God and metaphysics

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

The idea of many “gods” preceeded the idea of “God”, as far as i know, historically.

Religions were made which were designed to replace other religions.
Avangelitical abrahamic ideas came along.
But are they true?

An all-knowing all-powerful “God” which can transcend all other “gods” was invented.
In some cultures it was said that gods could die.
It made gods more realistic to these people if they were mortal.
Christian “God” is “supernatural”, though, which is supposedto be able to transcend natural laws, limitations and anything else such as logic and reason.

I cant remember right now all of the details of what i had thought about this earlier, but i’ll try.

Transcendance is a lazy way of skipping over every technicality of nature strait to an extreme end.
Abrahamic religion is an end not a means.
Abrahamic religion could have been a science, but instead, because it trascends the limits of nature and logic, it cant be a science, because it doesn’t require any sort of limitation. Logic must confine to the laws of reality and reason, but God does not because it’s beyond it all. So the beyond-it-all type religions try to replace things such as science and logic with faith in the end and ultimate top of it all.

It’s a logical fallacy but it’s very popular for people to use belief in things other than factual knowledge.
Knowing an unknowable “God” down to fine detail, baselessly.

2

It is an exercise in one aspect of the human experience.
The other time this facet is approached is within the bounds of relationships; not just love.
Basically, you have very little logical reason to place trust into any other person, and yet there are those that most do.

Some focus on logic, some on the experience of living, some on emotional exploration, and some on faith.

What is faith, compared to the rest?
Faith is a placement of trust in an unknown that causes logic, experience of living, or emotional experience.

It may seem odd to suggest that Faith is a placement of trust in an unknown that causes logic when the concept defies logic itself, but the logic that is caused is that the Faith causes one to consider; not always following strict direct logic, nor is it forced to.
It is instead logic according to the sense of the life of the person with the faith; it is a reflection of learning upon themselves as they need to be taught about life…in a language that they speak.

The arguments about faith are largely just arguments about the language of faith.

The result of any of the the faith’s placed are relatively the same; they produce a trust in an unknown believed to cause the other three in one’s life.

It is not so much required to remove one of the other three, but to identify, for that person, the source of the other three.
The importance of the source is that it allows a person to identify the priorities of the three categories in a manner that fits with their understanding of life.

As life changes, so to will their faith; as such, so to will their understanding of the other three categories and their priorities…as such will shuffle.

Those without faith do still have faith, just not as the first tier of the four categories; the other three categories do not exist as an extension of faith.

For instance, if one is focused on logic, then (in brief) they would see the other three categories left as extensions of logic, or the lack thereof.
If one was focused on the experience of life, then one would see the other three categories left as extensions of the experience of life, however it may occur to each person in their own.

The same can be applied to emotional focused lives.

3

Stumps might be more forgiving than because all I see is a rant, void of any proper argumentation that in fact sounds like a theological statement, as if something was revealed to you, than something reasonable that you’ve thought about and carefully measured.
— The idea of many “gods” preceeded the idea of “God”, as far as i know, historically.
O- Even in polytheism you do have a ruler among the gods…it is not some democracy…and this is the point whetre they meet. In fact the israelites may have originally accepted Yahweh in such a light. Monotheism was a development and not a strike of genius.

— An all-knowing all-powerful “God” which can transcend all other “gods” was invented.
O- Not “invented”: evolved, developed, intuited from the inherited materials.

— Transcendance is a lazy way of skipping over every technicality of nature strait to an extreme end.
O- Without which nothing can be said and one ought to remain silent…if you do not agree with transcendence that is in itself a trancendental position, skipping over every technicality to deliver us the gospel of doom, the revelation of the omnisense…just when we had been told that such certainty could not be had.

— Abrahamic religion is an end not a means.
O- What do you mean? How is it an end?

— Abrahamic religion could have been a science, but instead, because it trascends the limits of nature and logic, it cant be a science, because it doesn’t require any sort of limitation.
O- You do know of theoretical science, don’t you? And you do know that limits are man-made, don’t you, and that logic is but a tool, don’t you?

— Logic must confine to the laws of reality and reason, but God does not because it’s beyond it all.
O- Logic is a tool. It does not need to confine itself to shit. It is not under any necessity to reflect reality. The brilliance of logic is in fact that it has nothing to do with reality, but aims at a meta-reality. Logic does not really care about the particular but about the universal and so it is trancendental, and the preferred tool used to demonstrate everything trancendental.

— It’s a logical fallacy but it’s very popular for people to use belief in things other than factual knowledge.
Knowing an unknowable “God” down to fine detail, baselessly.
O- Only zealots claim to know God in fine detail…most are rather humble. “factual knowledge”, as Hume demonstrated, is very often just belief, so that there is no abyss separating human beings.

