Where are you God?

Thanks everyone for your reactions.

Now, please be guided accordingly:

_________________________



Please start with this proposition from yours truly:

1. The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence.

Do you accept that or not: if not then what do you propose as the default status of things in the totality of reality?

It's what you desire. Why would we withhold it from you?

Is an alleged god one of the things in the totality of the reality of which you speak?

Ah...now maybe that last question is an ecumenical matter !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptd_h0dF7NE

CORRECT! Understanding that one god, as in concept first and foremost the creator cause of everything with a beginning.

But Glenn, if you don't accept pre-requisite No. 1, please then propose what is the default status of things in the totality of reality, as you don't accept it is existence.

Dear Glenn, please think about this thought from me:

1. Existence can be in our mind, now that we exist and have a mind.

2. Or it can be outside our mind, that was the default status quo when there were no humans then, no human mind then.

3. So, at present as we are existing with a mind, we have all kinds of things which are our thoughts in our mind, no matter that these thoughts, a lot of them, are just nonsensical thoughts.

4. But there are also sensical thoughts, like that God exists in concept as first and foremost the creator cause of everything with a beginning.

Please do some genuine thinking on Nos. 1 to 4, grounding yourself on truths, facts, logic, and the best thoughts of mankind from since the dawn of man's conscious instelligence.

I have to take some hours off now, be back later.

You'd think they'd share this data with the rest of us.

Firstly, I don't accept that you understand the totality of existence to the extent that you can decipher the mechanism of the whole; much less the reason for its being. You seem unaware that you have your own default positon which involves the mental creation of an outside creation force. I am skeptical of the mental constructs of others, as well as my own. I prefer to see "all that is" as a whole.

We all start out not knowing from where we, and everything, comes. And one thing that the human ego has trouble dealing with is the fact that some things are not discernable. As a solution to this dilemma--limitation--some choose to borrow from the past mental constructs of others, finding solace and safety in the company of others who have also bought into the borrowed mental constructs of others who also could not bear not knowing. In my experience, the approach taken by those who would seek to set me straight consisted of: If you exist, then you had to come from somewhere; and therefore God.

When it comes to the mystery of existence and life and death, jumping to conclusions is the result of a desperate need to solve the mystery. And the untenableness of the conclusion jumped to and accepted is usually proportional to the fear behind the need to know. And so enters the mental construct, an outside entity whose mere existence removes all responsibility to look or think any further. And the real show starts when believers start assigning personality and characteristics and an agenda to the mental construct they borrowed from others.

So now why don't you tell me what this god wants from us. Or is your purpose here to just prove that it does exist? Not two gods, not three gods or four, but one.

Dear Glenn, you say:


Firstly, I will gently request again that you first tell me, as you do not accept my statement, "The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence,"
gently request that you first present what is for you the default status of things in the totality of reality.

Is it the opposite of existence, which is non-existence?

If you start with the default status of things in the totality of reality is non-existence, then you have also self turned into non-existence: wherefore no more posting here in this forum, and consequently also from logic, everything is into nothing-ness, period, end of story.

Think about that.

That is why the logically true and factual statement on the default status of things in the totality of reality IT IS EXISTENCE!!!!!!!!!!

Now, from that point onward we can talk about the kinds of existence, but of course after specifying more clearly what is existence.

Here is my concept of existence:


That is a very important lesson that all humans with functioning intelligence must learn and practice, always start with existence as the default status of things in the totality of reality.

Now, please work on your concept of existence, and present your concept of existence in your next contribution to our exchange.

What gave you the impression that I do not accept your statement concerning existence?

Does your interpretation of existence exist outside of your mind?

When you die, will you cease to exist?

Do concepts qualify as having existence? What evidence do you have that your mental rendition of this conceptualized god you speak of is the creator cause of everything with a beginning? Also, what evidence do you have that this conceptualized god that you speak of has no beginning?

You ask me, dear Glenn: "Does your interpretation of existence exist outside of your mind?"

That is what I invite everyone to do, which is in effect the interpretation of what is existence, by thinking on what is the concept of existence from your very own personally worked out thought in your mind in regard to the idea of existence.

From my own part, here is my interpretation or concept of what is existence:

The concept of existence is in my mind, but the examples are found in objective reality outside and independent of my mind, like the nose in our face, the sun, babies, roses - though these examples as concepts, the thoughts of them, are also in my mind.

