time for two things here ...
Jn: But if you are standing outside the strip and can see the extra-dimension of space in which it is nested, and you look at the directional arrows on the strip, sometimes they point from right to left and sometimes they point from left to right. The value of z can either increase or decrease, and the net of all changes is zero.
Yes, true .... but why then does the strip even need to be a moebius strip? Why can't it be a regular untwisted strip, a "bracelet"? The walker will still be moving back and forth in the z direction if we care to embed the strip in R3. I'm still not sure I understand the importance of the strip having the twist in it!
dirtnap: First. God is a being who necessarily exists. That is to say, IF God exists, his/her/its (the article is problematic) existence isn't something that could just as well not be.
This reminds me of part of Anselm's Ontological Proof of the Existence of God. What's the logical justification for this principle, though?
God's Debris
Welcome to the discussion, dirtnap!
I have a lot of thoughts about this little book and since I came in late in this thread I hope none of this is redundant.
You're not too late at all, nor redundant. I'm sure everyone will be happy to change the topic from my little hypothesis which I am explaining so poorly.
Unless.... God's action didn't have the meaning which Avatar ascribes to it. ...
Yes, that was one of the first thoughts to strike me, too ... that the Avatar was attributing his own human motivation to God in the same manner that he was exhorting the delivery man not to do.
I too could think of motivations other than curiosity about non-existence, and the one you mentioned was the first that came to mind -- an act of sharing rather than an act of decimation.
A god that sacrifices his/her own body so that the whole world might live, this might sound a familiar theme to some.
Yes, you must visit our Tol Eressëa forum!
However, I don't think that 'sacrifice,' in the usual sense of the word implying loss, need be implied by this act. As you say, the debris exists, therefore a god who disseminated him/her/itself would not be 'losing' pieces to the world ... your integrity argument seems to obviate this interpretation anyway.
That's not to say that other acts of a sacrificial nature would not happen, but I don't think that the Christian story is made necessary by this interpretation. Rather, the interpretation suggests a god whose character is consistent with the Christian story, and with many other stories as well. The story told by many religions is made possible by this interpretation.
I do not see that anyone else's story is made possible (or impossible) by Adams' interpretation ... and perhaps that is why he posits only one Avatar. His theory is not attached in any necessary way to the spiritual explanations offered by others.
God is a being who necessarily exists. Therefore if God were to cease to exist everything would cease to exist.
It's been about thirty years since I've read Scholastic arguments with a critical eye, but I recall finding them tautological when I studied them.
If one defines God as what exists, then if God ceases to exist it is necessarily true that everything ceases to exist. This is not a syllogism, - the 'therefore' is not needed - it is a statement that affirms a prior definition.
The attributes posited for such a god are far more interesting, e.g. benevolence, integrity, etc. because now we have to make judgments based on effect. These are inductive and therefore unfalsifiable but some groups of suppositions seem more consistent with experience than others do.
By the way, the attribute you are referring to as benevolence I would refer to as humility.
Nothing I have seen in it is logically implausable.
It is not implausible in the sense of contradicting current theory. But his explanation suggests in places that he does not really understand the theory he is using to build his alternate interpretation of god.
Jn
I have a lot of thoughts about this little book and since I came in late in this thread I hope none of this is redundant.
You're not too late at all, nor redundant. I'm sure everyone will be happy to change the topic from my little hypothesis which I am explaining so poorly.
Unless.... God's action didn't have the meaning which Avatar ascribes to it. ...
Yes, that was one of the first thoughts to strike me, too ... that the Avatar was attributing his own human motivation to God in the same manner that he was exhorting the delivery man not to do.
I too could think of motivations other than curiosity about non-existence, and the one you mentioned was the first that came to mind -- an act of sharing rather than an act of decimation.
A god that sacrifices his/her own body so that the whole world might live, this might sound a familiar theme to some.
Yes, you must visit our Tol Eressëa forum!
However, I don't think that 'sacrifice,' in the usual sense of the word implying loss, need be implied by this act. As you say, the debris exists, therefore a god who disseminated him/her/itself would not be 'losing' pieces to the world ... your integrity argument seems to obviate this interpretation anyway.
