A very short explanation: apophatic theology means "theology of denial". It talks about God by pointing out what God is not. "God is not a creature". "God is spirit" (i.e. God is not a body). "God is three-omni" (which really means "God is not limited in knowledge, spatial location, or moral goodness").

Cataphatic theology talks about God by pointing out similarities between God and creatures (rather than dissimilarities). "God is Father". "God is Lord". "God is Judge". "God is Redeemer". Etc.

Last time I checked the wiki for "apophatic theology" was quite good. Take a look at it.

A distinct morality, cognition, etc., appears to constitute a being, and a being which exists among other beings. — praxis

It "appears" because it is symbolic language. (Same goes for God's gender). We are trying to talk about something of which we don't have any experience. It is necessary to use symbolic language for that.

Are you familiar with the distinction between cataphatic and apophatic theology? When we talk about God, we must use one of these two techniques.

What about mind-body dualism, for instance? — praxis

What about it? (I think it is nonsense).

Is our separation from God only an illusion? — praxis

It depends, as usual, on what you mean by separation. Ontologically, sure, it is an illusion, since our being is derived from God and constantly sustained by Him. Morally, we are absolutely separated from Him. Cognitively, we are absolutely separated from Him. Etc.

Don't you think that it's a problem to call "God" something which an atheist can believe in? — S

I don't decide upon the meaning of words by looking at how others react to them.

Being and existence don't have the same meaning.

In the old forum there was a long thread in which (mainly) I and Banno discussed the meaning of "fact", and how it is not (as I argued) synonym with "truth". That distinction is analogous to the distinction between being and existence. Existence is a subset of being, and facts are a kind of truth, but existence does not exhaust being, and facts do not exhaust truth.

This is a very old distinction, of course, and (e.g.) the Platonic dialogues deal with it in great detail. But if one wants a short and illuminating book about it, it is hard to do better than Aquinas' "Ente et Essentia".

To give an old Platonic (well, Pythagorean) example, numbers do not exist (as ordinary objects do), but that does not stop us from using them.

I don't think that God can be called "a being" among other beings. God is Being. But that does not equate to saying that God is everything. If I look at a pencil, I don't think that the pencil is Being. But, to the extent that the pencil is (i.e. shares in Being), he has something from God.

I don't think monotheism does inevitably lead to atheism or humanism. Prosperity does that. — frank

Perhaps. But monotheism may have played a causal role behind prosperity :D. It certainly did have a major influence in the development of science.

Let's go with a being who created the world, is the source of what's right and wrong, and intervenes in the world. — S

Is this "a being" another object in the world? Or perhaps an object in a meta-world (inside which he/she/it created "the world")?

If you say "yes" to any of these questions, then I agree with you that I don't believe in him/her/it, and we can live happily ever after.

Great, then I misread you originally. We're now in agreement, thanks for clarifying.

I could pick a meaning if you want me to, but it wouldn't really be "my" meaning. It'd just be "a" meaning that I've picked for sake of discussion. — S

It would be a start.

Not for me. A reason behind the reasons makes the world more meaningful for me. (This is a point regarding "mere monotheism", not Christianity per se).

A polytheist (ou animistic) consciousness would probably disagree. Which is why I said that the development of monotheism was not inevitable.

I would be wary of the "mythology is a disease of language" theme. I think Owen Barfield's arguments against it (in "Poetic Diction" and especially in "Saving the Appearances") are very strong -- namely, that we cannot say that the names being used in a very, very ancient time were the names of "pure objects" (i.e. purely empirical names) such as the breaking of buds and the maturation of fruits. The maturation of fruits and the breaking of buds were not construed as bereft of divinity. To be sure, the names of the gods can be traced to the names of actions or pure events, but the direction of the influence is not so simple. When we posit an ancient consciousness as a pure observer of events and actions which later "lost their relationship with the vocabulary" and, in a sense, forgot that the words were non-divine in origin, we are presuming that this ancient consciousness had a very modern relationship with the world surrounding it. It does not fit with what we know of that consciousness.

More succinctly, the idea that the "world full of gods" was built upon a "world without gods" is more ideological than supported by the evidence.

