How Do You Understand the Idea of 'God'?

[Pattern-chaser]

I think this question demands clarification.
Such as;
1) Which idea of god.
2) What do you mean god?
3) One of many or singular?
4) Are you really asking Why god?
5) How does anyone understand any idea?

A few posts ago, Sy Borg mentioned "particular Gods", or something like that. I think this illustrates, and perhaps clarifies, the subject matter of this topic. To a particular theist, God is "particular". I.e. that theist has their own conception /idea of God. But as philosophers, looking at theism, or some aspect thereof, we look at God as a more 'amorphous' concept, taking any and all particular ideas of God and combining them, or averaging them out. I think this answers — perhaps only partly? — your questions 1–3.

[Pattern-chaser]

But it is that "duh" that I agree with. Most of LP's claims are basic and obvious. Their positive claims stem from science and are thus quite reliable, but the LP assumption that that physicality is everything is speculative, especially when the subjective mind is thought of as a meaningless by-product of reflexive brain operations.

You asked about my nagging doubts. As you know, some years ago I had two peak experiences, the second one being especially powerful. Part of that experience was feeling enveloped in unconditional love. From where, what or whom? Was it just a rush of dopamine? Could be. Still, the experience was an outlier for me, and I had plenty of experience with drugs when I was young (a response to trauma) so I am familiar with a range of states.

Yet these two peak experiences were different to any mindset I'd experienced before. (Actually, far better). I had no idea that such states were possible. You hear the stories, of course, but when you find yourself enveloped in the sensation of being unconditionally loved by an unknown source, that is deeply weird. If I was so inclined, that second peak experience would have turned me into a theist, for sure.

Then there are reports of peak experiences and NDEs from many, many people. While there may be materialist explanations for these, to some extent that is a moot point. There are times (such as near death) where life's usual priorities are reversed, when the subjective realm becomes more important than the objective. If deities or other dimensions exist, I suspect that the answers lie in subjectivity, not the objective reality that is accessible to other observers and measurable by physicists.

I suspect that the instinctive materialism of early theists combined with Biblical use of metaphor to throw almost everyone off the trail, even some scientists, checking to see if any phantasms exist in nature, when they appear must likely to be mental. In that sense, Buddhism is more grounded than more materialist and literalist Abrahamic religions.

I think our views here are very similar. Thanks for expanding on your doubts, etc; interesting. Sadly, I have nothing more of value to contribute to this fragment, so I'll stop here.

[Sculptor1]

I think this question demands clarification.
Such as;
1) Which idea of god.
2) What do you mean god?
3) One of many or singular?
4) Are you really asking Why god?
5) How does anyone understand any idea?

A few posts ago, Sy Borg mentioned "particular Gods", or something like that. I think this illustrates, and perhaps clarifies, the subject matter of this topic. To a particular theist, God is "particular". I.e. that theist has their own conception /idea of God. But as philosophers, looking at theism, or some aspect thereof, we look at God as a more 'amorphous' concept, taking any and all particular ideas of God and combining them, or averaging them out. I think this answers — perhaps only partly? — your questions 1–3.

Paradoxically the Theist God is the ultimate transgression of the particular. SInce God is considered to be omnipresent it cannot be a particle of the whole but the whole itself. This is not particular but general. Particulars are distinct, separate and divergent.
I do not hold any credibility to any attempt to average out the aspect and characteristics of God. WHat use is a conceptually amorphous anything - let alone god.

[Sosein]

I believe in God as the first cause, the unmoved mover, the uncreated creator, the eternal origin of our ephemeral world. So i think deism and its assumptions are mostly true. There is also a school of thought called negativ theology which i can relate too.

[JackDaydream]

I think this question demands clarification.
Such as;
1) Which idea of god.
2) What do you mean god?
3) One of many or singular?
4) Are you really asking Why god?
5) How does anyone understand any idea?

