(March 4, 2020 at 12:07 pm)Objectivist Wrote:  

Quote:And since we can't sense many things, it's almost certain that there are things in the universe we can't conceive of. The apophatic theologians are at pains to remind us that, in their opinion, some things about God are this way. Can't be sensed, and can't be conceived of.

But by what means are they aware of this god?  That's the crucial question?  The notion that there are some things about God that can not be sensed, implies that there are some that can.  By what means?

Reviewing the chat so far, I see I didn't respond adequately to this.

Theology doesn't posit that we can sense God. God is not a sensible object. From at least the time of Plato, God is said to be an intelligible object, not sensible. 

It is like a number -- we know of its existence by extrapolating from the sensible world, but it is not a sensible object. When we experience things in twos, after a while we can abstract from this the idea of two. They say that God is known in the same way. We know of the existence of two itself through various experiences of two things. We know of goodness itself through experiencing various examples of good things. God is said to be goodness itself, not an example of another good thing.

I didn't say that "there are some things about God that can not be sensed." Because according to this view, there are NO things about God that can be sensed. 

What I'm saying is that (according to this view) we derive concepts from sense experience, and we can then use these concepts to understand God. We don't know God through the senses. But since we get our ideas of two or good by abstracting from sense impressions, if there were qualities in the world which we couldn't sense, then we wouldn't be able to abstract those things into knowledge of the idea. And since God is said to be infinite and include all possible ideas, any idea which we couldn't extrapolate from nature would be a part of God which we could never comprehend.

Also, I looked at the Stanford Encyclopedia page on Rand's theory of concepts. I see that she is using "measurement" in a kind of unexpected way, to mean something like variation. The example given is that we derive the concept of red by knowing various examples of red things, even though these red things vary in how red they are -- an orangey red or a purpler red. It seems that Rand is calling this variation "measurement," and saying that when we eliminate the variety we create a concept. Is that right? 

It looks as though this would apply even to things that aren't measurable in the sense of quantifiable. So for example we can't quantify justice, but we can still derive a concept of justice by eliminating the variations (more just, less just) that we have seen in the examples we've experienced. 

I don't quite see why that's a great advance in philosophy. It's long been standard to say that the idea or concept of something (or Form, in Plato's language) eliminates contingent or local variation in favor of ideality. (This became artistic pedagogy in the 18th century -- you were supposed to go out and draw a thousand actual oak trees in order to see past accidents like broken branches, so you could learn what the True Oak Tree is like. Then you could paint true non-contingent oak trees in your pictures.)

Clearly, no amount of philosophy/argumentation will settle even the simplest doubts one can have about the god question. People can disagree on any concept, any attribute, any premise. This, again, confirms my post : God - the intersting kind of god - either gave us the answers to all this mess in an existing scripture, or doesn't exist. Case closed. End of story.

If you find yourself needing to learn hundreds of shunks of philosophy because you want to "reach god", you're already in the wrong direction. How can a god hide answers to the most fundamental questions of existence in arcane philosophy books? If educated, sophisticated people can't agree on a damn definition of some attribute of god after dozens of pages of arguments, how can the layman reach a satisfying certainty about a caring god who will rescucitate him and make up for any injustice he encountered in this life? A just God is both just to the educated people and to the layman. His justness implies accessible answers to all people, regardless of how clever they are, of whether they can handle length sophisticated arguments/refutations or not. Therefore, God either exists in one popular form the laymen believe in, or doesn't exist.

The god that Spinoza reached through his philosophical quest - an impersonal God, decidedly doesn't exist. Or at the very least, doesn't want us to exist. And because we should only look for a god who wants us to exist, scripture is our last and only hope.

Why Spinoza's God is unintersting? Because you have to be fucking Spinoza to have "some certainty" about this God's existence, or be educated enough to read Spinoza's works and fully understand them. And since this clearly isn't the case for most people, we have to look for answers elsewhere, that is, scripture.

That's why I find it laughable when some atheists complain about how "simplistic" the Qur'an is, for example. What they miss is, the Qur'an should be simplistic and appealing to all people. That's the first characteristic of any good candidate book for the 'word of god' award.

Quote: - the intersting kind of god 

According only  you and only you

Kloro, could you answer a few questions about the nature of your god ?

Does your god have morals ?

Does your god care about the well being of human beings ?

From your own evaluation of your god's actions, would you consider it to be good or evil ?

If a human were to commit the same actions as your god, would you consider the human to be good or evil ?

Does your god control any action in the universe ?

If you role a pair of dice, does your god control any aspect of the result when the dice come to rest ?


How does your god feel about the following that cause harm and suffering to people ?

(Diseases, viruses, bacteria, starvation, suicide, rape, murder, genocide, war, torture, convicting innocent people to prison for life, kidnapping, the wholesale slaughter of millions of animals each day to feed people.)

Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.

