Somewhere Nietzsche reverses Matthews:

Seek and you shall find

along the lines of:

You see what you want see.

It's an analogy, that you are taking literally in order to try and undermine. — unenlightened

-Well maybe you meant "a metaphor. Metaphors can be interpret literally or not.
An analogy is either correct or not. I only pointed out why your analogy falls short.

-" I am a fan of justice. This does not mean I think justice exists, it means I am committed to the cause; I strive for justice, i cheer for it."

-Correct , Justice doesn't exist as an entity or an agent or a substance. Its an abstract concept of a process societies strive to sustain.

-" And you can explain that life is complicated and knowledge is never absolutely certain so on, so I am wrong to think there can be perfect justice, but you will be missing the point, as you have missed my previous point."
-I can not see the relevance of this point . Knowledge and Justice are Abstract concepts of idealistic goals set by humans. I won't argue in favor or the manifestation of absolutes in reality because I don't believe it is possible.
God on the other hand is an existential claim of an agent/entity made by Humans.
Whether someone is a "fan" of god or not is irrelevant to the methods we use to objectively demonstrate the existence of an entity.
Your final statement was:"So if you are not a fan of god, you will always miss out on the excitement, and think yourself very wise."
How do you justify this jump to those two conclusions??WHat excitement is that and why one must think he is very wise for not accepting an existential claim that lacks objective verification??

This is why a philosopher cannot find god; he cannot make a commitment to anything, but must always be weighing and evaluating and reasoning. It's a very good recipe for thinking, but a very poor one for living. — unenlightened

-Well in my opinion, the issue lies with the God claim . God claims are not based on objective facts accessible to everyone for evaluation.
Now in your final line I understand that your claim is" being critical and skeptical towards unfounded claims is a poor way to live your life"??? How can you support that claim?

No important reason. I'm accustomed to form and substance as a set. I perceive form and matter as being interchangeable.

It's true substance has a meaning other than matter. It can mean quality.

Do you think quality has form? More generally, do you think abstractions have form? — ucarr

A material object consists of matter and form. And, material objects are also said to be substance. So it cannot be correct to say that substance is matter. You could define "substance" to say that it is the same as "matter", but then why not just use "matter" instead?

I've never heard anyone use "substance" to mean quality. That's a new one on me.

Self-creation of God took time to occur? — ucarr

I already said that self-creation is incoherent, and I explained why. This discussion is not progressing.

Time predates God? — ucarr

If God is actual, time must predate God, because any act requires time. Don't you agree? How could God ever begin to do anything if there was no time?

I would say "God is self-caused" is incoherent because it would mean that God is prior to Himself in time, and that seems to be contradictory. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay. God is not self-caused. Does God have a cause?

If God is actual, time must predate God, because any act requires time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay. Time predates God. And God created the material universe.

So, time before God was metaphysical and there were no material things?

Okay. God can only act within time.

So, outside of time God cannot exist?

My take on that would be that "the philosopher shouldn't seek God until he has access to objective epistemology pointing to the existence and ontology of God(s). — Nickolasgaspar

True, there's a place for god in philosophy.

Possibility needs to be demonstrated, not assumed. The default position(Null hypothesis) is to reject the possibility of a claim until facts can falsify our initial rejection. An example I used in the past was that of Alchemy. Alchemists spent time and resources to turn lead in to gold when our current knowledge informs us that the chemical transmutation of elements impossible. So there is a price to pay when someone thinks that there is nothing to lose when accepting a "deepity". — Nickolasgaspar

That's deep man/woman! :smile:

[T]here's a place for god in philosophy. — Agent Smith

"There's a place for" unintelligibility-inexplicability (i.e. "divine mysteries") "in phlosophy" (i.e. the love – pursuit – of 'masterful intellection-explication')? :roll:

"There's a place for" unintelligibility-inexplicability (i.e. "divine mysteries") "in phlosophy" (i.e. the love – pursuit – of 'masterful intellection-explication')? — 180 Proof

Nickolasgaspar was quite clear on what he meant. Perhaps you're looking at it from an ex post standpoint.

Non sequitur. i agree with Nickolasgaspar and disagree with your reply to him.

Non sequitur. i agree with Nickolasgaspar and disagree with your reply to him. — 180 Proof

:lol: That's alright. I may have stepped outside the boundary of his belief.

