A god is a perfect person: a being with
-perfect accuracy of experience of everything (perfect sensation and appetites),
-perfect accuracy of reflection upon experience (perfect intuition and emotion),
-perfect effectiveness of reflection upon behavior (perfect belief and intention), and
-perfect effectiveness of behavior upon everything (perfect speech and action).
The whole of the universe necessarily has perfect accuracy of experience of itself and perfect effectiveness of behavior upon itself. No mere part of the universe can have these traits; and nothing beyond the universe can exist.
The question is, does the whole of the universe reflect upon itself; and are those reflections in turn accurate and effective? Is the universe a person? Some mere parts of it are, such as humans. Can the whole of the universe be a person, or can only mere parts of it? Such a universal person, a god, would have nothing to experience or act upon but itself; can such an isolated being be a person at all?
If mere parts of the universe can grow to encompass progressively more of the universe, can they ever grow to encompass the whole of the universe, to become the whole of the universe, and thus become God; or is that forever an unattainable goal? Can we mere parts even continue, indefinitely, to get arbitrarily close, or will we some day reach a limit beyond which we cannot progress? — an old note to myself
There are many arguments that defend the objects of faith (I'm thinking particularly of the christian faith). The people doing so are called "apologetics", and they are still kicking to this day. — Samuel Lacrampe
As I began to develop my own personal Agnostic worldview, I tried to avoid any religious terminology. But eventually I realized that the Ultimate Source of ubiquitous Information is equivalent in most respects to the ancient concept of an abstract world-sustaining creator God (e.g. Brahman). When I used evasive terms in discussions, I had to provide long round-about definitions. So I gave-up and made-up a neologism that suggests a creator deity, but with a question mark. Since I have no direct evidence of this hypothetical Enformer, the asterisk in "G*D" means "to be determined". Pre-scientific thinkers were not idiots; they were just working with incomplete information about how the world works.Maybe I find the choice of 'G*D' as a name for it sub-optimal. Maybe I think it doesn't really answer the question. (Is there a question?) — jellyfish
Do you mean, a non-fit, an impasse? If it is a non-fit, then explanation creates a story which claims to represent the action as true. If it is an impasse, then one knows that there is no explanation other than physics. — uncanni
I have asked those same questions about my hypothetical G*D. And my answer is No.Is the universe a person? Some mere parts of it are, such as humans. Can the whole of the universe be a person, or can only mere parts of it? Such a universal person, a god, would have nothing to experience or act upon but itself; can such an isolated being be a person at all? — Pfhorrest
As I began to develop my own personal Agnostic worldview, I tried to avoid any religious terminology. But eventually I realized that the Ultimate Source of ubiquitous Information is equivalent in most respects to the ancient concept of an abstract world-sustaining creator God (e.g. Brahman). — Gnomon
So I view Enformationism as a 21st century update of outdated philosophical theories of Materialism and Spiritualism. Information is the essence of both Matter and Mind. Unfortunately, few people have read my thesis, so they don't fully grasp what I mean by Enformation or by "G*D". — Gnomon
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/strauss/conclusion.htmlif reality is ascribed to the idea of the unity of the divine and human natures, is this equivalent to the admission that this unity must actually have been once manifested, as it never had been, and never more will be, in one individual? This is indeed not the mode in which Idea realizes itself; it is not wont to lavish all its fulness on one exemplar, and be niggardly towards all others † —to express itself perfectly in that one individual, and imperfectly in all the rest: it rather loves to distribute its riches among a multiplicity of exemplars which reciprocally complete each other—-in the alternate appearance and suppression of a series of individuals. And is this no true realization of the idea? is not the idea of the unity of the divine and human natures a real one in a far higher sense, when I regard the whole race of mankind as its realization, than when I single out one man as such a realization? is not an incarnation of God from eternity, a truer one than an incarnation limited to a particular point of time.