That's not to say that other acts of a sacrificial nature would not happen, but I don't think that the Christian story is made necessary by this interpretation. Rather, the interpretation suggests a god whose character is consistent with the Christian story, and with many other stories as well. The story told by many religions is made possible by this interpretation.
I do not see that anyone else's story is made possible (or impossible) by Adams' interpretation ... and perhaps that is why he posits only one Avatar.
His theory is not attached in any necessary way to the spiritual explanations offered by others.God is a being who necessarily exists. Therefore if God were to cease to exist everything would cease to exist.
It's been about thirty years since I've read Scholastic arguments with a critical eye, but I recall finding them tautological when I studied them.
If one defines God as what exists, then if God ceases to exist it is necessarily true that everything ceases to exist. This is not a syllogism, - the 'therefore' is not needed - it is a statement that affirms a prior definition.
The attributes posited for such a god are far more interesting, e.g. benevolence, integrity, etc. because now we have to make judgments based on effect. These are inductive and therefore unfalsifiable
but some groups of suppositions seem more consistent with experience than others do. By the way, the attribute you are referring to as benevolence I would refer to as humility.
Nothing I have seen in it is logically implausable.
It is not implausible in the sense of contradicting current theory. But his explanation suggests in places that he does not really understand the theory he is using to build his alternate interpretation of god.
Jn
A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell.
This reminds me of part of Anselm's Ontological Proof of the Existence of God. What's the logical justification for this principle, though?[/quote]
It has to do with how God is defined. If god is thought as something like Zeus or one of the other gods of the greek pantheon for example, there is no reason why such a being necessarily exists.
However if one thinks god in a more abstract, philosophical sense as the reality that underlays the universe, the "ground of all being", then God necessarily has to exist. The sylogism works as follows.
a.) God is defined as the ground of all existence
b.) the universe exists
c.) therefore god must exist.
Anselm held, as do I, that God should not be thought of as "having" being in the same way that things like dogs have it. God IS what being is, or God=being. Same with goodness, wisdom and all other virtues. To the extent that any thing has such virtues they get thrm from God or God is their source.
Of course there is not logical reason why one should have this (or any) particular conception of God. The existence of God is a question of faith. Anselm didn't, in my view, "prove" the existence of God, (not even God can do that). What he did was to show where logic can take one once a certain a priori assumption is made.
I infer from the discourse of the book we are discussing that the author has a conception of god that is something like Anselm's (as opposed to something like zeu). Perhaps that reflects more about my idea of God than the author's.
It has to do with how God is defined. If god is thought as something like Zeus or one of the other gods of the greek pantheon for example, there is no reason why such a being necessarily exists.
However if one thinks god in a more abstract, philosophical sense as the reality that underlays the universe, the "ground of all being", then God necessarily has to exist. The sylogism works as follows.
a.) God is defined as the ground of all existence
b.) the universe exists
c.) therefore god must exist.
Anselm held, as do I, that God should not be thought of as "having" being in the same way that things like dogs have it. God IS what being is, or God=being. Same with goodness, wisdom and all other virtues. To the extent that any thing has such virtues they get thrm from God or God is their source.
Of course there is not logical reason why one should have this (or any) particular conception of God. The existence of God is a question of faith. Anselm didn't, in my view, "prove" the existence of God, (not even God can do that). What he did was to show where logic can take one once a certain a priori assumption is made.
I infer from the discourse of the book we are discussing that the author has a conception of god that is something like Anselm's (as opposed to something like zeu). Perhaps that reflects more about my idea of God than the author's.
----------------------------------------------------
Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about him.
-Thomas Merton
Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about him.
-Thomas Merton
Jnyusa
Yes actually the kind of idea I am aiming at can be seen in the cult of dionysius (at least as understood by neitzsche).
You had interesting things to say Re sacrifice. I suppose I think of a sense in which sacrifice (in the sense we usually think of it) combines with generosity. I'm thinking of how the grain sacrifices its integrity and in return a multitude of grain follows. I take a certain moral lesson from the idea of God that I am looking at. I suppose that we get closer to god by becomming mor like God, or trying to.
It seems that much of the ethical part of religion has to do with the idea that trouble starts when we begin to get hung up on our mortality. We get scared, we get selfish, we get clumsy, maybe evil, definitely stupid and petty (witness Gilgamesh).