-Well in my opinion, the issue lies with the God claim . — Nickolasgaspar

Yes, you are in very good company focussing on the facticity or fictionality of "the God claim". That is exactly what I am pointing to myself. As long as your issue is that, you will never understand something like this:

My song is love unknown,
My Saviour's love for me,
Love to the loveless shown that they might Lovely be. — Samuel Crossman

This is why a philosopher cannot find god; he cannot make a commitment to anything, but must always be weighing and evaluating and reasoning. It's a very good recipe for thinking, but a very poor one for living. — unenlightened

The adequacy of human evaluation and human reasoning needs to come to be questioned before there can be any room for any other issue. This if you like is my counter question to philosophy - what evidence do you have that your merely evolved thinking and reasoning apparatus is in any way capable of understanding the universe that birthed it? What is reasonable about that faith in the face of all the evidence? Surely, of all the religions, faith in oneself is the least adequate?

Okay. God is not self-caused. Does God have a cause? — ucarr

I don't know, I can't imagine the possibility of anything uncaused, so probably. But God is noy well understood by me so I can't make any firm judgement.

Okay. Time predates God. And God created the material universe.

So, time before God was metaphysical and there were no material things?

Okay. God can only act within time.

So, outside of time God cannot exist? — ucarr

I think my answer to all this is generally yes. But I don't know what you mean by saying time is "metaphysical". If you mean that it's an object of study in metaphysics, then I agree.

Also the answer to the last question depends on one's conception of time. In relation to the conventional conception of time (which is faulty), God is outside of time. In relation to a true conception of time God cannot be outside of time.

This demonstrates the usefulness of the conception of God. It helps us to understand the reality of faults in conventional conceptions, and the fallibility of humanity in general, as indicated by unenlightened above.

Is there? Can you point to objective epistemology that can fuel a philosophical discussion about god or the supernatural in general?

That's deep man/woman! :smile: — Agent Smith

Its just reasoning reflecting on facts :grin:

Yes, you are in very good company focussing on the facticity or fictionality of "the God claim". That is exactly what I am pointing to myself. As long as your issue is that, you will never understand something like this:

My song is love unknown,
My Saviour's love for me,
Love to the loveless shown that they might Lovely be. — Samuel Crossman — unenlightened

I am focusing or better observing and analyzing the irrationality in humans. Accepting an existential claim without evidence is a text book example of irrational human behavior. Turning my back on logic in order to "understand" (as you claim) the superstitious message of some verses is not reasonable thing to do.
You are literary stating that we should ignore the truth value of a claim as long as songs and poems can easy our existential and epistemic anxieties.

I am focusing or better observing and analyzing the irrationality in humans. — Nickolasgaspar

Oh, my apologies, I thought you were a human.

do you feel hurt or threaten when someone exposes the irrational nature of a claim you subscribe to??
You do understand that I only criticize the logic behind those ideas, not you as an individual..right? No need to act defensively and to accuse others "for not understanding" the wishful thoughts in a couple of verses.
Can we agree that being a fan of an idea is not enough to make it true?
Also the instrumental value of an idea is not relevant to our philosophical efforts to understand nature reality and what exists within.
I hope we can have a meaningful discussion without you feeling threatened by my logical objections on the foundations of these supernatural claims.

do you feel hurt or threaten when someone exposes the irrational nature of a claim you subscribe to?? — Nickolasgaspar

Do you? Or do you not even allow yourself to become conscious of how you have exposed your own irrationality, so quick you are to project it onto me?

As it happens I answered your question 2 days before you asked it in another thread:

Say you call me an idiot; I tend to deny it, and then be afraid that everyone will think I'm an idiot and then blame you for being so rude, and call you an idiot back. All this is a resistance, I don't let the idea in, and so it remains there pricking at me.

But if I simply accept that I am an idiot, there is no problem - it is only the image I had of myself being smart that has taken a knock. — unenlightened

Do you? Or do you not even allow yourself to become conscious of how you have exposed your own irrationality, so quick you are to project it onto me? — unenlightened

I pointed out the inconsistencies in your analogy and you accused me for "taking your analogy ...literally", As I told you an analogy is not a metaphor so "taking it literally or not is irrelevant".
You gave an other analogy that failed (again) to address the issues created by the first analogy.
Then you are accusing me for "not understaning" and I told you that I am not interested in understanding the instrumental value of a story, but I want to learn how this story affects people's behavior....and you came back with a snarky comment. So who is projecting what here...sir?

