For exactly that reason (what makes something perfect depends on what it's supposed to be), there can't be such a thing as a general-purpose "perfect being". So if you want to define God in terms of perfection, it'd have to be something like a "perfect person": identify whatever it is that are the defining characteristics of a person, and say that a god is a being that has all of those characteristics perfected. That's where we get the usual "all knowledgeable, all good, all powerful" kind of definitions.

In a funny coincidence, while churning through my 300+ notes to myself I've accumulated over the past decade-plus on things to write about in my philosophy book, I stumbled upon this tonight, from eight and a half years ago when I was still leaning toward pantheism. Some of the phrasing is a little off from what I would use today, but it's still more or less the same idea I just wrote above:

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

And they can kick it all day every day. To defend objects of faith is a perfectly respectable occupation. I repeat: Probability and reason can't prove the contents of faith.

Or shall we just list you among those for whom "god" is one of many names for a class of ideas for which there is no referent. — tim wood

Yeah: a member of the empty set ... Hallelujah! Amen. :pray:

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

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.

Interestingly, the modern understanding of Information/Energy is similar to the archaic notion of Spirit : invisible, intangible, causal agency. 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".

Yes, there are many questions that are answered by the G*D concept. 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.

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

You present an either/or I never thought of. When putting the matter as broadly as I did, I figured the observation was not evidence for any state of being but a possible point of departure as a beginning of the kind the OP asked for.

I think the Taoist perspective says it is a non-fit and an impasse at the same time. It is a non-fit in so far as the referent can never be captured in any explanation and it is an impasse in regards to what change we can directly bring about. The two perspectives come from accepting our limited degrees of freedom. It is presented as a discovery of a situation, not a project for what must be. But it also argues for what should not be.

Tricky stuff.

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

I have asked those same questions about my hypothetical G*D. And my answer is No.

First, my G*D is not Theistic or Pantheistic, but PanEnDeistic. Defined as Eternal-Infinite, hence wholly transcendent (Ideality) and partly immanent (Reality). If G*D is ALL, Omni-existent, then any experiences or actions must be internal. Such a G*D is not a being, but BEING itself : the power to exist. And "person" is an anthropomorphic concept that could not apply to an abstract generality. Example, the United States is an abstract concept, a generalization, not a person. G*D can be personal, only in the sense that You are part of ALL.

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

Indeed. Your theory (to the degree that I know it) reminds of other philosophers'.

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

I understand the desire to transcend that dichotomy. In some ways it reminds me of German philosophers who wanted to bring God down to this world. The species is Christ, and history is the unfolding/incarnation of God. That's the gist as I understand it.

if 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

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/strauss/conclusion.html

The vision blends Christianity with technological progress. It's optimistic. It doesn't address the mortality of the species (God himself is mortal). Humanism is arguably the best thing we have. Is it good enough? Smaller notions of the group allow for a human enemy, and we tend to love our human enemies as the glue that binds us to our friends. We need an alien attack. If we win, we might be in the mood for the New New Jerusalem.

Pre-scientific thinkers were not idiots; they were just working with incomplete information about how the world works. — Gnomon

I agree.

Unfortunately, few people have read my thesis, so they don't fully grasp what I mean by Enformation or by "G*D". — Gnomon

Well you have lots of competition. While generating a new vocabulary has its advantages, you thereby lose out on the ability to connect your work to other philosophers. And then philosophers just love being skeptical. Personally I respect the creativity. I've written philosophy too, even a kind of system, when I trusted more in the possibility of a system. These days I think that 'my' thoughts have all tended to be out there already. I only tie fragments together and try to choose words appropriate to the moment. Despite having this view now, I think it's crucial that I strove and strive to break new ground.

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

Some atheists are quite exposed to philosopher's gods and even like or embrace them. 'Atheist' is just too vague to express much more than a critical attitude. As far as 'gap filler' goes, I think even you spoke of God as an axiom or place in a structure.