Your questions are useful for any serious philosophy discussion of the idea of God. It is true that many different conceptions did exist including the various deities throughout the world, and it probably goes back into the realm of anthropology. There are the many images of the various deities, including ones of the Egyptian and Hindus. Such deities conveyed in the images can be seen as mythical projections, but, at the same time they seem to go beyond the conscious mind, as archetypes. There is also the issue of goddesses and some have speculated that there may have been an age prior to the gods in which the goddess was revered as sacred.

One radical anthropologist, Chris Knight, who studied the Aboriginal mythic world thought that the goddess, in connection to the rainbow snake was significant in the emergence of culture. He argued that female power was significant, and later repressed. He suggests that the rainbow snake was significant in relation to the synchronisation of women's menstrual cycle patterns in relation to the development of hunter/gatherer society.

People may mean different things by the idea of God, especially depending on whether God is seen as transcendent or imminent. A few days ago, in another thread Belindi said how the idea of God or nature may be different ways of expressing a similar idea. This is something which I have thought for a couple of years, and besides nature, what some describe as energy may be similar too.

The one or the many has been an underlying issue too. To some extent, I think that Plotinus's discussion of this was important because he traced how the many aspects can be traced back to the one. Another idea which I have come across is that of the Godhead, which would be the idea of the various images linking back further to the 'ultimate', but it may verge onto mysticism. If anything, my understanding of the various deities or images is they are the images in the human mind and that is why they differ, especially as images are images and not the 'reality' itself.

It may be that some find the idea of God as helpful and others not. Certainly, the idea of God has been used and abused psychologically, socially and politically. I am inclined to think that the big debate over theism and atheism is exaggerated, probably due the use or abuse of the idea of God, with a lot depending on one's own personal experience of religion. I take a non-binary approach to the idea of God, with swings in which I side more with the theists and other times with the atheists, and I don't like to be put in a box. However, I am aware that many may be approach to be a bit strange, and in discussion on TPF someone told me that by not seeing the difference between theism and atheism was rather like failing to see the difference between a bald head and an Afro.

[Belindi]

I believe in God as the first cause, the unmoved mover, the uncreated creator, the eternal origin of our ephemeral world. So i think deism and its assumptions are mostly true. There is also a school of thought called negativ theology which i can relate too.

Why call the uncreated creator God when you may as well call it Nature?

I agree with your second sentence except for your word "ephemeral" which connotes a lack of reality or respect compared with "eternal". Maybe this world of time and change in which we live is equal in importance to eternity.

I am atheist as regards personal God or gods, but negative theology would be a great improvement on religious doctrines that claim to explain all about God.

[Belindi]

I think this question demands clarification.
Such as;
1) Which idea of god.
2) What do you mean god?
3) One of many or singular?
4) Are you really asking Why god?
5) How does anyone understand any idea?

A few posts ago, Sy Borg mentioned "particular Gods", or something like that. I think this illustrates, and perhaps clarifies, the subject matter of this topic. To a particular theist, God is "particular". I.e. that theist has their own conception /idea of God. But as philosophers, looking at theism, or some aspect thereof, we look at God as a more 'amorphous' concept, taking any and all particular ideas of God and combining them, or averaging them out. I think this answers — perhaps only partly? — your questions 1–3.

No wonder He is amorphous! Polytheism has the capability of endowing gods and goddesses with shape, form, and purpose.

[Sosein]

Why call the uncreated creator God when you may as well call it Nature?

I agree with your second sentence except for your word "ephemeral" which connotes a lack of reality or respect compared with "eternal". Maybe this world of time and change in which we live is equal in importance to eternity.

I am atheist as regards personal God or gods, but negative theology would be a great improvement on religious doctrines that claim to explain all about God.

Maybe transitory or fading would be bitter fit then ephemeral, as a term. What i meant is that everything we usually refer to as nature or world is defined by arising and passing away per se. And because i think God doesnt do so, thats why Nature isnt God.
I really didnt mean to make any statement regards the importance or unimportance of our current or any other times.

