Is God In Anyway Necessary?

[doppelganger]

Thereby rendering the term 'true' little more than worthless ornamentation. Is alien abduction 'true'? Astrology? White superiority? Feel free to pay the word extra to mean what you want it to mean - or to mean nothing at all - but do not pretend that it's a useful expenditure.

In ontology, it is little more than worthless ornamentation. It's a word from deductive logic and epistemology frequently used to gloss over the problem of induction where the scientific method is carelessly understood or applied.

 

[Hema]

God is necessary because to me, everything manifested from God and exists in God...all that is, IS God.

 

[TashaN]

People are more moved by sorrow if we were created in God's image than he must weep allot.

The "we are created in God's image" dogma is not part of Islam.

Yes.
And there can be Love and Relationship there,
with and in God, if we so choose.

Despite what "religion" generally tells us,
God gives us total freedom,
not a life of restriction.

Our biggest restriction,
is our own limited vision and immagination.

God has given us the potential for limitless possibility in (him).

With God, yeah, but in God?

Where did you get the idea that he was a happy and smiling god from?

From the Quran "the word of God", and from what God have told Prophet Mohammed about himself.

 

[TashaN]

I didn't claim otherwise. Why do you think "God" is necessary? Because you imagine there has to be a "Creator"? That's simply a thought construct and a trick of logic. "Creation" can easily be explained as a function of my use of language and thought with no requirement of "God" unless you are referring to the collective use of language between consciousness persons from which I might inherit some or part of the meaning attached to symbols. Somehow, I doubt that's what you mean by "God" though.

Your assertion that i'm just *imagining* is baseless.

 

[doppelganger]

Your assertion that i'm just *imagining* is baseless.

I'm using the term in the same sense indicated by the Mighty Wiki:

Imagination is the ability to form mental images. It helps providing meaning to experience and understanding to knowledge; it is a fundamental facility through which people make sense of the world,[1][2][3] and it also plays a key role in the learning process.[1][4] A basic training for imagination is the listening to storytelling (narrative),[1][5] in which the exactness of the chosen words is the fundamental factor to 'evoke worlds'.[6]

Are you thinking about what "God" is and what "God" means?

Then you are imagining things. Sorry.

 

[YmirGF]

Is there any way or sense in which God is necessary?

A great question Sunstone. To my simple mind, true knowledge is the ability to ask good questions and not necessarily obtaining good answers, after all the latter is directly dependant on the former. To answer your question, sadly for theists, the answer is no, although "god" answers many questions for some who cannot understand reality in any other way. In that sense "god" is their necessary projection.

For instance, is God necessary to explain anything about the universe?

Again, No. The physical universe can be described rather well without the need to tie "god" to the back of the Jimmy and drag "him" down the garden path. Bringing "god" into the mix certainly does provide us with entertaining stories to tell our children and those who are as children however.

Is God necessary to make life meaningful?

Theoretically one could find deep meaning in an ashtray or a jar of mixed nuts. The human animal attaches meaning to whatever it thinks is somehow reasonable.

Is God necessary to underpin morality?

No. Why would anyone think that they need a "god" concept in order to tell them how to live? In theory, even a fence post ought to be able to figure out how to survive just by paying attention to life itself. Again, there is no need to bolt "god" to a tree and then blissfully offer prayers to his rotting corpse with the hope it will make someone what they can't let themselves be on their own.

Or, is God necessary for some other reason?

In reality, no, however that does not mean that many find the concept comforting and so in that way it is indeed necessary. Mind you so are air and sunlight.

If God is in any way or sense necessary, in what way or sense is He necessary? And why is He necessary?

God concepts are necessary as a catch all to explain our "unknown" but sensed reality. God concepts are designed for those who cannot directly understand the true nature of reality which is indeed a few jumps ahead of such timid, self-serving concepts. Here I am reminded of how we teach little children about Santa Claus. It fills them with wonder and no small sense of awe, but all the while we understand that one day they will learn the truth.

 

[ayani]

I think for some people, they are at a place where they need something outside themselves to feel loved or important or can't find meaning in themselves to deal with some of life's hardships. "God" can help provide a great deal of comforting certainty about death and family and purpose for those at times in their lives need that, or for acceptance for those who feel isolated or burdened by guilt or painful memories that they cannot embrace.

"God" seems to me to be first and foremost a psychological coping mechanism to deal with the hysteria and anxiety that comes of being able to contemplate and anticipate death.

hmm. do you think it's possible that that psychological coping mechanism may be a response to something that truly exists in response to that need?

as another friend put it "where there is thirst, there must be water".

 

[doppelganger]

hmm. do you think it's possible that that psychological coping mechanism may be a response to something that truly exists in response to that need?