I suppose you would like to see this as progress up to the point of monotheism, followed by degeneration, but I'm not sure how to justify drawing that line? — unenlightened

Progress and degeneration are too value-laden in my opinion. To me, there are many ways to symbolize our predicament as finite beings in an ocean of chaos, and all of them are true if they are sincere (i.e. if they proceed from an attempt to symbolize actual experiences). Insincere symbolisms, in my view, are an impossibility. What is possible along these lines is the acceptance of someone else's symbolism for what I would say are "insufficient reasons" (aka "dogmatism") -- but my opinion is not really relevant in the judgment of anyone who did not invite it.

In the comparison of actual symbolisms, though, I am of the opinion that some of them are more adequate to express our conundrum. The criterion is whether the given symbolism encompasses more experiences (mine and of others) than the alternative. I am a Catholic because I think this symbolism is the most well-developed in this sense. And if I were to criticize "atheism" (which cannot really be done without a comparison with an alternative), my main line of argumentation would be that atheism leaves "out of its map" too many important experiences to be considered more adequate than the kinds of "theism" that I'm acquainted with. But I can easily understand that a non-dogmatic atheist would reply that my map has too many extraneous symbols, referring to experiences that he or she lacks.

I was not asking for a definition, by the way, but for the meaning of a word. These are not synonyms, and the two kinds of questions are often addressed in different ways.

Anyway.

By your initial (in quotation marks) sentence in this last post, coupled with your commentary, your position seems to be , "If my interlocutor takes 'god' to mean something that I don't believe in, then I don't believe in it and I can say I'm an atheist. If my interlocutor takes 'god' to means something that I believe in (because it does not contradict atheism), then I can say that his usage of 'god' is irregular, accuse him of sophistry, and say that I'm still an atheist."

A funny position, to be sure. (And the idea that the way other people use words in their discourse is somehow amenable to refereeing of this sort is quite weird).

But let's see if we find a breach in the wall.

What is the kind of evidence that would convince you that you should no longer be an atheist?

(Perhaps by this indirect route we can, at long last, ascertain what you, rather than your imaginary interlocutor, mean by 'god').

Why couldn't you see it sort of unfolding in your own life? Or in contemporary speculative physics? The imperative for unification. — frank

I see it in all of that.

Well, this process was no longer linear by then. There were cross-influences from "more developed" (in this sense) cultures, there were lingering polytheists, etc. etc.

There is no getting back to the "original setting", and "less developed cultures" such as the Mongols of the 1200's or the "primitives" of today are not identical to the people of 40,000 years ago. We have a historical bias when we think about this, that leads us to (1) forget that when "history dawned" (say, 5,000 BC) there were vastly longer spans of time in which there were "modern humans" (in a biological sense) interacting with each other and with the world, and (2) to suppose that the hows, whens and wheres of the process were pretty much determined by outer forces (as if this process was the resultant of "natural events").

Yep. The reason behind the reasons. There are hints of such a development outside the Abrahamic tradition, incidentally. Cf. Akhenaton in the Egyptian milieu.

I wouldn't use "awakened". It has some overtones of "enlightenment" in a Buddhist sense. (Not that there's anything wrong with that :D. But I wouldn't want to confuse the issue).

I prefer to call it "development". Monotheism is one natural development of polytheism. This development happens under the (social) pressure to unify the worlds into one world. As people discover other cultures, environments, ideas, etc. they are led to develop "explanations" (in the unconscious sense) for this coexistence of disparities, and this leads to monotheism.

It is not inevitable, though, as India demonstrates.

I fully agree (about the recent development of an explanatory worldview). We are trying to dissect a worldview that was very different from what we are used to. The OP is very limited on account on that. To discuss this aspect would require an essay (or more). What we are referring to as "explanations" is the end result of an unconscious process that presented itself directly.

In a very important sense, the mythical worldview is more akin to our dreams and nightmares than to our "awakened vision". Another good analogy is with toddlers. Babies are mostly unconscious (compared to us). They are the playthings of the gods. It takes some years before they learn to say "I", which is the first step towards a "modern consciousness".

What does the sun explain exactly? — frank

This is a weird question, since the sun explains almost everything that happens in an ordinary life. The cycles of day and night, the seasonal cycles, the growing of crops, the biological rhythms, rains... it is hard to see a relevant aspect of primitive life that is not directly and clearly related to the sun. (Hard, but not impossible. Volcanoes would be an example).

