God did it

[mikkel_the_dane]

I am skeptic, so I know the problem of giving a definition of God. The problem is the end as some atheists will point out, is that God is unknown, without reason, logic and evidence. But that is also the solution and the definition of God. And it isn't mine. The credit belongs to Immanuel Kant.
Now remember the problem of describing God involves, that all human description tend to have a subjective element, so if I remove all subjective elements and only do it objective, with reason and logic, the answer is that God is das Ding an sich.
God has been given many individual definitions, but they all share the following: God is objective, i.e. independent of humans in some sense. What which is independent of your mind is in the western myth of what God is; is the objective reality; i.e. das Ding an sich. But nobody knows that with knowledge. That is Agrippa's Trilemma and the limit of knowledge. What reality is independent of your mind, is unknown to you, because you know reality through your mind and your mind is not independent of your mind.
To some atheists God/das Ding an sich is the natural world. Further to some it is even known as philosophical physicalism, materialism or naturalism. These atheists are gnostics, they know what they can't know. They share that in a similar sense with some religious people, the strong Theists and other variants of gnosticism, not Gnosticism.

We if we indeed share parts of reality and you are not a Boltzmann Brain, then all of us, who engage in this forum have an attitude towards this: Ranging from indifference to a strong dogmatic belief.
We can't really know what das Ding an sich is, yet some of us can't stop debating the objective nature of God and what God really is. The joke is that for all us, who do that, we share the same problem. We speak of the Unknown. The only way to objective speak of the Unknown is to explain, how it is Unknown. I.e. the Unknown is that which is independent of your mind and how that is in itself.
In philosophy it is this:

Philosophy, (from Greek, by way of Latin, philosophia, “love of wisdom”) the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience. Philosophical inquiry is a central element in the intellectual history of many civilizations.

Kant solved the first part: Das Ding an sich. So if you know your philosophy you only do the second part in practice. In science the second part is methodological naturalism. We start with the assumption that God is natural, impersonal and don't care for humans and accepts there are other assumptions possible.
That is the explanation of this:

Questions that deal with supernatural explanations are, by definition, beyond the realm of nature

Science has limits: A few things that science does not do

That won't stop some humans in doing the first part with a claim of knowledge. In practice the falsification of all of these variants regardless of being claimed with science, philosophy and/or religion, is to note the following to that person: We can both get away with subjectively believing differently, so stop claiming a knowledge of what God/das Ding an sich really is. Accept that it is how you make sense of the rest of reality and that I do it differently and then we can start looking at what we apparently share.
Do in practice the fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience and you will notice the following: As humans we share some parts as the same, some are similar and others are different.
If you claim, that you can do the individual difference between how you and I individually cope the same, I just answer: No!
Nobody including you, I or anybody else have in practice authority over other humans in the name of the SAME, because I just answer with the difference: No!

With regards

 

[Darkforbid]

The thing?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The thing?

If you mean the thing in itself as das Ding an sich, then yes. I assumes you as a theist name it God and claim it has other aspects. As a follow human, I hope your beliefs work for you. I hope the same for atheists BTW. The fun starts with the everyday world we apparently share.

 

[Darkforbid]

If you mean the thing in itself as das Ding an sich, then yes. I assumes you as a theist name it God and claim it has other aspects. As a follow human, I hope your beliefs work for you. I hope the same for atheists BTW. The fun starts with the everyday world we apparently share.

No, I don't play the belief game. It's knowledge or nothing.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No, I don't play the belief game. It's knowledge or nothing.

And reductio ad absurdum we go.
For 2 contradictory claims of the same, one is false as per logic.
Likewise there can't be 2 contradictory claims of knowledge for the same.
Now if you know and I don't know for the same world, one of then is false. But there is more.
If I don't know, I can't even write this text and you can't even answer me, but rather if all there is, when I do something without knowledge is nothing, then that is absurd.
Do play nothing with a skeptic. Nothing is not really nothing, it is the absence of something, yet something else. Nothing is a compound word made up out of the speech act of no and the word for something tangible; a thing. Nothing is not nothing, it is the idea of nothing and that is something.

So if you Know and I don't, I believe and I can get way with it, because we are communicating in fact as a fact for the everyday world.
Now for God with souls, Hell, Heaven and what else you could add, you can believe that you Know. Only God Knows. Whether there are an afterlife, what kind and where you and I respectively end up is a question left to God. As much as You Know, I just don't do that. I leave that to God, whether God is the natural world or a personal God. If God is the natural world, we die, if God is a personal God, you might go to Hell or Heaven, if God is reincarnation, then there is that.

