You either build God because God cannot exist otherwise.
or
You cannot build God because God is the cause of you.
Now what I am alluding to is not really a question of God’s existence. That is a debate that justy spurs up preconceived convictions and leads to tireless tirades which really just spins in circles.
When I mentioned “building God,” I relate this to the quest and desire of humanity to control and understand the universe. To live longer, to be omniscient through better communication channels, to defy and expand upon past generations by bridging the gap between what we deem to be “perfect” or “God” to what we can do within our own power.
Whether you believe in God or not is irrelevant. Whether you can recognize our quest or our drive to control and manipulate the universe through a comprehensive understanding is all that is necessary. The result or cause is a biproduct of the drive itself. This drive is what I would hope we could explore.
Why is it essential for us to seek out ways to control and understand the universe in ways in which we were unable to do in the past? What exactly are we building? Is it not the hope of perfection or the highest form of intellect or consciousness we can imagine? Why do we strive for perfection or build God?
This motivation perplexes me and I can consider sociological, psychological, biological, and even theistic reasons for such motivation. However, those answers do not satisfy me. Perhaps no answer could satisfy me explaining such a desire, but the motivation remains to explore the desire itself and draw reason from it. Such reason can branch off in many different directions, but I think most of us can relate to the source and we lose one another once we branch off from the source in which we can all pretty much identify and agree with this motivation to understand and control the universe better.
You joined ILP and your first post was in the religion forum. You made a reference to “God” and supported evidence for the belief of such by citing various religious scriptures, doctrines, historical texts, as well as a claim that there are such things as “inexplicable phenomena/experience” to further endorse your position and belief in the viability of religion as an avenue for such knowledge.
Your first mistake happened when you confused unexplained experience for proof that because such and such experience is not explained, there exists phenomena that remains inexplicable, unexplained, yet indeed experienced. You went from “I do not understand an experience, which is okay because unexplained experience doesn’t mean that experience is transcendent” to “because I don’t understand an experience, there exists something beyond my experience, which supersedes my experience, showing evidence that when I do not understand an experience, there necessarily exist an experience that I can not experience…and from my experience I know this.”
Read it again.
Next, we began with a history lesson-
The text said this…
The Commandments said that…
The Muslims say this…
The Jews say that…
Myths mean this…
Myths don’t mean that…
etc., etc.
You mention Jesus, suggest that he is an incarnation of “God,” and then elaborate on the “teachings” of this man as being some kind of profound esoteric information regarding human purpose and existence, which it is not, but only the oration of a simple, single man. A philosopher, and nothing more.
I then questioned the credibility of the source from which you/I attain knowledge about this man, suggesting that one, the texts are at least four thousand years old, two, the lack of consistency and continual modification of the testaments, and three, my skepticism about the motives of the authors of the texts.
You reply with “what!? The earth has been around for more than four thousand years? You mean there was no garden of Eden, no talking serpents, no burning bushes? You mean dinosaurs roamed the earth long before a group of guys got together to write a book about the life of this Jesus guy? Your kidding, right?”
Yes, I was. But you were under the impression that scientists have conspired about the history of the earth and civilization.
Don’t play stupid, Bob.
I’m gonna pull you through this, my friend, come hell or high water.
Bob and de"trop, a little history for both, the texts of Christianity are not 4000 years old, they are 1950 years old at best. Our current calender is referenced around the time of the birth of Christ. The exact date of birth is a subject of dispute but you can say approximately 2000 years ago. He lived to be 39 ish which at best makes the texts of the New Testament 1950 years old.
Having said that, de"trop, you keeping making personal Judgments about who and what Christ was. You are welcome to your opinion but you keep stating them as if your opinion is a fact, unfortunately you never suport your facts with evidence or an argument.
Bob, I love your commitment but the unfortunate fact is that you can not support religious belief through logic or evidence. The best you can hope for is to demonstrate that you are equally as justified in maintaining a religious belief as is someone that believes in any other world view. This is doable but takes much effort.