We don't see that we are not ends in ourselves but passages through which life (should have a capital L LIFE) passes. This is why generosity is so widely held a virtue, it is intuitively obvious that generosity is good. This is why the Sun seemed so God-like to the ancients and is still an apt symbol, It is prodigal in its generosity, and, like the God that Adams is working with, Gives infinitely of its resources.
This whole theme does in fact work well in a Christian context but it should be remembered that Dionysius was a god of Joyous celebration who is infact destroyed. The initiates of the cult, in their "orgies" (which involve the loss of differences between people) understand the God to be being reunited with itself. There is a kind of resurection of dionysius in the loss of personal identy of the iniates of the cult.
The initiates are, in a sense, the body of dionysius in a way similar to the way many Christians feel themselves to be united in the body of God.
The value of this line of thought, in my mind, is that it gives a moral and a kind of joy to the basic premise of God's Debris that you don't get from a kind of capricious God that sees suicide as the ultimate challange.
Yes actually the kind of idea I am aiming at can be seen in the cult of dionysius (at least as understood by neitzsche).
You had interesting things to say Re sacrifice. I suppose I think of a sense in which sacrifice (in the sense we usually think of it) combines with generosity. I'm thinking of how the grain sacrifices its integrity and in return a multitude of grain follows. I take a certain moral lesson from the idea of God that I am looking at. I suppose that we get closer to god by becomming mor like God, or trying to.
It seems that much of the ethical part of religion has to do with the idea that trouble starts when we begin to get hung up on our mortality. We get scared, we get selfish, we get clumsy, maybe evil, definitely stupid and petty (witness Gilgamesh).
We don't see that we are not ends in ourselves but passages through which life (should have a capital L LIFE) passes. This is why generosity is so widely held a virtue, it is intuitively obvious that generosity is good. This is why the Sun seemed so God-like to the ancients and is still an apt symbol, It is prodigal in its generosity, and, like the God that Adams is working with, Gives infinitely of its resources.
This whole theme does in fact work well in a Christian context but it should be remembered that Dionysius was a god of Joyous celebration who is infact destroyed. The initiates of the cult, in their "orgies" (which involve the loss of differences between people) understand the God to be being reunited with itself. There is a kind of resurection of dionysius in the loss of personal identy of the iniates of the cult.
The initiates are, in a sense, the body of dionysius in a way similar to the way many Christians feel themselves to be united in the body of God.
The value of this line of thought, in my mind, is that it gives a moral and a kind of joy to the basic premise of God's Debris that you don't get from a kind of capricious God that sees suicide as the ultimate challange.
----------------------------------------------------
Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about him.
-Thomas Merton
Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about him.
-Thomas Merton
[edit in: I wrote this after reading your first post, but not yet your second.]
You can make a statement like this:
But you cannot postulate forward from this the attributes of the universe except to say that all attributes of the universe are attributes of God as well, if God = universe.
You cannot, for example, say:
Same with goodness, wisdom and all other virtues. To the extent that any thing has such virtues they get thrm from God or God is their source.
unless you also say that God is the source of all vices as well. This is the problem that Windy is wrestling with in the thread about suffering which discussion starts here.
If god is defined as everything that exists, then he/she/it is everything - the source of all virtue and of all vice.
The problem with such arguments is that they want to conclude two things while 'proving' only one of them. They begin from the interior belief that God is the source of all virtue, but they attempt to construct a syllogism proving that God first of all exists.
A. It isn't a syllogism at all but only a definition because existence itself is simply the name for what we experience, and we have no counter-experience of non-existence by which this experience of existence could be defined. Existence and God are simply two names we have assigned to two things that we experience blindlly, so to speak. The argument begins by positing that these two names both describe the same thing.
B. Having proven that God is necessary simply by naming the universe God and reiterating the superfluous - that we cannot experience non-existence therefore our experience of existence is 'necessary,' they draw the conclusion that all the attributes they previously assigned to God are as necessary as his existence.
But no attribute necessarily follows from a definition, a naming. The attributes are observed attributes of the universe which we cannot help but experience to exist, and it is not logical to select some attributes as belonging to the 'universe-defined-as-god' and others as belonging to the 'universe-defined-as-something-else' unless you first posit the necessity of the something-else.
