Logos & God

God is a topic of subjectivity usually based on which country that god was created.
My god is nature.

But, if god is nature, then shouldn't it be universal and whatever environment you were raised in would simply be a subset of the overall god?

"Raised in" is too restrictive. Most of us get out into the world after high school. It's the traveling to other countries that teaches us the important lessons of life. That's if one is open-minded, and respects other peoples and cultures. It's also the exposure to the geography of this world, and the wonders of it. My life is rich, because I have friends all around the world. I have been fortunate enough to have traveled to 85 countries in over 200 trips.
I have met and made friends with many manners of people, from rocket scientist, actor, singers, politicians, author, college professors, doctors, bar tenders, hotel workers, ships staff, (SF) tv newscaster, authors, (Mexico City) newspaper editor, taxi drivers, business men, business owners, and many a2kers around the world. So "raised in" really doesn't mean much.

That is amazing that you have had such a wonderful experience, really! Most of us haven't or haven't yet.

The point being, you hit on my phrase 'raised in' but that is subsidiary, I really meant the fact that though all your experiences, and all of the other humans on planet earth, experience a form of division based upon where they were born and what the skin color they have, and what religion they believe in.

So, if god is nature, then shouldn't god be able to transcend these humanistic ideologies such as society, religion, race, sex, and any other human manifestations?

Society is a natural outcome of humans. It's how animals perpetuate. The other ideologies of religion and other manmade societal groupings are the result of where one is born. Cultures are manmade. I'm Japanese, but my culture is Western or American, because I'm third generation American.

Love Japanese culture. Don't let it behind.

In my almost atheistic use I define God as Logical Unity in the whole of Reality. A very Spinoza like version of "God". A mathemathical entity....no beard man, no talking, no awareness. God does not need to ask questions...

Capitalizing god rather tips one's hand at the outset.

The pantheist responds, "it is"

I'd say, "She/He/It is all

I agree. I think many of the problems about talking about god have to do with that people tend to anthropomorphize their idea of god because that makes it easier to mentally handle.

Yea Saw, precisely

The only thing left Japanese around here is the bazaar at the Mountain View Buddhist Church every year in July. We try to attend every year, because their chicken teriyaki is better than the local Japanese restaurants. They also have corn on the cob that's the sweetest one can eat - even raw. They also have Obon dori or dancing in Japanese kimono. Many caucasians participate. The event runs for 1.5 days, and they gross over $200,000 all from volunteer workers.

Fil,

That's kind of what I could handle with the word 'God'. Might leave out the 'logical' as there is a projection.

Maybe my word 'God' would be 'what is'. Pantheism? Don't like the theism part. Confused now.

D.

I think this is a case where the usage whatever someone wants it to mean. Old guy with beard; mother earth with big mammaries, slightly chubby, naked; eagle soaring in the 'spirit' air; My woman commenting on me after..

Unless you have a concrete definition like the above, you really cannot define God, unless you want to say that God is everything you can't define. The problem is that there is no referent. Spinoza's God, as brilliant a mind as he was, suffers from this as well. Like Plato and others, many definitions depended on assumptions or dubious ideas that were inchoate or simply un-understandable.

What exactly did Spinoza mean by there is only one substance? Which then leads to God being necessary. And the idea that God is the whole universe. Great we just said, everything is God. Next!

This is almost Behaviouristic in that its a non-sequitur. He rests at least part of his case on the idea that dissimilar substances cannot produce each other and so they are self caused. Not sure what that means ontologically..very dubious premises and conclusions seem too unassailable.

He seemed a very cool dude though..

Yes, pantheism, or anything that ascribes God as being everything, definitely makes it seem impossible to prove one way or another and the natural inclination would be to just say 'next' and move forward.

But, does that necessarily mean that it is wrong? I mean could God not simply be another name for the idea that the entire universe or multiverse is one?

Well in one form or another, that's the issue at hand. You're not really saying anything are you?

If you take this position, what you're doing linguistically or philologically speaking is assigning a word to what you cannot comprehend.

Maybe that helps a person psychologically - putting a word to something, even when not comprehended, adds a level of comfort to us - perhaps because that act fools us into thinking it is comprehended. There are psychological studies on this stuff.

Ontologically however, when seeking some kind of truth or the limits of what we can know, this doesn't help at all. The 'truth' of it is tautological.

So, no it doesn't mean its wrong. It doesn't even mean we should stop talking about it. It just means to be careful with what we state is likely or 'true'. It also means we can't know anything about it, any more that you can tell me I'm wrong that various drafts in my garage are due to an invisible and (mostly) intangible dragon (someone used sort of this analogy before, but I can't remember who). You may be able to adjudge that pantheism is more likely to be true than the dragon in my garage, but I think they are analogous in that you can't prove or disprove either.

I think we have to be careful about the use of 'fancy' language surrounding something. Like behaviourism, which sought to qualify (quantify?) behavior scientifically , but turns out what's observed cannot be falsified. You're just observing and writing down what happens, which is fine if simple observation/documentation is your science.

But behaviourism (in this sense - I don't wholesale condemn it) and other such nonsense, purports to explain rather than report. That's where it goes off the rails scientifically. I think Spinoza falls under this as well..Maybe, very difficult to know what a lot of his writing exactly means.

Cheers!

As apodictical existential pantheist I can understand. Eventually She/He/It, presently almost beyond our understanding (confused now), will be shown to be Godlike and not, at the thinker's discretion

Also read Cat above

Apparently there's considerable more thought in this direction than I had imagined

What he meant was that Reality is RULED BY ONE SET OF RULES one Logos, not magic, chaos, goblins, and wishful thinking. There is nothing abstruse in that.

Fil,

The capitalised phrase looks anthropocentric to me. Being 'ruled' and having a 'set of rules' is what people do.

S.