If there is a creator, so what?

[Ignorant]

Seems to me that you might be underestimating what counts as fully human.  There is definitely a cultural component to that.  Someone entirely ruled by a pigs-at-the-trough mindset (like Trump) is lacking in his humanity. [1] I don't see why we should characterize a more cultured mindset as divine rather than simple more humane. [2] This is purely semantics of course but I see no justification for that split.

I'm sure that is what many of us would like to know.  Not that we can get there too, mind you, but because we expect your justification will be lacking.  Good luck. [3]

1) Definitely, but I don't see how Trump's apparent lacking translates to my underestimation of what counts as fully human? If we can say that Trump is lacking something, then he would be fuller if he had it. Whatever it is he is lacking, therefore, would be an aspect of fully human. How have we underestimated?

2) I don't quite get your meaning.

3) I went through some important reasons some months ago, mostly interacting with Robvalue. I linked it in a response to Alasdair several posts back. I'd rather not go through it all again. So if you'd like, you can read through that thread, and I can answer questions in a different thread from this one.

[Whateverist]

I just don't see how else to understand a 'god' in an objective sense except as a more advanced being(s). [1]

My inclination is to remove gods from the objective exterior world and put them where we feel their presence, in  interior life. [2]  Do you follow what Jorgy was saying about the subjective/midjective distinction?  From our conscious subjective perspective, there are features of our interior life which we do not directly control.  From our conscious point of view it can be difficult to distinguish between the outer-other and the inner-other. [3]

Really, it is better to think of the brain/mind as producing a number of consciousness phenomenon, some portion of which is what we call 'us'.  What we claim as our personal identity is really made up of both, but we tend to be most aware of that which we experience and participate in consciously. [4]

Anyhow, I think what makes gods so popular is the brain/mind's capacity to produce them, especially if we expect to experience them.  When gods are produced they really aren't just projections of repressed aspects of the conscious mind.  Even when gods are not produced the mind is still a cauldron of desires, meanings and concerns.  The mind has a capacity to detect and solve problems without involving the conscious mind, it's been doing it for longer than we've had one. [5]

Most of my thinking about it is from Jungian psychology, most of it through James Hillman but other sources contribute. [6]

This was a jokey reference to the star trek stories. [7]

1) Well sure, if it helps you to start there, fine. However, I would invite you to consider that this carries with it the most fundamental error that many theists (especially deists) make: God understood as just another "thing", even if more advanced/"higher"/more intelligent "thing". The moment this is imported into god, then you'd be right to reject it's meaning or its reality.

2) I think it is good to do this, but at the "interior life" of ALL things.

This is the place where you lose me. How is it you infer that some portion of your interior life is not only 'other' to you, but actually interior to everything? I would have thought we were on an equal footing in terms of making our way darkly through these interior lives. I can understand that if you were taught from an early age to interpret some part of it transpersonal rather than just intrapersonal that it would come to feel true for you by virtue of long precedent.

Would you agree the jump to the transpersonal requires a leap of faith? Feeling as I do that I am on the clock of a very finite lifespan, I'm very motivated to understand this life -including its interior aspects- as it is and not merely assume something comfortable or functional to get me by. I've sometimes talked to believers who have talked of how making this assumption/leap-of-faith has been transformative in a positive way. Sounds odd to say it but I'm not such a happiness junky that I'd compromise my understanding of what is true for a boost in pleasurable brain waves. Guess that makes me a truth junky.

I'd like to get back to look through the rest of your comments to see if I have anything else to respond to - but the wife has an appointment this morning and is giving me looks about getting on with breakfast. Thanks for the interesting conversation! I will have to try as hard to appreciate your understandings to be worthy of the efforts you are making for me.

3) Right. There are things about ourselves that we don't directly control, even things that influence what we think and how we think. But those, on my account, are aspects of what-we-are-as-objects. In other words, knowing about those things is part of our subjective knowledge of ourselves as objects, and the struggle to approach an adequate account of objects remains.

4) Right, and the more we know about the distinctions and aspects which go into making-us-us, the fuller picture we have of what-we-are

5) Fair enough.

6) I'm not familiar, but I'm glad they have helped you.

7) Totally missed it =)

[Whateverist]

Seems to me that you might be underestimating what counts as fully human.  There is definitely a cultural component to that.  Someone entirely ruled by a pigs-at-the-trough mindset (like Trump) is lacking in his humanity. [1] I don't see why we should characterize a more cultured mindset as divine rather than simple more humane. [2] This is purely semantics of course but I see no justification for that split.