[Stoppelmann]

I believe in God as the first cause, the unmoved mover, the uncreated creator, the eternal origin of our ephemeral world. So i think deism and its assumptions are mostly true. There is also a school of thought called negativ theology which i can relate too.

We forget that a lot of what we experience that influences us, the interaction of imparted knowledge, opinions, and medial portrayal, grows as intuition. We hear something from the distant past and our reflexive response identifies it as something we think we already know about, rather than using a reflective response to differentiate. This happened a lot when Christian missionaries were the first people to translate traditions from the far east, using Christian terminologies, influencing our perception of eastern ideas, which entered text books and influenced us a school children. We have also had a situation in which religion per se and anything from those sources was reflexively opposed, for example by the archaeologists, who, for example denied any reality behind the mythologies of the past, and then subdued evidence that it might have substance.

The problem I see with all of these discussions is that we assume that we are in a superior position, especially with regard to the religions of the past, despite the obvious sophistication of ancient language, the amazing structures around the world from that time, their understanding of geometry and astronomy, the sustainability of their teachings over thousands of years, and last but not least, the presence of an inferior mythology and legends in our own time and our enduring reliance on metaphorical language. I think the problem that we have with gods and God, as well as concepts of evil, is that we externalise these instead of perceiving them to be spiritual concepts describing non-graspable and ineffable effects on peoples lives, which they made visible using myth, poetry, dance, music, fertility, and examples from nature.

We have the advantage of rational enquiry, but that disadvantage of no longer experiencing the “original participation” (Barfield), or the immediacy of natural life, except in existential situations, when we may, if we are lucky, glimpse the ephemeral radiance of a mystery. A synthesis of these different perspectives would help us out of the meaning crisis in which we seem to be in. Then, the possibility of “God” as ground of being, as primary consciousness of the cosmos, as the One of which we are all a part, would not seem so distant.

[Belindi]

Why call the uncreated creator God when you may as well call it Nature?

I agree with your second sentence except for your word "ephemeral" which connotes a lack of reality or respect compared with "eternal". Maybe this world of time and change in which we live is equal in importance to eternity.

I am atheist as regards personal God or gods, but negative theology would be a great improvement on religious doctrines that claim to explain all about God.

Maybe transitory or fading would be bitter fit then ephemeral, as a term. What i meant is that everything we usually refer to as nature or world is defined by arising and passing away per se. And because i think God doesnt do so, thats why Nature isnt God.
I really didnt mean to make any statement regards the importance or unimportance of our current or any other times.

I know you did not mean to do so but ephemeral, transitory, and fading all slightly denigrate this world of time and relativity where we all live and have our being. True, all things and events of this world pass away and are transitory, ephemeral and fading but Nature itself is not transitory, ephemeral, or fading.

You express the typical +theists' attitude to eternity as better, truer, and more beautiful than the temporal world.

[Sculptor1]

I think this question demands clarification.
Such as;
1) Which idea of god.
2) What do you mean god?
3) One of many or singular?
4) Are you really asking Why god?
5) How does anyone understand any idea?

Your questions are useful for any serious philosophy discussion of the idea of God. It is true that many different conceptions did exist including the various deities throughout the world, and it probably goes back into the realm of anthropology. There are the many images of the various deities, including ones of the Egyptian and Hindus. Such deities conveyed in the images can be seen as mythical projections, but, at the same time they seem to go beyond the conscious mind, as archetypes. There is also the issue of goddesses and some have speculated that there may have been an age prior to the gods in which the goddess was revered as sacred.

One radical anthropologist, Chris Knight, who studied the Aboriginal mythic world thought that the goddess, in connection to the rainbow snake was significant in the emergence of culture. He argued that female power was significant, and later repressed. He suggests that the rainbow snake was significant in relation to the synchronisation of women's menstrual cycle patterns in relation to the development of hunter/gatherer society.

