Will Theists Accept A God That is Inferior to Another's?

Again, note some specific examples. You thought one thing and then others come along able to persuade you to think something else instead.

Note particular instances of this: [b]Not the details so much as the ideas themselves — important ideas that were reconfigured.[/b]

As, for example, folks [and new experiences] came along reconfiguring my Christianity into Marxism into Leninism into Trotskyism into Democratic Socialism into Social Democracy into existentialism into nihilism.

Though [of course] once you acknowledge it, you are acknowledging in turn that it may well happen again. That there are other ideas you have here and now just waiting for someone to come along and reconfigure.

But let’s be clear…

Are you in fact acknowledging that RM/AO is not the optimal or the only rational manner in which to grasp human interactions out in a particular world?

That new experiences and new relationships and new sources of knowledge/information etc., may well come along in your life and change it?

Which is basically my own frame of mind here.

Also, as I note with Prism, is there or is there not a gap [large or small] between what you think you know about all of this here and now and all that any mere mortal would need to know about the existence of Existence itself in order make that gap go away?

Is there even a small possiblity that RM/AO is just one more run of the mill psychological contraption that allows you to subsume “I” in but one more run of the mill rendition of Certainty.

Certainty on this side of the grave intertwined somehow in your head with the Real God on the other side of it.

But this is still basically just an intellectual contraption. How is it actually relevant to the many, many moral and political conflicts that are engaged right here at ILP? Between, among others, the conservatives and the liberals.

How, for example, would you connect the dots between RM/AO and the policies of Donald Trump?

Are you ever really willing to bring the “definitional logic” embedded in these epistemological contraptions out into the world of our day to day interactions?

[b]Note to others:

Sure, maybe he has done so. I don’t read all of his posts. Note particular examples that he has conveyed regarding RM/AO’s pertinence to the is/ought world.[/b]

Sure, given the sheer complexity of human psychology in a world bursting at the seams with all those equally complex interactions between genes and memes, it’s certainly possible that you have come closer to encompassing me than I have to encompassing you.

We can only allow others here to make up their own minds about that.

And, indeed, on this side of the grave, I am [here and now] still hopelessly entangled in my dilemma. And far, far, far removed from the comfort and the consolation that comes with Certainty. And, yes, it can be rather frightening when you have “succeeded” in thinking yourself into believing that we live in an essentially absurd and meaningless world that ends for all of eternity in the obliteration of “I”.

You got me there. That is what I have managed to think myself into believing is probably true regarding the “human condiditon”.

But I still speculate in turn that what “frightens” objectivists of your ilk is that before you manage to drag me up out of the hole that I have dug myself into, I will somehow manage to drag you down into it with me.

Still, that doesn’t make either one of our own contraptions here any less problematic. At least not until someone is able to actually demonstrate conclusively that what they think Reality is, is in fact what Reality is.

In other words, not just in their heads.

So what if there is a gap?

You go out and learn about the world and you try to reduce the gap.

But it never goes away. Then you die.

So what?

Why did you ignore the ones that I gave?

That’s why I “verify” until there is nothing left to question or change.

The fundamentals of RM/AO are immutable, but extended unproven theories can be modified, corrected, or just abandoned. For example (and don’t ignore it this time) we were talking about the cause of red-shift. I proposed the theoretical possibility of a fading away of the blue from the light by a particular mechanism. Phyllo suggest a different possible mechanism. When I heard his theory, it was clear to me that his theory was more probable than mine, although the theories were not exclusive, so both would have influence. So after that, I kept watching for any details concerning the issue and eventually just accepted the much higher probability that phyllo’s theory was the most significant and right.

But you should realize that in RM/AO there are thoughts that absolutely must be true and others that are mere extended personal theory. That is something that you don’t seem to get. You appear to say “well if anything was wrong, everything might be wrong”. That is false reasoning. There are different kinds of thoughts, some of which can never be wrong.

What is “optimal” is contingent upon the circumstances. And there are many “rational” ways to explain the same reality. RM/AO is merely one ontology that, unlike public physics theories, is “complete”.