That is why I say nth times already that God is in concept [in my mind] first and foremost the creator cause of everything with a beginning, and the evidence for His existence is outside our mind, in the objective reality of the universe, where everything with a beginning is located, including the universe itself.

Wherefore, we know God exists in concept as first and foremost the creator cause of everything with a beginning, from evidence of everything with a beginning in the objective reality of the universe, which universe also is itself with a beginning.

Do you get my drift at all?

From concepts in our mind we proceed to the objective reality outside and independent of our mind, to search for the things corresponding to the concepts in our mind.

Like those forest guys: they have the concept of Sasquatch or Bigfoot in their mind, that is why they are searching for him outside in the forest for his existence: if and when they find him, then they have the irrefutable proof that Sasquatch or Bigfoot really exists in objective reality outside and independent of the concept in their mind - from evidence itself, in their having caught one.

But without any concept at all in their mind, they would be crazy searching for him in the objective reality of the forest.

Annex:
Sasquatch (n.)
1929, from Halkomelem (Salishan), a native language of the Pacific Northwest, sæsq'ec, one of a race of huge, hairy man-monsters supposed to inhabit the Pacific northwest woods in American Indian lore and also known as bigfoot.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=sasquatch

My answer here would be that all we have is 'concepts' ... (Kant et al)
and that includes 'things', 'physicality', 'persistence', 'emotion', 'belief', 'evidence', 'Pythegoras' Theorem', ''Duende', 'Unicorns', ''purpose', 'reality'....etc, etc, and even 'existence'. The key point that the human discussion of the words they use to represent concepts is only meaningful/fruitful in 'real life' social contexts and NOT the artificial arena of a philosophy seminar.

For example, do religionists ever ask each other ( in real life) 'does God exist' ...of course not. They may often ask it of themselves in order to rationalise their faith and reinforce that faith byrehearsing an answer to imagined dissenters...and that is all we are witnessing here. But ask an atheist 'does God exist' and his appropriate response should be (a) I don't know what you are talking about or (b) I know what you mean by 'your God' as being psychologically useful to you, but I dismiss the concept as being useless to me, and even socially pernicious. Appeals to lack of 'evidence' don't work if the believer states that his God has no 'physicality', or that 'physicality' itself IS the manifestation of 'God'.

I don't have a problem with how you decide whether or not something exists. The problem, as I see it, is your insistence that the presence of all that exists points to a god standing outside it all. I get the feeling that you have personified something that exists only in your mind. Perhaps this would a good time for you to give us your description of the god you speak of, and how you came to this image.

TO ALL
Note that from the Pragmatists viewpoint, the default status of all 'things' is NOT 'existence' - it is 'non-existence' or 'thinglessness'. This is because from that pov all 'things' require a conscious 'thinger' to conceptualise them. i.e.Thinghood is bestowed on aspects of the world worthy of focus according to human needs. (Berkeley solved the 'common sense' view of the persistence of 'things-in-themselves ' by nominating 'God' as a 'universal observer' implying a circular argument for those theists who want to make 'existence' an a priori)

Sceptics might like to contemplate whether the speck of dirt on my window frame is 'a thing' or not...or indeed whether the concept of 'speck of dirt' has any existential meaning outside of human 'house window cleaning activities'.

Thank you. That's just the thing I needed to hear. and now if you'll excuse me, I have some things I need to tend to.

To Glenn:
You ask me, "Perhaps this would a good time for you to give us your description of the god you speak of, and how you came to this image."

That is a very good request, and tell you what, we each tell all mankind the description of the god I know to exist, and you know to not exist.

Do you know what I am requesting that we do?

It is like this:

I tell you that I know Mr. Whois exists, and you tell me Mr. Whois does not exist; so I give you the description of Mr. Whois, and you give me the description of Mr. Whois.

In that way we will find out whether we have the same description of Mr. Whois.

Now, we apply that exercise to god, my description of and your description of.

Here is my description of god:

God in description is first and foremost the creator cause of everything with a beginning.

Now, please give your description of god.

Dear readers here, do you notice that I am always requesting vehemently people to always work together to concur on concepts or descriptions in our mind; then we will go forth into the objective reality outside and independent of our mind, to locate the entity if any exists at all, corresponding to the description or the concept we have worked together as to concur on its description or concept.

