• lupac
    16
    Reading the posts on here and in general debates the default assumption is that when we speak about God we are talking about the Christian God. These conversations are interesting and engaging but they don’t properly belong to the philosophy of religion, rather, these conversations are theology. Oftentimes conversations will be heading in an interesting direction or seem to resolve when someone will cite scripture or some theological tradition and derail the conversation into Christian specific theology while leaving the philosophical question unanswered.

    Certainly, ‘Does God exist?” and “Does the Christian God exist?” are related conversations, but if we accept certain truths from Christianity we muddle our rationality with predetermined opinions and rules. For example, God must be omnibenevolent if he is the Christian God. The problem of suffering and evil is completely different if we are talking about God than if we are talking about the Christian God.

    And the assumption that God would be Christian is just too bold for one forum post. It’s one thing to believe in God, that’s easy enough, but to think that we could know that this religion about God is the correct one seems to be beyond our reckoning.

    We should think about God as some plain Greatest Conceivable Being. Leave out all the theology that comes later if we can even say that Christianity is true. When we talk about God we should be able to conceive of a boundless being beyond our restrictions, so that the logical and rational implications of such a God may be realized.

    A rough outline of my thinking might go:

    If we are going to talk about God then we should speak without hindrances
    Speaking about any one religion’s god limits more than it adds to the discourse
    We should talk about God without attaching God any one religion.

    I don’t want to say that Christianity or other religions don’t add anything, I just think that they move us away from clear philosophy and towards theology.
  • RegularGuy
    2.6k
    I agree I think. That said, do you feel I have been guilty of this?
  • Ben Hancock
    14
    For example, God must be omnibenevolent if he is the Christian God.lupac

    We should think about God as some plain Greatest Conceivable Beinglupac

    Lupac, while I understand your desire to speak about God purely from rationality, it seems incredibly difficulty to imagine God without assigning to Him/Her some traits. I quoted you above to demonstrate how hard it is:
    1. If God is the GCB, He/She has the maximum of all great-making Characteristic
    2. Benevolence is a great-making Characteristic
    3. God is the GCB
    4. God is omnibenevolent (1,2,3 MP)
    Even when you try and say we need to have a religion-neutral God, you speak of a God that possesses Omnibenevolence, and so he must be the Christian God. I highlight this example to object to your 1st premise. It seems that in defining God you have already spoken of God with "hindrance." Incorporating a certain religion is helpful when making claims about God, because each religion defines 'God' a little differently. There is no neutral definition, as your post displays, so using a specific religion's God allows the reader to associate a certain dossier of information about God with the post, providing necessary clarity. Any discussion with God involves necessary theology, and, be it Christian or otherwise, it can be simply neutral, or people will talk past one another
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    Actually, there has recently been enough ignorant nonsense on so-called religion and theology here that deleting some posts might have a salutary effect. In any case, anyone writing about god should be required to give a concise and meaningful explanation of just what they mean by the term. Words like "omnipotent," "omnibeneficent," omni-anything, or perfect in any way are all used without respect of what they really mean or imply. This tries to be a philosophy site. The category is "Philosophy of Religion," a perfectly respectable topic for philosophy. Posts that aren't much more than variations on, "Can God make a stone so heavy He cannot lift it?" don't really qualify.
  • unenlightened
    9.2k
    Can we stop talking about Jesus please.

    Nope. One cannot discuss the philosophy of religion without mentioning religion, any more than one can discuss the philosophy of science without mentioning science.
  • Jake
    1.4k
    A compromise might be to keep talking about Jesus where such an interest exists, but try to talk about his work in a more interesting manner than is often the case.

    As example, it's impossible to use philosophy to determine whether Jesus was a god or not, so it seems reasonable to let that subject go.

    On the other hand, what did Jesus mean by "dying to be reborn"? And what might we mean by such a concept? This seems a worthwhile conversation, whether or not Jesus the person is included.

    There's a lot more to religion in general and Christianity in particular than God claims. It would be helpful if philosophy forum users could get that.
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.