God can be defined, and even worshipped and adored

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;132760 wrote:

If God is a concept, then language has everything to do with god.

But I have just answered this:

ughaibu;132751 wrote:

If god is nothing other than an artifact of "living language", then god is not any thing with independent existence.

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;132760 wrote:

Ist dded 02-26-2010 at 04:33 AM ----------
If God is a concept, then language has everything to do with god.

Yes. Every concept has three aspects: the name (designator), the meaning (intension), and the application (set of referents.)

The atheists who hover over this site contend that the application set is a null class, with no members. This means they have no use for God in their lives. They believe they get along adequately without it.

I find God to be a very useful concept in my life. I feel sorry for those who lack it - although I am quite aware that they don't want my pity. My reason for this feeling of sorrow is that the adoration of God is such a rich experience for me. God is so loving that it blows my mind!!!! God does so much to help, protect, inspire, serve as a muse, and in general just boost living to a higher level. Those who miss out on this just don't know what they're missing - like an innocent child who has no carnal knowledge has no conception of what an orgasm feels like. It's the same idea.

Now I have provided both theoretical analysis and testimony; both theory and practice.

Krumple,

I have not thanked God for creating the gun. It has some use in stopping in its tracks some creature who is charging you head on. I think those who live in isolated circumstances, far away from cities or towns find it to be of value to them. It gives them a feeling of security. When used as an instrument of cruelty it is the shooter who I hold responsible, not the tool he or she employs, viz., the gun. As long as it is used to inject staples or nails by a builder in his construction work, I have no problem with it.

0 Replies

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;132764 wrote:

But I have just answered this:

Nothing, in the stong sense of the word "independent," has "independent existence." It's our human mind that divides raw experience(qualia) into objects. Once these objects are conceptualized, the concept can survive the disappearance of the "object", as the object was only an object, because it was conceptualized.

We can put concepts together, create ideas of utopia, unicorns, god, justice, logic, etc. It's not that there isn't anything that exists independently, but only that we can only know this presumed independent reality by means of our largely automatic imposition of concepts. Even an apple is only a separate thing because our mind frames it as a unity, as something separate from its surroundings.

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;132942 wrote:

Nothing, in the stong sense of the word "independent," has "independent existence." It's our human mind that divides raw experience(qualia) into objects.

Which, again, has nothing to do with the matter and is a trivial observation. The is the sixth consecutive post in which your ostensible reply has evaded the issue, and I've now had enough of responding to this. If you want to address the point raised, do so.

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;133010 wrote:

Which, again, has nothing to do with the matter and is a trivial observation. The is the sixth consecutive post in which your ostensible reply has evaded the issue, and I've now had enough of responding to this. If you want to address the point raised, do so.

Quite the contrary.
The notion of "independent" existence is quite applicable to the notion of god. Things do not exist in isolation or independent of their relationship to other things, "independent existence" is a mental construct of human minds and language (monism is reality). God would be the ultimate existence but would still encompass relationship to the rest of the universe. In most modern theological conceptions the world is within the divine reality (immanence) but the divine also transcends material existence and sensory experience. There is a spiritual reality which dwells within and permates the material reality of scientific knowledge and experience.
What exactly was the point raised which is not being addressed?

1 Reply

@deepthot,

I do not believe it is coincidence that both testaments of the Bible start out the way they do. The only difference is the Word. Throughout the New Testament Jesus Christ is consistently referred to as the Word of God, or the Logos to the Greeks. Why do people think this is? The Word of God can't be a reference to the Bible, because when the Gospels were written there was no concept of a Bible.

In the beginning was God and the Word. Yahweh is translated as that which exists in itself, or pure being. My interpretation of this is, in the beginning was being and language. Both were essentially for humanness to develop, and in a sense, they are really the same, or at least two faces of the same thing, i. e. to persons in one?

2 Replies

@MMP2506,

MMP2506;133025 wrote:

I do not believe it is coincidence that both testaments of the Bible start out the way they do. The only difference is the Word. Throughout the New Testament Jesus Christ is consistently referred to as the Word of God, or the Logos to the Greeks. Why do people think this is? The Word of God can't be a reference to the Bible, because when the Gospels were written there was no concept of a Bible.

