on discussing god and religion

iambiguous · November 26, 2020, 3:53pm

What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.

Though even the unimportant ones are almost always encompassed only in a world of words. God defined into existence with knowledge that revolves almost entirely around the meaning we give to words derived from the meaning we give to other words.

(1) The ontological argument

This had been written off (like so much else in the philosophy of religion) until Plantinga revived it in The Nature of Necessity in a new, modal, version. The argument was originally put forward in 1078 AD by Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, in his work Proslogion, though it is hotly disputed whether it actually is an argument or rather an investigation into God’s mode of existence. Plantinga’s modal version, however, claims that God is a logically necessary being and then moves from the alleged possibility of God’s necessary existence to God’s actual necessary existence. This move is legitimated by a system of modal logic known as (S5). There is still much debate about Plantinga’s argument and how to understand Anselm’s version. Graham Oppy has even written a whole book recently, just on the ontological argument: Ontological Arguments and Belief in God.

Why must God exist? Because it is logically necessary. And who asserts this? Mere mortals. And mere mortals have access to what definitive arguments and evidence to actually demonstrate this on par with, say, the arguments and the evidence that can be presented in order to demonstrate that the universe itself exists?

Modal logic. Whole books written about it.

On the other hand, whole books have been written about the existence of the Big Bang. But unlike with God the evidence goes considerably beyond just modal logic.

So, explore the definition and meaning of modal logic here: plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-modal/

Then in regard to the existence of God and, in particular, His existence given the main components of the ontological argument how close can one come to connecting that dot to actual empirical, material evidence that through experiments, prediction and replication brings one to the conclusion that a God, the God, my God does in fact exist: plato.stanford.edu/entries/onto … arguments/

In other words, before we get to the part revolving around theodicy.

iambiguous · November 27, 2020, 2:00am

The Pope, the coronavirus and a God/the God/his God

nytimes.com/2020/11/26/opin … e=Homepage

[b]In this past year of change, my mind and heart have overflowed with people. People I think of and pray for, and sometimes cry with, people with names and faces, people who died without saying goodbye to those they loved, families in difficulty, even going hungry, because there’s no work.

Sometimes, when you think globally, you can be paralyzed: There are so many places of apparently ceaseless conflict; there’s so much suffering and need. I find it helps to focus on concrete situations: You see faces looking for life and love in the reality of each person, of each people. You see hope written in the story of every nation, glorious because it’s a story of daily struggle, of lives broken in self-sacrifice. So rather than overwhelm you, it invites you to ponder and to respond with hope.[/b]

And on and on and on. Heartfelt perhaps, but as with so many other religionists, an utter refusal to acknowledge the fact that if this God of his does in fact exist then He is Himself responsible for the existence of the coronavirus. And hundreds and hundreds of other pathogens, diseases and physical afflictions.

Unless, of course, He is not omnipotent in regard to His creation.

And there is an underlying message throughout this particular sermon:

God asks us to dare to create something new.

In other words, that maybe the coronavirus is God’s way of spurring us on to become, what, Catholics like the Pope?

Or Pedro?

Sure, I recognize what prompts this particular reaction of mine. That I am myself virtually powerless in the face of all the terrible ordeals that afflict the human race. And that I actually need for God to exist so that at least there is someone or something to blame. Better that than lump all of the ordeals into the brute facticity of an essentially meaningless existence.

But, for me, it is always about theodicy. And the sheer absurdity of reconciling the world as it is with a so-called “loving, just and merciful” Creator.

Dan1 · November 27, 2020, 10:43pm

Jew-God is cruel as hell.
When someone dies, it was because God was angry.
When someone is born, it is because God was merciful.

obsrvr524 · November 28, 2020, 5:21pm

I’m still wondering where the globalist Pope was while COVID was secretly poring into Italy and the Vatican.

iambiguous · November 28, 2020, 7:24pm

And you have ample evidence with which to demonstrate this? Or, if it’s all on faith, how more or less blind?

And, just out of curiosity, would you be willing to commence an exchange in which you connect the dots between the behaviors you choose in regard to conflicting value judgments on this side of the grave, your beliefs in God and religion, and what you imagine the fate of your own particular “I” will be on the other side of the grave.

That, after all, was the whole point of my having begun this thread with zinnat.

iambiguous · November 28, 2020, 7:25pm

How about you?

iambiguous · November 29, 2020, 7:17pm

I would be equally curious to explore this aspect of the religious experience with those who practice it.

Only more in the spirit of this thread: Christian meditation insofar as it becomes a part of the life that one lives…insofar as there is an existential interaction between morality here and now and immortality there and then.