People may mean different things by the idea of God, especially depending on whether God is seen as transcendent or imminent. A few days ago, in another thread Belindi said how the idea of God or nature may be different ways of expressing a similar idea. This is something which I have thought for a couple of years, and besides nature, what some describe as energy may be similar too.

The one or the many has been an underlying issue too. To some extent, I think that Plotinus's discussion of this was important because he traced how the many aspects can be traced back to the one. Another idea which I have come across is that of the Godhead, which would be the idea of the various images linking back further to the 'ultimate', but it may verge onto mysticism. If anything, my understanding of the various deities or images is they are the images in the human mind and that is why they differ, especially as images are images and not the 'reality' itself.

It may be that some find the idea of God as helpful and others not. Certainly, the idea of God has been used and abused psychologically, socially and politically. I am inclined to think that the big debate over theism and atheism is exaggerated, probably due the use or abuse of the idea of God, with a lot depending on one's own personal experience of religion. I take a non-binary approach to the idea of God, with swings in which I side more with the theists and other times with the atheists, and I don't like to be put in a box. However, I am aware that many may be approach to be a bit strange, and in discussion on TPF someone told me that by not seeing the difference between theism and atheism was rather like failing to see the difference between a bald head and an Afro.

In historical studies (and I include anthropology, archaeology, history and even geology) there is a tendency to view the past a simplified system of evolution. Often we see an assumed transition from a primitive earth mother to more "mature" sky father, and it seems to be posited for cultures where there is little evidence. Thus the discovery of the Willandorf Venus immediately gets associated with the earth mother, even "gaia". But all archaeological evidence is shockingly partial and could be random.
It also tends to attract the contemporary fashions of the archaeologist. Thus we see the emergence of a feminist inspired move to push a female deity in the 1960s which pushed back against the "Sky Daddy" hypothesis of Franz Shimidt, who proposed an ur-religion of an all creator single father (well what else would you expect from theologian).
The earth mother gets place upon the ruins of Crete's "snake woman" becomes Rhea the universal all mother great goddess. Objectively there is no specific reason to attribute the figure to Rhea, except by association. And despite Minoan culture falling violently it is also proposed that she was part of an evolution to a series of other goddess figures.
It seems more likely to me that as fashions in the historiography of religious evolution tend to switch and change; it may well be that the past is far more fluid that our "partial" evidence is capable of showing. It may well be instructive that the dominant pattern of religious belief throughout the "Celtic", "Germanic" and Roman/Hellenic worlds, as well as the Indus cultures were a smorgasbord - a collection of deities, gods and demigods, as well as heroes. A sort of bricolage where everyone's ideas can be accomodated. We even see that in the far east with "Buddhist" cultures; showing complex cosmologies with many competing and interacting figures - that is until the tyranny of monotheism.
I do not know much about the American religious cultures, but seem to think that they are also far removed from a single god idea.

It seems to me an attractive possibility that the persistence of what we like to call polytheism has been a way for cultures to come together peacefully not by assimilation but by co-operation. And there is, in our monotheistic world a tendency to monotheize the pantheons by pointing to a proxy for the Christian god, such as making Zeus or Odin the Big Fat Controller, when in effect this was not the case. We have only to reflect upon the fact that Zeus was only a second class god; only the 6th son of Chronos, and in perpetual conflict with Poseidon of the sea. Odin too was a son of Borr.

[JackDaydream]

I think this question demands clarification.
Such as;
1) Which idea of god.
2) What do you mean god?
3) One of many or singular?
4) Are you really asking Why god?
5) How does anyone understand any idea?

Your questions are useful for any serious philosophy discussion of the idea of God. It is true that many different conceptions did exist including the various deities throughout the world, and it probably goes back into the realm of anthropology. There are the many images of the various deities, including ones of the Egyptian and Hindus. Such deities conveyed in the images can be seen as mythical projections, but, at the same time they seem to go beyond the conscious mind, as archetypes. There is also the issue of goddesses and some have speculated that there may have been an age prior to the gods in which the goddess was revered as sacred.