So, let us all sit back await with bated breath for Glenn to give us his description or concept of god, I have given mine.

Annex
@Susmariosep,
I don't have a problem with how you decide whether or not something exists. The problem, as I see it, is your insistence that the presence of all that exists points to a god standing outside it all. I get the feeling that you have personified something that exists only in your mind. Perhaps this would a good time for you to give us your description of the god you speak of, and how you came to this image.

You are asking me to describe the god that does not exist. It would be foolish of me to describe the god that does not exist. The best I can do is to describe the god that others believe exists, but that would be pointless.

First and foremost, god is a concept that has a beginning. Even assuming that the god exists, what drives you to believe that it did not have a beginning?

Okay, dear Glenn, first: I am glad that you and I are talking intelligibly, though modesty aside I am more sincerely intellectual than you.

Why? Because you are all the time and everywhere into evasiveness, like saying that you don't have any concept of god; what do you mean by that, and if you don't have any concept of god, what is the target of your denial of god existing?

You have read nth times my concept of God, namely: God in concept is first and foremost the creator cause of everything with a beginning.

There you have the information of a concept of God or god as you prefer to use the name with first letter in lower case.

Stop already with declaring that you don't have a concept of God; unless you are a master of ambiguation, because you were born only yesterday in the wilderness of the jungle away from civilization.

You are driven by fear of getting yourself entrapped, but that is pure cowardice; what is wrong with getting yourself entrapped in truth, fact, logic, and the best thoughts of mankind since the dawn of man's conscious intelligence?

So, think about that, and cease and desist from evasiveness.

The quest for truths, facts, logic, and the best thoughts of mankind from since the dawn of man's conscious intelligence, that is the destiny of homo sapiens, and your behavior is contrary to the nature of homo sapiens - so, stop with your intellectual cowardice [that is a contradiction in terms, intellectual cowardice, but it is contradiction in aid of emphasis].

Now, you say further:
"First and foremost, god is a concept that has a beginning. Even assuming that the god exists, what drives you to believe that it did not have a beginning?"

Here, read below, on what I have told you about the default status of things in the totality of reality is existence, and that existence is of two kinds: existence from another and existence from oneself.

You are going in a circle but not aware of it, still the circle will get smaller and smaller, until unless you are blind, you will find yourself 'entrapped' in the truth, the fact, and the logic, in the best thoughts of mankind from since the dawn of man's conscious intelligence.



See if you can admit or you prefer to play blind in denying the obvious logic of all the clarity of the pre-requisites of genuine thinking and talking, in Nos. 1 to 2(b) of the above quote addressed to you earlier.

Dear Glenn, to save time and trouble, please limit yourself to just one objection in one post, so that we will save time and trouble with your objections, and get more systematic and thus focused in our exchange, to the convenience of everyone.

When you have several objections, choose the best one, and leave the others for your next posts.

Before I forget, a pre-requisite to intelligent thinking and talking with and among homines sapientes:

First, a pre-requisite in the present context is a premise the denial of which makes one a fool if not crazy, for example, like this premise, namely, that parties in an exchange EXIST.

Second, with a pre-requisite that is not attended to and observed by a party in a conversation, society demands he be consigned or reconsigned to the nursery level in the very first grade of formal education.

Hehehehehehe...

Good luck with the infinite regress argument, but remember that theists attempt to escape it by evoking the catch-all clause that their 'God' is 'eternal' and that all human conceptualization is 'in the gift of God'. The hole in that clause is that 'cause' is also a human concept (of limited status in science) which renders 'God' as a 'cause' to be a inappropriate as a necessary foundation for 'belief'.
More sophisticated believers (such as Polkinghorne - particle physicist turned Anglican priest) consequently reject the first cause argument, and instead attempt to rely on 'the existence of morality' as a sign of 'God's presence'. The counter argument there is based on 'morality as an beneficial evolutionary trait' and more fundamentally 'evolution of life' as a 'natural' outcome of systems chemistry.

Dear Fresco, you seem to be addicted to name-dropping, and you get your ideas without any filtering from your own brain, if you have one.

Think about this text below, from yours truly, and don't react again with name-dropping, you will not impress anyone with your vicarious claim to share in the limelight of other thinkers, not at all; but you expose yourself to be a non-self-thinking, ergo non-self-adequate homo sapiens.