The argument leads directly to a Manichean heresy. Either there are two sources of everything in the universe, equal in their necessity, or else there is one source of everything in the universe and all that we experience in the universe is an attribute of that source.
Jn
You can make a statement like this:
which is simply to give a name to the ground of all existence. Let's name existence "God."a.) God is defined as the ground of all existence
b.) the universe exists
c.) therefore god must exist.
But you cannot postulate forward from this the attributes of the universe except to say that all attributes of the universe are attributes of God as well, if God = universe.
You cannot, for example, say:
Same with goodness, wisdom and all other virtues. To the extent that any thing has such virtues they get thrm from God or God is their source.
unless you also say that God is the source of all vices as well. This is the problem that Windy is wrestling with in the thread about suffering which discussion starts here.
If god is defined as everything that exists, then he/she/it is everything - the source of all virtue and of all vice.
The problem with such arguments is that they want to conclude two things while 'proving' only one of them. They begin from the interior belief that God is the source of all virtue, but they attempt to construct a syllogism proving that God first of all exists.
A. It isn't a syllogism at all but only a definition because existence itself is simply the name for what we experience, and we have no counter-experience of non-existence by which this experience of existence could be defined. Existence and God are simply two names we have assigned to two things that we experience blindlly, so to speak. The argument begins by positing that these two names both describe the same thing.
B. Having proven that God is necessary simply by naming the universe God and reiterating the superfluous - that we cannot experience non-existence therefore our experience of existence is 'necessary,' they draw the conclusion that all the attributes they previously assigned to God are as necessary as his existence.
But no attribute necessarily follows from a definition, a naming. The attributes are observed attributes of the universe which we cannot help but experience to exist, and it is not logical to select some attributes as belonging to the 'universe-defined-as-god' and others as belonging to the 'universe-defined-as-something-else' unless you first posit the necessity of the something-else.
The argument leads directly to a Manichean heresy. Either there are two sources of everything in the universe, equal in their necessity, or else there is one source of everything in the universe and all that we experience in the universe is an attribute of that source.
Jn
Last edited by Jnyusa on Mon Apr 24, 2006 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell.
dirtnap, re your second post ....
From last to first:
Yes, I see the analogy you are drawing. There is one difference, which I think would probably be an important difference to Christian theologians.
The role of Dionysius is also analogous to the role of near-Eastern fertility gods and goddesses. The death and resurrection is cyclic, and it is re-enacted to 'prompt' the god to complete the cycle by completing the resurrection, or, if one is more 'sophisticated' and abstract, to simply celebrate the cycle of life and rebirth which is part of our experience. (And if our experience is 'necessary' and also named 'God,' then a cycle of life and rebirth is a necessary attribute of God.)
Christian theology views the death and resurrection of God to be a one-time act. It is associated with a moment in real history which cannot be repeated. And the celebration is not for the purpose of prompting God to do it again, or even for the purpose of simply celebrating that it happened, but for the purpose of aligning the celebrants with the purported will of this god in order to gain access to a world other than this one.
These dimensions - the historical nature of the act, its uniqueness, and its relationship to an afterlife - are not characteristic of other, earlier death and resurrection motifs.
Jn
From last to first:
Yes, I agree with this. I did not find the motivation ascribed to God either compelling or necessary.The value of this line of thought, in my mind, is that it gives a moral and a kind of joy to the basic premise of God's Debris that you don't get from a kind of capricious God that sees suicide as the ultimate challange.
This whole theme does in fact work well in a Christian context but it should be remembered that Dionysius was a god of Joyous celebration who is infact destroyed. The initiates of the cult, in their "orgies" (which involve the loss of differences between people) understand the God to be being reunited with itself. There is a kind of resurection of dionysius in the loss of personal identy of the iniates of the cult.
The initiates are, in a sense, the body of dionysius in a way similar to the way many Christians feel themselves to be united in the body of God.
Yes, I see the analogy you are drawing. There is one difference, which I think would probably be an important difference to Christian theologians.