I don’t know what you mean by “about the existence of Existence”, but any “gaps” concerning RM/AO and fundamental existence are relatively insignificant. RM/AO answers many questions that public physics currently cannot answer without disagreeing with anything they have observed. RM/AO is a completion of Science, not a substitute.

Any actual thinking is, to you, an “intellectual contraption”. So who cares.

I have done that many times. Such things are not your concern. Your priority is casting doubt and insecurity, so stick with it.

That seems to be your comfort zone, so you are certainly not interested in leaving it behind.

Not a chance.

“Demonstrate conclusively” is in the eyes of the beholder and guess what. You have demonstrated that you have no interest at all in getting out of your own dasien “contraption”.

All thoughts are “just in your head”.

I am all for Gap Management, i.e. between what is planned/intended and what is actually achieved, and to reduce the gap. This is critical for life as when one failed to plan, one had already planned to fail.

But as I had highlighted to iambiguous in the Dassein thread, his idea of
“all that any mere mortal would need to know about the existence of Existence itself” in order make that gap go away …
is an impossibility. So his proposition is not tenable.

For example with Science, we start from knowledge of the scientifically known and extrapolate from the known to the possible-to-be-known.
The “ALL” that iambiguous set up is an impossibility to be achieved or known.
This “ALL” is the same with the idea of God which is an impossibility.

The only exception for the requirement of ‘ALL’ is within the absolute morals of Philosophical of Morality.

In other cases, it would be more effective in life to adopt the Principles of Continuous Improvement from the current state -in baby steps or quantum leaps - toward possible goals [not impossible ones as iambiguous is expecting].

In general, when one set impossible goals and expect to achieve it or even near it, one is merely bringing sufferings to oneself.

From my point of view though, the critical point revolves around distinguishing between perfection we can point to empirically in the world around us, and perfection that is sheer speculation regarding an entity that one merely has faith in the existence of.

Or defines into existence. Or infers into existence by way of an intellectual contraption.

Then it’s back to this:

Yes, and this is applicable to each and everyone of us, each and every time we speculate about these things. The limitations of philosophy [and even of science so far] seems of paramount importance here.

There’s human knowledge able to be verified; and then there’s conjecture. Conjecture embedded in the unknown unknowns.

Okay, but this doesn’t make the gap go away. There either is or there is not an “ultimate limit” of knowledge. And that either is or is not within reach of the human species here on earth.

How is it not reasonable then to set up the problem in this manner?

On the other hand, in my view, there are any number of objectivists who “solve” the problem by concocting one or another “world of words”; one or another set of intellectual assumptions. Here what is said to be true basically revolves around the definition and the meaning that they give to the words themselves.

Then others are invited up into the clouds to debate these definitions.

Okay, but: I have no idea how “for all practical purposes” this is relevant to either the dilemma that I am faced with on this side of the grave or the obliteration of “I” on the other side of it.

How is this sort of “salvation” relevant to the conflicting goods embedded in the issues I raise or to death itself?

And however theists debate the superiority of the Gods, they all have to eventually get around to the part about immortality and salvation. If only because that is basically religion in a nutshell.

So what?

Well, tell that to the religious fanatics and the political ideologues who [historically] insisted that not only is there no gap between what they believed is true and all one would need to know in order to determine this but that everyone else was obligated to believe it in turn.

Or tell that to the objectivists here who become incensed at others because they refuse to swallow their own TOE hook, line and sinker. Who then resort to huffing and puffing and name-calling and ad-homs.

If we live in a world without God, there does not appear [to me] to be a way in which to know “how one ought I to live.”

Not essentially, objectively, deontologically.

And that makes all the difference in the world – this one – when it comes time for the folks in power to legislate into existence behaviors that are either prescribed or proscribed.

My guess? Because we disagree regarding what constitutes an example.

Thus:

But isn’t that what all of the objectivists note regarding their own TOE? And they either are or are not able to demonstrate if what they argue is true is in sync with what is in fact true. Speculations about the “theoretical possibility of a fading away of the blue from the light by a particular mechanism” are either more or less in accordance with whatever constitutes Existence itself.

But, again, the fact that you reconfigured your thinking here to be more in line with Phyllo’s clearly indicates that this can happen again. And, indeed, that further information/knowledge may well be forthcoming that reconfigures the thinking of both of you.