In the beginning was God and the Word. Yahweh is translated as that which exists in itself, or pure being. My interpretation of this is, in the beginning was being and language. Both were essentially for humanness to develop, and in a sense, they are really the same, or at least two faces of the same thing, i. e. to persons in one?

I agree. Do you think this ties in with Kant? Transcendental essentially means eternal. Man projects/imposes his categories of reason on the "waste and deep" to create meaning, especially objects, things, unities. Kojeve quotes the Gospel of John directly on this. Man is Time is the Concept (system of concepts). In the beginning is the Word because only the Word makes Time possible. Unless concepts from the past are projected into the future, the spatial present is timeless or eternal. Things would change but we would be absorbed in the moment. We would experience History in the human sense. We would be like animals. It's also the Word that makes us conscious of our mortality, because we can reason that we too must die. So Being-toward-death is also contingent upon the Word, which is contingent upon the transcendental categories.

??

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;133030 wrote:

I agree. Do you think this ties in with Kant? Transcendental essentially means eternal. Man projects/imposes his categories of reason on the "waste and deep" to create meaning, especially objects, things, unities. Kojeve quotes the Gospel of John directly on this. Man is Time is the Concept (system of concepts). In the beginning is the Word because only the Word makes Time possible. Unless concepts from the past are projected into the future, the spatial present is timeless or eternal. Things would change but we would be absorbed in the moment. We would experience History in the human sense. We would be like animals. It's also the Word that makes us conscious of our mortality, because we can reason that we too must die. So Being-toward-death is also contingent upon the Word, which is contingent upon the transcendental categories.

??

I do. I read the critique of pure practical reason as trying to convey that very point. Transcendence is possible only because of the ability to communicate abstract ideas to others.

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@MMP2506,

MMP2506;133025 wrote:

I do not believe it is coincidence that both testaments of the Bible start out the way they do. The only difference is the Word. Throughout the New Testament Jesus Christ is consistently referred to as the Word of God, or the Logos to the Greeks. Why do people think this is? The Word of God can't be a reference to the Bible, because when the Gospels were written there was no concept of a Bible.

In the beginning was God and the Word. Yahweh is translated as that which exists in itself, or pure being. My interpretation of this is, in the beginning was being and language. Both were essentially for humanness to develop, and in a sense, they are really the same, or at least two faces of the same thing, i. e. to persons in one?

Logos, mythos and telos. The components of the classical worldview.
Logos is generally reason including the rational intelligence and order of the universe (ie. the Greek or at least Platonic vision of the divine order).
.

1 Reply

@prothero,

prothero;133125 wrote:

Logos, mythos and telos. The components of the classical worldview.
Logos is generally reason including the rational intelligence and order of the universe (ie. the Greek or at least Platonic vision of the divine order).
.

Logos is reason, which wouldn't be possible without language. Wittgenstein made this clear, as for him life was a language game, and succeeding was a matter of choosing appropriate rules.

Logos is translated to tool, and was used synonymously as "word" within theological sects, especially the neo-Platonists.

0 Replies

@prothero,

prothero;133019 wrote:

ughaibu;133010 wrote:
Which, again, has nothing to do with the matter and is a trivial observation.
Quite the contrary.
The notion of "independent" existence is quite applicable to the notion of god. Things do not exist in isolation or independent of their relationship to other things, "independent existence" is a mental construct of human minds and language (monism is reality). God would be the ultimate existence but would still encompass relationship to the rest of the universe. In most modern theological conceptions the world is within the divine reality (immanence) but the divine also transcends material existence and sensory experience. There is a spiritual reality which dwells within and permates the material reality of scientific knowledge and experience.

And yet again, this is irrelevant, and as it's an expansion on a post of Reconstructo, which I have pointed out was irrelevant, the irrelevance of your present post should be obvious.

prothero;133019 wrote:

What exactly was the point raised which is not being addressed?

And if you dont know to which point the above mentioned replies are irrelevant, the probability of your reply being relevant is negligible.