The part where reflection and study gives way to practice such that one set of behaviors is deemed virtuous and another not.

iambiguous · November 30, 2020, 6:07pm

Again, this is the sort of spiritual/religious exchange that often unfolds here. They can go on and on post after post and almost never bring either the meditation or contemplation down to earth.

It’s all embedded instead in how the technique [whatever it’s called] allows one to attain and then sustain a more comforting and constructive frame of mind.

And that’s not unimportant, of course. But it steers clear of what I deem the most fundamental purpose of religion is: to provide us with a moral scripture on this side of the grave in order that we continue to exist beyond the grave.

And then the extent to which conflicts occur when different faiths clash and the manner in which Marx spoke of religion as the opiate of the people. Religion used by the rich and the powerful in government to sustain their wealth and power.

And of particular importance to me: theodicy.

iambiguous · December 2, 2020, 5:25pm

I understand why people react to denominations that take their faith very, very seriously in this manner…while finding it hard to understand why they would question that they do.

After all, with the fate of all souls for all eternity riding on their worshipping and adoring the right God, who would not feel compelled to witness?

And given Judgment Day for most denominations isn’t the price of admission into Paradise based on the behaviors that are chosen by the faithful on this side of the grave?

The point isn’t why do Jehovah Witnesses go door to door but why aren’t Catholics, Protestants and every other denomination doing exactly the same?

If some Jews see themselves as God’s “chosen people” and if some Moslems are obsessed with “infidels” why aren’t they going door to door or stopping people on the street in order to save their souls?

Either the reality of what is at stake for the soul here is acknowledged or it isn’t.

On the other hand, imagine it this way:

Imagine hypothetically three Christian missionaries set out to save the souls of three different native tribes. The first one is successful. The folks in the first tribe accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior and are baptized in the faith. The second is not successful. The folks in the second tribe refuse to accept Christ as their personal savior and instead continue to embrace their own god…their own religion. The third missionary is not even able to find the tribe he was sent out to save.

Now, imagine one member of each tribe dying on the same day a week later. What will be the fate of their souls? Will the man from the first tribe ascend to Heaven having embraced the Christian faith? Will the man from the second tribe burn in Hell for having rejected the Christian faith? And what of the man from the third tribe—he will have died never having even been made aware of the Christian faith. Where does his soul end up?

Let’s call it a spiritual conundrum.

iambiguous · December 7, 2020, 1:37am

And then, for some, when those like me note, “we’ll need a context”, they insist we are missing the point.

But here my point is that given what I construe to be the “for all practical purpose” reason for God and religion – morality here and now, immortality there and then – why not take a stab at connecting the dots between God and religion as intellectual contraptions and the manner in which the conclusions you come to here pertain to the behaviors you choose from day to day.

In particular, as they are understood by you to be pertinent in turn to one or another rendition of Judgment Day.

iambiguous · December 10, 2020, 8:06pm

What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.

Of course here the contingency – for all practical purposes – is that if there is a word there must be still more words to define it and it give it meaning. With the word God that’s all the cosmological argument turns out to be. A truth wholly contingent upon a world of words.

The “necessary being” is just that: two more words. I merely suggest that what makes these two words necessary – again for all practical purposes – is that if we don’t merely assume that the words themselves bring this being into existence then we have neither an omniscient/omnipotent font from which to differentiate vice from virtue nor an entity able to bring about our immortality and salvation.

Pedro_I_Rengel · December 10, 2020, 10:43pm

How do you think up all these super wise things to say?

iambiguous · December 14, 2020, 5:50pm

More to the point, why would it never occur to me to ask you the same? In regard to, say, 99% of the things you post?

Anyway, now that I’ve got you here, why don’t you and I explore your own attempts to connect the dots between the behaviors you choose on this side of the grave and your beliefs about the fate of “I” on the other side. Re God and religion.

The main point of the thread.

iambiguous · December 16, 2020, 6:03pm

Let us talk about the mind more which will help in understanding the experiences, process and effects of the meditation on us.

Basically out mind behaves just like our physical body. As we have different organs in our body to execute different tasks, like feet for walking, hands for holding an picking, eyes for seeing etc, in the same way the mind also have different parts/organs to execute different tasks. In other words we can say that the mind works in four different ways. Namely- imagination(thinking), wisdom(analyzing), memory, ego( execution, will power). If we look carefully, we will find that we have to use these all four parts/qualities of the mind to perform any task.

let us take an example to understand this more clearly.

