God incomprehensible to Man

[Cryotank Screams]

I recently found the best response to this pathetic argument, oft used by the religiously afflicted;

"If God is incomprehensible to man, it would seem rational never to think of Him at all"-Jean Meslier.

[Eleutherios]

Exactly. If "god" is such an incomprehensible concept that you can never define the term, then any sentence containing the word becomes instantly meaningless.

[rouchambeau]

Oh, the irony.

[apathy maybe]

God cannot be "incomprehensible", for else how do we know what it wants? How do we know that we should stone the gay people or witches or whatever?

If god is incomprehensible, then we should ignore the bible, because it was written by humans. As such, they couldn't understand what god was telling them to write.

Bah. Stupid religious folk.

[EwokUtopia]

God is just a word to describe a state which is beyond anything a human can imagine

Therefore, all the stories of God wanting us to do this or that, watching over us, destroying evil cities, commanding us to eliminate the Amalekites, being crucified for us, walking on water, and so forth, are all self-defeating lies because we can comprehend them.

God is just a word, and it is a word that many Atheists have used to describe that comepletely non-supernatural thing that cant be described.

Einstienian God anyone?

[Zero]

Originally posted by "EwokUtopia"
Einstienian God anyone?If by using 'god' as a figure of speech, sure.

A theist would respond to this with something to the effect of 'Because we cannot concieve of god in full does not discount the notion of god in our minds. We cannot concieve perfection, yet we still have the word.' and go on into the 'Shadows on the wall' allegory.

Such a weak arguement. >.>

[Eleutherios]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 02:09 am
Einstienian God anyone?
What's the point in the Einsteinian God concept? It is still too nebulous to me, and it seems to be just a way to justify continuing to use an emotionally consoling but outdated concept. Throughout the history of monotheism, "God" has always meant an intelligent, self-aware personal god, who cares about events here on earth and who occasionally intervenes to enforce his will. It was only when we started thinking scientifically and found out that no such personal god exists that all these weird, nebulous and incoherent ideas of "God" started popping up.

God is not the laws of physics. God is not happiness. God is not morality. God is not a cheese sandwich. God is not whatever you decide to call God. "God" is a real word with a real meaning, and if we allow everybody to use their own personal definition of the word we might as well kick it out of our language because it won't mean anything anymore. If something is not intelligent and self-aware, it does not deserve the traditional label "God" and you should come up with a more accurate and more descriptive term for what you're talking about. If you're just going to use "God" as a metaphor for the mindless laws of the universe, like Einstein did, you're going to confuse pretty much everybody, since most people believe in a personal God and automatically think of a giant father figure in the sky when you use that word.

If you want to borrow a term from a traditional religion as a metaphor for the mindless laws of the universe, then tao is much closer to the idea you're trying to get across.

[LittleMao]

Originally posted by apathy [email protected] 15, 2007 05:33 pm
God cannot be "incomprehensible", for else how do we know what it wants? How do we know that we should stone the gay people or witches or whatever?

If god is incomprehensible, then we should ignore the bible, because it was written by humans. As such, they couldn't understand what god was telling them to write.

Bah. Stupid religious folk.
Ah ha ha.
Stupid anit-religious folk.
Not all actions done in the name of God, or of any god are the god's wishes.
People often manipulate religion for thier own purpose.
The God of Christians does not want people to stone each other.
But people use God as an excuse to do what they want.

The Bible is seen to be the Word of God. And God is not compleatly imcomprehensible. Such a mighty being could do as much as communicate with lower life forms.

Blah.
Anyone can PM me if they want to have a friendly debate

[Publius]

What's the point in the Einsteinian God concept?

The Spinozastic God would be more correct, because Spinoza created the concept and Einstein said he believed in "Spinoza's God" which really is the same as saying 'Nature', or 'no God at all.'

For practical purposes, Einstein and Spinoza were both atheists, though they believed in a 'God' and were 'religious' in that way, if that makes any sense.



It is still too nebulous to me,

It is.