I see where you are coming from here and agree with your comment as it relates to scholars and philosophers, but I don’t think it applies to the 90% of the population that is denominational in nature. To 90% of our population what God is and Who God is, is not open to discussion. They are either raised or have decided to make their lives conform to a particular religious doctrine; this is very contradictory to the “Building God” perspective that you are suggesting. The opposite occurs, the individual is born with desires, needs and a sense of self that wishes to build God but as religious growth occurs the individual develops self discipline and faith in a God that may not fit their expectations. i.e. they accept God as being what their professed religion says God is.
The reality of it that even though you, Bob, de"trop anf myself do not view religion this way. the individual is completely justified in not building God but rather accepting God.
I don’t like quoting scripture when talking philosophy but I’ve always liked this one:
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements- surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk?
JOB 38:4
The relevence is that until the philosopher or scientist can present us with a GUT (Grande Unifying Theory), we are not justified in criticizing those that ascribe to a religious belief of any sort. Until philosophers and scientist can prove otherwise, we must accept that a personal religious belief is as justified as in any other belief.
I’m with you, Enigma, but humanities desire to control and understand the universe is no magical and mysterious endeavor. Humanity is famous for attributing what it doesn’t understand to some figment of imagination, but alas, when it does understand it, it discards the notion of God and calls it the “laws of physics.” Those who aren’t satisfied with this, claim, yet again, that this is the work of God, and this pointless confusion perpetuates itself for the entire duration of human existence.
Exactamundo! Still, here we are, seeking to live longer, increase the quality of life, expand our civilization throughout the cosmos, etc.
The concept of God is nullified and rendered useless.
You want the smallest common denominator?
Physical pleasure.
We are building the possibility that more life exists to experience physical pleasures. We do this by controling the mechanical universe, by manipulating it in such a way that allows for there to be more life, more pleasure, and less pain.
Life is a dynamic that originates from self organizing quantum states. It begins at a subatomic level, where energy conforms to mass and substance, combines, configures, and generates compounds that, once again, organize to form macro structures that exist insofar as the subatomic organization can resist entropy and maintain its form and homogeniety.
For gazillions of years, molecules wandered aimlessly until [insert God or a chance combination of atoms] they joined each other and formed larger complexes. These complexes, or organic systems, evolved to form “life,” first, as single cell entities, then, as complex entities with nervous systems. Then, (and this is the cool part), the formation of nucleotides and DNA became possible. Life could now replicate itself according to preprogrammed information, discarding those physical features that were useless and recording those that were not. Enter the gene. The fight against entropy went to a new level,“life” became intelligent and could now record data via the nervous system. It was sharpening its blade.
And then, suddenly, as if we weren’t already impressed, “life” became “conscious.” But wait. Don’t get all excited just yet. “Consciousness” means awareness of enviroment through/by reaction to enviroment for control of enviroment. It does not mean "creation or sustainence of enviroment from the outside. It is an empirical phenomena that is a derivative of internal processes, specifically the neurological system of an advanced organism, and in no way does it(consciousness) exist without this neural network.
No “spirit,” no “soul”(with the exception of James Brown), and no bearded guy siting on a throne conducting it all.
Forget about this chimera, Enigma, let’s talk about our potential.
Then, when the Sun burns its hydrogen into helium, it will explode, implode, and devour the solar system. Party over, everybody go home.
Then, in some remote corner of the universe, the whole process will begin again. Gases condense to form galaxies, stars, solar systems, and life.
Bullshit. When you are dealing with Old Testament history you will find no dates- not one from beginning to end. You will find durations; how long a particular king ruled, how old a person was when giving birth to a son, how many years from this event to that. Events described in the Bible are dated by a chronology that is internal- one event in relation to another, but not any one event at this or that specific time. This means, and listen closely, starting with firm dates you can carefully work your way backwards and date specific events, but only in a relation to other events of which you can’t say when they precisely were without the comparison.
James Ussher tried this and made only approximations. The Bible gives the lengths of time during which the various kings ruled, and by assuming that they did so one after the other, Ussher calculated that this period endured for 330 years and began in 1425 B.C. or something like that. Then, the modern biblical scholars came along and claimed that the kings ruled seperately and that their periods of domination overlapped each other. Result? They estimate that the period of the kings may have lasted only 180 years and that it began around 1200 B.C.
That’s a big fucking difference.
