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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Dark Matter
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Dark Matter »

I would like to see more opinions regarding the contrast between the two posts, specifically, which perspective is more conducive to peaceful coexistence and human progress and why.
Fooloso4
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Belindi:
By overlooking man do you refer to being too other-worldly like ,as you said, Thales falling into a hole?
Yes, being out of touch with the flesh and blood animals we are as well as care for each other rather than a god.
Or do you mean by overlooking man that man makes gods and religions?
Yes, that too. And the gods we make are often in various ways at odds with us, as, for example, with Paul seeing things that are natural to human beings as sinful.
However I do long for a reasonable religion and I try to seek for it; now and again something makes sense.
I have no need of religion, but I recognize that it can enrich the lives of others. It can also impoverish life, depending on beliefs and practices. Theology often seems to be about fooling oneself into knowing what one does not know, even when professing not to know, or claiming that God cannot be conceived while arguing for a particular conception, or claiming that God is ineffable while writing volumes effing God.
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.
I’m sorry I made that up. It was a lie, or, in order to make myself seem more honest, what Zen calls an expedient. The intent was not to deceive. It was not the experience but what I claimed to have experienced. It followed DM's claim about consciousness revealing things that go beyond the limits of science. I was having a bit of fun, testing him to see how he would respond when I told him about consciousness giving me access to what happened at the beginning, something out of nothing. I explained what I was doing above:
Parallel to this argument was my fabrication of what consciousness gave me access to. Predictably, the exchange followed the same pattern. You readily accept what is alleged to be revealed in consciousness except when it is at odds with your belief in a first cause. If consciousness points to God then reason must take a backseat, but if consciousness contradicts your argument for a first cause then consciousness must take a backseat.
Fooloso4
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Fooloso4 »

DM:
I would like to see more opinions regarding the contrast between the two posts, specifically, which perspective is more conducive to peaceful coexistence and human progress and why.
You’ve already let the horse out of the barn. It would be very hard for you to convince anyone who has had the misfortune of being on the receiving end of one of your attacks that your perspective is conducive to peaceful coexistence. But that's about you, isn't it?

And that is why I prefer Socratic philosophy, know yourself, over metaphysical speculation and the creation of reality where one looks away from himself.
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jerlands
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by jerlands »

Fooloso4 wrote: April 2nd, 2018, 8:58 pm
Or do you mean by overlooking man that man makes gods and religions?
Yes, that too. And the gods we make are often in various ways at odds with us, as, for example, with Paul seeing things that are natural to human beings as sinful.
Whoa... What's this thing about Paul and natural things to human beings as sinful?
"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
Dark Matter
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Dark Matter »

Fooloso4 wrote: April 2nd, 2018, 9:10 pm And that is why I prefer Socratic philosophy, know yourself, over metaphysical speculation and the creation of reality where one looks away from himself.
OMG. Where the hell did the "looks away from himself" nonsense come from?
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Sy Borg »

Fooloso4 wrote: April 2nd, 2018, 9:10 pm DM:
I would like to see more opinions regarding the contrast between the two posts, specifically, which perspective is more conducive to peaceful coexistence and human progress and why.
You’ve already let the horse out of the barn. It would be very hard for you to convince anyone who has had the misfortune of being on the receiving end of one of your attacks that your perspective is conducive to peaceful coexistence.
Oh come now, Fooloso - is there are more peaceable soul online than our DM? A veritable fount of civility and understanding!

Also ... OMG! Whoa! You must have committed a great faux pas! Only the worst of philosophical sins might have invoked the likes of Kant, Chomsky, Wittgenstein, Hume, Plato, Searle, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Nagel, Dennett, Chalmers, Singer to utter such exhortations (which is perhaps why those expressive terms appear so infrequently in their work).

What of eternal values in the early universe? It's not as though morality and compassion were to be found in the hot plasma.
Dark Matter
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Dark Matter »

I don’t know who’s more scared to answer the question, Greta or Fool.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Sy Borg »

You are a rhetoric machine, DM! "Scared to answer the question"? Which question?

I take it that it's not the question I have just asked you in the post above, which you have continued not to attend. Might you be afraid? :P Might such vacuous provocations be clichéd, childish, tiresome and well worth ditching? I think they might be.