The role of Dionysius is also analogous to the role of near-Eastern fertility gods and goddesses. The death and resurrection is cyclic, and it is re-enacted to 'prompt' the god to complete the cycle by completing the resurrection, or, if one is more 'sophisticated' and abstract, to simply celebrate the cycle of life and rebirth which is part of our experience. (And if our experience is 'necessary' and also named 'God,' then a cycle of life and rebirth is a necessary attribute of God.)
Christian theology views the death and resurrection of God to be a one-time act. It is associated with a moment in real history which cannot be repeated. And the celebration is not for the purpose of prompting God to do it again, or even for the purpose of simply celebrating that it happened, but for the purpose of aligning the celebrants with the purported will of this god in order to gain access to a world other than this one.
These dimensions - the historical nature of the act, its uniqueness, and its relationship to an afterlife - are not characteristic of other, earlier death and resurrection motifs.
Jn
A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell.
-
Angbasdil
- The man, the myth, the monkey.
- Posts: 606
- Joined: Sat Dec 03, 2005 5:37 am
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Man, this topic is flying high and fast. Let's see if I can grab a peice of it as it flies oh-so-far over my head.
This is the problem I have with most philosophical discussions on morality - who decides what is right and what is wrong?
Monotheists claim that God is the ultimate arbiter of that question. So if we're defining God as that which underlies "being", then that which is "in harmony" with or compatible with God is virtuous and that which is out of harmony with God is viceful. (viceful?... viscious?... whatever, you know what I meant.)
So in this model God would be the source of all virtue and Godlessness would be the source of all vice. Pretty much by definition. Unless somebody has a different working definition of virtue and vice, this is the model I'm going with.
Please define "vice" and "virtue".Jnyusa wrote:You cannot, for example, say:
Same with goodness, wisdom and all other virtues. To the extent that any thing has such virtues they get thrm from God or God is their source.
unless you also say that God is the source of all vices as well. This is the problem that Windy is wrestling with in the thread about suffering which discussion starts here.
If god is defined as everything that exists, then he/she/it is everything - the source of all virtue and of all vice.
This is the problem I have with most philosophical discussions on morality - who decides what is right and what is wrong?
Monotheists claim that God is the ultimate arbiter of that question. So if we're defining God as that which underlies "being", then that which is "in harmony" with or compatible with God is virtuous and that which is out of harmony with God is viceful. (viceful?... viscious?... whatever, you know what I meant.)
So in this model God would be the source of all virtue and Godlessness would be the source of all vice. Pretty much by definition. Unless somebody has a different working definition of virtue and vice, this is the model I'm going with.
Faramond:
The point of the hypothesis is that it is possible to construct a 'reality' in which both positive and negative are present for a particular dimension but only one of them can be experienced by a particular subset of the system. And also, if one accepts von Neumann's definition of entropy as applicable, then the twist is what allows all information to be duplicated perfectly. [edit in: you need the twist for both reasons, for it to show time reversal as zero entropy]
Many apologies for spamming up the thread with three successive posts. I did not realize at first that dirtnap was answering Faramond.
Jn
Because if the strip does not have a twist in it, then the walker does have to change direction in order to experience both positive and negative values of z.Yes, true .... but why then does the strip even need to be a moebius strip? Why can't it be a regular untwisted strip, a "bracelet"? The walker will still be moving back and forth in the z direction if we care to embed the strip in R3. I'm still not sure I understand the importance of the strip having the twist in it!
The point of the hypothesis is that it is possible to construct a 'reality' in which both positive and negative are present for a particular dimension but only one of them can be experienced by a particular subset of the system. And also, if one accepts von Neumann's definition of entropy as applicable, then the twist is what allows all information to be duplicated perfectly. [edit in: you need the twist for both reasons, for it to show time reversal as zero entropy]
Many apologies for spamming up the thread with three successive posts. I did not realize at first that dirtnap was answering Faramond.
Jn
Last edited by Jnyusa on Mon Apr 24, 2006 9:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell.
Thanks, Ang! You've saved my reputation.
But I think you mean 'Godlessness' in the moral sense, and I would agree that this is the point of the exercise, though I don't consider it logically valid.
Jn
Yes, that is the sticking point!This is the problem I have with most philosophical discussions on morality - who decides what is right and what is wrong?