Now, your follow-up question is related to unenlightened's post. Why is it that the gods have retreated? This is a big question with a proportionately big answer, but the beginning of that answer is the observation that this was the work of Abraham and his heirs. The de-divinization of the world was achieved as a direct effect of the development of monotheism; a monotheism that insisted (against all evidence, in the contemporary worldview) that the one god that mattered (originally -- later, they would claim that he was the only god that was real in any sense) was emphatically not to be identified with the sun, the storm, the ocean, and other "big powers".

In other words, while 40,000 years ago our unconscious reacted (unconsciously :D) to any significant and relevant (and recurring) new phenomenon by adding a new god, under Abraham and his heirs, the worldview was "this is NOT a new god". Even though the path of least resistance was to accept the phenomenon as a new god (which is why the OT is a chronicle of "relapses into idolatry", by the viewpoint of the authors of the documents).

Clusters of observations are auto-associated in a neural network, I understand, so that would make a god concept superfluous to the task of unification on an individual level. God’s could add meaning and in so doing unify on a social level. — praxis

Yes, a god concept is superfluous in certain circumstances. But an important part of the story is that we must distinguish between our conscious minds and the unconscious substrate that engenders our thoughts. There is a two-way street between these two. Our concepts (consciously and painstakingly developed) influence our unconscious. This means that a concept may look superfluous if examined by its instrumental values, but it may have other effects (and the tough part of it is that these other effects are unconscious, i.e., we don't know about them, not directly).

I think that your phrase "Gods could add meaning" is an attempt to address this unconscious process. It is a good attempt, I can't think of anything as succinct as that which would be better. But we don't really know what "Gods could add meaning" means :D.

A more general comment to the OP is that it approaches the issue from a cognitive/perceptual angle, but that is not the whole story. Gods are not merely mental instruments for dealing with the world, they are also judges and avengers and "rewarders". In the unconscious out of which the gods emerged, there is no neat boundary between cognition/perception and morality.

(And perhaps there should not be. Perhaps this is how "Gods could add meaning" works).

I probably should have learnt my lesson by now, since I've had problems with you in past discussions. — S

You were probably using a different name then (I searched all of my comments for an interaction with you and didn't find it; perhaps the search was incomplete).

Now, if you were using a different name, this would be such a fitting illustration of the problem of not clarifying the meaning of the symbols being used in a discussion that I could not help but point it out. Even though we have reached a dead end. (Or you don't have patience. Or whatever will be the next excuse for not answering a direct question; of course, with a clear explanation of why I am to blame for it).

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4209/what-are-gods

See what I mean about going around in circles? It doesn't have to, but the ball's in your court. — S

Well, I won't explain what you mean by the words you are using. So no circle here. Only a full stop.

I objected to what you were saying, — S

You objected to what I was asking (not "saying") and said you lacked patience for it. If you have grown more patient in the meantime, all you have to do is to explain what you mean by god.

I am a patient guy :). Take your time.

You seemed to suggest that clarification of symbols or concepts would be productive to a discussion such as this one. — praxis

Yep, it would. But S was not interested in it.

I haven't posted it yet (it requires some thought as to the best approach; I think I'll go with historical). Being a bit overworked here, too, since I have just arrived from a field trip. But I think I'll do it tomorrow at the latest.

I will open a new thread to answer this. It would be off-topic gere.

Sorry, but I just don't think that I have the patience for that. — S

Ok.

Funny post, by the way.

I just resent what I saw was the hinted suggestion that one cannot have any kind of autonomous space apart and extricated from the space of religious argument. — StreetlightX

If there was any such suggestion it was unintentional. (And I was trying to insert caveats all along the way to prevent or minimize that interpretation -- but I can easily have failed to do it thoroughly ;)).

There is no set meaning for "god" which I'm going by, so it makes zero sense to seek one from me. It's flexible. I believe that what I've said covers all bases, and if you disagree, then present what you consider to be an exception. But please don't just present again what you've already presented, because I have addressed that already. — S

- S, you are talking about dogs, but I don't know what you mean by the word. What is a dog?

- I'm flexible. There is no set meaning for 'dog' that I am going by. It makes zero sense to seek one from me.

