From a Deos to Your God

[lewisnotmiller]

I don't know if I'd characterize it as an inability to understand. This is sometimes the case - particularly where people are unaware of their foundational assumptions and how that shapes their worldviews - but more often than not it's mostly a product of worldviews being different from one another. If you're using map A to interpret the territory, you'll navigate it differently than if you're using map B to interpret the territory. That sort of thing. Some folks are good at using multiple maps or paradigm shifting, others are not.

Speaking as one of the non-theist types, I think you make an important point here.
However (unfortunately) there are plenty of people unable to make room for other belief structures.

Somewhere along the way, I feel like there is an ever-increasing level of literalism in the way we communicate which seems to me to be quite limiting in allowing complex conceptual discussions around topics where there is more to be considered than just a binary position.

 

[PureX]

Out of curiosity...
Is it fair to assume that this God concept you hold doesn't put forth any specific demands about how others should behave?

To clarify, not talking about general concepts like the brotherhood of man, or equality of creation.

Since existence is the result of this mystery, I think it might be safe to presume that to live in support of existence, as opposed to living at the expense of it, would be an 'existential good'. This from the Tao Te Ching ...

"Every being in the universe
is an expression of the Tao.
It springs into existence,
unconscious, perfect, free,
takes on a physical body,
lets circumstances complete it.
That is why every being
spontaneously honors the Tao."

"The Tao gives birth to all beings,
nourishes them, maintains them,
cares for them, comforts them, protects them,
takes them back to itself,
creating without possessing,
acting without expecting,
guiding without interfering.
That is why love of the Tao
is in the very nature of things."​

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Since existence is the result of this mystery, I think it might be safe to presume that to live in support of existence, as opposed to living at the expense of it, would be an 'existential good'. This from the Tao Te Ching ...

"Every being in the universe
is an expression of the Tao.
It springs into existence,
unconscious, perfect, free,
takes on a physical body,
lets circumstances complete it.
That is why every being
spontaneously honors the Tao."

"The Tao gives birth to all beings,
nourishes them, maintains them,
cares for them, comforts them, protects them,
takes them back to itself,
creating without possessing,
acting without expecting,
guiding without interfering.
That is why love of the Tao
is in the very nature of things."​

Assuming I'm not grossly misunderstanding your beliefs, then, I'd be quite happy to see more think like you do.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Since existence is the result of this mystery, ..

If existence is a mystery, let us try to decode it.

 

[PureX]

If existence is a mystery, let us try to decode it.

Why? It does not appear that we are meant to. Nor that we are capable.

 

[Nakosis]

That is a first person subjective answer. It doesn't decide if you are in a Boltzmann Brain universe or not. I asked for knowledge and you gave a psychological answer.

I've decided a while back there is no benefit in asking for knowledge of something that is not knowable.

However, if you feel this is something knowable, I'm happy to be corrected and I'm all ears.

 

[Quintessence]

Somewhere along the way, I feel like there is an ever-increasing level of literalism in the way we communicate which seems to me to be quite limiting in allowing complex conceptual discussions around topics where there is more to be considered than just a binary position.

Yeah, looking back on my childhood one of the reasons I rejected "religion" and "theism" (as I understood it at the time) was taking things literally. One of the major reasons I did that was because of the influence of the sciences on my thinking as a kid. If something wasn't "factual" I just didn't care. I doubt my story is unique - I think the influence of the sciences encourages literalism even where it makes no sense to apply such thinking. It was until I had more study of the arts and humanities that I started processing how inappropriate it is to approach those fields of study with a science/literalist mindset.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Yeah, looking back on my childhood one of the reasons I rejected "religion" and "theism" (as I understood it at the time) was taking things literally. One of the major reasons I did that was because of the influence of the sciences on my thinking as a kid. If something wasn't "factual" I just didn't care. I doubt my story is unique - I think the influence of the sciences encourages literalism even where it makes no sense to apply such thinking. It was until I had more study of the arts and humanities that I started processing how inappropriate it is to approach those fields of study with a science/literalist mindset.

Not just the sciences, I think, but yes, that makes sense.