In this model Godlessness would be impossible. If God is necessary, then he cannot not-be.So in this model God would be the source of all virtue and Godlessness would be the source of all vice.
But I think you mean 'Godlessness' in the moral sense, and I would agree that this is the point of the exercise, though I don't consider it logically valid.
Jn
A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell.
I think it is very difficult to construct syllogisms involving God that do not fundamentally depend on faith even in going from a) and b) true to c) true.
dirtnap:
a.) God is defined as the ground of all existence
b.) the universe exists
c.) therefore god must exist.
I want to rewrite a) a little bit, to make it clear that we are not smuggling the premise that God exists into a).
a.) If God exists, then God is necessarily the ground of all existence
b.) The universe exists
There are at least two possibilities here for a conclusion from these statements:
c1) God exists, and God is the ground of all existence
c2) God does not exist, and a giant tortise is the ground of all existence
c2 does not contradict either a) or b)!
edit:
c3) There is no "ground of existence"
One might argue that the turtle would merely be another name for God, but then I would say that presupposing there is such a thing as the "ground of existence" is already smuggling in the concept of God.
One might try to write a) as follows:
a.) God is the only possible ground of existence
This is a statement of faith, though. I think one may come to a faith in God through looking at the universe and concluding that only God may be the ground of being for the existence of the universe, but I don't think a logical syllogism can be constructed out of this.
Jn: It isn't a syllogism at all but only a definition because existence itself is simply the name for what we experience, and we have no counter-experience of non-existence by which this experience of existence could be defined.
What about imagining things that don't exist? Of course, we don't actually experience non-existence ( how could we? ) but is direct experience the only way we can gather knowledge to begin to describe things?
dirtnap:
a.) God is defined as the ground of all existence
b.) the universe exists
c.) therefore god must exist.
I want to rewrite a) a little bit, to make it clear that we are not smuggling the premise that God exists into a).
a.) If God exists, then God is necessarily the ground of all existence
b.) The universe exists
There are at least two possibilities here for a conclusion from these statements:
c1) God exists, and God is the ground of all existence
c2) God does not exist, and a giant tortise is the ground of all existence
c2 does not contradict either a) or b)!
edit:
c3) There is no "ground of existence"
One might argue that the turtle would merely be another name for God, but then I would say that presupposing there is such a thing as the "ground of existence" is already smuggling in the concept of God.
One might try to write a) as follows:
a.) God is the only possible ground of existence
This is a statement of faith, though. I think one may come to a faith in God through looking at the universe and concluding that only God may be the ground of being for the existence of the universe, but I don't think a logical syllogism can be constructed out of this.
Jn: It isn't a syllogism at all but only a definition because existence itself is simply the name for what we experience, and we have no counter-experience of non-existence by which this experience of existence could be defined.
What about imagining things that don't exist? Of course, we don't actually experience non-existence ( how could we? ) but is direct experience the only way we can gather knowledge to begin to describe things?
I don't believe that logic can prove anything about God (or anything else). The only thing logic can do is say that IF such and such is the case than such and such follows from that. Logic is useful but overrated.
The whole question of "godlessness" as broached above is clearlyproblematic and lead many people to conclude that the whole line of thinking is a dead end.
I would say that we "forget" God. This is a product of "the fall". The act that started the whole thing generated the possibility of forgetfullness. The sense we have of reconciliation after an estrangement or meeting a long lost friend is a "form" of remembering. To move toward godliness is a home comming. This is the reason why it feels good to do good. The good feeling lasts when we do good and grows in a way that doing something that feels good but is not good does not. We measure how truely good something was by the presence of regret. Regret is when the good feeling that comes from doing something bad dies. The truely good remains good and gets better. Happy marriages are a case in point.
As far as virtue goes, I think the problem with most ways of thinking this, especially in monotheistic systems, is that people think rightiousness is a place. It is not a place it is a direction. To travel the way of rightiousness is like going west, you can go west for ever but never GET west.
I consider myself (and this bares on the important difference between Christianity and the older "pagan" systems) a heritic. I don't believe that heaven is a place that one can get to, EVER. I don't expect to arrive there someday and my jurney will be over, I expect that to whatever extent I am, to use Christian language "in Christ" I already am in heaven. A lot of it has to do with hom much I convey the love of God to other people.
