Of course believers would not admit to the 'utility' argument, anymore than a naive realist would admit it equally applying to 'the existence of trees' ( or 'rocks', or any other 'thing')!
From a philosophical pov, the term 'naive realist' neatly avoids 'confusion'. — fresco

I'm not following you. I'm suggesting that you come up with a different word for "existence" in these philosophical pov discussions to avoid confusing it with the generally accepted usage.

Perhaps you can come up with something better, but for starters, maybe psv-existence?

The OLP situations I raise are ephemeral context bound episodes.
The post structuralist view recognizes that transience and seeks to generalize about them. — fresco

At the risk of extending this discussion far beyond its original bounds, given (among many other things) the on-going history of most major religions to impose their belief systems on non-believers, I do not consider these situations to be ephemeral; they are essential components of many of mankind's past & current conflicts.

But if a relative view is taken, we can validly say 'God exists for believers' because the concept has utility for their interactions..And 'God does not exist for atheists' because the reverse is true. The consequences (i.e.what matters) of this relativity view are that atheists' seeking to argue against 'God's existence' on the basis of 'evidence' are barking up the wrong tree. — fresco

No deeply religious person would agree with this definition/usage of the word existence. No fundamentalist Christian would ever say "I use the word God because the concept has utility in my interactions with other religious folk". When they say "God exists' they are using - or attempting to use - the word exists in the same sense as "The tree exists".

Now if - in the context of these philosophical discussions - you want to use the word existence differently than the average person, that may be a valid point of discussion. But it seems to me that instead of using the word existence, perhaps it would be clearer to came up with a new/different word (neologism) to avoid confusion.

Its not a question of 'belief'. Its a fundamental later phenomenological pov which follows Kant's non accessibility of noumena and therefore discards 'noumena' as vacuous, and which accepts Nietsche's rejection of any difference between 'description' and 'reality'. It is also supported by Maturana's argument that all we call 'observation' essentially involves 'languaging'. — fresco

Could/would you please re-phrase that answer in plain language? Thanks.

There is no one universal order that underlies all language. — Fooloso4

FYI - There's an interesting debate about this in the linguistics community: https://dlc.hypotheses.org/1269

Are you seeing that as controversial? If x is a state of affairs, then x isn't impossible. That seems fairly obvious, no? — Terrapin Station

Sure, but then what we're describing isn't actually a state of affairs — Terrapin Station

As far as I can tell we're in agreement on both points. However, my powers of persuasion are insufficient/inadequate when it comes to convincing AJJ of this.

I think if a state of affairs can be described as impossible then it can be described as false. Either way your describing something that isn’t true. — AJJ

It appears that you are using a different definition of state of affairs than others are. Here is Terrapin's:

Basically states of affairs are relations of existent things, as well as properties of existent things. Things exist, they have properties, and they are situated in certain (dynamic) ways with respect to other existent things. Those are states of affairs. — Terrapin Station

Given this definition, any state of affairs cannot be described as impossible because there ain't no such thing as an impossible state of affairs.

You can make statements/propositions about hypothetical states of affairs in ways that are contradictory and/or false.

If the cat is not sitting on the mat then it’s false that the cat is sitting on the mat. — AJJ

We agree.

The “something” there is the state of affairs of the cat sitting on the mat. — AJJ

I'm not getting this. If the cat is explicitly not sitting on the mat, then it cannot be the state of affairs that the cat is sitting on the mat. The state of affairs is that the cat is not sitting on the mat.

Substitute the word “reality” for “Truth” if you like. In that case something that is false would be so because it is not part of “reality”. But “reality” there just refers to the objective Truth. — AJJ

We all agree that a proposition/statement about reality can be false. I'm not understanding what you mean when you say "something that is false". How can a "something" be false? Can you give an example?

Can a thing be false and thus part of the capital F False? — EricH

No - it just wouldn’t be part of the Truth. — AJJ

I'm a plain language person, so what I'll be saying next may not be as precise in philosophical terminology as others might put it.

The words true & false are opposites in semantic meaning, you cannot have one without the other.

However, if I'm following you, the word False (capital F) has no functional usage. This then implies that the word Truth (capital T) has no counterpart. As such, it seems like you could substitute the word "reality" or the phrase "state of affairs" for the word Truth (capital T).

AJJ - I know this is not an easy thing to comprehend - it took me a while to wrap my head around what Terrapin & S are saying.

Things that are true are part of the Truth, not the other way around. — AJJ

Can a thing be false and thus part of the capital F False?

My view is that statements and propositions are true when they correspond to things that are capital T True. — AJJ

Would you that statements and propositions are false when they correspond to things that are capital F False?

I apologize in advance if this comes across as personal criticism, but to assume that our advanced simian brains are remotely capable of dealing with these issues is an act of hubris.

It’s only in the last 400 years or so that the scientific method has started to uncover the workings of the universe. We’ve only known about the big bang for under 100 years - and even today there are huge gaps & inconsistencies in our knowledge.

If history is any guide, it is likely that our current explanations about the universe & reality will - at a minimum - be proven partially wrong - i.e., only correct under certain conditions.

Or for all we know, all our current knowledge may be completely wrong. The entire observable universe could be a pimple on a much larger reality.

If humanity can succeed in not destroying itself, it may be possible that sometime in the (near? distant?) future we will evolve to the point where maybe we can ask the right questions.

But please don’t let me hi-jack this thread. I enjoy reading these back & forth discussions; I just hope that everyone accepts that we don’t know what the heck we’re talking about.