1 Reply

@ughaibu,

ughaibu;133161 wrote:

And yet again, this is irrelevant, and as it's an expansion on a post of Reconstructo, which I have pointed out was irrelevant, the irrelevance of your present post should be obvious.And if you dont know to which point the above mentioned replies are irrelevant, the probability of your reply being relevant is negligible.

Except for the word irrevelant (five times in various forms) I do not really see a point of discussion, a presentation or a philosophical argument here? For others clearly think the notion of "independent existence" does relate in some way to the concept or definition of god. A forum is about polite exchange of views even those with which one does not agree or one fails to understand. I am merely asking for a better presentation of your viewpoint not a repeat judgment on mine. Do you have one to offer?

1 Reply

@prothero,

prothero;133194 wrote:

I am merely asking for a better presentation of your viewpoint not a repeat judgment on mine. Do you have one to offer?

No. There is a string of posts and my point is extremely simple. If you have something to say about it, fine, say it. If you want to talk about other things, kindly avoid including quotes from my posts as if you're replying to what I've written.

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@deepthot,

Are we getting a bit off-topic here?

If ughaibu has a concept with the designation "Independent existence" he should tell us what it means, what or who has it; in other words, its intension and its extension. Present at least that part of its intension known as its definition. Define it for us simple members of The Forum who may not have experienced it.

In my experience there is a web of phenomena and noumena, and it is all linked together. I can isolate things in imagination but reality is undifferentiated. As Reconstructo knows, it is human beings who cut out parts of the blur and assert that they are distinct from the rest. I, for example, feel at one and in harmony with the human species ...but maybe that's just me.

The topic is God, as specifically defined in the o.p. I explained that God more than exists: god is real. And the experience (of worship and love) is even more intense than that. God is the Reality-of-all-realities. As Spinoza pointed out "If anything is real, God is real." I am not one of those who believe that outlining a theory brings anything into existence. They put him into that school, and oppose it with The Empiricists, such as Hume.

I like the approach of William James, in his classic, The Varieties of Religious Experience, and would like to see more such studies be done. To me that is the scientific approach. It solves problems. I confess I am a mystic; I am not ashamed of it - neither am I proud. I am humbled by the power of The Force, or the Tao, or whatever you want to call it. I stand in awe at the mystery of it all. How can it hear my personal prayers? Yet it does! It's truly amazing. And I love it. In the o.p. I presented theory; in my life is practice. Put the two together and you've got something going. And it is wonderful.

1 Reply

@deepthot,

deepthot;135688 wrote:

Define it for us simple members of The Forum who may not have experienced it.

If I say to you "it's in the garden", you dont know what I'm talking about, do you? That's because "it" has no independent existence, "it" is a free variable. But if I had said that in reply to "where's the rabbit?", you would understand, because rabbits have existence independent of language. We can see this independence by the fact that different people might ask where's the usagi, conelio kahneen, krolik, sungara, arnab, etc. However, if you were looking for a pot of mustard, it would be useless to ask the above question. In short, the terms which describe those entities with independent existence have a communicative value shared by a group of language users, whereas those words to which referents are arbitrarily attached are parasitic on independently existent entities which can be separately and uniquely named.

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@deepthot,

God can be defined and worshiped. But like any word "God" has a different meaning --as it is only a cell in a system of concepts.

For some, Reason is a God that worships itself. Which satisfies the criteria of the O.P.

---------- Post added 03-03-2010 at 11:04 PM ----------

I think when Hegel said that reality was spirit, he meant that human reality was the only reality conceivable, if one is strictly logical, and that this rational reality could come to know and love itself as rational reality, devoid suddenly of "God," noumena, even the transcendental self.

Of course this view would not be practical, however logical, or arguable. One cannot live like that. Therefore metaphysics is also art, poetry, conceptual-myth, even if "true."

Hegel presented man as God, and God as man's self-alienation. Once men realized that God was a projection of their inner nature, a completely rational yet also numinous-living culture could be established...one that recognized the "divinity" in the immanent. The mind-matter distinction is synthesized, and seen for the absurdity it is. Yes, it was and is a convenient absurdity, but is simply not logical.

0 Replies

God can be defined, and even worshipped and adored

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