Let us take an example of having a beer. First of all, the thought of having a beer must have crossed to the mind. That thought may have come for any reason but the mind must have think about this before anything. Then comes wisdom or analyzing power. After thinking of having a beer, the next thing we will do to think whether we should have one or not, whether it is right time or not, or one’s health allows it or not. We will judge its pros or cons then decide accordingly. Let us say we decide to have a beer. Now, the memory part takes over as we will think how we can get a beer, like is there one in the fridge, or we have to buy it, if so from which shop and which brand etc. Lastly we go for it means, we start executing that decision, like take it out from the fridge or go to the shop to buy one and have it. The work is complete now.

We all have all these four qualities of the mind But not in the same proportion. That depends how often we use different qualities of the mind. Just as a runner develops strong legs and a blacksmith develops strong hands and arms because they tend to use a particular set of muscles again and again, in the same way, the strength of these four qualities of the mind also depends upon their repetitive use. Like artists use their imagination power more so that increases more than other three. A philosopher uses wisdom more, a student uses memory more and a meditator uses elocutionary power the most.

The important thing to understand here is that any act cannot be competed without using all these four qualities. Having said that, it is not necessary that all four qualities of the mind must be used in the same quantity every time. But, all four qualities must be used, no matter how big or how small their individual contribution
may be. As some actions happen very swiftly, like in a split of a second but even in those cases, all qualities come in use but it looks to us that we miss some steps but that is not true.

As i said above, meditation is all about execution or will power, means, we are training our will power to supersede all other three. So, with practice, the will power of the mind becomes strong enough to keep it focused on desired purpose. Having said that, other three qualities never cease to exist but only kept in control. So, we can see how much long practice is important. Besides that, strengthening of will power helps a lot in other aspects of life too.

Okay, let’s assume all of this is true.

But instead of bringing the points to bear on having a beer, they are focused instead on having an abortion.

And, further, the mind focuses in as well on the existential relationship between having an abortion and the fate of “I” on the other side of the grave…given one’s belief in any particular God/Universe on any particular religious path.

What of meditation then?

And how come this aspect of it as almost always avoided by those who tout the more “earthly” benefits of it?

iambiguous · December 19, 2020, 6:32pm

What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.

Natural religion. On the other hand, where to begin? With the watchmaker? With the human species? With the first instance of biological life? Than going back to the Big Bang. Then speculating about the possibility of an infinite number of Big Bangs in an infinite number of universes. Then going all the way back to the “design” of existence itself?

To the Designer. The one behind the curtain that minds like us are able to “design” completely out of definitions and deductions that go into “proofs” like this one?

Probability theory and God. How about probability theory and theodicy…or probability theory and conflicting goods intertwined in the probability theory of dasein.

And you can bet that the debate here never gets all that much closer to an actual demonstrable God than all of the other “proofs” above.

But that’s the beauty of proofs like this. The only condition that really counts is that somehow you are able to think yourself into believing them. And what could possibly be more comforting and consoling than that?

Especially given the fact that it can be taken all the way to the grave. And after that it can hardly be said to matter.

iambiguous · December 27, 2020, 6:46pm

What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.

So? You can argue until you are blue in the face about whether God does or does not exist, but one thing [to the best of my current knowledge] doesn’t change: that every and any school of philosophy that has ever existed has never actually succeeded in verifying the existence of God. Let alone Heaven or Nirvanna.

Though, sure, some of us think that is more important to point out than others.

Now you’re talking. This matter is by far – by far – the most important question of all in regard to any God and any religion.

Indeed, imagine that we lived in a world where there was no human suffering. A world where no one ever spoke of evil because there was nothing that could be thought of that would allow us to make sense of what some say that it was. Now, in this world, we may well still be unable to demonstrate that an actual God did in fact exist. But when people spoke of Him as loving, just and merciful that would certainly make a whole lot of sense. We may not be able to communicate with or interact with this God, but how could anyone doubt that something “up there” must be sustaining a world totally without pain and suffering.

Let’s run this by the religionists here. But, really, how could they not all be reduced down to this: God works in mysterious ways.

Or, for the Buddhists, the universe works in mysterious ways.

But, fortunately enough, for both, one of them results in immortality and the other in salvation. And all the evil in the world doesn’t make that go away.

iambiguous · January 18, 2021, 5:25pm

What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.

Okay, there are the “philosophical” arguments here, and there are the arguments that the overwhelming preponderance of the faithful prefer: morality here and now, immortality there and then.

After all, the philosophical arguments are contained almost entirely in exchanges embedded in worlds of words. Here for example: ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop … 1&t=195805

Whereas for those attempting to intertwine God and religion into the lives that they actually live, they can rather easily note how, without a leap of faith, there are no actual viable alternatives for mere mortals on either side of the grave.

What is a “rational belief” given the profound mystery that is human existence itself?