It's not that it's a confused concept (though I doubt it's a correct one), it's just that it's very subtle and very nuanced.

My take on it (I just a book on Spinoza and Leibniz so I feel entitled to give my opinion) is that it's a way to believe in God without believing in God.



and it seems to be just a way to justify continuing to use an emotionally consoling but outdated concept.

Spinoza's God isn't very emotionally consoling. In fact, it's entirely impersonal. Spinoza denies the idea of individual immorality, for example. His God cannot love you back. His God isn't even cognizant.



Throughout the history of monotheism, "God" has always meant an intelligent, self-aware personal god, who cares about events here on earth and who occasionally intervenes to enforce his will. It was only when we started thinking scientifically and found out that no such personal god exists that all these weird, nebulous and incoherent ideas of "God" started popping up.

Spinoza's idea of God is pretty coherent, really. It's not perfect, and it has a few logical problems (more emotional ones, though), but as pure philosophy, it's as good as you can get.

Spinoza was one of histories greatest philosophers, there can be little doubt. I very much advise everyone to read "The Courtier and the Heretic" by Matthew Stewart. Spinoza was an amazing thinker for his time. I have little doubt that he'd be a leading atheist if he were to come from this era. Realize that true atheism, a lack of belief in a 'God' at all, was simply unthinkable in Spinoza's time.



God is not the laws of physics. God is not happiness. God is not morality. God is not a cheese sandwich. God is not whatever you decide to call God.

Actually, it is.

Definitions are whatever people decide them to be.


"God" is a real word with a real meaning, and if we allow everybody to use their own personal definition of the word we might as well kick it out of our language because it won't mean anything anymore. If something is not intelligent and self-aware, it does not deserve the traditional label "God" and you should come up with a more accurate and more descriptive term for what you're talking about. If you're just going to use "God" as a metaphor for the mindless laws of the universe, like Einstein did, you're going to confuse pretty much everybody, since most people believe in a personal God and automatically think of a giant father figure in the sky when you use that word.

Well, Spinoza used 'Nature' is a synonym for God, if that clarifies things (it should.) And just becaue he has a complicated or nuanced view of 'God' does not mean he has 'bad' view of God, necessarily.

Spinoza's ideas on 'God' are actually comforting, even to atheists like me. It's really something.



If you want to borrow a term from a traditional religion as a metaphor for the mindless laws of the universe, then tao is much closer to the idea you're trying to get across.

Why?

[apathy maybe]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 05:53 am
Ah ha ha.
Stupid anit-religious folk.
Not all actions done in the name of God, or of any god are the god's wishes.
People often manipulate religion for thier own purpose.
The God of Christians does not want people to stone each other.
But people use God as an excuse to do what they want.

The Bible is seen to be the Word of God. And God is not compleatly imcomprehensible. Such a mighty being could do as much as communicate with lower life forms.

Blah.
Anyone can PM me if they want to have a friendly debate
Dude, I think you missed my point.
How do you know that the "God of Christians" (assuming that such a being exists) doesn't want people to stone other people? Did this "God" tell you? If not, this God is not doing such a good job (especially for being such a mighty being) of not being incomprehensible.

I can think of plenty of better ways of telling people what I think, then writing a book like the Christian Bible (does God really want us not to stone people? Then why is it in the book?).


Anyway, my point was, religious folk often use the excess that "God is incomprehensible to humans" to justify such things as hurricanes and so on. If this is the case, then we should ignore the Bible.

However, if (as you seem to be arguing) God is comprehensible, then why do people think that God wants them to stone people? Why doesn't God actually make it clear what God wants?

To put it slightly more logically (where X is God being incomprehensible to humans), if X then there is no way to know what God wants, if not X then why doesn't the bible get destroyed by fire and a better book (one that actually includes what God really wants (I guess burnt offerings do get boring after the first few thousand years)?


PS, I'm perfectly capable of having a friendly conversation here. Just don't be stupid and start calling people primitivists for no reason.