All these guys are doing is placing dates in reference to one another. Never do they assume a beginning.
No you can’t say “approximately 2000 years ago” because Ussher calculates the date of creation to be 4004 B.C., exactly 4,000 years before the birth of Jesus, making the earth only 6,000 years old, which is ludicrous. Hell, I don’t even need to argue this point. The “Bible” contradicts itself rather clearly.
If you accept that Jesus existed 2000 years ago, you must also accept that the origin of the universe was 6000 years ago, because both dates are resolved together.
Didn’t know what you were getting yourself into, did ya’ blowe?
You are a mess, pal. It is not an “opinion” that Jesus was executed. It is not an “opinion” that Jesus was a revolutionary. It is not an “opinion” that Jesus defended the slaves. It is, however, an “opinion” that Jesus was “the son of God,” that Jesus knew “the way”(whatever that might mean), and that Jesus knew “truth” if it crept up and bit him on the ass.
De’Trop my friend you have created your own religion complete with unsubstantiated doctrine that is based upon your own world view. It comes complete with intolerance to other world views. Now all you need is converts that are willing to “believe” as you do.
The theories you are indorsing are as theoretical as is " In the beginning God created the world", there is no evidence to confirm or refute either theory, which leaves you in a position of “I believe”.
No. Even with the GUT, which is most likely the N=8 theory of extended supergravity, there remains only statistical predictions and probability distributions.
It doesn’t explain anything and has nothing to do with what “religious belief” might or might not entail.
Seems we are encountering a crossroads in regards to the subject matter and in regards to a religious forum this should come as no surprise.
Let’s try this, use whatever semantics or definitions you wish to label the following motivation:
“The desire to understand and control the universe better.”
I don’t have any desire to get into a semantical argument regarding whether the basis of God is logical or not. If I invited that, then my apologies for doing so.
Let’s just observe this desire for a moment if we can. We all in one way or another have this drive. Of course we all approach it and define it in various ways, but the drive itself is present now as it has been displayed throughout history. Science, religion, and philosophy take this desire and use it in different ways. However, my presentation is that the desire itself which again is the “the desire to understand and control the universe better” is shared until we start defining it more fully. Definition is when problems arise.
Bear with me now, let’s say that the goal of science, religion, and philosophy all is ultimately “to understand and control the universe better.”
I’m not saying that any of those approaches are “better” than any of the others, but rather pointing out that the goal unto themselves is shared by this motivation. Now what is the purpose of this motivation? Perfection? Omniscience? Intellectual fulfillment? Curiousity? Biological need? God? Many possible answers here.
Now it seems to me that this basic desire is mutually held until we start getting specific with it and trying to clarify it. This is when we create division over the same desire. However, the desire still remains. It just seems to me that the desire in itself is striving for a higher purpose. Now again, I am not using “higher” in any specific way, but rather in terms of control and understanding of the universe. I use the term “God” in a general sense although one can feel freely to replace it as they wish. “God” is held to be the highest conception to man, not necessarily something to be believed or disbelieved in this case, but rather just an analogy for the goal of such desire.
If that is your standpoint, I wish you would standback and let other people have a discussion. There is a place to rant if you so need to, here we are at least trying to communicate.
Besides which, you are making yourself to be the “know-all-seen-all” monstrosity which really means we should all ignore you.
My dear Friend De"Trop, pay attention, I refered to the texts of Christianity. The approximate date of Christs death is a historical fact, it has nothing to do with the dates of the “Old Testament”, as I’m sure you already know, St. Peter survived the death od Christ, moved to Rome and lived an additional 35 years, thus the birth of the Christian religion. The texts of Christaianity are called “The New Testament” in english and are dated to about the year 75 C.E.
Of course the old testament does not contain dates that are relevant, and many of the stories can not even be verified historically. Does this change the possiblity that “God” exists?
Yes Bob I agree lets get back to what started this thread with inteligent conversation that is constructive, following the original concept of 'Building God"
Ya very much so, inteligent quotes come from many sources. In this case the use of the quote was not to establish the credibility of the bible or God, but to reinforce the stupidity of taking an authoritarian point of view on things we know nothing about.