I guess We have reached the end of the road where a theist (or magical thinker) is unable to provide objective evidence and he turns to different practices.

So Enjoy the rest of your stay....in this thread!

Exaclty...this was "unenlightened's" whole argument...You need to believe in order to believe in god.

this was "unenlightened's" whole argument...You need to believe in order to believe in god. — Nickolasgaspar

Not quite. My argument is that you need to stop believing in yourself in order to believe in God. And you have quite clearly exemplified this for me. What I have not done, that you have not seemingly noticed, is presented any argument for God, or professed any belief in God.

But you have seen in me the antagonist just like a good Christian seeing the devil in an atheist. You have displayed your irrationality and your blind faith in a cause, that of your own superior rationality. It's quite amusing.

My argument is that you need to stop believing in yourself in order to believe in God. — unenlightened

And yet in the mouth of (most?) believers these days, "God" is just a three-letter epithet (or crutch) for ego ("why").

'Belief' from the perspective of atheism is invariably portrayed as 'acceptance with no evidence', but 'belief' in this sense can also be seen to be instrumental - something like an openness or the willingness to accept, rather than a pre-determined refusal to consider.

As for where philosophy proper sits in all this, it doesn't demand the kind of obedience to dogma typically associated with religion. But it may require an openness to dimensions of being that are out of reach for what is typically called 'empiricism', because it may demand a knd of introspective awareness that can't be validated in the public square, so to speak. And earlier philosophy did have an aspect which is quite close to religion in some respects, as explained by Pierre Hadot:

Askesis of Desire: For Hadot, famously, the means for the philosophical student to achieve the “complete reversal of our usual ways of looking at things” epitomized by the Sage were a series of spiritual exercises. These exercises encompassed all of those practices still associated with philosophical teaching and study: reading, listening, dialogue, inquiry, and research. However, they also included practices deliberately aimed at addressing the student’s larger way of life, and demanding daily or continuous repetition: practices of attention (prosoche), meditations (meletai), memorizations of dogmata, self-mastery (enkrateia), the therapy of the passions, the remembrance of good things, the accomplishment of duties, and the cultivation of indifference towards indifferent things (Philosophy as a Way of Life 84). Hadot acknowledges his use of the term “spiritual exercises” may create anxieties*, by associating philosophical practices more closely with religious devotion than typically done (Nussbaum 1996, 353-4; Cooper 2010). Hadot’s use of the adjective “spiritual” (or sometimes “existential”) indeed aims to capture how these practices, like devotional practices in the religious traditions (6a), are aimed at generating and reactivating a constant way of living and perceiving in prokopta, despite the distractions, temptations, and difficulties of life. For this reason, they call upon far more than “reason alone.” They also utilize rhetoric and imagination in order “to formulate the rule of life to ourselves in the most striking and concrete way” and aim to actively re-habituate bodily passions, impulses, and desires (as for instance, in Cynic or Stoic practices, abstinence is used to accustom followers to bear cold, heat, hunger, and other privations) (PWL 85). — Pierre Hadot entry IEP

* or hysteria :lol:

Its just reasoning reflecting on facts :grin:
8hReplyOptions — Nickolasgaspar

That's the best thing one can do in life! Deepity?

Is there? Can you point to objective epistemology that can fuel a philosophical discussion about god or the supernatural in general? — Nickolasgaspar

That's too obvious to state. Pick up an introductory book on philosophy and be informed! @180 Proof claims philosophy and god are incompatible. I beg to differ.

180 Proof claims philosophy and god are incompatible. I beg to differ. — Agent Smith

Make the argument, señor.

Make the argument, señor. — 180 Proof

God is the focus of the philosophy of religion? :chin:

No. Religious faith is the focus of the philosophy of religion. "God" is the focus of theology.

No. Religious faith [in god(s)] is the focus. "God" is the focus of theology. — 180 Proof

Theology, I admit, belongs to classical metaphysics; but the "god of the philosophers" is not worshipped or what religious / mystical seekers seek.