| What is God? |
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posted by: mblog (reply) post date: 03.15.04 (2:52 pm) The problem is that it made a lot of assumptions, some of which were possibly valid and some of which were not. For example, it assumed that omnipotence encapsulates the notion of that which is logically possible, but entertained the notions of discussing the limitations of that idea. That seemed reasonable. But it also brought in ideas about free will with respect to a loving and omnipotent God, and then went to discuss its shortcomings. The problem with that is that it was not part of the model. I could believe that animals and plants have something akin to free will and that people do or don't have free will which would do very different things to the model. As a user, I had no choice or way of specifying those things. Essentially, it was not a "build your own" anything. It was a structured argument. It was saying, "If you believe this, this and this, then this is the problem, and if you think this..." It did not really cover all bases, though. posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 03.15.04 (5:12 pm) Reply to: mblog Well, I agree that a lot of it was based in assumed problems of a deity with certain traits could be worked out. But they make it pretty clear that there are ways of examining the issue of a God that would override their criticism. It isn't a perfect exercise by any means, but at least it makes you think about what you conceive of as being God. posted by: RedTigress (reply) post date: 03.15.04 (6:42 pm) I got a 0.2 My concept of God is consistant. I agree with mblog. It did make a lot of assumptions and didn't allow for other explanations. I found that a lot of these questions were also second nature and that they could be answered easily by the Judaic point of view. I dunno. This didn't really rock my world or anything. Good blog. :) posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 03.15.04 (6:49 pm) Reply to: RedTigress Lol, sorry it didn't rock your world, but thanks for trying it out. :) posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 03.15.04 (6:54 pm) Reply to: RedTigress Reply to: mblog Since you disagreed with the assumptions made in the Do-It-Yourself Deity thing, if you'd like, you could explain your concept of God and we can discuss whether it is plausible or not. Honestly, I don't know that much about the Judaic view of what God is, so you can educate me. :) posted by: RedTigress (reply) post date: 03.15.04 (7:28 pm) Reply to: DragonBait22 Sure, I'd love to. Lemme have some time to prepare and I'll get back to you. :) posted by: RedTigress (reply) post date: 03.15.04 (7:29 pm) Reply to: DragonBait22 Always up to trying new things ;) posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 03.15.04 (7:30 pm) Reply to: RedTigress Awesome. :) And no rush, I'm not going anywhere. posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 03.15.04 (7:30 pm) Reply to: RedTigress Whoa, we're posting at the same time... a little creepy. ;) posted by: RedTigress (reply) post date: 03.15.04 (7:48 pm) Reply to: DragonBait22 HAHA! Yea, That is pretty creepie! Great minds.... ;D posted by: mblog (reply) post date: 03.16.04 (10:08 am) Reply to: DragonBait22 I don't think it's particularly an issue of the Judaic point of view, but the non-Christian point of view. The author tried to address common Christian arguments, but a lot of it boiled down to "if you say this, then you must think this too, but that conflicts with this." And that's where it is way too limited. If you look at it from a Deist point of view, much of that would not hold water. Coming up with the Judaic view is easier said than done, because not everybody would give the same answer to that question. Unlike Christianity, where there are well defined denominations, Judaism is more of a continuum in the sense that there are movements, but it's not as if one would "convert" from one to another. While many orthodox Jews would have one concept, the Chasidim and others with a more Kabbalistic belief structure might have a a different viewpoint. But they also might not want to try to summarize 40 years of study into a blog comment, since the study is cumulative and the answers are complex. There is also the Reconstructionist Jewish viewpoint, which I would not even try to answer, since I don't know much about it, and the Reform and Conservative answers might differ too. There is a tremendous amound of overlap, but it's far from simple to be complete. posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 03.16.04 (3:52 pm) Reply to: mblog Of course, I wasn't meaning to sound as though you could accurately summarize an entire religion's belief system in one simple comment. Basically, I was just wondering what a typical Judaic stance would be, as I don't know that much about Judaism. I do agree that the biggest problem with that activity was that it only addressed problems with the Christian God and also relied on forced assumptions. What's your concept of God? posted by: mblog (reply) post date: 03.16.04 (7:15 pm) Reply to: DragonBait22 What's yours? Based on your writings and links, one could conclude that you are an atheist. But that does not mean that you don't have a concept of God. If you had no concept of God, most of your writings here would not exist. Much of them center around this very concept. So if you humor me here for a moment, I'll go ahead and make a large number of assumptions and you can tell me how they fit with your concept of God. You believe that God is a concept that others have. You believe that this concept exists in people's minds, but there is no tangible proof of any other existence. Yet, by acknowledging that the concept exists, you acknowledge that there is something that people call God, even if it's only an idea. Let's refer to that concept as God, since that's what others call it (although they often differ on what this concept is.) God exists in the minds of all who believe in God. Since the concept is known to most who do not believe in God, then God exists in the minds of these others too. It might be a stretch to say that God is omnipresent, depending on your definition. Among humans, there are those who are unfamiliar with the concept. But we can get back to this. What about actions? Many people take specific actions because of their belief in God. It seems reasonable to say that God caused these actions, even if you believe that God is nothing more than an idea. Indeed, one need not limit this to those who believe in God. Since this very concept is a significant part of your life, and influences what you write, it's fair to say that God influences your life a great deal too. It might be a stretch to say that God influences the actions of everybody, but even those who do not believe in God are influenced by those who do, and as a specific result of those beliefs. So almost everybody's behavior is affected