You seem like a very inteligent person, your early contributions to the conversation were very good but you eventually allowed emotion and personal beliefs to overtake your intelect.
I look forward to future conversation with you, lets try to keep them on a philosophical level.
AGGGGHHHH!!! This is the most absurd thread I have encountered on this forum! Never have I seen such intelligent people so thoroughly misunderstand one another. Let me say that I am an agnostic with a religious background; I have an interest in religion, but I’m not prejudiced to it.
De trop, your understanding of Sartre is quite good. Unfortunately, Sartre himself was no religion scholar, and is therefore a really bad source for founding your entire outlook on religious experience. You are clearly no religion scholar yourself; your criticism of religion is outdated at best, and really really uninformed at worst.
Let’s straighten out the simple facts first:
Wha? Resolved together in 16th century Calvinist theology maybe. But religion is not so wholly behind the times as you’ve chosen to believe; there are progressive voices within Christianity, and Bob appears to be one of them. If you want to deny that Jesus lived two millenia ago, you’ll have to take on the whole of contemporary New Testament Scholarship (both relious and skeptical). We don’t get the fact that Jesus was born (around) 1 A.D. from the Bible; we get it from the history text books.
But now that we’ve established when Jesus was born, let’s take a look at who the guy really was. First off, when you say…
…well…Bob’s right, you’ve got the wrong guy. Jesus was a pacifist; he only liberated souls (whatever that means).
Get thee to a Library!!! There are several theories about where Jesus got his ideas, but none of them involve Greco-Roman paganism. That was Paul, not Jesus.
Now, about the Gospel accounts of the life of Christ…
…yes, that is a fact, but you see this appears in Revelation, a book that owes much more of its existence to crack than to…well, revelation. You see the Bible’s not one monolithic work; it’s 66 books by many different authors. Contemporary, informed Christians like Bob understand this. The accounts of Jesus’ life are given in the Gospels, BY AT LEAST FOUR DIFFERENT AUTHORS; these accounts are flawed to be sure, but they CAN tell us something about the man himself. If you’re interested in the facts (and if you’re gonna criticize religion you need to know the facts), I’d recommend any book by Dominic Crossan. Also, “A Marginal Jew”, by John P. Meier is a pretty extensive scholarly work on the life of Christ. Point is, we CAN know about who the guy was; legitimate Jesus scholarship exists quite apart from any religious bias. AND BOB’S NOT DENYING THIS (I mean you’re not, right Bob?). His version of Christianity is quite undogmatic, and that fact seems to go right over your head.
You see, Bob’s not postulating some fanciful metaphysics here (as far as I can tell), and that’s what you’re missing. Bob’s faith is a tool, a means to an end–and that end is…well, first you have to understand what is meant by “spiritual experience” (as understood by psychologists and neurologists).
Maslow catalogued what he called “peak” experiences: those moments of imaginative captivation with a sense of unity with the world and with oneself. It has been described as a spontaneous sense well-being, joy, and a sense that one has captured the essence of being. For Maslow these experiences were characteristic of self-actualization, the highest mode of human being, and although he was an atheist, he understood the peak experience to lie at the heart of the religious, and particularly mystical, life.
Alright, now this sort of experience is not something YOU have a great deal of familiarity with (or at least you don’t describe it in these terms); Sartre didn’t either, and that sort of dates his views on religion. Nevertheless, the spiritual experience can be couched in existentialist terms. Take Blowe’s definition:
What is that object of experience? You, de trop, are assuming first that, because this experience is associated with religion it must ALWAYS be interpreted as having its object outside the self. You see the lightening example as being characteristic of all religious experience, and that, since the so-called experience of God is really an experience of a non-conscious entity, THE EXPERIENCE ITSELF IS INGENUINE. That view, while once largely-held has now been rejected by those who study consciousness. It is now commonly held by neurologists, psychologists and the like that the peak experience is a legitimate one, and quite necessary to human well-being.