And that is with respect to interactions unfolding in the either/or world.

On a thread devoted to theistic renditions of inferior Gods, how is this relevant? What here must be “absoultely true” in order to be in sync with RM/AO.

How is the Real God to be factored in here? For, say, “all practical purposes” in our day to day interactions?

Given that theology [the critical study of the nature of the divine] would seem to be greatly concerned with the extant relationship between the divine and human interactions out in a world of conflicting goods, political economy and oblivion.

Okay, note a set of circumstances we might all be familiar with and discuss these contingencies as construed from your own particular ontology.

That’s my point: No one really knows what it means to discuss “the existence of Existence”. Why? Because we are encompassed in it ourselves and [here and now] don’t have access to all of the knowledge that would be needed to grasp it. It’s just that there are folks [including some philosophers and scientists] who note that right from the start of any particular discussion. You claim that “RM/AO is a completion of Science, not a substitute” but how have you actually demonstrated it?

Other than in claiming to have.

And by keeping RM/AO and the Real God as far removed from actual human interactions in the is/ought world as most such intellectual contraptions intend to.

Note to others [again]:

He claims to have done this. Do you agree that he has? If so, note what you deem to be the best example of this.

My “comfort zone”? I take comfort in being entangled in my dilmma embedded in what I construe to be an essentially absurd and meaningingless world that will end for me with the obliteration of “I” for all time to come!!!

This of course speaks volumes regarding the extent to which RM/AO has become a deeply engrained psychological defense mechanism for you, James.

Unless of course I’m wrong.

True. But I make that crucial distinction between those thoughts in your head that you believe are true and those thoughts in your head that you can demonstrate others are obligated to believe in turn.

For example, I think that Donald Trump is now the President of the United States. On the other hand, I’ve never actually been to Washington D.C. of late, and seen him in the Oval Office doing presidential things.

All I can suggest is that what I think is true here can be demonstrated as in fact true for all of us.

I merely shift the discussion from that which can be demonstrated as in fact true to those things that we believe are true, but: but instead seem to revolve more around the meaning I construe regarding the existential interaction of self, value judgments and political power.

For example, “I” believe that Trump is a terrible president.

But to what extent can I demonstrate that this is more than just a political prejudice, a subjective point of view rooted in dasein? How on earth would I be able to demonstrate not only that all rational men and women are obligated to believe the same, but that this belief is wholly in sync with whatever needs to be known about the existence of Existence itself?

Obviously you have no idea how such works. If you run out of things to whine about, you have to face having no excuse - comfort in staying afraid and desperately finding something to whine about.

Exactly.

Once again, my friend, I have managed to reduce you down to retorts.

On the other hand, your TOE remains intact. My guess? All the way to the grave.

Unless of course you’re wrong.

Not a chance, right?

It’s easy to, as you put it, “reduce me to retorts”. Merely ask a question that I answer, then reply with your typical BS. After such, I really couldn’t care less what you say or think.

Yappy New Here to one and all!

That is my point I raised in the “God is an impossibility” thread, i.e.

1. The empirical perfection is possible - e.g. a 300 pt perfect game in bowling.
2. Absolute perfection - e.g. God which is impossible and moot.

I would say your ‘ALL one need to know about existence …’ is at best a speculation of the impossible.

As I wrote somewhere 'GAP management is the most critical aspect of life re planning and controlling the results to what is planned. However we can only plan and manage a GAP effectively with an empirically possible objective or limit. [with one exception re morality].

Your ‘ALL knowledge necessary’ and ‘ultimate limit of knowledge’ are impossibility within the empirical-rational reality.

In this particular case of yours it is most optimal to forget about any Gap derived from comparison of an actual to an impossible limit [apples and oranges]. The most effective is to work from the known into the empirical possible to be known to move forward with the best effort [improving] one can.
In your case you are taking a leap across a canyon without support and this is more like dogma than knowledge.

Note from Russell’s The History of Western Philosophy :

As implied from Russell’s above, when you think too far ahead beyond the empirically- possible, you are not doing philosophy but something akin to theology from the other side of the non-man’s land.

