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It can refer to such a god, but it can also refer to gods in general:
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/theismDictonary.com said:
How do you tell the difference between "of nature" and "not of nature"?
There are plenty of polytheistic god-concepts that could be described as "a being existing independently to the human mind". Many pantheistic and panentheistic concepts would also qualify.
What do you mean by "energy"?
I don't, actually. For me, gods are like pornography.
What language is that? I don't recall ever defining "god" in this thread.
If so, then if you've never seen it, then why claim you'll know it when you see it? Those who have experience of what they call God say the same thing that, "You know it when you see it". The difference is they are speaking from a place of experience. They call it God because the experience is transcendent in nature (as opposed to mundane like Orange Marmalade). The difference is, to say you'll know it when you see it, until you have seen it, you can't say you know it to say it doesn't exist, since you've yet to see something you have no experience with to know that you'll know it when you see it!
It's a self-annihilating loop. The best you can do is try to argue that those who claim to have experienced that, in fact must not have really experience that, or are mistaken in calling it God, because you've never experienced what they have and therefore it cannot be real. But that's not a very solid argument with handles on it, to say the least.Actually you are touching on some deep truths in this. Yes, your cultural programming is what is telling you God should look like, and it is those filters, those colored glasses that you are looking through in how you evaluate what you hear when others talk about God. You hear them speak of God, and you hear it as "a god", a deity, an entity, a being, and so forth. That's the mental image of God you have been programmed to imagine God is. That's been my entire point from the very outset in all our exchanges on this topic we've ever had.
And that too has been my point all along.
Yes, in the sense you "don't believe in God", in the way you speak of God, I too am an atheist like you. I do not believe in that God either.Sure. There is this great saying I heard someone say once I think captures this perfectly. "The God you don't believe in doesn't exist." There's some legs to that statement. And in the case of the God you don't believe in, there is truth and value in that for you. It has no meaning to you. It doesn't to me either.
You have said repeatedly "a god". That in and of itself is defining God as some external object, some entity, a being, etc. To say "a god". is like saying a dog, or a cat, or a car, or a person, or a frog, etc. It exists outset yourself as an "other". But what if instead someone does not view God as an object but instead understands God as the Subject of all that is? How does that fit the definition of God as "a god", as if it were some sort of supernatural being "out there" somewhere? It doesn't fit at all, actually.
Well, now you've found something that contradicts that.
It certainly is not isolated either.If someone defined marmalade as God, I'd say they were like the man who mistook his wife for a hat!
Again, the word God is a metaphor that points to something beyond the word. The word God inherently has been used to point to the transcendent, the ineffable, etc. One could argue one could "find God" through the taste of marmalade (and I might actually argue that point!), but to say marmalade is God makes the choice of using that metaphor to describe something mundane, I don't know, I'd say that's pretty silly. It would be like exclaiming to the world you have found your true love when you open a box of cereal in the morning, if you aren't making a joke about it.And rightly so they don't want you to limit it to that. There is no way to distinguish between them. It's like calling all Asians Chinese, that they all come from China. Theism is not the umbrella term. It's a very specific form of view regarding Ultimate Reality.
Reality is never actually quite as simple as we want to try to make it! I include myself and my views in that statement.
I actually tend to see that theism and atheism are not opposites but two sides of the same coin.Yes indeed! And hence why I think it behooves all of us to drop these ultimately meaningless labels! Calling ourselves this or that, actually has the effect of limiting your own possibilities. We want to "fit in" somewhere, as this or that, and when we do, we actually disallow in our own thoughts things which appear to not fit that definition of ourselves. We shouldn't define God, nor should we define ourselves for that very reason.
Or you could call them poets.
Grammatically, the word "god" (or "God") is a noun. In this regard, it can be either an object or a subject... just like "crisis", "symmetry", "metaphor", "depression", or any other noun. The fact that we describe something with a noun does not - in and of itself - imply anything about it being "out there" or an "other". That's baggage that YOU are bringing to the conversation, not me.
Ha! Ironic.
When you describe it as "a god", you are making it "out there". You are making it an object by use the definite article, "a" or "an". That's how you are using it in a sentence.