Interestingly, the modern understanding of Information/Energy is similar to the archaic notion of Spirit : invisible, intangible, causal agency. — Gnomon

Have you looked into Douglas_Hofstadter? He writes some fascinating stuff about causality and the nature of cognition.

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

i would argue religion is just a set of beliefs in reference to a super natural concept (typically that super natural notion is the notion of a god or gods).

The Bible actually doesn't say all religion is bad. In the Bible there is good religion and bad religion. (letter of James or epistle of James)

"religions are belief systems that appeal to faith" definition — 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. 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.

there cannot be sufficient reason to believe anything, there can only be sufficient reasons to disbelieve things. — 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."

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

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.

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

Only if by "faith" you mean "believing something not conclusively proven", which I don't. I tried to explain this before, but maybe I can use a conversation about sportball to explain it better.

Alice believes the Stars will win tomorrow's sportball game, even though she doesn't have any good reason to believe that. Bob believes the Stripes will win that game instead, even though he doesn't have any good reason to believe that. Alice and Bob both acknowledge that, lacking any evidence with which to convince the other, they must agree to disagree; each has their own expectations that they believe will happen, but no grounds on which to assert that those who disagree are wrong, so they don't assert that those who disagree are wrong, even though they go on believing as they do. So neither of their beliefs are "faith" in the sense that I mean.

Meanwhile in an alternate universe, Alice and Bob believe the same things about who will win tomorrow's game, but both insist that the other is wrong. Alice still doesn't have any reason to give Bob for why he needs to change his mind, she has the same (lack of) reasons for belief as the Alice in the first universe did, but her attitude toward those (lack of) reasons is different. She just knows it, in her gut, and also the Stars coach swore confidently on TV that his team was sure to win the game tomorrow, and besides the Stars are more popular than the Stripes anyway and that many fans can't all be wrong. That is faith in the sense that I mean. Bob meanwhile explains to Alice his reasons for thinking that the Stripes have better odds than the Stars, and will therefore win over them, pointing to their win/loss ratios and player characteristics and so on. Alice doesn't care; Bob is wrong, as far as she's concerned, because she just knows he is, even though she's got nothing to counter his argument with. That is faith in the sense that I mean.

Faith isn't incompletely justified belief. All belief is incompletely justified.

Faith is uncritical, unquestionable belief. Not all belief is uncritical.

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

"Ultimate reality" is a topic that non-religious studies like physics and (irreligious) philosophy also investigate.

It sounds like what you really want that category to be is "supernatural things", which would actually work for me, but only because I hold that all belief in the supernatural is necessarily held on faith, since by definition opinions about supernatural things cannot be supported by evidence, for if there was evidence, the supernatural would have an observable effect on the natural world, and would therefore be natural.

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

Well technically, disbelieving P and believing not-P are not equivalent; if we write it in functional notation that becomes clear, the opposite of believe(P) is not-believe(P), which is not necessarily equivalent to believe(not-P), although the latter would certainly entail the former, but only in that direction. But that's a minor aside to the main point.

When we start out, with no knowledge, all possibilities are live, any possible world might be the actual world so far as we know. We cannot pick out one of those infinite possibilities and conclusively show that that is definitely the actual world. All we can do is show that whichever possibility is actual, it mustn't contradict this or that bit of evidence, ruling out swathes of possible worlds, leaving a narrower selection of those that might be actual. But there's always still a selection, always still multiple live possibilities. The more evidence we accumulate, the more we can narrow in, but we're always just whittling away possibilities, never positively supporting any particular one of them.

I think your are attempting to say that reason can support faith; — Samuel Lacrampe

I was saying that the Thomists think that. That wasn't my opinion, that was my report of their opinions.

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:

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

What I understood you to be saying is that there's always a "countervailing," a "disproportion" between issues of faith or mysticism and those of reason. What I meant to convey in my response to what you wrote is that institutionalized religion, in my sweepingly generalized view, does everything in its power to make people not question their existence. This is the boulder of ideology that oppresses so many minds so easily. This kind of ideology relieves the individual of any requirement to think and question; the goal is obedience.