If this is how you approach queries about the meanings of words that you use, there is not much to be said. To request from me an explanation of the word that you are using is quite wrongheaded, of course. (So much so that it would be a sure recipe for confusion in any debate about anything if it were universalized).

But I won't insist.

I don't see how you could catch me out on that one — S

I was not expecting to catch anything. I wanted to know what you meant by the sentence I highlighted. I still do. Let me know if you want to explain it later.

I don't believe that God exists, and it means that I don't believe that any god or gods going by any other name or even no name at all exist. — S

I don't know if I agree or not with you, since I don't know what you mean by the word "god". To keep up with the meme theme (if only because it is a nice turn of phrase), if you mean "the angry old man in the sky", then I agree with you, and I don't believe that exists; at least not if we take this to be a description of another object (actual or potential) of our experience. But if you use the expression "angry old man in the sky" (which is, after all, only an aspect of, say, the Christian God) as meaning "the love of justice that, without having a clear source from among our objects of experience, finds an authoritative voice in the heart of anyone who has been wronged", I cannot agree that this does not exist.

One of the problems with theist/atheist interactions is that they usually don't take the time to sort out the proper use of symbolism in discourse, and plunge into the debate without realizing that they are speaking different languages.

Or multiple referents? — jorndoe

Unified by an underlying commonality. Sure. But the question "what are gods?" is about this common trait of gods (and equivalent beings), not about any given god. "What are dogs?" is not properly answered by "Lassie", or by a description of Lassie.

An atheism that simply doesn't give a damn about whether or not God exists - I don't think, that against this, one can argue: 'oh but you should give a damn because curiosity!'; — StreetlightX

I agree.

But "I don't give a damn about whether or not God exists" is not the same thing as "God? What is that?" (with or without the shrug). The first is true indifference. The second is curiosity. If your current example is supposed to replace the first one, then I have no further comment to make about it. (While still commending curiosity on all sides -- of all questions -- as the best intellectual stance, even though I recognize that we cannot be curious about all things, we must select, and selecting non-God stuff is a perfectly fine selection).

That's enough of the meta-debate. On the debate proper, I must note that the word "god" and its equivalents is used by all cultures, and understood even by very young children (of all cultures). There must be a referent of the word (even if it is a fictional referent). And "what is that" is a perfectly good question to be asked of it. (Needless to say, it is not a religious question).

Well I'm antagonistic to the suggestion that atheism - at least an atheism for whom religion and God means nothing - ought to be more curious about religion. — StreetlightX

I am not talking about religion.

But I repeat myself.

The subject of atheist's curiosity (or lack of it) is, if you recall, "God? What is that? Never heard of it".

'Be curious' - you may as well say 'don't be indifferent'. What kind of counter-point is that? — StreetlightX

There is an indifference that is born of reflection and research -- one that was informed by curiosity in its early stage. I see nothing wrong with that indifference. There is also an indifference that is born of a lack of resources to investigate all imaginable claims. Nothing wrong with that either. As you see, I'm not antagonistic to indifference. (I can imagine indifferences that are not so pristine, but they are not the subject here).

I was not saying "indifference is bad". I was pointing out that your examples of an indifferent reaction looked more like curiosity than indifference. Your examples. Not mine. And I was noting that curiosity is great and should be seen more often in these debates.

Do you have anything to say in response to these claims?

And by the way I'm still curious as to why you would think that the cliché diagnosis was motivated by chauvinism. Is it a default reaction when speaking with a presumed believer? Is it specific to me? Is there some old discussion of ours in which this stance was perceived by you?

I don't give a flying hoot about Hathor, and I imagine most who claim to believe in some religion or another today don't either. And that's perfectly fine. — StreetlightX

Sure. It is perfectly fine. But it is not a stance informed by curiosity (even though it is perfectly fine). And if a forum member started to talk about Hathor and how it is important to do some stuff because of Hathor and how Hathor's wisdom is important for your life etc. etc., you can dismiss it out of hand (which would be perfectly fine -- our resources are limited after all), but you cannot do it while claiming that your stance is informed by curiosity.

I'm defending curiosity here, not any specific belief or religion.

The comparison to Mayan Gods was dismissed as a cliche. Why? Because one's own personal God-pick is somehow arrogated to a status of not-cliche, the real-deal-God; "'My' God is not like those primitive Gods, and cannot be spoken about in the same breath. That's silly talk. My God is special - not like those Gods - and is deserving of non-cliche engagement". Well, no.