Logically, if "eternal" values emerged with intelligent life then they aren't "eternal".
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jerlands
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by jerlands »

Greta wrote: April 3rd, 2018, 1:39 am Logically, if "eternal" values emerged with intelligent life then they aren't "eternal".
This doesn't make sense. Emergence is coming into view which is exactly how intelligence brings the unknown to be known. Or is intelligence standing firmly on the ground with the mind witnessing the heavens above?
"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
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Sy Borg »

jerlands wrote: April 3rd, 2018, 2:13 am
Greta wrote: April 3rd, 2018, 1:39 am Logically, if "eternal" values emerged with intelligent life then they aren't "eternal".
This doesn't make sense. Emergence is coming into view which is exactly how intelligence brings the unknown to be known. Or is intelligence standing firmly on the ground with the mind witnessing the heavens above?
What doesn't make sense to me is the idea of intelligence amongst all that nucleated plasma. Maybe there was? I don't know, no one does, However, it does not appear to be the case. Rather, the universe has grown and developed in a way not miles from the way its inhabitants grow and develop. Nature extends far beyond our atmosphere.

Then again, I'm a bit of a m̶a̶d̶ ̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶d̶o̶g̶ ̶l̶a̶d̶y̶ panvitalist so the idea of a cold and dead cosmos may just be our perspective within emerging living systems. At this stage those systems have not shown any signs of intelligence or consciousness (away from the Earth) but that too may be a perspective effect due to the relatively tiny scale of our explorations so far, along with our situation on the inside.
Dark Matter
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Dark Matter »

Egads. I quit. I can’t bear watching this foolishness any longer.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Sy Borg »

Egads. Another exclamation denoting yet another unnamed faux pas! I gather that I am supposed to feel shame at some shortcoming you imagine me to have.

However, what I see is you retreating into oddly melodramatic gestures rather than giving straight answers to straightforward questions.

The irony is that I am genuinely interested in the idea that we live within a larger consciousness, or consciousnesses. So one logically figures that educated theists might have some interesting ideas about it. So I test those ideas, because it would be naive to take their word for it. Then they always become angry and start intimating that I have some fundamental flaws as a human being and that's why I supposedly don't understand.

Yet, if a person is secure in their position, why would they do that? Why wouldn't they patiently answer questions?

It should not be a big deal: if there is intelligence intrinsically in the universe, then it's reasonable to ask what's going on with that posited general universal intelligence before intelligent life occurred? If, say, John Hagelin - who believes in a fundamental intelligence to reality - was on the forum he would have patiently explained his ideas about the Unified Field rather than stonewalled and implied fault with the questioner. That's what I would expect from someone who is confident in their position - answers and questions rather than gripes.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Sy Borg »

If you are unhappy with my answer re: my place in the universe, I will instead say that, whatever it is, it appears to be almost exactly the same place as yours and that of every other person - that our beliefs would appear to only make a difference in terms of our place in human society or, perhaps, in nature.
Belindi
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Belindi »

Greta wrote: April 3rd, 2018, 2:38 am
jerlands wrote: April 3rd, 2018, 2:13 am
This doesn't make sense. Emergence is coming into view which is exactly how intelligence brings the unknown to be known. Or is intelligence standing firmly on the ground with the mind witnessing the heavens above?
What doesn't make sense to me is the idea of intelligence amongst all that nucleated plasma. Maybe there was? I don't know, no one does, However, it does not appear to be the case. Rather, the universe has grown and developed in a way not miles from the way its inhabitants grow and develop. Nature extends far beyond our atmosphere.

Then again, I'm a bit of a m̶a̶d̶ ̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶d̶o̶g̶ ̶l̶a̶d̶y̶ panvitalist so the idea of a cold and dead cosmos may just be our perspective within emerging living systems. At this stage those systems have not shown any signs of intelligence or consciousness (away from the Earth) but that too may be a perspective effect due to the relatively tiny scale of our explorations so far, along with our situation on the inside.
I think you have to take eternal values more seriously. Eternal values depend upon eternity which is that those values(and everything else, the fall of the sparrow, each terrible conflict, every kind word, the nucleated plasma, and so on) were always going to happen; God had all these events up his sleeve so to speak.

The weakness in most people's eternal values arguments is that they arrogantly specify the values exactly as if from an engineering blueprint that mentions every rivet.
Fooloso4
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Re: Who Is God?

Post by Fooloso4 »

DM:
I don’t know who’s more scared to answer the question, Greta or Fool.
That is funny. I have repeatedly asked you to answer questions regarding claims that you have made, but nary and answer. Do you really think that I would choose your perspective over the one I described in opposition to it?
Egads. I quit. I can’t bear watching this foolishness any longer.
It was just a matter of time. We’ve seen this behavior many times before.
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