Kant understood your kind of dilemma and he stated;

I would suggest you do a paradigm shift and reframe your problem and you will not have any dilemma at all in this critical case.
As I had mentioned you have to break down your existing problems into its relevant manageable units, discard the moot points and reframe a feasible and resolvable problem for yourself.
There is a lot of work to do on this regarding theory and practice.
The Generic Problem re 4NT-8FP will be useful guide.

The Reframing Matrix
Using Creative Perspectives to Solve Problems
mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_05.htm
When you’re stuck on a problem, it often helps to look at it from another perspective. A “fresh pair of eyes” can be all that you need to come up with a great solution.

As Anomaly said it, nothing but a sea of linguistic ambiguity.

Come on, James, if this is how you really felt, you would never make the attempts that you occasionally do to engage in actual substantive exchanges with me.

Instead, it appears [to me] more an attempt on your part to yank the exchange up onto the skyhooks – to attach it more or less didactically to your definitional logic.

When I refuse to go up there, and tug mightily on the exchange in order bring it down to earth – to gauge your capacity to connect the dots between RM/AO and 1] the behaviors you choose on this side of the grave as they relate to 2] what you imagine your fate to be on the other side – you abandon the exchange.

Instead, you invariably make me the issue, huffing and puffing with one or another retort.

Over and again I have noted that gap between your generally conservative political values in the SGE forum and your hopelessly abstract “analyses” that tend to pervade the philosophy forum.

How “in your head” do you make a connection between them? That’s the focus I wish to explore with you [with all objectivists] by bringing the parts deemed to be philosophical [technically] down into the world of actual human social, political and economic interactions.

And, in particular, when they precipitate behaviors that come into conflict over value judgments out in the is/ought world that seems to revolve by and large around the question, “how ought one to live”?

So, you are acknowledging it is likely impossible that any mere mortals will ever know all there is to know about existence itself. And, so, short of that, folks will have to fill in the blanks with more or less sheer conjecture. My point is merely to speculate that the tools of philosophy may well be of limited use as this pertains to human interactions out in any particular is/ought worlds – as this pertains in turn to any number of conjectures regarding human interaction in either a God or a No God world.

As for the either/or world, consider the points raised in this documentary from the Science Channel: sciencechannel.com/tv-shows … holes-real

It is [one suspects] staggering what we are likely not to know about the relationship between a God, the God, my God, the “human condition” and the explanation behind existence itself.

I can only point out yet again that I have no clear understanding of what “on earth” you are talking about in this particular “intellectual contraption”. As, for instance, it relates to human interactions revolving around the points raised in the OP.

If only Kant were still around. That way I could ask him to explain what “on earth” he is talking about here. What particular illusion pertaining to what particular error revolving around what particular conflicted human behaviors embedded in what particular context relating to what particular narrative revolving around what particualar rendition of an alleged transcending font?

Pure reason indieed.

On the other hand, when objectivists get around to this part what they invariably mean is this: that only when I shift my thinking to be in fully in alignment with their own, will everything become clearer. About “the future”, for example. A world in which everyone thinks like they do.

I tend to agree with this.

On the other hand, for all practical purposes, as it relates to human interactions in the is/ought world, as this relates to the existence of God, how is your own intellectual/scholastic contraption really any different?

Basically, from my frame of mind, your didactic scaffolding here revolves around everyone agreeing that the precision embedded in the “definitional logic” encompassed in RM/AO and the Real God, is, by default, the starting point in any discussion/debate.

You’ll challenge folks to go up into the epistemological stratosphere of “knowledge”, but when are you really ever willing to take these “technicalities” down off the skyhooks and intertwine them out in the world of actual conflicting human behaviors.

Or, rather, in the manner in which we both might be in sync regarding that which constitutes a substantive exchange.

As this pertains to a world in which either God or No God prevails.

I dont see why not, they’ve only been doing it all of eternity so far. Doubt they’re going to stop today or any other day.

I mean, they accept other people that are inferior to them, why shouldn’t they accept inferior Gods? They know it sucks not to have a place to belong.