Now don’t forget your Sartre here: imagined objects can be legitimate objects of consciousness, and it is fully reasonable that what we refer to as “God” is a GENUINE BEING WITHIN CONSCIOUSNESS. The thing that separates the spiritual experience from other imaginative functions is that it flips consciousness around (in the Sartrean sense): we experience this “God” as a for-itself subject, and we experience ourselves as the in-itself object of a consciousness. AND THIS INTUITION IS INHERENT TO THE PEAK EXPERIENCE. I have had several experiences like this–mostly when I was a religious believer (since I have rejected Christianity, I have had fewer of them, which echoes Maslow’s envy of religion as the only institution that has so far been created for the purpose of cultivating the peak experience). On one one such occasion, I remember being so captivated by a sense of the divine that I said to myself, “I KNOW God exists”; my experience was such that I could not genuinely deny the current object of consciousness. Now, what was I doing? I was placing an interpretation on a legitimate experience, and that should not be seen as a problem: all experience must be interpreted. But while I could not deny the existence of God-in-experience in that moment, I soon realizied I HAD to allow for the possibility that my interpretation is not a literal reflection of the world. Perhaps this “God” is INSIDE ME, and not an external metaphysical being. The way I like to construe this experience NOW is to say, the peak experience is a moment of consciousness of my own transcendence; I became both an in-itself, an object of experience, and a “for-itself”, a subject experiencing myself. And two modes of being achieve some inexplicable unity. However, it seems fitting to the existential greatness of the moment to describe the object of the experience as something outside me, and in fact, a skeptical self-reflection lessens the power of the moment. Thus, for one to interpret “God” as external is not inherently ingenuine. However, if religion is to be rational, it MUST make allowances for the possibility that every one of its beliefs is metaphorical or poetic. The imagination of God in the moment is possible, especially if you subscribe to Sartre’s theory of imagination, but this spiritual “imagining” must be seen as totally different from knowledge in a scientific sense. To say, “I know God exists” must be different from saying, “I know my computer exists”, if faith in God is to remain a viable choice for humans.
Religion must also allow that “God” in the western sense is not the only valid metaphorical reference to the object of spiritual experience. Zen Buddhism, for instance posits “big mind” as the object of enlightment (the Zen version of Maslow’s peak); but while this big mind posseses the characteristics of a for-itself, its consciousness is not intentional toward another object: its consciousness is of everything but at the same time IS everything. And the peak experience is our assuming that same mode of being, our becoming big mind in ourselves. There can be completely materialistic “God” concepts as well; we can personify nature to a degree, as a sort of non-conscious for-itself–something infinitely greater than ourselves, but of which we are nonetheless a part. And many scientists have in fact reported having peak experiences of this nature; that’s why some have posited science as an alternative to religion. But the fact is, a valid interpretation of the peak experience must be capable of invoking our imagination. If religion is an individual’s genuine (poetic) interpretation of a spiritual experience, it would be inauthentic for him or her not to embrace it.
…so that’s a survey of some contemporary ideas in the psychology of religion. There are other existentialist interpretations of spirituality; if you’re interested, you might start with “Dynamics of Faith” by atheist theologian Paul Tillich.
You were really outmatched in this debate; you clearly didn’t know what it was you were criticizing. Here’s just one example of this:
No he wasn’t. That wasn’t at all what he was talking about, and I highly doubt he believes it. You completely missed the subtlety of his comment, which had to do with the Western calandar. If you ask me, you owe him an apology. You can’t expect to do philosophy if you’re unwilling to listen to or try to understand those you disagree with. What you didn’t know was not your fault, but at this point it would be inauthentic to persist in the illusion that you really do understand Bob’s religion. You’re a lot smarter than that…hell, your knowledge of philosophy, and the fact that you are (as I understand it) self-educated, probably makes you one of the sharpest minds at ILP. The reason for this long-ass post is that I can’t bear to see a good mind like yours steeped in misinformation.
Thank you, Logo, for your involvement and time. That was a really sincere post, and for someone who thinks I am wrong, it was also extremely polite.
You must understand that I feel confident about what I have said so far, and that my intentions are not to confuse matters or stir things up. I admit that I get a little dramatic but that is not something I wouldn’t welcome myself. I do apologize, however, for any offense taken to what some might consider a blatant ad hominum attack. I try to end my posts in an aggressive and equally playful manner, but that doesn’t mean that my objections are “for the hell of it,” or that my cussing is any kind of direct assault or lack of respect. I love all of you guys(minus Moonface if he/she is dead). Why? Because you are all thinkers.