One radical anthropologist, Chris Knight, who studied the Aboriginal mythic world thought that the goddess, in connection to the rainbow snake was significant in the emergence of culture. He argued that female power was significant, and later repressed. He suggests that the rainbow snake was significant in relation to the synchronisation of women's menstrual cycle patterns in relation to the development of hunter/gatherer society.

People may mean different things by the idea of God, especially depending on whether God is seen as transcendent or imminent. A few days ago, in another thread Belindi said how the idea of God or nature may be different ways of expressing a similar idea. This is something which I have thought for a couple of years, and besides nature, what some describe as energy may be similar too.

The one or the many has been an underlying issue too. To some extent, I think that Plotinus's discussion of this was important because he traced how the many aspects can be traced back to the one. Another idea which I have come across is that of the Godhead, which would be the idea of the various images linking back further to the 'ultimate', but it may verge onto mysticism. If anything, my understanding of the various deities or images is they are the images in the human mind and that is why they differ, especially as images are images and not the 'reality' itself.

It may be that some find the idea of God as helpful and others not. Certainly, the idea of God has been used and abused psychologically, socially and politically. I am inclined to think that the big debate over theism and atheism is exaggerated, probably due the use or abuse of the idea of God, with a lot depending on one's own personal experience of religion. I take a non-binary approach to the idea of God, with swings in which I side more with the theists and other times with the atheists, and I don't like to be put in a box. However, I am aware that many may be approach to be a bit strange, and in discussion on TPF someone told me that by not seeing the difference between theism and atheism was rather like failing to see the difference between a bald head and an Afro.

In historical studies (and I include anthropology, archaeology, history and even geology) there is a tendency to view the past a simplified system of evolution. Often we see an assumed transition from a primitive earth mother to more "mature" sky father, and it seems to be posited for cultures where there is little evidence. Thus the discovery of the Willandorf Venus immediately gets associated with the earth mother, even "gaia". But all archaeological evidence is shockingly partial and could be random.
It also tends to attract the contemporary fashions of the archaeologist. Thus we see the emergence of a feminist inspired move to push a female deity in the 1960s which pushed back against the "Sky Daddy" hypothesis of Franz Shimidt, who proposed an ur-religion of an all creator single father (well what else would you expect from theologian).
The earth mother gets place upon the ruins of Crete's "snake woman" becomes Rhea the universal all mother great goddess. Objectively there is no specific reason to attribute the figure to Rhea, except by association. And despite Minoan culture falling violently it is also proposed that she was part of an evolution to a series of other goddess figures.
It seems more likely to me that as fashions in the historiography of religious evolution tend to switch and change; it may well be that the past is far more fluid that our "partial" evidence is capable of showing. It may well be instructive that the dominant pattern of religious belief throughout the "Celtic", "Germanic" and Roman/Hellenic worlds, as well as the Indus cultures were a smorgasbord - a collection of deities, gods and demigods, as well as heroes. A sort of bricolage where everyone's ideas can be accomodated. We even see that in the far east with "Buddhist" cultures; showing complex cosmologies with many competing and interacting figures - that is until the tyranny of monotheism.
I do not know much about the American religious cultures, but seem to think that they are also far removed from a single god idea.

It seems to me an attractive possibility that the persistence of what we like to call polytheism has been a way for cultures to come together peacefully not by assimilation but by co-operation. And there is, in our monotheistic world a tendency to monotheize the pantheons by pointing to a proxy for the Christian god, such as making Zeus or Odin the Big Fat Controller, when in effect this was not the case. We have only to reflect upon the fact that Zeus was only a second class god; only the 6th son of Chronos, and in perpetual conflict with Poseidon of the sea. Odin too was a son of Borr.

There is no denying that the varying images of God change according to the cultural understanding of reality. In recent news items I have seen the idea of the Church of England introducing gender neutral pronouns for God is currently being addressed.