(March 5, 2020 at 9:17 am)Klorophyll Wrote: Clearly, no amount of philosophy/argumentation will settle even the simplest doubts one can have about the god question. People can disagree on any concept, any attribute, any premise. This, again, confirms my post : God - the intersting kind of god - either gave us the answers to all this mess in an existing scripture, or doesn't exist. Case closed. End of story.

If you find yourself needing to learn hundreds of shunks of philosophy because you want to "reach god", you're already in the wrong direction. How can a god hide answers to the most fundamental questions of existence in arcane philosophy books? If educated, sophisticated people can't agree on a damn definition of some attribute of god after dozens of pages of arguments, how can the layman reach a satisfying certainty about a caring god who will rescucitate him and make up for any injustice he encountered in this life? A just God is both just to the educated people and to the layman. His justness implies accessible answers to all people, regardless of how clever they are, of whether they can handle length sophisticated arguments/refutations or not. Therefore, God either exists in one popular form the laymen believe in, or doesn't exist.

The god that Spinoza reached through his philosophical quest - an impersonal God, decidedly doesn't exist. Or at the very least, doesn't want us to exist. And because we should only look for a god who wants us to exist, scripture is our last and only hope.

Why Spinoza's God is unintersting? Because you have to be fucking Spinoza to have "some certainty" about this God's existence, or be educated enough to read Spinoza's works and fully understand them. And since this clearly isn't the case for most people, we have to look for answers elsewhere, that is, scripture.

That's why I find it laughable when some atheists complain about how "simplistic" the Qur'an is, for example. What they miss is, the Qur'an should be simplistic and appealing to all people. That's the first characteristic of any good candidate book for the 'word of god' award.

It’s not our fault your argument is laden with fallacies, dude.

(March 3, 2020 at 8:01 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(March 3, 2020 at 2:07 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: Sorry, perhaps I’m misunderstanding you. You said:


I guess it’s the phrase “ongoing problem” that caught me off guard. Yes, we are erroneous in our execution of logic and reason, and in our understanding of the empirical world, but I don’t think it necessarily follows to say that because we sometimes miss the mark, and fall short of these objective standards, the standards themselves are in intrinsically problematic, or obstructing our attempts to improve accuracy. I mean, they’re the tools we use to identify when we’ve used them wrong. Without sound and valid reasoning, and a method for interpreting the material world, we would be lost at sea in terms of a consistently reliable way to understand reality.

Oops, I didn't mean to imply that our methods are an ongoing problem. 

Logic and empirical evidence are the best we have, and obviously can lead to great success. The only problem I meant to refer to is just our limited human nature, and the fact that no matter how well we think we've done, there is always the real possibility that we've missed something. I mean "ongoing problem" just in the sense that we don't get to be smug, and assume we've got it all licked. 

Quote:Personally, I think millions of people claiming to experience revelations in accordance with an internally consistent, but mostly unverifiable or demonstrable framework, built over centuries, is far more dangerous than one individual thinking they a have a magical unicorn in their basement. 

Understood. I was thinking earlier about "revealed theology" and the role that revelation plays in developing systems of thought. If I write a letter to the church and claim that God has revealed something to me, my letter will be met with extreme skepticism, as it should be. 

But you're right that there are probably lots of people running around thinking that they've had revelations. And in their cases nobody is testing them to see if they make sense relative to anything else. Millions of people working this way would be dangerous. 

I don't think I've ever met someone claiming to have had a revelation. When I lived in America though I remember people saying that something or other was "God's will." And not even inevitable stuff like a death in the family. I think my high school biology lab partner claimed it was God's will that she go to Oklahoma and move in with a guy she'd met two days before. In such cases, it's just another example of what is probably a human being's most skillful thought process: finding "reasons" to do what we've already decided we're going to do anyway. 

So, I agree with you that personal revelation, and people using that as justification for their actions, is a bad way to go about things. As with any other truth-claim, it needs to be scrutinized. And (I'll say this just to annoy certain people on this forum) we have to be fair to the official church structure: they don't accept claims of revelation casually. They even believe the devil can trick us with fake revelations.

But, if this scrutinizing body or framework is propped up on premises that can’t be demonstrated, in what meaningful way are those revelations that are approved or accepted by that body different from personal revelations that have not been approved or accepted by it?

(March 5, 2020 at 10:31 am)Rahn127 Wrote: Kloro, could you answer a few questions about the nature of your god ?

Does your god have morals ?

Of course. Although I find your question slightly ill-formed. God is morality, in a way.

(March 5, 2020 at 10:31 am)Rahn127 Wrote: Does your god care about the well being of human beings ?

He obviously does. What happens around us, though, leads many people to believe that it's not the case. We're so tied the here and now reality, we can't fully grasp the idea of an afterlife making up for every injustice in this world, no matter how tiny and irrelevant.

(March 5, 2020 at 10:31 am)Rahn127 Wrote: From your own evaluation of your god's actions, would you consider it to be good or evil ?