Clearly, it is not irrational to think that a God/the God might be the explanation for the human condition. It’s no more necessarily irrational than to think that existence itself just “banged” into being out of nothing at all. And since the human brain is hard wired to ask questions like this, God is there to be one of the options. A basic belief if there ever was one. But the human brain is also hard-wired to think up many things that are not able to actually be demonstrated to exist. And not just unicorns and ghosts and super heroes.

And around and around and around we go: If this, then that. Now all we need is an actual God to interview on youtube. To finally pin down all the details. To perform miracles and act out all of the things described in the Book of Revelation. If this is the God of Abraham and Moses.

In other words…

All that is necessary for Plantinga is to encompass a not necessarily irrational world of words in which “God” is just one of them. And atheists certainly have to concede that this is the case.

iambiguous · January 27, 2021, 4:24pm

What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.

Anyone here convinced that a "putative direct awareness of God can provide justification for certain kinds of beliefs about God.”

Putative: “generally considered or reputed to be.”

How about more specifically? I have not myself ever had a “direct awareness of God”. Even when I was a devout Christian. But it would certainly interest me if those who have had one would attempt to describe it. And, to the best of their ability, attempt to note any evidence that others could address to confirm the experience.

In other words, something more substantial than just a debate about it “generally”.

What I wouldn’t give to have Paul Helm here bringing his epistemological conclusions about about “reason and religion” and noting their relevance to that which interest me most about religion: morality here and now, immortality there and then.

What would he conclude can be known about this when that knowledge is then taken to sets of circumstances in which the behaviors that he chooses are connected to dots that grapple with that which he anticipates the fate of his own “I” to be on the other side of the grave.

iambiguous · February 7, 2021, 6:56pm

What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.

Now, admittedly, analyzing the claim that God exists is fundamentally different from analyzing the claim that, say, unicorns or fire breathing dragons or werewolves exist.

And that’s because even without any hard evidence for God’s existence, He is one possible explanation for the existence of existence itself.

And yet to explore the claims for His existence – let alone claims for the existence of a God, the God, my God – without any truly substantive accumulation of empirical, material and/or phenomenological confirmation, affirmation, proof, etc., is to all but guarantee an exchange in which God is basically just defined and deduced into existence.

In other words, particularly high up in the clouds of abstraction. Just Google “arguments for God’s existence”: google.com/search?hl=en&aut … bIQ4dUDCA0

Is that an important consideration? Or, like me, are you far more concerned with how an actual existing God comes down on connecting the dots between morality here and now and immortality there and then.

This one has also fascinated me. Though there are arguments – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_free_will – that proport to reconcile the two, they never really made sense to me. Like compatibilism “reconciling” free will and determinism [given a No God world]. It just doesn’t seem possible to me.

Then it can all go in any number of directions:

After Alvin Plantinga published an article on this called ‘On Ockham’s Way Out’ (Faith and Philosophy 1986) restating the solution of the mediaeval philosopher William of Ockham, the debate exploded, with articles appearing in every issue of the specialist journals debating whether God’s beliefs were hard facts, soft facts, hard-type soft facts, or “hard facts with soft underbellies”! Things often became convoluted; William Alston once remarked that “At the March 1984 Pacific Regional meeting of the Society of Christian Philosophers, Pike presented a discussion of Fischer’s paper, which was responded to by Marilyn Adams and Fischer, so that the conferees were treated to hearing Adams on Pike on Fischer on Adams on Pike, and Fischer on Pike on Fischer on Adams on Pike. ‘Enough!’ you may well cry. And yet the beat goes on.”

The debate in other words.

iambiguous · February 28, 2021, 7:17pm

What’s New in….Philosophy of Religion
Daniel Hill describes how the work of Alvin Plantinga has revolutionised Philosophy of Religion.

Actually, it would seem more reasonable to suggest that the concern here must always revolve around whether the language that is used to broach, assess, examine and/or to form conclusions about God, can be defended both substantively and substantially. Otherwise the discussions will almost certainly devolve into intellectual or spiritual contraptions in which God is merely defined and deduced into existence.

Shop talk among the serious philosophers? Such that in saying what you mean and meaning what you say about God and religion, both theists and atheists are up in the same clouds?

If God’s “Divine Nature” is only ever captured in human language what does that tell us about both of them? Not much it would seem.

As for the threat being lifted, in what sense?

Does defining and deducing God into existence through the use of language bring us any closer to an actual extant God?

Instead, nothing has really changed. You can argue yourself into taking that proverbial leap of leap or into making that proverbial wager.

But there’s still the part where you have to connect the dots existentially between the behaviors that you choose “down here” and that which you are able to think yourself into believing about the part “up there”.

I created a thread in order to to explore this.

You’re in it now.