Certainly I think it is possible a God exists. Certainly I’m sceptical that a God exists like the one of Christianity or Islam or Judaism (a God that is strictly associated with one of the major religions). If a God does exist, I know nothing about Him (at least as far as conscious knowledge goes). So if I honestly have no knowledge of God, what reason do I have to believe?
“God’s commandment that we thank him for his benevolences negates his goodness and praiseworthiness. Do you believe this?”
No, not necessarily. But a God who would command people to thank Him for his goodness who have no knowledge of Him…THAT doesn’t make any sense to me.
“If you choose not to thank God, and if God objectively exists, God has solid grounds to charge you with ungratefulness.”
Look, it’s impossible to be ungrateful to something you have no knowledge of. What if a unicorn I didn’t know about helped me pass my last philosophy exam and I did not praise or give thanks to it? Does that make me ungrateful?
EDIT: (Should I give hypothetical praise to a hypothetical God that has, hypothetically, done good?)
If a God exists, the only thing I can be “charged with” is ignorance. Each of us is ignorant about a great many things. I happen to be ignorant about God (if one exists). So be it. I used to think about God a lot, and I am still open to the possibility, but I have experienced nothing that encourages me to believe. And I am not unhappy.
The quoted material is my friend talking. The rest is my view. Is this not a fair position about God?
Is praise or thanks what God requires of us? Jesus tells us quite clearly not to go through the streets proclaiming our deeds so as to get recognition. Why would God go even further than this and command it?
But this aside no, I don’t think you should
.
However I do think you should give real praise to real beings that have done real good.
Good point. I dunno. I find it odd that a God would command anything at all, especially one that already commands infinite power. I was just responding to what my friend had asked there.
Where we disagree, perhaps, is in your thinking that God is unknowable. I’m against negative theology in all its forms believing instead that God is very knowable and that you are in God’s presence in just those situations where real beings do real good and deserve real praise. God is the spirit of all loving beings.
But this raises another difference: to me God is just a character in a story, not a real being with infinite powers as you put it. Reading Scripture is tantamount to knowledge of God. But more powerful than this are the real life examples where God’s literary reality is made flesh.
God asks us to give to give praise in all things, even in what we perceive as bad, good or otherwise. These things are the fabric that which comprise our spirituality in God. Because we have ties to this physical earth and one to God, our experiences plus the interactions with people can be honed to be better creations of God.
Because we are like children in God’s Eye’s, we must be directed even with the simplest details of Him. Also, we can not hold God’s Reasoning to our own.
On the contrary, my position is much less clear than that. I don’t know whether God is knowable or not.
Interesting view. And I only “put it” that way because many major religious conceptions of God (those about which I am very sceptical) include omnipotence.
How is reading scripture tantamount to knowledge of God? Maybe if you take God to be nothing more than a literary figure…?
God’s literary reality? How do you presume that it is God’s literary reality in the first place?
I don’t understand your conception of God. Is it correct to assume that you believe in a God? You say first that you believe God is the spirit of all loving beings and has a presence in the world and later say that you believe God is just a character in a story. I don’t see how both beliefs could be true.
Well then, if this attitude persists then your ultimate position is the unknowability of God, which I’m against! Hopefully the following will clarify how God is in fact knowable (IMO…).
I know. I’m skeptical of such conceptions myself.
Yes, a literary figure. Precisely. I should clarify though: through Scripture God can be known but not all readings of Scripture are correct. Am I presuming the correctness of my reading? No; I’m very open to correction and deeper understanding of God’s character.
Isn’t the Bible a piece of literature? At least, I don’t see anything separating it from other pieces of literature… If so, a literary reality is the only setting in which God’s reality can be known in itself, making God’s own reality literary. Your second question amounts to doubting, for example, whether Hamlet’s literary reality is in fact Hamlet’s. It seems to me that Hamlet only exists in the pages of the play. We may be able to extrapolate a life beyond the play, i.e., a Hamlet beyond what we are directly given in the text, but this reality would be even less real (and therefore problematic) than what is explicitly given.
The only presumption I make is that God is a character in a story and that in this story God is given as such. I’m not trying to convert the story into history or ontology, as if the story corresponds to objective fact, but rather I’m treating it and all that it contains as it is: as literary. As Omar so nicely suggested, try Jack Miles’ God: A Biography for more on this idea. What I’m laying out here is his basic idea. I don’t agree with his reading of God’s character, but that is irrelevant here!
I don’t believe God exists as an extra-literary being. In this sense I am an atheist. But to reconcile your perceived contradiction: God, as a literary character, reveals to us a character that each of us can choose to adopt. This character type is what I call the spirit of God and is, I believe anyways, an essentially loving spirit. In other words, God as such is a literary reality, a character or spirit, but God’s character or spirit can be made flesh by those who follow God’s way. God exists through us when we adopt God’s way.
Look throughout history, even the history of the Christian Church and the Bible, and you will see that each era of man has described God differently and uniquely to suit their relatable identification of what God would be. It’s a description that is based on the acceptance of what is allowed to exist in the metaphysical reality by our critical minds.
God can either be a solid person that lives on another planet; a super-being, or God can be a metaphysical force without identity, or God can be a providential spirit overlord of Earth.
All three of these interpretations are Christian.
There are more than these three concepts in Christianity today, but they do a decent job in displaying just how diversely people approach God.
Nope, I am not making the claim that God is unknowable.
Okay, I understand what you mean now by God’s literary reality.
