The belief in something to escape is something to escape.
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Is there anything in the concepts of deity that is not arbitrary?
- Thread starter LuisDantas
- Start date
amorphous_constellation
Well-Known Member
Hmm. I don't totally get it. Arbitrary to what exactly? I mean, I didn't know that there was a basis for these concepts for there to be an arbitrary tangent to them.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe the Biblical view is that we were made to live in the cycle. Escaping the cycle works counter to God's purposes for us. I believe it is worth the suffereing to have life. However one should not suffer because of doing evil but only because evil is done to you. Granted sometimes the suffering is too great and we need a rest.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe that is like a miner who finds a lot of quartz but there is also an opal present but he decides to thow out all the rocks because there is so much quartz.
Muffled
Jesus in me
I believe that is like asking what is the difference between soup in a can and soup in a bowl heated and ready to eat.
Vishvavajra
Active Member
Terms like "deity" and "god" are pretty much meaningless outside of specific practical applications. Just further evidence that religious practice and ritual preceded theology (as if we didn't already know that).
If you go back to ancient languages like Greek or Latin, the words that we translate as "god" were even broader in their application. There's no way to get any sort of handle on them unless you just accept that they refer to a recipient of worship, regardless of the precise nature of that being. Again, it's a pragmatic category, entirely pre-theological.
The only people who want to restrict the concept to a specific meaning are monotheists, who want to distinguish their god-concept from other god-concepts, but ultimately it's just begging the question: "godhood requires X, so if it's not X, it's not really God." And that necessarily entails ignoring how people have viewed and talked about gods for thousands of years before that.
If you go back to ancient languages like Greek or Latin, the words that we translate as "god" were even broader in their application. There's no way to get any sort of handle on them unless you just accept that they refer to a recipient of worship, regardless of the precise nature of that being. Again, it's a pragmatic category, entirely pre-theological.
The only people who want to restrict the concept to a specific meaning are monotheists, who want to distinguish their god-concept from other god-concepts, but ultimately it's just begging the question: "godhood requires X, so if it's not X, it's not really God." And that necessarily entails ignoring how people have viewed and talked about gods for thousands of years before that.
Vishvavajra
Active Member
Immortality, no. Counterexamples: ruler cult, ancestral cult, hero cult—many examples of the worship of living or dead people. The words we translate as "god" were used equally of those.
Great power, yes. That's really the only common strand. And that's because you don't pray to something if it's not powerful enough to do anything for you. Ancient religion was based on the patron-client system of social relations. You worshiped deities in order to have powerful beings on your side when you needed their help. You don't seek patronage from people of equal or lower status or resources.
This is on the right track, although I'd remove "fear" as a stand-alone criterion. People have always believed in powerful spirits and other things that they feared, but they weren't regarded as gods. Gods are defined by being the recipients of worship, since they're the powerful beings that are seen as willing to enter into mutual arrangements with people. Purely destructive spirits and monsters aren't going to respond to your prayers in any case, so there's no point. Worship is supposed to be a two-way street, at least as traditionally conceived. Therefore a god is a being with whom a worshiper has a particular type of relationship.
I do think there is a bit more to it than that. I think they have to fulfill a role in the concept. A greater than kind of role.
First of all, it's a great film. But I would say that the character Lucy becomes more than human. First of all, she has unlimited knowledge and potential.
And you are entitled to your opinion, but I am fairly certain that some people don't find that a requisite.
How do you suggest we deal with that?
Personally I like my fiction a bit more grounded than that. It feels like an overdose of wish-fulfillment from that description, and that turns me off.
Well, from the start, I have made it very clear that I have my beliefs and that I cannot prove them Luis. I would say that what I view as the needed requisites for your question vary some, as has been seen from the various posts. It am not sure how else you want me to answer you or maybe you can explain more clearly what you are asking for.
Perhaps but it's not so much about wishes as it is about how much of the brain we use and what would happen if we had more access to the 90% or so that we don't use. Would we then evolve to a more sentient being?
I don't think it is a matter of proof, but rather of clarity of communication and expectation.
One can of course freely disagree with or simply fail to share the beliefs of others, but it does not look like it should be too much to hope to have a good notion of what those beliefs are.
And from what I have seen, such a notion is not attained by the simple use of the unqualified use of the concept of "god" or "deity". By themselves, those words are essentially meaningless.
So my question to you is, what should be done about those who believe in deities that are not similar to your own conception (as in, not exalted or transcendental)? Are they somehow not truly theists? If so, do you have a better name to describe their beliefs?
It has already been clarified that there is no such thing as 90% of untapped brain potential. That is a tempting belief, but unsupported by facts and rather problematic even as fiction.
To answer your first question, what should be done? Nothing. IMO, God is a concept that has unique and varied ideals even from one person to the next. However, at the base of it, I believe, note that word please, that God wanted to have a differing face to various peoples. That is to say that God is the Christian God, the Muslim Allah, the Jewish g-d and so on. As to your second question, they are all theists. Consider the parable of God of the fifth mountain. And as to your last, I don't believe one needs a name for beliefs. I cannot ascribe a true name to my path. It has some principles of Buddhism. Some Taoism, eat, and what is wrong with that if it works for me? Because IMO, God is a concept that is defined and understood differently by everyone. There is some concensus but largely, we all view it a bit differently.
Why?
Because, to date, we have not done this yet? 100 years ago, a cell phone would have been potentially considered something the devil gave us. It is something that may be achieved in th future. Who is to say? And the premise is quite fascinating. We are talking neurobiology and neuropsychology. Intriguing stuff.
There are definitely serious dangers in being too attached to unchecked fantasy.
Who is it to say that it is fantasy? An X-ray to diagnose PNA would have never been something out side the realm of fantasy 200 years ago but now it commonplace. When did we decide that our development of science has reached its zenith?