This is absurd. And yes, I do resist you wanting to label everything. For good reason. You lump everything under one category. Every single time you speak of God, the context is always the anthropomorphic sky god. Whenever someone speaks of God outside that context, you say it's not God, not recognizable as God, and so forth. What other conclusion am I supposed to draw from the way you continually pigeon hole God to be that one understanding? I prefer to blur those lines, as rightly they should be, to avoid doing what you're doing.
You mean I don't let you get away with it? Yes, I hold your feet to the fire, because of all the reasons I've said. There is no mutual understanding going on. You persist in defining God in ways for others that do not reflect an understanding of what they believe, such as your suggesting pantheism is belief in "a god". I will call you out on that. Yes. What you call derailing I call halting the train you are driving to keep it from having a trainwreck at the end of the line.
Then quit referring to people who have an view of God as believing in "a god", as you continually do so here, and everywhere you post. The term for that is creating a Strawman argument. You create a solider and stuff it with straw, then knock it down claiming the upper hand in battle.
Projection sandwich.
You start. I'm already open to understanding these things in many, many ways, as opposed to pigeonholing them into my definitions. I'm waiting for you to join that conversation.
So then you believe atheists who believe this are believing in a fiction? And that's not pretentious itself?
I see you have this all figured out! You do have a handle on Ultimate Reality in your mind then. None of it is real except that you can understanding it rationally. To you then, ultimate reality is your own perception of truth, excluding all others. Your mind alone is the standard to measure all reality by.
No it is not. Not for me. I realize that my reality is only seen through the filter of my own subjective mind. My reality is relative, not absolute. Do you believe your thoughts are absolute? Do you believe you can know absolute truth?
Are you sure that's not wishful thinking that you actually are? Everyone has their myths they believe in, including you, including me.
There's a bit of a difference to us here. I too may observe myself as the experiencer, but then I also find it equally if not more productive and valuable to just simply let the experience inform me, rather than trying to analysize the living **** out of it. I consider it a problem doing that, and not letting experience itself be your guide into truth and knowledge, as the subject itself, rather than simply turning the subject into an object of observation.
Actually, I'll correct you. It's not a speculation, but a description of actual experience. You make a big deal about me making a big deal about metaphors, but right here is a classic example of what you take what is in fact a metaphor and make it a definition of the thing itself. "Ultimate Reality" is a finger pointing at the moon, not the moon itself. It is trying to find approximate language to talk about actual experience that goes beyond words.
More real than real. One can be looking what is plainly before their noses, seeing it the whole time, but never actually seeing it. It is in fact "this reality", but when you are sleepwalking though it, can you say you are actually seeing it with your waking mind? When you wake up, then you suddenly understand you were not seeing "real reality". It was only an illusion that you were awake in the dream. That's what it's like. That's what is meant when someone speaks of Ultimate Reality. It includes the subject. It includes the one seeing. It includes one who is awake. It's not some object you can piece together without engaging the one looking. In fact, it's impossible without that.
No, I don't.
No, I don't.
Maybe you could conclude that you'll make more progress speaking to what I actually say instead of what you imagine I mean.
So, I get it you think it's speculation. That's of course what it looks like to you.
Tell that to those who have experienced that. Tell that to me. Then imagine how you must sound?
You must have thought quite deeply on this. Too bad it's not supported by the data.
Well, you have reality figured out then. Carry on with it then, rather than trying to prove others experience of it isn't real.
Are you really going to make me go through each post and quote you everytime you say it? What will that prove to you? If you simply watch my reaction when it happens, look at your word choices at that time and take account of them. See why I'm saying it. I don't just say you are for no reason. You go and look yourself. But I'll make a point going forward to highlight it, bold it, bookmark it, and put in 24 point font, if that will help.
That's how it appears to you. It's much the same when people describe reality in such a way that it's outside their own personal experience. The difference lies in how the person hearing something outside their experience responds to it. In once case they might say, "I don't see that. I haven't had such an experience myself so I can't really say." In another case a different person might say, "I've never had such an experience, therefore it's sounds like you're full of pretentious waffling. I've never seen it, therefore it has to be a lie, and you have a problem, thinking you know better than me! You don't!" I think the former person shows an open mind and is intellectually and emotionally honest with themselves. The latter leaves something to be desired.