This is the key to the whole of Christology, that, as subject of the predicate which the church assigns to Christ, we place, instead of an individual, an idea; but an idea which has an existence in reality, not in the mind only, like that of Kant. In an individual, a God-man, the properties and functions which the church ascribes to Christ contradict themselves; in the idea of the race, they perfectly agree. Humanity is the union of the two natures—God become man, the infinite manifesting itself in the finite, and the finite spirit remembering its infinitude; it is the child of the visible Mother and the invisible Father, Nature and Spirit; it is the worker of miracles, in so far as in the course of human history the spirit more and more completely subjugates nature, both within and around man, until it lies before him as the inert matter on which he exercises his active power;‡ it is the sinless existence, for the course of its development is a blameless one, pollution cleaves to the individual only, and does not touch the race or its history. It is Humanity that dies, rises, and ascends to heaven, for from the negation of its phenomenal life there ever proceeds a higher spiritual life; from the suppression of its mortality as a personal, national, and terrestrial spirit, arises its union with the infinite spirit of the heavens. By faith in this Christ, especially in his death and resurrection, man is justified before God; that is, by the kindling within him of the idea of Humanity, the individual man participates in the divinely human life of the species. — Strauss
Pre-scientific thinkers were not idiots; they were just working with incomplete information about how the world works. — Gnomon
Unfortunately, few people have read my thesis, so they don't fully grasp what I mean by Enformation or by "G*D". — Gnomon
But the new answers are not found in conventional Science or Religion. The Enformationism thesis asks those age-old queries, and proposes theoretical answers. But Atheists dismiss them as "gap fillers" or "empty set", because they have an outdated understanding of Physics and Metaphysics. — Gnomon
Interestingly, the modern understanding of Information/Energy is similar to the archaic notion of Spirit : invisible, intangible, causal agency. — Gnomon
Hofstadter's thesis about consciousness, first expressed in Gödel, Escher, Bach (GEB) but also present in several of his later books, is that it is an emergent consequence of seething lower-level activity in the brain. In GEB he draws an analogy between the social organization of a colony of ants and the mind seen as a coherent "colony" of neurons. In particular, Hofstadter claims that our sense of having (or being) an "I" comes from the abstract pattern he terms a "strange loop", which is an abstract cousin of such concrete phenomena as audio and video feedback, and which Hofstadter has defined as "a level-crossing feedback loop". The prototypical example of this abstract notion is the self-referential structure at the core of Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Hofstadter's 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop carries his vision of consciousness considerably further, including the idea that each human "I" is distributed over numerous brains, rather than being limited to precisely one brain. — Wiki
The problem with this definition is that it is too broad. It sounds like believing in bigfoot, or believing that this football team will win tomorrow's game, are religions. On the other hand, adding "the gods and related topics" (along with behaviour) fixes that, and should be able to include Buddhism if the "related topics" include the after-life, ultimate reality, and such things."religions are belief systems that appeal to faith" definition — Pfhorrest
Don't these two claims contradict? To disbelieve in p is to believe in not-p. E.g. "I have good reasons to disbelieve in an atheistic world; this must mean that I believe in a god."there cannot be sufficient reason to believe anything, there can only be sufficient reasons to disbelieve things. — Pfhorrest
I think your are attempting to say that reason can support faith; and even though I agree with this under my definition of faith, this cannot work under your definition: If faith is belief devoid of reason, and reason serves to explain the belief, then faith and reason are in contradiction, for a belief cannot be both without reason and with reason at the same time.faith (even blind faith), as the vehicle of revelation, is a valid source of knowledge to tell you what is true, and that is strictly speaking sufficient for purposes of salvation and such, but reason is there to deepen your understanding of why it is true — Pfhorrest
The problem with this definition is that it is too broad. It sounds like believing in bigfoot, or believing that this football team will win tomorrow's game, are religions — Samuel Lacrampe
On the other hand, adding "the gods and related topics" (along with behaviour) fixes that, and should be able to include Buddhism if the "related topics" include the after-life, ultimate reality, and such things. — Samuel Lacrampe
Don't these two claims contradict? To disbelieve in p is to believe in not-p. E.g. "I have good reasons to disbelieve in an atheistic world; this must mean that I believe in a god." — Samuel Lacrampe
I think your are attempting to say that reason can support faith; — Samuel Lacrampe
The way that mysticism and reason are engaged with each other as countervailing forces requires a lot of assumptions before the scrum can commence.
It is difficult to approach the matter from that direction.