The point is perfection, completeness and totalness are impossibilities within the human world.
You are demanding the impossible [i.e. ALL] and thus your point is moot and a non-starter.

Popper stated Scientific Theories are at best polished conjecture[s].
So what we can do is to keep polishing existing polished conjecture[s] with the understanding ‘ALL that is need to be known…’ is an impossibility.
What we can do is to work with and do our best with whatever polished conjecture [justified] we have at present.

I can’t listen to the video, here is a summary.

Science is very transparent in declaring what it can do and what are its limits.
As long as we understand such, there is no issue with Science.

My point is your demand for ‘ALL that is needed to be known …’ is a non-starter.

If ‘ALL is impossible’ how can you determine what is the difference between “ALL” and what is actual at present?

For example the typical guesswork, ‘humans are only using 15% of their brain potential.’
The problem is we cannot know what is 100% [ALL] of the brain potential.
If we do not know what is 100% how can we know what is 15% and begin to fill up the missing 85%.

In your case you are asking for ALL [100%] of what is needed to be known.
There is no way you can know what that 100% or ALL is, thus an impossibility.

Thus your thesis based on the above is a moot and a non-starter.

What works should be we start from what is known and explore to improve from the known on what is possible.

Hope you get the point?

There is no need for Kant to be around.
Kant have written many books to explain his points, thus you can read his books to understand [not necessary agree] his point [not easy but one has to strive hard on it].

What Kant is basically saying is,
your proposition re “ALL [100%] to be known …” is an impossibility and illusory and your continual questioning of such an impossibility is tormenting you.

I hope you are not thinking I am an “objectivist” as I am not. If any label, then I am an empirical realist.

I am only suggesting you test the reframing of your question by avoiding that impossible element, i.e. that 100% [all] that is to be known. If it is an impossibility, why continue with it.

It is like understanding ‘using 15% of 100% of the human brain’ is merely a casual statement that is actually meaningless because there is no way we can find out what is 100% of the human brain potential. It would be more effective to know what is our current statue and continually improve on our current ability on a continual improvement basis and looking for quantum jumps in improvement rather than aiming for some teleological end results.

God is an illusion and an impossibility. There are many types of God.

When a God is falsely believed to be ‘real’ it does make sense to accept a God that is inferior to another.

Say;
A believed in a God-X than no greater exists and created the Whole Universe.
B believed in a lesser God-Y [who created the universe] which is lesser and inferior to God-X.
Now there are two claims of God i.e. X and Y which are of different power.
If dominant God-X had created the Whole Universe, then the lesser God-Y could not have created the Whole Universe.
Therefore God-Y is argued to be a false God.

I have not come across any theist who believed in a God that is lesser than the God of another religion or beliefs. Have you?
Will a Muslim accept their God is lesser than the Christian or other God. Will a Christian do the same?

When cornered and given the knowledge and awareness, theists will normally claim their God is a God than which no greater exists, after all this claim which is mental is so easy.

We have a different understanding of these relationships then. Bowling exist in the human world. A “perfect game” is understood in a particular way. And is deemed applicable to all who bowl. You either bowl a perfect game or you don’t. But suppose instead of ten frames, bowling consisted of 100 frames. How many perfect games would be bowled then?

Gods are believed to exist by some. By most. But in order to discuss His alleged perfection, there are folks like me who insist that His actually existence must be proven. Now, the fact that I don’t believe He does exist does not “settle it”. God is one possible explanation for All There Is. So, again, it really comes down to the extent to which those who do believe in God “in their head” are able to demonstrate to those who don’t believe it that He does in fact exist.

In other words, until the gap between all that would need to be known about Existence itself and what any particular one of us claims to believe here and now is closed, we are all just exchanging particular demonstrable facts and particular speculative conjectures.

All this suggests [to me] is that even with respect to mathematics, the laws of nature, the rules of logic etc., there is still Hume’s own gap between a seemingly endless correlation of events/interactions and the exactitude embedded in an ontological understanding of cause and effect re a “complete and total” understanding of Existence itself.

In the interim, we take that leap of faith [or whatever you want to call it] in banking on mathematics, the laws of nature and the logical rules of language being the same – objectively? – for all of us from day to day to day.