thinkdr wrote:I agree with pinklady dragon when she criticizes organized religion.. I have no use for it ...with a few rare exceptions. I shall not go into those now.
And, in a sense, I agree with her conclusion that God does not exist.
God does not merely exist: God is real.
And god is not merely real. I agree with Spinoza that God (which at times he refers to as substance) is "the Reality of all realities.
As to quoting Spinoza, since philosophy has failed to come up with an account of the true nature of reality, then his thoughts on the matter are not relevant. In fact, he is also obfuscating by playing with definitions, as you are doing here. What is relevant here, as I may have said in my previous post, is that neither philosophy nor its off-shoot science, has been able to explain the true nature of existence. No one thus far has explained the true nature of existence. That is one’s starting point.
God fills me with joy. God blesses me all day long. If it pleases you to "put me down" as having 'an imaginary playmate', or as 'delusional', go ahead and pile on your disparagement, and your curses. I won't let it rob me of my serenity, my peace-of-mind, my confidence, my feeling quite lucky, my deep gratitude for health, life, and - above-all - love.
As to people putting you down, you asked a question: Is god good? If all you want is affirmation of your beliefs and opinions, then perhaps you should not ask such questions in the first place, most especially on a philosophy forum.
Evidently pinklady overlooked entirely my definition of "God." Recall that in an early post in this thread I defined "God" as a value ...and values are intangible. I defined it as "the value of all high positive values put together. So God is not only love; God is also Morality, Integrity, Liberty, Community, Friendship, Sincerity, Honesty, Individuality, Freedom, Creativity, Fidelity, Dependability, Reality, Responsibility, Democracy, etc., etc.
No, it is not the Christian conception of god I am talking about. I speak of my own personal idea, my own concept ..although it may share some of the metaphysics of the Unity viewpoint of the Unity School. Hence her recent post commits The Straw Man Fallacy.
In her defense, pbviously she is using a different definition, for a different concept, of God than the one about which this thread was created. She further argues that God limits one, and deprives one of freedom.
Do I look of feel deprived??!? Hardly !! My god-concept definitely ADDS to my freedom, and to my autonomy
The existence of god is not about definitions. Playing with definitions will only get one helplessly bogged down in detail. One has to be able to see the wood for the trees. So, forget definitions. The fundamental question is: Is there a god? No, there is not. Gods do not exist. And the reason is perfectly simple to explain when you understand how the mind works. Furthermore, this explanation applies to any god in any religion.
First, delusion. It is a common enough mental illness. I had a lot of contact with a mental health organization at my previous home. I mixed with people with a variety of mental illnesses, including someone who was delusional. He thought he was King of Scotland. Other delusions which are more accepted and often considered, wrongly, as “normal” include the little girl who is “Daddy’s Little Princess”. The princess is the daughter who has been spoiled by her father. By being treated like a princess, she comes to expect adoration, to be the centre of attention, and to having her wishes obeyed as though they were royal decrees. In short, this daughter learns that she can wrap her father round her little finger and eventually expects to be able to do that with everyone. When she grows up, she expects the world to treat her as royalty, and when they do not, she feels herself ill-used. That is delusional behaviour. It is very common.
As to delusion in religion, you first look at the creation myths of whatever religion you are examining. These are interpretable and will reveal that the adherents of that religion were, in the beginning, albeit unwittingly, delusional. Specifically, the founders of the religion considered themselves to be gods. They might, for example, have considered themselves to be all-knowing and all-seeing. They certainly expected to be worshipped and adored as well as to be able to lay down the law. This, you might say, is the ultimate delusion of grandeur. And this delusion, like the princess delusion, is also a common affliction in this world.
My own father certainly expected his wife and children to adore him and he definitely laid down the law in the home. He may not have been so deluded as to think himself a god, but he certainly behaved round the house as if he were a monarch, expecting his wife and his children to run around after him e.g. to have his meal on the table the minute he set foot in the house, no matter the hour. Actually, upon reflection, he was more than a monarch. But he was not quite a god. Thus, my father was afflicted with a demi-god delusion. (The Greek myths are full of demi-gods such as my father.)
The above, then, is a potted account of how religions arose.
You say that god is morality as well as love. You do not know what love is, otherwise you would not mention morality as an attribute. Morality is redundant when people are capable of love. The love you talk about is heartless.
What is love? To love, you must have a heart. Therefore love, real love, is wanting the best for everyone, no matter who, no matter how they have treated you. (Wanting the best for everyone does not necessarily mean molly-coddling them or wrapping them in cotton wool. Nor is love about self-sacrifice. Love is win-win, not lose-lose.)
As to morality, morality is a set of rules by which one should live. A person who has a heart does not need morality. A person who has a heart behaves naturally, behaves well, no matter what. Morailty is about prevention, not cure. If a person is not behaving well, then forcing them to obey rules will only make them worse. The cure for someone who behaves badly is to establish why they behave badly and then to cure them.
One last point about religion. It is very noticeable that people often turn to religion in times of need, not before. My neighbour is such a person. She was going through an extremely bad patch in her life, a sort of mid-life crisis, when, in desperate need of succour, she took to religion. Now she is very devout. However, she is no different from other aging people in this world. Despite her religion, her life is quite clearly going downhill - she has forsaken all her other interests and is now completely dependent on her religious friends. In short, she is closing down. She is dying. Her complete and utter dependence on religion is not freedom.