by God to some extent. And going back to the earlier point, it would be fair to say that we are getting closer to God being omnipresent. As for form, I assume you believe that God has no physical form. What is the mind? Do you believe that it's something physical, or an actual body part? Do you think it can be chopped up into specific areas? Is it something that coexists with the physical world? Would it be possible to say that God exists in only a part of the mind, or would that be logically impossible since it would be a physical concept being applied to a non-physical concept? If the idea of a mind having specific parts is not a logical one, then it would be fair to say that there is no physical distinction between God and anything else that is considered the mind, but only a logical distinction between ideas. So whether all thoughts and ideas are considered part of God or not would merely be a matter of definition. Since a definition of God that includes all of the mind would be consistent with how the term is used by others, it would make sense to incorporate that notion too. While it's not a requirement, there seems to be no logical reason for exclusion; to do so would be to fathom a different concept of God from most, in which case it would not be logical to tell others that God does not exist when your concept is not the same. In other words, if your concept of God is not the same as theirs, then when you say "God," you must mean something different by definition. So it seems reasonable and perhaps mandatory that you consider all thoughts and ideas to be part of God since that's the logical conclusion for anybody who considers God to be omnipresent. So we have a God with no physical form that is omnipresent, effectively controls all activity by living sentient beings, and could possibly be considered omnipotent with respect to that activity. But to the extent that people claim to believe in God but act in a way that goes against the will of God according to their own beliefs, we can call that influence the satan. Since your mind allows you to be influenced by these ideas, and it is not the idea of God that is influencing these beliefs, then we can call that concept free will. It makes sense to say that the concept of God allows for this, since it is logically inconsistent to credit God for those actions and ideas that are not based on a belief in God or influenced by it. If a thought or action is not influenced by the belief in God, then it's illogical according the concept of God as an idea to say that the idea of God was a factor in cases where you say it is not a factor. So now we have some ideas that are controlled by God and others that are controlled by free will. Dinner's ready so I'll have to get back to this later. posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 03.17.04 (6:12 pm) Reply to: mblog The simplest response I can give you is that God as an idea and the idea of God are completely different things. posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 03.17.04 (6:31 pm) Reply to: mblog To be a bit more specific, you can't claim that, because we can conceive of God, He must exist. So, while I can comprehend the notion of god, and have a concept of God in my mind, that idea is very different from any actual physical (or metaphysical) being. The concept of god surely exists, but God easily may or may not. I do like your point about God having an influence in my life even though I don't believe in Him- it is the notion of a supernatural being that has led me to ponder the meaning of my life and the essence of the universe. But this conception of God, that God is essentially comprised of all thoughts and ideas, makes God solely exist in the mind. If this is the case, we could just as easily call it our Ideas, rather than God. If the notion of Satan is all bad ideas, chosen through free will, and God is the good ideas, isn't it just that our minds are the highest power? posted by: mblog (reply) post date: 03.18.04 (8:41 am) Reply to: DragonBait22 If you are acknowledging that this concept exists, but you refuse to refer to it as God, even though others call it God, then you merely playing verbal volleyball. It's like Bush and gay marriage. We can call something a civil union, but when the state's current entire role in marriage is that of civil union, if another group of people get the identical rights, it's a marriage even if we don't use that word. The same is true with God, except of course that your concept and the concept of others don't overlap to the same extent. There is something called God. You believe it's just a concept, but you acknowledge that it exists. If you call the concept by the same name that others use, then you would call it God, but would disagree over what God is. That's very different from saying that God does not exist. If I don't believe in Santa or the tooth fairy, I could say that there's no such thing, but that would be wrong. They are fictional characters and do not exist in the flesh and blood realm as is the supposed model used by children who believe in a man in a red suit, or a pixie that can fly. So we can view the stories as fictional and the characters as fictional since no such characters exist in that form. Yet we still cannot say that there's no such thing, because that would be too narrow a use of the word "thing." Saying that there's no such thing denies the existence of the very concept or the well defined attributes associated with it. In the case of God, we do not have a corporal entity that is tied to the concept, so we cannot make the parallel argument that God is fictitious on the grounds that the supposed flesh and blood model does not exist. There is something that we call God that exists at a spiritual level even if we don't agree on what God is. But if you refuse to use the word God to define that concept, it's like denying that cars exist by calling them automobiles. posted by: DragonBait22 (reply) post date: 03.19.04 (11:10 am) Reply to: mblog So you're saying that it is rational to believe God exists because we can conceive of the notion of God? I can conceive of a purple unicorn flying around the moon, but that does not mean it exists. The idea surely exists, as does the idea of God. But it is not nearly the same to consider such an idea as being reality. So by saying that Santa or the Tooth Fairy or God are fictional characters, we have to still maintain that they "exist" since the idea of them or the spirit of their idea exists? I think that's a bit silly. I would agree that the spirit of Santa Claus exists, but any reasonable person would also contend that the being of Santa does not in fact exist. It is impossible to prove that any of these 'beings' do not exist, as you can change the definition of existence to mean the 'spirit' of such a supposed being, but it's not nearly the same thing as the reality of their existence. |
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