Not necessarily, or maybe, whichever you like better.

The "something that exists" could simply be "the need for certainty in a universe perceived in such a way as to create fear of uncertainty." In which case, the psychological coping mechanism is a response to "something that exists."

No matter who you slice it, the action cannot be seen to require anything more than symbolic connections and epistemological or psychological phenomena. Things, such as they are, 'exist' as a function of one's inner phenomenology.

as another friend put it "where there is thirst, there must be water".

Where there is thirst there must be something that satisfies that thirst. Yes. But is the thirst for "God" or is the thirst for "certainty"? After all, a sugary sweet Dr. Pepper will satiate your "thirst", too . . . even though it's eventually going to contribute to dehydrating you.

 

[TashaN]

Are you thinking about what "God" is and what "God" means?

I don't have to, God already told us about it in his book.

Then you are imagining things. Sorry.

Try again.

 

[doppelganger]

"If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."
"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"


Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

To find myself "in Christ" is to lose the need for certainty - and not to satisfy the need for certainty, which would just have be slaked again and again.

 

[doppelganger]

I don't have to, God already told us about it in his book.

Re-read the definition I posted. "A basic training for imagination is the listening to storytelling (narrative),[1][5] in which the exactness of the chosen words is the fundamental factor to 'evoke worlds'." :yes:

 

[YmirGF]

I don't have to, God already told us about it in his book.

And what book would that be my noble friend? Oddly I am unaware of any work of man that was penned by any being worthy of being called a "god". It is a comforting idea however.

 

[UnTheist]

Re-read the definition I posted. "A basic training for imagination is the listening to storytelling (narrative),[1][5] in which the exactness of the chosen words is the fundamental factor to 'evoke worlds'." :yes:

Ooooh buurrrrrrrrrn!!!

 

[TashaN]

Re-read the definition I posted. "A basic training for imagination is the listening to storytelling (narrative),[1][5] in which the exactness of the chosen words is the fundamental factor to 'evoke worlds'." :yes:

The Quran is not storytelling nor narration. It's simply, the word God.

And what book would that be my noble friend?

You know it well.

It's the Quran.

 

[doppelganger]

The Quran is not storytelling nor narration. It's simply, the word God.

That's part of the story. . . :slap:

 

[ayani]

Where there is thirst there must be something that satisfies that thirst. Yes. But is the thirst for "God" or is the thirst for "certainty"? After all, a sugary sweet Dr. Pepper will satiate your "thirst", too . . . even though it's eventually going to contribute to dehydrating you.

good question. couldn't the two, "God" and "certainty" be synonymous? one of the names for God in the Quran is al-Haqq, "the truth : the only reality" and another al-Wahid, "the One".

often i'll find myself kind of walking along, inwardly distressed by something, anxious or scattered. then something will kind of "click" on the inside, and i'll see things in a new way. like "oh yeah, there it is!" there is *something*, i believe, that is omni-present, manifest, and the source of all meaning. others might argue that we project that meaning on to the world and that it is not an inherent quality. how can we know? we certainly respond to that meaningfulness when we embrace someone else, experience something beautiful, such things. i believe we are responding to something both within and outside of ourselves.

 

[TashaN]

That's part of the story. . . :slap:

So that means, if i read a book, so i'm imagining things?

Ok, for the sake of the argument, you said:

Imagination is the ability to form mental images. It helps providing meaning to experience and understanding to knowledge.

If imagining help to understand things around us so what's wrong with it?

It's providing an understanding to knowledge, isn't it?

The way imagination was presented in your definition shows that all people are imagining by default as a means to understand knowledge.

No imagination = no knowledge

 

[YmirGF]

That's part of the story. . . :slap:

Exactly. It is mere supposition to conclude that the Noble Qur'an is the "wog" (word o' god) and that suppostion takes a rather stark leap of faith beyond reason to become established as fact. Fortunately, reality isn't a game of hop-scotch.

 

[TashaN]

Exactly. It is mere supposition to conclude that the Noble Qur'an is the "wog" (word o' god) and that suppostion takes a rather stark leap of faith beyond reason to become established as fact. Fortunately, reality isn't a game of hop-scotch.

Why do you think my faith is beyond reason?

It's a plain fact.

 

[doppelganger]

So that means, if i read a book, so i'm imagining things?

Yes. :yes:

If imagining help to understand things around us so what's wrong with it?

Who said there was anything wrong with it? An unreasonable or unjustified level of certainty about the "truth" of the things I imagine, however,contributes to delusion and makes it easier for others to manipulate my will against me or for their own purposes.

The way imagination was presented in your definition shows that all people are imagining by default as a means to understand knowledge.

No imagination = no knowledge

Of course. :slap: :rainbow1: