Ontology of God--Theological Noncognitivist View

[Zen Badger]

You are not God - we can clearly know that...

I'm gonna be the uber-agnostic here and challenge that statement. How do we know he isn't God?

Well, since Frodo maintains that the whole universe IS God.

We must therefore all be God.

Dammit, I've just had an evil thought.

Do I now have to condemm myself to hell?????

[Knight]

So if I were to define you as not vegetable or mineral but animal would that not help define you?

You are defining me in two ways here which makes your analogy a fallacy. You first define me as not vegetable or mineral. That is extremely vague...I could be almost anything! I think you realized that, which is why you added on "but animal." You have now switched to positively defining me. How did you do that? How did you know that since I'm not a vegetable or a mineral, I MUST be an animal? Why couldn't I be a rock, a piece of chocolate, a gaseous planet, an inanimate object, a magical talking box with fingers to type, or something else? You have made observations of me without even having met or seen me.

Apply that successively to what I can know doesn't apply to you, and you can see that I can come up with a pretty good idea of what you are.

No, you can't. Even when you somehow concluded that I was an animal, there are millions of different species on Earth...

This is how God is defined and it clearly is effective in formulating an idea of what God is.

It clearly is not.

You are not God - we can clearly know that... so that shows already there are some things we know are not God which is what I'm saying. Do that a lot more and you can arrive at what God is.

God is in everything but each individual component alone does not equal God. It's quite simple.

You already assume you know what God is. How do you know God is in everything? I don't see him. Is he in my sperm? Damn, I never knew that warm feeling that comes over me was a religious experience!

Alright, now I'm just messing with your ambiguity. Since I'm sure you probably wouldn't get the point of including the above, I'll make it clear now: What exactly does that mean, "God is in everything." I assume you mean God is omnipresent. Again, how do you know? Have you measured him? I think you are hinting at another attribute you have given God ("Creator"), but I won't knock that connection down unless you actually say it.

[Purple Rabbit]

I think fr0d0 was referring to St Augustine instead of St Thomas:

"What then, brethren, shall we say of God? For if thou hast been able to understand what thou wouldest say, it is not God. If thou hast been able to comprehend it, thou hast comprehended something else instead of God. If thou hast been able to comprehend him as thou thinkest, by so thinking thou hast deceived thyself. This then is not God, if thou hast comprehended it; but if this be God, thou has not comprehended it."

—St. Augustine

If we follow through on this god is Quantum Mechanics.

[LukeMC]

Fr0d0, if you keep chipping away at what "god" isn't, you'll eventually come to a final list of things that "god" is or could be. So skip this fucking bullshit and get to the point.

If "god" isn't any of the things we list, and indeed, isn't ANYTHING, then what IS "god?" Simply, God isn't.

Or, if by trial and error we come to understand everything that "god" isn't, surely the remaining attributes will be what "god" is.

[Purple Rabbit]

You are not God - we can clearly know that... so that shows already there are some things we know are not God which is what I'm saying. Do that a lot more and you can arrive at what God is.

You cannot know that for any person. Someone might be god in his incognito appearence, like Jesus was. It's the same arrogance that the Pharisees allegedly showed for Jesus in his times.

God is in everything but each individual component alone does not equal God. It's quite simple.

A little too simple actually.

If god is in everything he is in the gluons that make up brains, he is in every thought that was ever thought, he is in the action of a suicide bomber, he is in the cancer that kills childeren, he is in the crap I shit today, he is in the good and in the bad, he is in the porn business and he is in the missionary, he is in empty mathematical sets, he is in hinduism, slavery, war, peace, vegetarianism and cannibalism.

And as is attested by science he is there doing nothing, weighing nothing, smelling of nothing, tasting of nothing, exerting no force whatsoever, making no sound.

It clearly is an utter meaningless statement as ever one was.

[tackattack]

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I think fr0d0 was referring to St Augustine instead of St Thomas:

"What then, brethren, shall we say of God? For if thou hast been able to understand what thou wouldest say, it is not God. If thou hast been able to comprehend it, thou hast comprehended something else instead of God. If thou hast been able to comprehend him as thou thinkest, by so thinking thou hast deceived thyself. This then is not God, if thou hast comprehended it; but if this be God, thou has not comprehended it."

—St. Augustine

If we follow through on this god is Quantum Mechanics.

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I believe that was the aforementioned quote reference. This just goes to the point of God being unknowable thusly removed from the universe is unknowable withing the constains of this universe. the revelations presented by God then allow us to understand and define a concept of God without entirely knowing all of his attributes.

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As my first real post outside of introductions, I shall post my theological noncognitivist view in the form of a challenge:

I challenge any theist to provide a coherent ontology of God. Theists (especially Christians) seem to know that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, but these attributes cannot be applied to any known being.

Theists tend to first define God and then apply it to the God they believe in. This is illogical, as how can one derive the attributes of a thing without first observing the thing being defined?

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How is defining something and then aplying it to reality illogical? I have defined what is universally known as the color blue and call the chair I'm sitting on fits in that parameter. Of course none of us know that "blue" is "blue" because it's intangible, unobservable, a construct of human intuition and reasoning. However we assign it a universal definition and say this thing is "blue". A concept of God and God are 2 differnt things. I don't claim to know anything about God, however because of intuition, logic, reason and personal perspective I have a general concept of God that includes omnipotent and omniscient (purely from point-of-view and not belying consciousness). I think omnipresence is a derived attribute, persoanally.

[Purple Rabbit]

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I think fr0d0 was referring to St Augustine instead of St Thomas:

"What then, brethren, shall we say of God? For if thou hast been able to understand what thou wouldest say, it is not God. If thou hast been able to comprehend it, thou hast comprehended something else instead of God. If thou hast been able to comprehend him as thou thinkest, by so thinking thou hast deceived thyself. This then is not God, if thou hast comprehended it; but if this be God, thou has not comprehended it."

—St. Augustine

If we follow through on this god is Quantum Mechanics.

---

I believe that was the aforementioned quote reference. This just goes to the point of God being unknowable thusly removed from the universe is unknowable withing the constains of this universe. the revelations presented by God then allow us to understand and define a concept of God without entirely knowing all of his attributes.

IMHO the statement from St Augustine excludes knowledge of any attribute. So whatever you say about your god, it will be a lie.

[Knight]

I have defined what is universally known as the color blue and call the chair I'm sitting on fits in that parameter. Of course none of us know that "blue" is "blue" because it's intangible, unobservable, a construct of human intuition and reasoning.

You did not invent the term blue and then apply it to what we now know as blue. Someone observed that objects look different and coined different names to help describe these differences. It is a concept which we have developed as a direct result of observations.

A concept of God and God are 2 differnt things. I don't claim to know anything about God, however because of intuition, logic, reason and personal perspective I have a general concept of God that includes omnipotent and omniscient (purely from point-of-view and not belying consciousness). I think omnipresence is a derived attribute, persoanally.

Derived, from what?

I do not see the distinction you are making between God and the concept of God. We have not yet begun to discuss whether God actually exists because we don't even know what the concept of God is referring to. Whether you are defining God or the concept of God, both have to be observed, just like the color example you provided.

[fr0d0]

So you are saying that the whole universe is God.

No. The whole Universe and God is God.

Fr0d0,

How can you find out what is NOT God before you first agree on what God IS!

If God =anything other than what you know what is... then God just= the unknown perhaps?

Which is nothing more than metaphorical:?

Easy: because we can't know what God is.

If we can know what he isn't, then we know he isn't the unknown right? Because nothing at all can be known about the unknown. So God can't be metaphorical.

You are not God - we can clearly know that...

I'm gonna be the uber-agnostic here and challenge that statement. How do we know he isn't God?

We can't know in that sense. In the sense that we can't know absolutes. But to assume that would break as soon as we considered God further. Hmm.. I wish I was Arcanus

How, fr0d0, do you know that God is not disguising himself in that form? (After all it is said that God "Works in mysterious ways"). Would God not be capable of doing that?

God is in Kich and Kich is part of God. God could use Kich and be controlling Kich... but we couldn't logically say that Kich is the sum of God. (No disrespect intended Kich )(Que Dotard )

Well, since Frodo maintains that the whole universe IS God. We must therefore all be God. Dammit, I've just had an evil thought. Do I now have to condemm myself to hell?????

Since you're talking Christianity again LOL ...God forgives anything. Even the unpardonable sin

So if I were to define you as not vegetable or mineral but animal would that not help define you?

You are defining me in two ways here which makes your analogy a fallacy. You first define me as not vegetable or mineral. That is extremely vague...I could be almost anything! I think you realized that, which is why you added on "but animal." You have now switched to positively defining me. How did you do that? How did you know that since I'm not a vegetable or a mineral, I MUST be an animal? Why couldn't I be a rock, a piece of chocolate, a gaseous planet, an inanimate object, a magical talking box with fingers to type, or something else? You have made observations of me without even having met or seen me.

Well if you were a rock you'd be mineral; chocolate you'd be vegetable etc. By process of elimination animal is all you could be as something existant in the physical universe. Yeah I could be a lot more vague... but for simplicity I started with the first question of the '20 Questions' game.

Apply that successively to what I can know doesn't apply to you, and you can see that I can come up with a pretty good idea of what you are.

No, you can't. Even when you somehow concluded that I was an animal, there are millions of different species on Earth...

How many legs; Live in water, on the land or in the air; Meat or vegetable diet... you can see how it's possible to easily narrow down what you are by what you are not. When we get to human we can start narrowing down locations then names... we'd probably be able to identify you in person.

This is how God is defined and it clearly is effective in formulating an idea of what God is.

It clearly is not.

Tis so

You are not God - we can clearly know that... so that shows already there are some things we know are not God which is what I'm saying. Do that a lot more and you can arrive at what God is.

God is in everything but each individual component alone does not equal God. It's quite simple.

You already assume you know what God is. How do you know God is in everything? I don't see him. Is he in my sperm? Damn, I never knew that warm feeling that comes over me was a religious experience!

Someone else here suggested that God is either creator or emergent. And we're going with creator, which can then lead to everything as being 'of God'. You see him as everything your eyes see, and you mind understands. Everything is spiritual ™

Alright, now I'm just messing with your ambiguity. Since I'm sure you probably wouldn't get the point of including the above, I'll make it clear now: What exactly does that mean, "God is in everything." I assume you mean God is omnipresent. Again, how do you know? Have you measured him? I think you are hinting at another attribute you have given God ("Creator"), but I won't knock that connection down unless you actually say it.

Again, the point is I don't know what he is: only what he isn't.


It was or also was St Thomas Rabbit: the Via Negativa is one of his 3 ways to understand God.

IMHO the statement from St Augustine excludes knowledge of any attribute. So whatever you say about your god, it will be a lie.

That we can't know isn't the same as our logical assumptions being false.

[Purple Rabbit]

If blue is unobservable than what color is the sky on a sunny day?