Some aspects of life and existence probably, such as evolution, probably get oversimplified in religious perspectives. That is probably where story as a means of transmission of folk wisdom come in. The simplificatioms can be unknotted by those able to explore the sciences in detail. In this way, religious perspectives can be a way of conceptualizing reality.

The problem may be when religious thinking is so concrete that it contradicts the scientific altogether. I know people who do hold onto creationism, including a literal belief in Adam and Eve and the serpent. The stories may be taken as if they were science, including a literal belief in the Virgin Mary. Sometimes, such perspectives lead to confusion rather than the mere belief in God.

A lot of the time, people have not been encouraged to think critically and philosophically enough to explore ideas sufficiently. I even found that in mental health care when so many people who were psychotic had a religious flavour to their psychosis, often accompanied by rigidity of belief. Also, many nursing staff had similar rigid thoughts around the nature of God and religious beliefs.

[Pattern-chaser]

I think this question demands clarification.
Such as;
1) Which idea of god.
2) What do you mean god?
3) One of many or singular?
4) Are you really asking Why god?
5) How does anyone understand any idea?

A few posts ago, Sy Borg mentioned "particular Gods", or something like that. I think this illustrates, and perhaps clarifies, the subject matter of this topic. To a particular theist, God is "particular". I.e. that theist has their own conception /idea of God. But as philosophers, looking at theism, or some aspect thereof, we look at God as a more 'amorphous' concept, taking any and all particular ideas of God and combining them, or averaging them out. I think this answers — perhaps only partly? — your questions 1–3.

No wonder He is amorphous! Polytheism has the capability of endowing gods and goddesses with shape, form, and purpose.

I would love to reply to you, but I'm not really sure what it is that you're saying. I commented that philosophers considering God must consider a 'typical' or 'averaged-out' God, and not use any particular conception of God. [Unless our intention is to consider one particular interpretation, of course.] This is in contrast to the individual believer, who does have a very particular idea of the God they believe in.

So where does polytheism come into this?

[Stoppelmann]

“If you are now wondering where to look for consolation, where to seek a new and better God… he does not come to us from books, he lives within us… This God is in you too. He is most particularly in you, the dejected and despairing.” - Hermann Hesse

[Belindi]

I think this question demands clarification.
Such as;
1) Which idea of god.
2) What do you mean god?
3) One of many or singular?
4) Are you really asking Why god?
5) How does anyone understand any idea?

A few posts ago, Sy Borg mentioned "particular Gods", or something like that. I think this illustrates, and perhaps clarifies, the subject matter of this topic. To a particular theist, God is "particular". I.e. that theist has their own conception /idea of God. But as philosophers, looking at theism, or some aspect thereof, we look at God as a more 'amorphous' concept, taking any and all particular ideas of God and combining them, or averaging them out. I think this answers — perhaps only partly? — your questions 1–3.

No wonder He is amorphous! Polytheism has the capability of endowing gods and goddesses with shape, form, and purpose.

I would love to reply to you, but I'm not really sure what it is that you're saying. I commented that philosophers considering God must consider a 'typical' or 'averaged-out' God, and not use any particular conception of God. [Unless our intention is to consider one particular interpretation, of course.] This is in contrast to the individual believer, who does have a very particular idea of the God they believe in.

So where does polytheism come into this?

Polytheism solves the problem of disparate ideas of what God is. There can be a personification for every need and every natural force. All I'd have to do is chose from the wide range on offer. The disadvantage of polytheism is there is no centre for social control, no overarching moral code. I understand moral and social control pertained to Roman emperors who were deified by the Imperial Cult. The Imperial Cult is similar to the monarchy cult although the former is more powerful.

I have tried to think of a typical or averaged- out type of God, and I find the lowest common denominator is Cosmos (or nature) as opposed to Chaos(or randomness). With regard to affect, the feeling of awe may be the lowest common denominator of God attributes.