Thanks for clarifying. I think most everyone can agree that God is a literary figure who has a literary reality. But if God is just a literary figure, why such an emphasis on “God’s way” and not the men behind God the literary figure. The spirit of God then is really an outgrowth of the spirit of man.
“The men behind God the literary figure”? Do you mean the authors of the text or those through whom God’s spirit is made flesh? If the latter, then I’m happy to emphasize these over God’s literary reality. The point of the literature, ultimately, is to open us to God’s way of life… I would take one real good deed over a million literary good deeds!
Yes, for sure. Although I don’t think “Quidditch playing” captures Harry’s character! Nevertheless he does present us with a way of life or at least imbues certain values/qualities. I’m not saying those who act like Harry Potter are Harry Potter, but only that in terms of what their action is they are indistinguishable.
Back and forth eh? And here I was thinking I was being especially consistent! I guess God’s character is just more important to me than God’s being.
There’s a parallel argument to be made for nearly every ‘hot’ issue in philosophy. The truth of moral convictions, free will, the existence of the mind in relation to the body. Of all of these, one can always say “I don’t know…and yet not knowing doesn’t seem to kill me. Therefore, let us declare not knowing to be our position, instead of a lack of a position”. One simply has to decide who they are in relation to these questions, that’s all. Also, serious thought needs to be given to The Paineful Truth’s question directly above.
Meaning, you have been through the subject matter of your controversial literary take on God thoroughly.
It was meant to state, “please for the love of God, don’t try to convince Aly of anything aside from his perspective; just accept that he sees God as a literary figure with the values as he sees it. Trust me, he has already had countless discussions by many questioning this unique approach and the logic behind it, and yes, he still stands by it.”
I certainly have a tendency to beat ideas into the ground! Mostly I’m just out for novel responses though… So despite what you may think, I am very receptive to criticism and new ways of thinking, and this is precisely my motivation (i.e., I’m not just trying to preach my ideas). I just haven’t been overly satisfied with what I’ve received so far!
That said; I respect your opinions as they seem very learned. So let me throw the question at you point blank: What is it that separates a religious text from any other piece of literature? What sets Genesis apart from Hamlet, for example, so that Genesis takes on the status religion while Hamlet is just, well, an exceptionally good play?
My apologies if you’ve answered this before and I’ve forgotten or missed it. But to my memory nobody has answered this as of yet…
I’ll echo what Ucci said and expand with my own perspective. God is a tricky subject, but one that is quite close to most discussions on cosmology. If one is to hold some sort of metaphysical or cosmological belief system, I believe that the issue of God has to be addressed. Especially given the cultural context. The position of “no answer” condemns one to be unable to articulate a position beyond that. Far better to adopt a fallibalist stance and say, “I believe X”. For one thing, it saves you a lot of trouble – the term “God” is very vague. Saying you don’t believe in gods can lead to all sorts of nonsense (does the Emperor of Japan exist?). Instead, positing a positive belief and seeing how that operates allows for meaningful discussion. Sometimes, you’ll find out that the position you’ve been holding is untenable. It happens all the time. But you can find out that your position is untenable and discard it. Saying, “I have no opinion” does not allow for a person to be wrong. This is also complicated because it is usually dishonest in the extreme, where people with supposedly “no opinion” will make it clear that they do, in fact, have very strong opinions on the issue. So why not just say, “I believe X”?
I mean the authors of the text – the ones who would have created God the literary figure.
Hopefully both. Look for anything you want.
Right, but I’m not saying I have no knowledge because it’s easy to say or to shrug off the challenge of thinking about it. There are lots of things I know for example about other people, through interaction, observation, etc. When I hear about a person second hand through another person, I can usually make sense of what I’ve been told because it conforms with what I already know/have experienced about people. Therefore I am in most cases willing to believe what I’ve been told about another person. If a God exists, on the other hand, He has eluded my ability to know or understand Him. I cannot recall a single moment in my life when I have interacted with or observed God. If I have by chance interacted with or observed God without knowing, then it was an experience I was not able to comprehend. Therefore, when I hear about God second hand through believers, I can try to imagine what He might be like, but such testimony does not conform to the reality I experience, nor is it falsifiable. This is the problem.
It comes down to whether or not I am inclined to have faith that a God exists. I am not inclined. Why should I be?
I think there are so many people obsessed with god.
I usually don’t think about “god” unless I read/hear someone talking about it.
Maybe indulging in thinking about god related matter somehow gives some people to (fake) sense of greatness/goodness/etc by the (fake) sense of association with it.
I know a lot of people spend time trying to understand the cultural context, i.e., the authors or the problems the authors were facing, etc, in order to understand Scriptural and other historic texts, but I don’t think this is crucial… Illuminating and supportive, undoubtedly, but not crucial…
For example, I don’t need to know the world Homer lived in or what Homer was like in order to understand Achilles’ character. The text itself is enough to fill in the relevant context and his character. In other words, I work with the assumption that the authors of these texts give us what we need in the text itself to grasp the meaning of the text and the attitudes of the characters. i.e., They don’t rely upon us knowing extra-literary details about their world or personalities in order for their story to make sense…
Granted; certain stories in the Bible do rely upon an understanding of local traditions, and here’s where a study of the cultural context can come in handy. But the main themes or ideas being presented in such a classic text, IMO at least, are universally relatable and don’t require such local knowledge…
I guess my overarching point is that I don’t see what the nature of the author(s) has to do with whether or not the character they present us in their text, God in this case, is a worthy role model… It seems to me the text itself is sufficient for each of us to make that decision… (What makes a worthy role model is a whole other question…)