To confront the impasse, as I meant it, is to acknowledge the aporia: the problem of existence does not have an answer = the disproportion between explanation and action.

While I agree that the religious acts were created FOR humans, it is not always believed they were created BY humans. — Samuel Lacrampe

This is the problem with such exclusive definitions. It is quite possible, and probable, that acts which fulfill the requirements for "religious acts" were being carried out before animals evolved so as to fulfil the requirements of being human.

This tactic of exclusion is common with philosophers who argue to prove a position rather than to learn the truth. We find it in definitions of things like "language", "meaning", and "intention". It is argued that these things are exclusive to human beings ("created BY humans") when evidence from the science of biology clearly demonstrates otherwise. Evidently it is profoundly wrong to assert that these things were "created By humans".

But I do not think it is correct to say that they were "created FOR humans" either. That appears to be some form of inverted anthropomorphism, or a misinterpretation of the purpose, or final cause which is apprehended as being the reason for existence of these things. To say that some prior creatures, or even God, did such and such acts "FOR" the sake of human beings, rather than for the sake of something else, with a lack of understanding of the intention behind those acts, therefore without sufficient proof, is to make an unjustified conclusion.

For good people to do evil things, that takes religion. — 180 Proof

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.

Thank you for the clarification. The aporia is what I was focused upon.
I will need to mull over the role or momentum of institutions as an agent opposing the observation of the impasse. It seems that both sides are preserved in the traditions and language of the established religions.

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

I agree with all of this, but why wouldn't this include secular politics? Like some of the stuff that happened under Stalin? This isn't a defense of theism by any means. It's more an extension of atheism. Gods and angels are the superstitions of less critical, less conceptual times. 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.

I actually explicitly include secular authoritarianism (including of the political variety) within my definition of fideism.

Oh and (at others, not you jellyfish) 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. It seems like some people are trying to argue for or (mostly) against some of them here. I'm definitely against all of them, but I'm not trying to argue against them here, just to give my understanding of what they are. Refined a bit from the conversation since I last stated it, that understanding its:

Faith is uncritical belief.
(I think that's a bad thing).

Religion is a system of belief appealing to faith.
(Belief about anything, not necessarily about God).

God a perfect person, the best that is possible in all the ways a person should be.
(I don't think that exists).

Theology is the study of God.
(Any kind of study, not necessarily religious).

Thanks for the link. This part caught me.

The 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

http://geekofalltrades.org/codex/fideism.php

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

Fair enough. I guess I've just tried to emphasize that intellectual types tend to focus on articulated beliefs when it comes to religion, as if religion was a competing philosophy. I see philosophy instead as a competing religion. I'm oversimplifying, but philosophy is roughly humanism. Questioning is sacred.

So I'm against fideism too, because I'm invested in some image of the sacred, autonomous mind.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. — Emerson

On the other hand, this to me is some kind of faith. How do I know that I'm not crazy?

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'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.

:chin: à la divine right of kings ...

I agree with all of this, but why wouldn't this include secular politics? Like some of the stuff that happened under Stalin? — jellyfish

Of course not. 'One-party state' politics, such as Stalinism (Maoism Nazism Fascism, etc), are the very manifestations of sectarianism which is antithetical to secular politics, or secularism (i.e. democratic plurality ... e.g. vide Dewey, Arendt).

 

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

This muddle amounts to a false equivalences - religious vs secular "superstitions" - the usual superstitions of a facile ahistorism. Yeah, "high words get tangled up in low deeds", but that in no way demonstrates the latter is caused by the former. Nearly a century of misreading - misappropriating - Nietzsche's coinages imagery & tropes by e.g. salon existentialists, nazis / crypto-fascists, luddite/hippie heideggerians, poseur punkers/anarchists, p0m0 anti-oedipal lacanian feminists/queer theorists, et al reminds us (me) that great ideas aren't responsible for the lunatics & criminals who often misuse them (i.e. great books aren't responsible for what their willful misreaders do to/with them). One could, likewise, also defend church dogmas & biblical preachments this way against the atrocities of "true believers"; but it's the everyday micro-atrocities of "common faith" for which there are no apologia (except, maybe, some ad hoc theodicy) to redeem the "concepts ... high words" of credo, canon & liturgy. That said --