I don't exactly get what you mean by "god's actions". If you mean by that our creation, then it's actually a too-good-to-be-true - and true! - action god did on our behalf, with nothing in return.

I will hold on on answering the following question until you clarify what you mean by "god's actions".

(March 5, 2020 at 10:31 am)Rahn127 Wrote: Does your god control any action in the universe ?

If you role a pair of dice, does your god control any aspect of the result when the dice come to rest ?

God does control everything including the result of a rolling dice. Actually, it's sometimes possible even for you to predict the result, that is, if one side of the dice is somewhat favored in a subtle way. If you have the finest eyesight imaginable, you can perfectly follow the trajectory of the dice falling and anticipate the result. It's not hard then to say that, for an all-knowing deity, it's not so much of a challenge.

(March 5, 2020 at 10:31 am)Rahn127 Wrote: How does your god feel about the following that cause harm and suffering to people ?

(Diseases, viruses, bacteria, starvation, suicide, rape, murder, genocide, war, torture, convicting innocent people to prison for life, kidnapping, the wholesale slaughter of millions of animals each day to feed people.)

Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.

Any form of suffering happens for a finite amount of time. And the deity that allowed that to happen made sure an afterlife will make up for all this. I know this is something we can't possibly wrap our heads around, that all the sick things that happen in this world are too overwhelming for most of us. But it's us who judge how painful suffering is, it's us who think that a certain crime is horrific, so horrific not even a deity can do justice to it. It's only us, and we can't be judge and jury in the whole case. Only this external entity can truly judge how much suffering is really unjust suffering, and make the right decisions without any human bias.

"How does your god feel" is a nonsensical question. Feelings are - to wear the evolutionary hat for our purpose - are evolved chemical reactions creatures have, that make anything preventing survival as painful and unpleasant as possible. Namely, they don't have any objective value. If you want God to have these feelings as well, you simply want to anthropomorphise him.

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(March 5, 2020 at 11:37 am)LadyForCamus Wrote: It’s not our fault your argument is laden with fallacies, dude.

I didn't intend for that to be an argument. I was simply stating what I think is the right approach regarding these big questions.

Kloro, again thank you so much for answering.

If a man rapes a woman and then gives her a million dollars to make up for the rape, would you consider this to be a good thing ?

If a husband beats his wife and then feels sorry for losing control, he might try to make up for his mistakes by buying her flowers, jewelry or maybe a vacation.

Does the offer of an afterlife to make up for all the hardships in life mean that god is sorry that he put us through all that pain ?
Is your god the equivalent of a husband who beats his wife and then tries to make up for his mistakes ?

Do you see your god more as a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass, not really caring or having ANY feelings about his actions at all ?

After all, they're just ants.

(March 5, 2020 at 1:40 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: Kloro, again thank you so much for answering.

If a man rapes a woman and then gives her a million dollars to make up for the rape, would you consider this to be a good thing ?

Of course it isn't a good thing. And I don't think your example is very relevant here. God also allowed for free will. Torture is mostly human induced, so is rape, kidnapping, human trafficking, etc. It's our mess.

Your complaints are the classical complaints we here all the time regarding the problem of evil. Maybe you should take some time and read rebuttals to your positions.

(March 5, 2020 at 1:40 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: Does the offer of an afterlife to make up for all the hardships in life mean that god is sorry that he put us through all that pain ?
Is your god the equivalent of a husband who beats his wife and then tries to make up for his mistakes ?

Again. You're wrongly making the deity responsible, you don't even take the time to demonstrate it.

(March 5, 2020 at 1:40 pm)Rahn127 Wrote: Do you see your god more as a child torturing ants with a magnifying glass, not really caring or having ANY feelings about his actions at all ?

After all, they're just ants.

I already pointed out the mistake in using the word "feelings" when talking about god. I don't get it why people get so careless with words regarding these issues.

(March 5, 2020 at 11:58 am)Klorophyll Wrote: Of course. Although I find your question slightly ill-formed. God is morality, in a way.

Whatever that means.  It's one thing to derive a moral system from a magic book, or from beliefs about some silly god, but that's not morality in any way that matters to me.  

Morality
-principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.
-a particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society
-the extent to which an action is right or wrong.

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As an aside, has it ever occurred to you that you can place your god and your beliefs about the world in an untenable position with a string of trivial false dichotomies?

Either magic book is right or there is no god?
Either there is a god or there is no morality?

Don't you think it might be prudent to allow for simple human error when it comes to a book? If some scribe gets a jot or a tittle wrong god's very existence is somehow on the line? I think we can safely set the first proposition aside as ludicrous. The second touches on your personal view of the moral field. If it turned out that we lived in a world with no god you would suddenly lose all ethical sense, and the world would be morally unintelligible? I would be very interested to see how you complete this sentence.

In a world with a god, skullfucking your neighbors' kid is wrong.
In a world without a god, skullfucking your neighbors' kid is __________________.