I am, if such a thing exists, a "non-historical" Christian. I see historical events as repetitions of non-historical events. This is why history "repeats itself" and why obvious similarities exist between the story of Jesus and other stories.
There are things about the event that are hard to know and would make no difference if we did. If people felt that they could discount the teachings of Jesus if they found out, for example, that the resurection didn't happen, then it might as well have not happened. I think God measures us, if I may speak that way, more by how we walk the walk than how we talk the talk. I hope this line of saying does not offend any one, it is my opinion and obviously very possibly dead wrong.
But I digress. The point is that when god sundered itself to create the universe we all recieved shares of Gods Virtues (or talents or powers or what ever). We can use them to resurect god or keep the world godless. It is our choice, we are "Inthe image and likeness of God". But we will go extinct one day and who knows what then. What do we do in a disaster, inwhen confronted by sickness, etc, this is where the "power"(virtue) of god resides.
So to return to God's Debris, I think the mistake in the book is that it is amoral (except in the last few pagtes where the whole thing kind of goes self help). Where is the joy in the paradox that somehow the largest imaginable cataclysm yielded this lovley garden.
The whole question of "godlessness" as broached above is clearlyproblematic and lead many people to conclude that the whole line of thinking is a dead end.
I would say that we "forget" God. This is a product of "the fall". The act that started the whole thing generated the possibility of forgetfullness. The sense we have of reconciliation after an estrangement or meeting a long lost friend is a "form" of remembering. To move toward godliness is a home comming. This is the reason why it feels good to do good. The good feeling lasts when we do good and grows in a way that doing something that feels good but is not good does not. We measure how truely good something was by the presence of regret. Regret is when the good feeling that comes from doing something bad dies. The truely good remains good and gets better. Happy marriages are a case in point.
As far as virtue goes, I think the problem with most ways of thinking this, especially in monotheistic systems, is that people think rightiousness is a place. It is not a place it is a direction. To travel the way of rightiousness is like going west, you can go west for ever but never GET west.
I consider myself (and this bares on the important difference between Christianity and the older "pagan" systems) a heritic. I don't believe that heaven is a place that one can get to, EVER. I don't expect to arrive there someday and my jurney will be over, I expect that to whatever extent I am, to use Christian language "in Christ" I already am in heaven. A lot of it has to do with hom much I convey the love of God to other people.
I am, if such a thing exists, a "non-historical" Christian. I see historical events as repetitions of non-historical events. This is why history "repeats itself" and why obvious similarities exist between the story of Jesus and other stories.
There are things about the event that are hard to know and would make no difference if we did. If people felt that they could discount the teachings of Jesus if they found out, for example, that the resurection didn't happen, then it might as well have not happened. I think God measures us, if I may speak that way, more by how we walk the walk than how we talk the talk. I hope this line of saying does not offend any one, it is my opinion and obviously very possibly dead wrong.
But I digress. The point is that when god sundered itself to create the universe we all recieved shares of Gods Virtues (or talents or powers or what ever). We can use them to resurect god or keep the world godless. It is our choice, we are "Inthe image and likeness of God". But we will go extinct one day and who knows what then. What do we do in a disaster, inwhen confronted by sickness, etc, this is where the "power"(virtue) of god resides.
So to return to God's Debris, I think the mistake in the book is that it is amoral (except in the last few pagtes where the whole thing kind of goes self help). Where is the joy in the paradox that somehow the largest imaginable cataclysm yielded this lovley garden.
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Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about him.
-Thomas Merton
Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about him.
-Thomas Merton
Hey jn? Iis that quan lin on your picture thingy?
Yes! I put up a thread about her(/him) when we first opened.
Quan Yin, Bodhisattva of Compassion
There are things about the event that are hard to know and would make no difference if we did. If people felt that they could discount the teachings of Jesus if they found out, for example, that the resurection didn't happen, then it might as well have not happened.
I very much agree with this. I do not think that the facticity of the story has any bearing on the Truth of the Christian faith, but I am also aware that for many Christians (for most, probably) they must have confidence that it is factual at least to some degree in order for them to have Faith in it. Otherwise it would feel to them that they are arbitrarily believing in something which they know to be untrue.