I work in computer software, and in some ways that can reinforce literal and even binary thinking.
Social media and the internet generally can do so too, I think. It's much less common and more difficult to have discussions involving non-literal interpretations. Poe's Law and all that.
Religious literalism (which is not new, obviously, but also not going away)
Political division (in the larger sense - the ability to curate news to find agreeable facts)

I really worry about our ability to see the commonality of others before the differences, and to understand the important core concepts over the methods these days.
And yeah, I know that makes me sound old. Might be my 'get off my lawn' moment.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yeah, looking back on my childhood one of the reasons I rejected "religion" and "theism" (as I understood it at the time) was taking things literally. One of the major reasons I did that was because of the influence of the sciences on my thinking as a kid. If something wasn't "factual" I just didn't care. I doubt my story is unique - I think the influence of the sciences encourages literalism even where it makes no sense to apply such thinking. It was until I had more study of the arts and humanities that I started processing how inappropriate it is to approach those fields of study with a science/literalist mindset.

Well, I tried to figure out the correct, universal, objective and what not truth. I learned that I didn't have to believe in that and part of that is, that I figured out that I had leaned to live with subjectivity, relativism and finding my own path.

 

[thomas t]

There are quite a few current discussions about the existence of god(s) and they haven't changed much in the last few hundreds of years. No new arguments on either side and it tends to get boring.
I like to introduce a new discussion (again, former attempts didn't yield much attention).

Assuming the existence of a creator is given, how do you get to your understanding of god?

You may make additional assumptions but you have to point them out, no hidden assumptions.
Try to keep your assumptions minimal.

Those who don't participate will function as referees, pointing out hidden assumptions and keeping score.

It's a loving God, I think.
Look at this, even if man arranged the wine yard, it's still great to see the leaves: https://pixabay.com/photos/vine-wine-vineyards-winegrowing-4552987/

 

[Aupmanyav]

Why? It does not appear that we are meant to. Nor that we are capable.

Are you a prophet that you are making predictions? Science will work on it.

 

[PureX]

Are you a prophet that you are making predictions? Science will work on it.

So far, science cannot even address the question.

 

[Heyo]

It's a loving God, I think.
Look at this, even if man arranged the wine yard, it's still great to see the leaves: https://pixabay.com/photos/vine-wine-vineyards-winegrowing-4552987/


View attachment 44358

If the god is loving AND is responsible for the vineyard (which is a hidden assumption) then it would also be responsible for

.

 

[Heyo]

Okay, @Quintessence, hit the nail on the head.

Hi @Heyo

So what happens if I try to make a neutral assumption to start from. I know nothing about "das Ding an sich" other than it is in itself.
So can I in my experiences find God as a Western skeptic? Well, no and yes. I can't find any positive answer to where the world came from in any sense: Science, philosophy or religion. But I can find God in an indirect sense. The world could be a trickster and I am a Boltzmann Brain, so I assume the world is fair and not a trickster.
Side note: To assume that is useless personally to question whether the world is a trickster or not, doesn't solve anything, because that it is useless is in me and doesn't decide whether the world is a trickster or fair. So to act as if the thread is real, is to assume that the world is fair.

Now look at the world: You can't see that the world is fair, right?!! But to ascribe a mind/subjective/idealistic/conscious property to the world is supernatural as per: Of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe. I.e. the world has at least in part an idealistic ontology. It is fair.
Side note: In most assumptions about the natural world that is not assumed. But it does happen in some assumptions about the natural world.

No human law can be as fair as the laws of nature. No matter how rich or well connected you are, you are accelerated at 9.81 m/s² while on earth - no exception.

(...)
This is my God. Nature is God, because I ascribe fairness to it and I can't understand nature as without ontological idealism. Consciousness is a first person ontological property and not a part of the visible observable universe.

A reasonable and very minimalistic (2 axioms) explanation. Kudos.
But you didn't have it very far. I think "pantheism" is a misnomer as the pantheist god is neither intervening nor personal so it should be "pandeism". The pantheist god even has the benefit that it doesn't require a multiverse like most variants of deism. (The deist god is sometimes described as "out of this world" which created the universe and left for other things. The pantheist god is self sustaining as it is the universe.)

That says nothing about a theistic God or indeed if nature is many gods. Only that the world is not just natural or physical, because the supernatural is right there. Consciousness is not a part of the visible observable universe.

For the rest of assumptions I use, I am a methodological naturalist in that I use science to deal with the objective, physical and all that. For the religious side I believe humans are with dignity and worth. But so is all life in some sense.