4

There’s pretty strong evidence to support this position in the Hebrew texts.
As God is referred to in many cases in contexts that refer to only divine creatures, recognizing a plural standard, and is constantly referred to as the God above all other gods, or the King above all other kings.
In a time period where a peoples God was a weapon of war, it is very probable and likely for God to originally be viewed by the Israelites as the best God and not the only god.
In fact, God is described by himself in quote, and by authors, as a jealous God. Jealousy requires other options to exist, otherwise there would not be a need for jealousy, only anger or sadness for the loss of the followers to believing in gods that do not exist.

So yes, there is considerable evidence that can support this concept for any that wish to look at it from this perspective.

5

I think you’re correct that a belief in a transcendent God essentially skips everything in between humans and the ultimate (including logic, reality, and philosophy). I also think you’re correct in saying that presuming to know anything about such a God is inherently fallacious. However, “beyond-it-all type religions” are some of the strongest in the world today because they do not try to replace science and logic; whereas a religion of demigods or tribal gods makes explanation of physical phenomena one of its primary goals, Abrahamic religions are first and foremost explanations of ethical systems.

Given this, it makes a lot more sense to ‘skip’ every technicality of nature; they are irrelevant. The questions being addressed by Abrahamic religions are, “Why does anything matter?” “Why do people matter?” “How should I act?” And even those questions are only indirect results of the question, “What is the source of ethical value?” I do not think science can answer these questions; having faith about their answers is not a challenge to science.

I sortof see what you’re saying as a general interpretation of people, but I don’t see how to apply logic before faith. Where/How do the principles of logic get justified?

6

Darlin,
You skipped some yourself. The religion of today is not the same as it was in the beginning. Religion mutates over centuries especially when it has been translated from one language to another to yet another and interpreted by many. In other words ;too many cooks spoil the stew.

What starts off as simple guides to ethical and moral ways to live together in peace become reasons to kill those that are different, become reasons to hide behind a blanket of fellowship. Most religious folks are only religious because their family is. To remove religion would be like removing part of your body or brain. Beliefs and faith help us face day to day tragedies with out going insane. They are a bandaid or a salve to the pain. It is easy to condemn that which we do not believe. It is harder to understand and accept it. You may not need that salve, but those that you love do. They will not understand how you do not need it, they will even condemn you for it. Because you are different and so a possible threat to security and peace. Just love and accept them in the way that you would want them to love and accept you. Your peace will be far more secure.

Be well darlin

7

Logic can come before faith, certainly.
One can live by the merits of Logic as the highest regard, and still have faith.
Even the most logic focused person is capable of loving another person; which requires faith.

Equally, many extremely logical scientists in history held a belief in a greater force, power, or designer.
However, they did so according to perfectly logical ideas according to their minds.

A logical theologian simply requires a logical thesis to merit or support the belief.
It does not mean they would otherwise not believe, it means, however, that they must find a logical process for their belief to be valid personally.

8

I’m still missing how they justify the ‘logical process.’ It sounds to me like you’re differentiating types of faith as: faith in devotion to a higher order/power/deity (which you just call faith), faith in pursuit of experiences of happiness (life experiences), and faith in analysis via personal capacities by reason or intuition (including what you call logic). The faith being, in each case, that the right or good will be accomplished via the object of faith. In any case, faith–blind ascription of meaning, value, or normative import–is what we start with. Either that or I’m still lost as to what you meant.

9

Faith first, would be the blind form.
Faith second, to any other priority (of those that I have listed) is not faith-based, but instead experience or logic based.

10

What i was trying to explain is that because God transcends truth itself, an argument about God is impossible, because every aspect or limitation of proof and truth can be transcended by something of which the laws of nature do not apply to.

11

That’s true about the stew.

12

But is “God” the only idea which transcends “proofs”? And you say “proof and truth”, but the fact is that proof do not always make a pair with “truth”, that we can find false “proofs” because it is in our finite nature, our fallible reason to do so. So it is appropiate to ask the Pilate question: What is truth?

13

I can say the same thing about the concept of “soul mates”.

14

Then again, in the end, there may indeed exist no such thing as “the physical”—such that everything is composed of subjective consciousness (Idealism). Subjective consciousness may simulate physical law (which the subjective consciousnesses of humans do), but in the absence of physicality, ‘natural’ laws may be something else indeed outside the construct of human and animal organisms. A homogeneous universe is the simplest of all universes (Stenger), thus it may be that the universe is homogeneous in the sense of throwing out the “baggage” of non-conscious non-mentality. In a purely mental realm, all of the “transcendent” and “impossible” qualities of God, barring some conceptual and logical problems, may become child’s play.

Just a thought,

J.