My views about facticity are colored by my scientific training. Every fact, for me, is simply an observation made through the lens of a paradigm. Observations are not true or untrue in any absolute sense, but they can be consistent with the paradigm and useful within the paradigm and so forth. If you change your paradigm, the meaning of every 'fact' within it also changes, so the only thing that has the status of an absolute is the paradigm, and that of course comes from within us, from the way we choose to organize our thoughts about the world.
Jn
Yes! I put up a thread about her(/him) when we first opened.
Quan Yin, Bodhisattva of Compassion
There are things about the event that are hard to know and would make no difference if we did. If people felt that they could discount the teachings of Jesus if they found out, for example, that the resurection didn't happen, then it might as well have not happened.
I very much agree with this. I do not think that the facticity of the story has any bearing on the Truth of the Christian faith, but I am also aware that for many Christians (for most, probably) they must have confidence that it is factual at least to some degree in order for them to have Faith in it. Otherwise it would feel to them that they are arbitrarily believing in something which they know to be untrue.
My views about facticity are colored by my scientific training. Every fact, for me, is simply an observation made through the lens of a paradigm. Observations are not true or untrue in any absolute sense, but they can be consistent with the paradigm and useful within the paradigm and so forth. If you change your paradigm, the meaning of every 'fact' within it also changes, so the only thing that has the status of an absolute is the paradigm, and that of course comes from within us, from the way we choose to organize our thoughts about the world.
Jn
A fool's paradise is a wise man's hell.
Well, the book is amoral because the approach is scientific, or is purported to be scientific, anyway. These are claimed to be the simplest explanations for why the universe is the way it is, and it's natural that moral motives won't be part of the simplest explanation someone can come up with. It's not a religious book at all, in my opinion, even though it has God in the title.
Doesn't this beg the question of "why" the author decided to include the idea of God. Seems to me that the simplest explaination of how the universe came to be the way it is would not have to include god at all. In addition, the way Avatar tells the story it sounds as if Adams wants to imply that God had some agency in creating the universe, a motive. MAgency complicates the picture right away and is, I think, what makes this book interesting to the extent that it is.Faramond wrote:Well, the book is amoral because the approach is scientific, or is purported to be scientific, anyway. These are claimed to be the simplest explanations for why the universe is the way it is, and it's natural that moral motives won't be part of the simplest explanation someone can come up with. It's not a religious book at all, in my opinion, even though it has God in the title.
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Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about him.
-Thomas Merton
Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about him.
-Thomas Merton
MAgency? What's that?
Well, would anyone be interested in reading a book called "Random Debris"?
What I enjoyed about it were the scattered passages where things really are looked at from a different perspective. It's not always entirely original, but it's not just the same old thing.
edit: and ... simplicity can be a very subjective thing, though it might be possible to create a mathematical function to measure simplicity of an explanation, if only we could know all the terms and concepts that could be used in the explanation. The way the function was set up would still be subjective, but once one was agreed upon simplicity would be objective within that system.
But, you know, the simplest explanation really isn't always the right one.
Well, would anyone be interested in reading a book called "Random Debris"?
What I enjoyed about it were the scattered passages where things really are looked at from a different perspective. It's not always entirely original, but it's not just the same old thing.
edit: and ... simplicity can be a very subjective thing, though it might be possible to create a mathematical function to measure simplicity of an explanation, if only we could know all the terms and concepts that could be used in the explanation. The way the function was set up would still be subjective, but once one was agreed upon simplicity would be objective within that system.
But, you know, the simplest explanation really isn't always the right one.
I meant "agency".
The question of whether anyone would want to read a book called "random debirs" is an interesting one and goes to one of the central reasons that the idea of God is so persistent. People like to think that the universe is a "morally realevent entity". It is hard to CARE about random things, events. If the universe has some agency behind it we can, possibly, relate to it.
The question of whether anyone would want to read a book called "random debirs" is an interesting one and goes to one of the central reasons that the idea of God is so persistent. People like to think that the universe is a "morally realevent entity". It is hard to CARE about random things, events. If the universe has some agency behind it we can, possibly, relate to it.
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Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about him.
-Thomas Merton
Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about him.
-Thomas Merton