Regards
Mikkel

I needed some time to process this and I'm not yet done. I have a problem with attributing consciousness (or proto-consciousness) to the universe but then, I have problems with the concept of consciousness.
Only that much: emergence is defined as a new phenomenon that arises out of complexity that can't be found in the parts. A popular example is pressure. Does a single molecule in a gas have proto-pressure?

 

[Aupmanyav]

So far, science cannot even address the question.

You are engrossed in your scripturesw and have missed advances in science completely.

 

[thomas t]

If the god is loving AND is responsible for the vineyard (which is a hidden assumption) then it would also be responsible for
.

but this person can enjoy music made by a nightingale, for instance.
Even it they can't see.
God has something for every case, in my opinion. So, in my opinion, it's still a loving God.
Thomas

 

[PureX]

You are engrossed in your scriptures and have missed advances in science completely.

Science cannot investigate anything outside of, beyond, or prior to the physical universe. Therefor, it cannot investigate the origin of the physical universe.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Science cannot investigate anything outside of, beyond, or prior to the physical universe.

Beyond the physical universe is your unbounded imagination, which creates your God and his realm. It does not need a foundation.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No human law can be as fair as the laws of nature. No matter how rich or well connected you are, you are accelerated at 9.81 m/s² while on earth - no exception.

Like

A reasonable and very minimalistic (2 axioms) explanation. Kudos.
But you didn't have it very far. I think "pantheism" is a misnomer as the pantheist god is neither intervening nor personal so it should be "pandeism". The pantheist god even has the benefit that it doesn't require a multiverse like most variants of deism. (The deist god is sometimes described as "out of this world" which created the universe and left for other things. The pantheist god is self sustaining as it is the universe.)

Yeah, pandeism is better.

I needed some time to process this and I'm not yet done. I have a problem with attributing consciousness (or proto-consciousness) to the universe but then, I have problems with the concept of consciousness.
Only that much: emergence is defined as a new phenomenon that arises out of complexity that can't be found in the parts. A popular example is pressure. Does a single molecule in a gas have proto-pressure?

Here are some more words It is not that the universe is conscious as such. It is that it is build into the universe, that there is consciousness. So if you claim that something non-conscious causes consciousness, you end with a contradiction. Of if you accept that the non-conscious didn't cause the conscious, then the conscious comes magically out of nothing. I.e. the emergence of conscious is a part of the universe and thus the universe is a sense "proto"-conscious. It works this way as per the gas example. The proto-pressure must be build into the molecules or you have a natural law doing it. But the natural law is a form of platonic idealism and thus you didn't solve anything, if you want to avoid some form of ontological idealism.

That was the first part. Then there is the second one. But how does it really work? I don't know and as a skeptic I accept limits to what we can explain. Example: "How come there is something and not nothing?" - Because there is. A hidden assumption in a lot of humans is that we should be able to explain everything so that it adds up and makes sense. But that is not a given. Just as we can't show that the universe/God is all-loving, we can't show that it is all-reasonable in that it is so, that it must make perfect sense to humans. That is the hidden assumption in a lot of debates. It must make sense in toto!
Well, not it doesn't have to. Just as human mobility is limited, human reasoning might be the same. And as it stands, the universe/God doesn't make perfect sense.

So as a skeptic I accept that it appears that it doesn't add up in toto. But I also haven't been all to reduce away consciousness and all the other variants of it, so I end with limited pandeism.

Look at it this way:
"Philosophy, (from Greek, by way of Latin, philosophia, “love of wisdom”) the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience.
... philosophy | Definition, Systems, Fields, Schools, & Biographies"
I have landed on the second version. Explain how the universe works for humans and accept that it has limit to what we can explain, just as human mobility has limits.

So if you have a hidden assumption, that it must add up in toto, you might put to much credit into the human ability to explain everything.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[PureX]

Beyond the physical universe is your unbounded imagination, which creates your God and his realm. It does not need a foundation.

The origin of everything within the physical universe returns to a single point, ... according to science. And yet science cannot investigate that point, because it precedes the physical universe. So we are left with a significant and looming question that we cannot answer. That we may well never be able to answer, and that even if the answer were laid before us, we could not comprehend it.

Why are you finding this so difficult to accept?