I didn’t say he was. You do not understand what I’m doing here. I do not seek to “have” religious experience, whatever that may be. What I try to do is find, or generate myself, a system that is as close to logical as it can get in defining what “religion” or religious experience might involve. I do this from a vantage point where I can analyze the proceedings safely, indifferently, and objectively. What I find in Sartre is a very distinct and coherent method for this task, and it is a way of interpreting the matter that I am comfortable with so far in my life. But to be familiar with the ideas that Sartre presents(and I am not criticizing you just yet about your incomplete knowledge of Sartre), one would have to at minimum get this much right-
“imagined objects can be legitimate objects of consciousness”
Yes, a rule he and most other phenomenologists adopted from Brentano(intuited “eidetic” essences), but Sartre distinctly says that “God” is a synthesis of a for-itself-in-itself which can only be intuited as an impossibility, certainly not as a “genuine being within consciousness.” “God” is not an object of consciousness…it cannot be. It is an incompatibility of two kinds of being which Sartre explicitly demonstrates in Being and Nothingness.
What? “Spiritual” experience is unheard of in Sartrean existentialism. The closest thing even remotely related to “spirit” is either Heidegger’s concept of the Dasein, Hegels concept of the Zeitgeist, or Jaspers concept of Existenz. And all but Hegel admit that these are only ontologies and are not of a religious or spiritual nature. What does “flips consciousness” mean, exactly?
“Peak” experience. As if there is a trough. Experience does not come in different levels, Logo, it is all the same with the same structures that apply to the possibility for experience itself. There is no special kind of experience that suddenly brings with it conceptions of a “god.” You can interpret these mysterious experiences as “inexplicable” and join Bob, or you can accept that exceptional experiences provide no knowledge capable of being attained outside of normal and average experience.
Now this is more familiar to me. The only thing that I am doing differently here, Logo, is calling these “metaphorical references” a psychological issue rather than a “spiritual” issue.
I fully disagree. Consciousness is nothing if not the possibility of doubt, lack, and absence of being. I am not a monist, and Zen Buddhism does not appeal to me. Universal mind is a useless metaphysic, and consciousness will always be a nihilation of gratuitous being as distinct and present objects to consciousness as not that consciousness.
Absolutely. Any experience is a priori an experience of an object other than a “self.” And again, “religion” is a moot point.
No, I see the lightening as being an example of an experience that involves things that aren’t fully understood, so it will necessarily come that events beyond possibile experience are posited as an explaination for that misunderstood experience. If you can get past the idea that “religious” experience is a special type of experience, you will find no reason to divide experience into distinct classes, but rather simplify all experience down to a common denominator and use one model to explain it all.
I will address your history lesson tomorrow and I will cite my sources.
If I should burn the book, so be it, but then again, we’re talking about something completely pointless anyway. The goings on of religion, the life of a one “Jesus Christ,” and the metaphorical value of what shouldn’t be taken any farther that poetry and prose in the first place.
Theological text.
Wittgenstein would have a field day deconstructing that shit.
This was presented with the intent to not deface the value of any philosophical approach be it religious or non-religious, but rather to focus on a common thread found in such motivations for enlightenment and control of the encompassing universe. This, at least to the extent of my understanding applies to all and your understandings of theological history are irrelevant (in my opinion) in regards to noticing this common theme.
Let’s just observe what quest we seek out in regards of such desire: To manipulate the universe in order to understand it and live longer.
Now whether you are religious, scientific, or philosophical is irrelevant as long as we take notice that in it’s basic form we all share the same desire and it is when we start bringing specifics to it is when problems arise. However, the desire itself is a collective approach towards a similar purpose but is just utilized through varying methods. Which methods are more “effective” than others doesn’t matter. It is the desire to just apply ANY method that brings together what humanity forms as a reenforcement to continue to do so. This desire and experimentation with it is one of the key components to the progression of humanity. We are in essence motivated with the same desire, but we just have different methods and different applications towards the same goal which is just to develop a more elite and complete self in terms of comparison of the universe.