When reading the following keep in mind the current Stalinist regime in North Korea where, according to their "constitution", a "holy trinity" (of Great Leader (d. 1994), Dear Leader (d. 2011) & Supreme Leader) rules:

"A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened." ~George Orwell

Furthermore, the myth of atheist totalitarianism (in the 20th century) has also had its taste Hitchslapped from many, if not by now most, snouts: Gott mit uns (video) ... and other officially self-proclaimed and church-sanctioned sigils of "destiny" (e.g. "The End of History", "das Tausendjähriges Reich", etc)

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.

This reminds me of the very beginning of the Cuban revolution. There was a burst of cultural creativity and expression that was quite avant garde and included homosexual art. This was very quickly shut down by the Soviet Union's pressure on Castro, 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.

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

Thanks. I like your take on it too.

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

Ah, I didn't know about that. But the Orwellian paint-job is familiar and believable. Domination usually has a flowery excuse. I'm quite fascinated by ins and outs of such justifications.

I think we are (all too often) bound ourselves by our desire to bind others.

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

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.

Let me just take one thing back: We never settle in: I believe above all that "Learning not increased, is learning decreased."---Hillel

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

I like your breakdown. The sadism/cruelty is what Nietzsche understood so well. To me sophistication is related to turning this sadism inward, against the self. My sense is that it can't just be abolished but only steered. Any life structuring narrative seems to impose at least an implicit hierarchy. Every crystallized notion of virtue casts a shadow.

'Monologic meaning' is a good description, I think. Our temptation is to find and impose this meaning. Spengler called it 'ethical socialism.' It's what we Faustians take for granted: one true path and the duty of homogenizing the world in the name of this path. I like Feuerbach for demonstrating the birth of humanism from Christianity. Monologic has monotheistic roots, it seems. I can't be against it in a simple way, since my own pursuit of truth is the pursuit of single truth. To me the living option is irony of some sort.

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

I totally agree. I think this realization can be painful. It's the death of the usual spiritual comforts. One has to set sail on a dark ocean of personality and even embrace a permanent identity crisis. One becomes everyone and no one. For me the journey has been strange. It's lonely and yet the opposite of lonely, humble but proud.

Somehow cyber-dialogue fits all of this. I don't want to be publicly tied to the wild thoughts we're exploring here. I don't want to force freaky-difficult-'infinite' consciousness on others. We strangers meet here to be wildly honest about the wonder and terrors of life. We create a wall of digital graffiti.
I don't think I was ever so honest in a paper written for school.

All belief is incompletely justified. — Pfhorrest

Not so fast...

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?

Being clearly sufficiently supported and being excluded from all attempts at questioning are different things. There are lots of things that was for all practical purposes sure enough, but agreeing with that and saying “nope, not going to consider any arguments against it” are different things.

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

:up: :cool: Reminds me of the good old PF days - praise be goober!

Being clearly sufficiently supported and being excluded from all attempts at questioning are different things. — Pfhorrest

Yep.

I'm thinking of the faith found in the trial of god. There is questioning, even rejection, and yet there is still faith. In that play the arguments against god are considered, and god found wanting. And yet the play ends in prayer.

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

How does this make any sense to you? It's like saying 'if what I tell you is true, then it is unreasonable for you not to believe me'. But of course your reasons for believing or not believing me are mostly, if not completely unrelated to whether or not what I say is true. Likewise, our reasons for believing or not believing in god are mostly, if not completely unrelated to whether there is or is not a god.

...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

Omnipresence. IF there were a god, wouldn't His presence be utterly overwhelming? This seems to be what many of the devout describe.

This in contrast to

All belief is incompletely justified. — Pfhorrest

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?

But I suspect that will be anathema to you, old friend.