....I will assert that the intersection of the cultural and personal frames of experience, the distance between past expressions and the needs of the present moment,involve a desire to embrace a disproportion between explanation and action. The flickering messages of what must be done and the call to make your own way are not the consequences of this or that set of beliefs but reflects the problem of our existence. — Valentinus
While I agree that the religious acts were created FOR humans, it is not always believed they were created BY humans. — Samuel Lacrampe
Or money. Or good intentions...road to hell is paved and all that. Or someone lying to them. Or being in a hurry. or thinking you know better than other people. Cluelessness. Cultural biases. Following authorities.For good people to do evil things, that takes religion. — 180 Proof
Believing the unbelievable (all-too-often, even) in order to defend of the indefensible.
In the millennial wake of religious wars, pogroms, inquisitions, martyrdoms, marital rapes, misogyny, homophobia, chattel slavery, self-abasing vicarious guilt, bigotry & scapegoating, the above sounds to me very much like an apt definition of Faith. As a learned wit once said "... For good people to do evil things, that takes religion." :victory: — 180 Proof
http://geekofalltrades.org/codex/fideism.phpThe archetypical examples of such appeals to faith are essentially appeals to authority. Some trusted religious figure or holy book says that something is true, and that assertion is taken as not needing any support: the assertion itself is taken as self-sufficient. — link
I get the impression that this thread isn't supposed to be for arguing for or against faith, religion, god, or theology, but just for trying to come up with definitions of all of those things that satisfy all parties. — Pfhorrest
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. — Emerson
I'm down with this principle....but, in the spirit of this principle, why are we attached to detachment? In what are we invested that urges us not to be fools? I agree that expecting others to believe on authority is bad. Bad how? I think free minds want a symmetric relationship with other free minds. They want to see their own freedom/infinity reflected and recognized.By rejecting appeals to authority, just like with appeals to popularity, and raw appeals to your own faith, I am only saying to hold all such opinions merely tentatively, remaining open to question and doubt. — link
I agree with all of this, but why wouldn't this include secular politics? Like some of the stuff that happened under Stalin? — jellyfish
Our superstitions are 'freedom', 'justice', 'equality' ,' rationality', 'science.' I don't mean that these concepts are bogus, but I do mean that these high words get tangled up in low deeds. In other words, magical thinking is just as happy with secular abstractions. — jellyfish
why are we attached to detachment? In what are we invested that urges us not to be fools? I agree that expecting others to believe on authority is bad. Bad how? I think free minds want a symmetric relationship with other free minds. They want to see their own freedom/infinity reflected and recognized. — jellyfish
Lovely. The quintessence of Bakhtin's dialogism: interlocutors understand their own ideas from different perspectives by listening to how the other uses their own words/concepts. This should lead to expansion, clarification and deeper understanding of said ideas. Free minds never try to repress or distort an other's ideas. — uncanni
who then came up with the very Orwellian phrase, "Within the revolution: everything; outside of the revolution: nothing." And complete censorship clamped down on any but the most socialist realist artistic expression. Ultra-orthodox. — uncanni
I think we are (all too often) bound ourselves by our desire to bind others. — jellyfish
Now that is a profound statement, with multiple resonances or over-determinations:
* to force others into some kind of rigid structure;
* to reduce all meaning to a supreme Monologic meaning (one correct interpretation);
* sadism — uncanni
It's when we realize that the dialogue is open and infinite--that that is the nature of the philosophical dialogue--that we can settle in and let our ideas develop and our understanding deepen. In striving to have a rational understanding of our interlocutor, I think that we deepen our experience with the world at large. Even us cyber-dialogists. — uncanni
All belief is incompletely justified. — Pfhorrest
There are beliefs which it is unreasonable to doubt. That this is a sentence of English, for example. Such beliefs are foundational. Consider Wittgenstein's hinge beliefs.
Now if god were real, wouldn't one expect belief in him to be of this sort? If there were such a creature, woudln't it be unreasonable not to believe in him? — Banno
Being clearly sufficiently supported and being excluded from all attempts at questioning are different things. — Pfhorrest
Now if god were real, wouldn't one expect belief in him to be of this sort? If there were such a creature, woudln't it be unreasonable not to believe in him? — Banno
...our reasons for believing or not believing in god are mostly, if not completely unrelated to whether there is or is not a god. — Metaphysician Undercover
There are things that stand outside the tournament of justification, because they are needed in order for that tournament to take place. Isn't god just the sort of thing that would justify everything else?All belief is incompletely justified. — Pfhorrest
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