circle. I don't know for a fact that God isn't a square circle so I should be agnostic.
For me this definition of agnostic is meaningless. I should actually be agnostic to everything including the belief that I should be agnostic to everything.
But in practical terms I have lots of knowledge of humans making stuff up, either deliberately or accidentally. I also don't believe in square circles.

Eduk, I can think of various ways in which something like God, or gods, might exist without invoking sex-obsessed cosmic father figures or new age mysterianism.

For example, what if this isn't the first universe? What if entities in earlier universes evolved to the point of surviving the heat death of their old universe and are still existent in a form in which we are not familiar?

What if God is emerging and evolving, and has so far progressed to sentient biology in this part of the galaxy? What if God does not yet exist, other than as a potential?

What if there's other dimensions that are "deeper", less temporal? What if the universe is an electron of another universe? What if our senses are merely practical and less in touch with actual reality than we ever imagined?

No doubt there are other naturalistic possibilities not listed. So I remain agnostic and keen to learn more of what science can show us.

There are many perspectives within an interdependent 'reality.'

The most credible perspective of reality is Science but it is only as good as its defined assumptions, limitations and its Framework, System & Method. As best scientific theories are merely polished conjectures [Popper] and this is the best source of knowledge of reality that we have. I don't think humanity will ever produced another mode of knowledge that is more credible than Science which is based on conjectures.

Science deals with the empirical and what is empirically possible only. Thus whatever one speculate within Science and since it has to be empirically possible, then by default one has to be agnostic because there is no 100% certainty within empiricism. This is why those who speculate about 'God' as an empirically possible entity are agnostic of God's existence, e.g. Dawkins' 1/7 possibility of God existence.

But the problem with an empirical possible God is that such a god has an inherent potential to be inferior to another god.

To avoid being inferior to another god, the God of the majority [Abrahamic + Hinduism] by default has to be an ontological God, i.e. a God than which no greater exists. Such a god cannot be an empirically possible god but can exists as held by reason only.

I have proven an ontological god that is held via reason only is an impossibility to be real within an empirical-rational reality.

Since such an ontological God is non-empirically-based and an impossibility to start with, there is no question being 'agnostic' with such a god. This mean you cannot be agnostic with an ontological God, i.e. it is moot.

[Eduk]

Greta I'm not really explaining my point well.
Religions claim to know specific Gods. And they give those Gods specific attributes. And they make specific claims and act in specific ways. Even DM who has one of the widest definitions of God I've ever heard still makes claims about that God, for example you must love them before you know them.
Let us take one common claim. God is non physical. Does that mean that anything and everything non physical is God?
I guess a lot of this boils down to how you define God and what would acceptably pass as God.

[Dark Matter]

Greta I'm not really explaining my point well.
Religions claim to know specific Gods.

Some do, but not all. No offense, but if you were talking about race you’d be called a bigot.

And they give those Gods specific attributes.

The language is analogical, not univocal.

And they make specific claims and act in specific ways.

And you don’t?

Even DM who has one of the widest definitions of God I've ever heard still makes claims about that God, for example you must love them before you know them.

Knowing that God is is one thing, knowing what he is is quite another.

Let us take one common claim. God is non physical. Does that mean that anything and everything non physical is God?

What precedes the physical, what underpins it all, cannot be physical.

I guess a lot of this boils down to how you define God and what would acceptably pass as God.

I suppose that’s true, but everything said in your attempt to clarify your point illustrates that a little knowledge is more misleading, more dangerous, than none at all. If you’re interested is learning, I’ll post a link to a book review that explains why your criticisms are straw man arguments.

[Eduk]

Two things DM. Firstly it's not useful to accuse others of standard logical fallacies past a certain point. I would hope by now that you considered more of me than that.
Secondly your approach to God is the opposite to my approach to life. For example I know, to an extent, the effects of gravity but I don't know that gravity is.

[Dark Matter]

Here are two radically different reviews of the same book. Both are written by atheists, but the one written by Jerry Coyne (the second) is all over the map. It leaves the reader wondering what book is being reviewed. It’s angry and confused. The author is probably frustrated because “Hart’s exceedingly rarified notion of God,” by the reviewer’s own admission, can’t be refuted. The reviewer also says that it’s a belief shared by almost no believers, which Hart points out early in the book is simply not true. Other points Coyne imagines himself(?) to be making are ... well ... asinine.

The one theology book all atheists really should read

Religious Believers' Favorite New Book Is a Failed Argument for God

[Dark Matter]

Secondly your approach to God is the opposite to my approach to life. For example I know, to an extent, the effects of gravity but I don't know that gravity is.

Even though you don’t know that gravity is, I doubt very much you will put it to the test by jumping off a cliff. I least, I hope you don’t.

[Dark Matter]

BTW, your approach to gravity is the same approach Aquinas uses in his approach to God.

[Eduk]

Even though you don’t know that gravity is, I doubt very much you will put it to the test by jumping off a cliff.

No that's the point. I do know that I will fall. I know I will fall at a certain rate. I know roughly my chances of injury and so on. And I can do all that without knowing that gravity is. I call what I don't know gravity for ease of use. But I don't know what gravity is, therefore I don't know that it is. If I was a betting man I would guess many of the various forces which describe things very well at set resolutions all collapse into a single theory. But that is a pure guess, it could very well not be the case. If of course such a thing were discovered to be true the concept of gravity would remain and be perfectly serviceable at the resolution that we use the term.

[Dark Matter]

Even though you don’t know that gravity is, I doubt very much you will put it to the test by jumping off a cliff.

No that's the point. I do know that I will fall. I know I will fall at a certain rate. I know roughly my chances of injury and so on. And I can do all that without knowing that gravity is. I call what I don't know gravity for ease of use. But I don't know what gravity is, therefore I don't know that it is. If I was a betting man I would guess many of the various forces which describe things very well at set resolutions all collapse into a single theory. But that is a pure guess, it could very well not be the case. If of course such a thing were discovered to be true the concept of gravity would remain and be perfectly serviceable at the resolution that we use the term.

Thank you. Like it or not, believe it or not, it’s exactly the same with God. In the end, we know God (or gravity) as unknown. “God,” like the word “gravity,” are pointers that point without defining.

[Dark Matter]

To clarify, “gravity” in the context you use is analogical, not univocal. It’s a word used to describe certain effects without specifying what the cause is. That is exactly what Thomas Aquinas does.

[Sy Borg]

Why call it "God"? The semantics of the label always evoke a anthropomorphised entity to me and, in my observations, numerous others. Why not "universe"?

Also, what observed events lead to God in the same way as observed events lead to the theory of gravity?

[Dark Matter]

Why call it "God"? The semantics of the label always evoke a anthropomorphised entity to me and, in my observations, numerous others.

So what? What’s stopping you from getting rid of your presuppositions?

Why not "universe"?

Because the term “God” denotes something different, something more real, more fundamental.

Also, what observed events lead to God in the same way as observed events lead to the theory of gravity?

Intelligibility, for starters.

[Dark Matter]

Remember, Eduk used the word “gravity” analogically, not univocally. Your use of it is the latter.