I'm sure that is what many of us would like to know.  Not that we can get there too, mind you, but because we expect your justification will be lacking.  Good luck. [3]

1) Definitely, but I don't see how Trump's apparent lacking translates to my underestimation of what counts as fully human? If we can say that Trump is lacking something, then he would be fuller if he had it. Whatever it is he is lacking, therefore, would be an aspect of fully human. How have we underestimated?

2) I don't quite get your meaning.

3) I went through some important reasons some months ago, mostly interacting with Robvalue. I linked it in a response to Alasdair several posts back. I'd rather not go through it all again. So if you'd like, you can read through that thread, and I can answer questions in a different thread from this one.

More than fair and I was hoping you wouldn't get weighed down in that anyhow.  But on to breakfast.  Back in an hour or so.

[Ignorant]

Ah right, so I take it you find prescriptive language less helpful than descriptive language.

Okay then how about this... how could I care about a god that exists? By having knowledge of it, yes, but that begs the question of how could I have knowledge of it? I couldn't care about god without knowledge.

So we could change the question from "If there is a creator, so what?" to "If there is a creator, how could I know it existed in order to even care?" [1]

Because in other words... if it exists but its truth is unknowable and therefore impossible to know about... then, indeed, so what if it does? Who cares, unknowable truth is experienced as little as, and is as impossible to care about as, non-truth. [2]

1) You can have knowledge about it only if it is currently related to the things we observe or related to us. Your knowledge is either mediated through other things, or, if it's the sort of god who can do so, your knowledge comes directly revealed by the god itself. Even while mediated through other things, the knowledge provided isn't, "a god exists", but rather, "being "is" subsistently" or some better formulation.

2) I agree entirely. Either you can know about god through the being of other things or you can't. If you can't care about an object when there is no known object about which to care.

[Edwardo Piet]

HA! Ok great. Here is why god and its relation to you is significant: God is what everyone wants,

No. "What everyone wants" is Schopenhauern Will.

And, unlike God, it's mindless



In all seriousness... are you saying what everyone wants is God in their life or are you saying the definition of "God" is "whatever everyone happens to want"?

[Edwardo Piet]

Ah right, so I take it you find prescriptive language less helpful than descriptive language.

Okay then how about this... how could I care about a god that exists? By having knowledge of it, yes, but that begs the question of how could I have knowledge of it? I couldn't care about god without knowledge.

So we could change the question from "If there is a creator, so what?" to "If there is a creator, how could I know it existed in order to even care?" [1]

Because in other words... if it exists but its truth is unknowable and therefore impossible to know about... then, indeed, so what if it does? Who cares, unknowable truth is experienced as little as, and is as impossible to care about as, non-truth. [2]

1) You can have knowledge about it only if it is currently related to the things we observe or related to us. Your knowledge is either mediated through other things, or, if it's the sort of god who can do so, your knowledge comes directly revealed by the god itself. Even while mediated through other things, the knowledge provided isn't, "a god exists", but rather, "being "is" subsistently" or some better formulation.

2) I agree entirely. Either you can know about god through the being of other things or you can't. If you can't care about an object when there is no known object about which to care.

I'm glad we agree on "2)"

As for "1)":

How can I have knowledge of it in the way that you describe in order to care? How is it possible? How would I know that what I had knowledge of was indeed "God"? What epistemology are you subscribing to?

[The Grand Nudger]

:Looks up:  Not my baby, Ham...lol.........

1, btw, is a waffling reference between general and special revelation. Natural theology and revealed theology.

[Edwardo Piet]

Hmmm?

[Edwardo Piet]

The pursuit of happiness, Ham.  Don't you want to be as imperfectly happy as you can be in this imperfect life, and then perfectly happy in the next perfect life.

No jesus, no happy.

(I hear that codeine produces a similar effect if taken in excess )

---

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOD48_b6h-g

---

Yeah I do. No Jesus is not necessary.

Turtles aren't relevant to former-turtles. The turtle died:

[The Grand Nudger]

Hmmm?

Post 225, lol.

Yeah I do. No Jesus is not necessary.

Well, tough titties, Aquinas and Igno say you can't be imperfectly happy in this life or perfectly happy in the next without some Jesus. We'll just have to slog our way through our turgid little turtley existences, forever happiness inferior to our righteous christian brethren.