God as a metaphor/concept

[warrenmi]

As an avowed atheist, it's abundantly obvious to me that there is no "ontological" (having an existence outside of our selves) basis for god. But...in the same manner that we declare/assume that beauty and love exist, even though they are purely human metaphors/concepts without any ontological basis, should we not allow the same to be true of god?

Holding & nurturing our concepts of love and beauty are universally acknowledged as life-enhancing, so could this not potentially be true for god as well? While I personally find no value added in the concept, I believe I must acknowledge that holding this "god concept" has been/is of great benefit to many individuals and societies. Of course it has been of great detriment as well, but this would seem to be more the particular nature of the concept than the existence of the concept itself.

The reality is that the vast majority of individuals have never been and probably never will be disposed to do much deep thinking about the great philosophical questions--existence, ethics, death, etc. So, even as atheists, might we not actually encourage the more benign (Taoist, Buddhist, Sufi, etc.) conceptions of god, recognizing that implanting such concepts can in fact be of great value even in a godless world?

[Minimalist]

Holding & nurturing our concepts of love and beauty

Love and beauty do not employ torture or murder to advance their aims nor have they been used to justify slavery and oppression. "God" or at least his friggin' followers has been known to do all that.

[Tempus]

But...in the same manner that we some declare/assume that beauty and love exist

I don't declare or assume that. Not in the sense you seem to be saying here. You seem to be saying we believe love and beauty exist independent of our own experience. I disagree with this. I see love as a complex set of feelings toward someone or something. Love is a label - it describes something, it doesn't actually exist itself. Similar with beauty; it's a subjective value judgement. Different cultures find different things beautiful. That's not to say the won't be any universals - most cultures probably won't find rotting corpses beautiful, for example. I'd suggest that's not due to them all appealing to some sort of external standard of beauty, but rather to a common internal one they share with the rest of their species.

By the way, if that's not what you're suggesting then I apologise.

[genkaus]

As an avowed atheist, it's abundantly obvious to me that there is no "ontological" (having an existence outside of our selves) basis for god. But...in the same manner that we declare/assume that beauty and love exist, even though they are purely human metaphors/concepts without any ontological basis, should we not allow the same to be true of god?

Holding & nurturing our concepts of love and beauty are universally acknowledged as life-enhancing, so could this not potentially be true for god as well? While I personally find no value added in the concept, I believe I must acknowledge that holding this "god concept" has been/is of great benefit to many individuals and societies. Of course it has been of great detriment as well, but this would seem to be more the particular nature of the concept than the existence of the concept itself.

The reality is that the vast majority of individuals have never been and probably never will be disposed to do much deep thinking about the great philosophical questions--existence, ethics, death, etc. So, even as atheists, might we not actually encourage the more benign (Taoist, Buddhist, Sufi, etc.) conceptions of god, recognizing that implanting such concepts can in fact be of great value even in a godless world?

A lot of people already do that. Though, primarily these are theists who cannot comprehend the difference between ontological existence and conceptual existence, but have you not heard people spouting saccharine generalities like "The beauty in the nature is god" or "God is in the trees and the rivers and birds and animals and you and me" or "The feeling you feel while holding your child is god".

Even atheists sometimes use this concept to denote the illusion of divine intervention. Like when I say "That god that went well", I'm not actually thankful to anything nor do I think that something was directing it, but that I'm simply glad that things worked out according to my desires.

SO, I guess we are already moving towards this god-as-a-concept thing. The main problem now is getting theists to actually define one concept of god and stick to it.

[Angrboda]

I think you'll find that the benignity of many of those so-called benign faiths is an illusion fostered by Western ignorance of the traditions and a form of Romantic idealism associated with the strange, exotic and Occidental. Not that these traditions necessarily harbor evils like Catholic pedophiles, but many of the traditions are fractured through and through with silly and stupid metaphysical notions. Taoism evolved into worship of immortals and the hygiene cults (dietary regimens aimed at achieving immortality). Folk Taoism, likely the most numerous variant, is a melange of belief in local Gods and psychological technicians (priests); folk religion in China is something of an a la carte phenomenon, wherein the people go to Taoist, Buddhist or Confucianist practices and practitioners, depending on specifically what ails them. Buddhism, in addition to having some very poorly evidenced psychological theories, rests on the foundation of Karma and Reincarnation, which, to my mind, are even sillier than Christian mularkey. And for every smiling monk or Dalai Lama, there's a Nichiren or Pure Land sect Buddhist. In general, as the Dharma traveled east, the more moral aspects of the eight-fold path got stripped away from Buddhism. (And recall that originally Buddhism wasn't a religion for the masses but a path for the elite monks to earn their own Get Out Of Jail Free card.)

Anyway, I need to end this post. But I see religion in several lights. In one sense, the codes of belief function as something of a pre-conscious psychotherapy, which would require more explanation.

I notice that much religious thought is aimed at creating a sort of virtual parity, or reciprocity relation with existence, assuring us that despite the plentiful evidence that good deeds and bad are often punished and rewarded alike without favor, somehow, the scales of justice will be set aright in the end, either through Karma, or Heaven, or whatever.

In another vein, I see religion as sort of the sound equivalent of harmonics, that part of our cognitions fall within reality, attributing mind to others, enabling language and semiotic processes, and so on. But because of the stochastic nature of the evolutionary processes nature errs on the side of providing the brain with too much rather than too little, and the overflow gets structured into religious beliefs.

I've lost track here, but I see much of religion as also a sort of a priori understanding of those parts of our existence which can only be managed via heuristic symbols; this aspect is concerned with explaining those parts of our nature which we can't consciously grasp, yet an intuitive "model" can provide a convenient heuristic short-cut to managing our behaviors that probabilistically aligns with our needs.

Anyway. I've probably missed a point or two here. I tend to always look for the biological roots of psychological phenomena, and believe that is where to look. My philosophical "soulmate" in one of my philosophy groups tells me that he's skeptical of any idea that can't be extended to the ants. I tend not to go that far, for pragmatic reasons, but I agree in spirit. Churchill said, "Cultured people are merely the glittering scum which floats upon the deep river of production." In much the same way I think our conscious processes are largely glittering scum that floats on neurological engines whose character is far removed from the notions of both religion and popular culture (aka folk psychology).