1. The default status of things in the totality of reality is existence.

2. Existence is ultimately of two kinds:

2(a). Existence from another entity
2(b). Existence from oneself

When you think on truths, facts, logic, and the best thoughts of mankind from since the dawn of man's conscious intelligence, give your comments on No. 1 and up to No. 2(b).

Yes, and also of course factor in your input of infinite regress, where does it figure if at all in from No. 1 all the way to No. 2(b)?

I have this insight of you, you are one very self-confused thinker, because you never acquire and never thus practice any kind of critical thinking at all, from lack of grounding your thinking on truths, facts, logic, and the best thoughts of mankind from since the dawn of man's conscious intelligence.

Your writing consists of name-dropping and technical-terms-dropping, in vain vacuous quest to impress ordinary folks - which you'd better make a poll of, on how they regard your name-dropping gimmick and technical-terms-dropping gimmick.

And to date you still have not produced a decent definition from your brain on what is your concept of existence.

And when you do, present also four examples of existence on your concept of existence.

Here is again my concept of what is existence:

You asked me to describe the god. I told you, basically, that I can describe for you what I, and others, have been told about. But that is a borrowed concept that doesn't belong to me anymore. I don't have a concept of god because I have no intentions of falling back into the mind trap inherent in the personification of such a concept. You're having trouble processing my statement. You appear to have fallen into the "either-or" syndrome. If I don't have a concept of the god you conceptualize, then I am being a dishonest coward. No middle ground. You kind of expose your limited perception for what it is--a limited perspective.

Here is something I wrote some years ago. It is based on what I have experienced in my lifetime. I don't expect it to mean anything to you. But it is the result of my life process. And this slight view into my process is based on experiences had during my search for something beyond the borrowed stale bread of others.

Most people have a tendency to think of the reality they perceive as the primary, or center, around which all other realms within existence revolve. The people of old believed this to the extent that they wrote of creation as beginning with the Earth. They wrote in Genesis that God created the Earth and vegetation before he created the Sun and the stars. Despite the implausibility of this scenario, humans did not question it. Part of the reason for this is that the ego was so in charge of the thought processes of people that the idea of everything in existence revolving around them was simply too sweet for it to resist; it was candy to the ego.

Is it so different today? People hear of the astral planes, the dream realms, or alternate time-lines, and that these realms are subsets of the realm they are presently aware of. In truth, however, astral planes are as much a reality as where you find youreslf at this moment. In fact, most people are quite surprised to learn that this moment--this life--that we are experientially sharing, otherwise known as "here," is, itself, an astral plane. Of course, this begs the question of whether or not it is real. Some call the worlds illusions, some call them dreams, and some call them planes of existence. But the fact is that they are emitting from a source, and as such are as real as the source.

Some say that one state of consciousness is as real as another, or that one is as unreal as the other. That is true. But not because one is the other's equal, but because there is no separation between these "realities." They all serve your whole being. Believing otherwise is like believing that the heart functions independent of the lungs, or that the pancreas functions independent of the liver. None can exist without the other because they are one, not many. And this is how the realms are to be known--of one purpose. The ultimate purpose may be too vast for a three-dimensional being such as myself to tranlate into a three dimensional view, but the purpose is there nonetheless.

People also tend to hold the idea that the more solid something is, the more real it is. This is backward, and appeals only to the ego. The belief that denseness equals reality is a block to spiritual attainment. Not that anything needs to be attained; like truth, attainment is neither easy nor hard. It simply is. Truth is not something hidden which needs to be found. Remove the lies, and all that is left is the truth; you can't miss it. The only block to truth is the strength of the grip/need with which one holds the lies. Any search for truth is actually a search for the lies and the way to come out from behind them.

Humans became like kittens kept in a box. Eventually, the kittens lift the lid of the box to peer out, but the outside world is not the inside of the box, and so they determine that the outside world in not true. And they come to this conclusion based on the idea that that which came first is real; kind of like the "first come, first believed" mentality. When the box finally becomes intolerable to a growing entity, and they are no longer able to live with the waste--in more ways than one--then they leave the box and explore. And they will come back to offer their discoveries to those remaining in the box. Of course, the report of the one outside the box will be seen as an intrusion and a destabilizing force to be shut down and ridiculed because it threatens everyone's grip on their false center.