Well, no. I had nothing like that in my mind when I called it a cliché. I called it a cliché because I have seen it dozens (hundreds?) of times in these discussions. After all, this is what makes something a cliché; not whether it is right or wrong, but whether it is referred to without any hint of reflection and adaptation to the dialogue at hand. As the "just one extra God" argument. etc. A cliché may even be right, but it will still be a cliché.

Now I'm curious (:D). Why did you presume that this "real-deal-God" stupidity was the motivation for the cliché comment?

You are talking about religion. The word was not used by me in this thread, and it is not what I'm talking about.

What makes you special? What makes your belief exempt from being just one in a long line or other curious beliefs, that, like all other belief, will be seen as a mere historical artefact in the light of time? — StreetlightX

Nothing. I never said it was exempt. You are still rehashing the meme battles rather than engaging on what is being said.

The subject is the discussion of your (paraphrase) statement that a "true atheist would show indifference rather than antagonism". Without going into "true scotsman" territory, I pointed out that your examples of reactions denoting (presumably) indifference would be more adequate as expressions of curiosity, and I said that this is a sentiment that is lacking in many atheists.

And since then you have referred to irrelevant, stock "internet atheist" pseudo-arguments which are not (at all!) pertinent to the theme as a way to avoid engaging it. After all, I did not defend "religion" (as you presume in your latest post), nor did I "exempt" any belief from scrutiny (on the contrary, I was commending curiosity! While pointing out that lack of curiosity is a non-denominational shortcoming, affecting people on all sides of all divides). I did not say that belief in Quetzalcoatl is wrong. I did not say, basically, any of the stuff that you are putting into my mouth in order to refute it and then pat yourself in the back (complete with suggestions of my "arrogance").

This "indifference" of yours sounds harder than it looks. Antagonism has its attractions, apparently :D.

Vou are assuming that I am lamenting a decline in belief, and in reaction to that vou are indulging in Internet clichés.

If I was lamenting something, it was the scarcity of true curiosity about this subject. (It is not exclusive of atheists, note). You are one of the best thinkers of this forum, and even your reaction does nothing but prove the point.

Incidentally, although you assume otherwise for no particular reason, I am very curious about the reasons for the substitution of polytheism by monotheism -- this being the quite interesting subject that you brought up as a, let's be frank, red herring -- but the question of "what is God" precedes it, logically and historically. Polytheists everywhere did not react to monotheistic expansion by asking what that God (of monotheism) was. They were not theologians or philosophers, and, being polytheists, they had the advantage (over modern theists) of being sufficiently acquainted with the instrumental use of the word "god" to focus on the salient (and too real) disagreements.

This handicap of modern atheists is not even realized by them (and no wonder, if even their smartest representatives try stuff like "just one extra god" rather that engaging the subject).

Note, though, that the handicap is not exclusive of modern atheists. Modern theists are also representatives of it in large numbers.

No doubt the Mayans said the same of the decline in the belief of Quetzalcoatl

Cute. But wholly imaginary.

Quips are the best that atheists can come up with. Not that this is their exclusive fault -- theists can be very annoying with their own quips. But the clash of memes is hardly interesting or illuminating.

Only true atheism is: 'God? What's that?' 'Never heard of it' 'Lets get on with it then'.

This sounds more like curiosity than indifference. Unfortunately, it is the kind of response that is much too rare among atheists. They are so very sure of knowing the answers that they no longer feel the need to ask the questions.

Neither. It is ambiguous. "Snow" is being used as a phenomenological category rather than as the name of a substance.

It is like stepping on a very earthbound beach and saying that "the sand here is so white", without knowing that it is actually composed of the pulverized remains of mollusk shells (calcium-based rather than silica-based). On Earth, we use the name "sand" for any granular rock-based material (of a given size), without regard to its substance (silica, calcium, etc.); and we use the name "snow" for a given type of water-based crystals, merely because we are not used to seeing snow of a different kind (unlike the case of sand). But if we had snow of different origins here (and we probably have, but I have no idea of their kinds), the word would be "naturally ambiguous" (like sand) rather than just, er, "philosophically ambiguous" :D.