So in the end we both use faith, I just admit, but I don't claim Knowledge of God actually is. I believe what God is, is that God is fair in some sense what ever that is depending on what kind of God there really is. I am in a natural world or I am in a supernatural world with souls and what not. What I don't believe in, is that I am a Boltzmann Brain or that I go to Hell, just because I don't know like you.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Darkforbid's posts got me thinking and there is another take on knowledge.

I start with the standard atheistic argument of the contradiction between of the different versions in theism and religion otherwise.
They can't all be correct knowledge, because logic tells us that for e.g. all God is, God can't be X and non-X and so on.
So for all the versions only one could be true. But there is a limit to this kind of logic. Let me show you:
The moon is made of cheese or the moon is made of styrofoam.
One of them is false per logic and therefor the other is true, right?!!
So here it is in the amendment version for 3 categories:

1. I Know there is a supernatural world and not a natural world.
2. I Know there is a natural world and not a supernatural world.
3. I know neither claim as knowledge.

Look closer. For 1 and 2 one of them is without knowledge, but doesn't that mean that other one is true. There is the 3rd option, that is unknown and it has the following going for it in its favor. It is not evidence per se. Rather it is the following, there are humans without Knowledge of what the world is in the metaphysical sense, yet they are a part of the everyday world.
Now all humans for all time without Knowledge end up jumping out from cliffs or killing each other. But then there would be no humans now.
I once heard it expressed in the following strong sense. Only strong atheists are a part of reality. But then everybody else would die of stupidity or kill each other, but that is not observable for the everyday world.

 

[charlie sc]

The only way to objective speak of the Unknown is to explain, how it is Unknown. I.e. the Unknown is that which is independent of your mind and how that is in itself.

How does one demonstrate a thing in itself exists and I don't know how someone can explain the unknown? You can only really ostensibly explain the unknown by comparing it to the known.

 

[dybmh]

I am skeptic, so I know the problem of giving a definition of God.

Why define God? Is there a practical reason for it?

• I Know there is a supernatural world and not a natural world.

• I Know there is a natural world and not a supernatural world.

• I know neither claim as knowledge.

I apologize if this was previously addressed, but why can't there be both a natural world and a supernatural world layered ( in a manner of speaking ) one on top of the other?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

How does one demonstrate a thing in itself exists and I don't know how someone can explain the unknown? You can only really ostensibly explain the unknown by comparing it to the known.

You are not everything, right? You don't control everything, right? Everything else than you, caused you to exist, right?
So let us tackle ontological solipsism: There is only me and my subconscious mind.
When you check that, you notice that the subconscious is not yours, because you can't control it. It comes to you, not from you. That is the causation regardless of Hume. You are caused by something else.

Now can you control that something else? No! And you are the effect of that something else. You are the first person conscious experience, which is ultimately caused by something else. So what is that something else independent of your first person conscious experience? Something else in itself. You know it is there, because you know that something else exists and you know you can't control it. It won't do as you like and if you don't as it likes, it does it anyway.
You don't control reality. Reality controls you. What reality is independent of your first person conscious experience is unknown, because you only know as first person conscious experience, yet there is something else.

In other words something in itself is only known to be there, because you can't control everything else. Everything else controls you. That is the thing in itself. It must be there, because you can test it and it is not you, because you can't control it.
That is the unknown. What is independent of your mind. Having objective existence independent of the mind, means that because all your experience is subjective, it is something else than you. Objective is not you in ontological terms.
I think therefore I am - is the subjective version. I can't control everything I experience and it comes to me - is the objective version, Because the objective causes the subjective, unless you believe you are God or one with God, you know the difference .- That which is you and that, which is not you. That, which is not you, is the thing in itself.

Take a pick:
You are everything that exists and you control everything.
Or you are caused by the objective and you are the subjective effect, but you only really know what is in your mind.

If we agree, we can move on what that means for knowledge in practice and how it ties into methodological naturalism and the difference for all strong version of metaphysics for what objective reality really is.

 

[charlie sc]

You are not everything, right?

A bit vague but true.

ou don't control everything, right?

Control is a can of worms. One could argue I control nothing for materialistic or deterministic reasons and the abstract concept of control implies one is already in control. Circular reasoning?

Everything else than you, caused you to exist, right?

I don't know how you can cause something to exist.

So let us tackle ontological solipsism: There is only me and my subconscious mind.

In this hypothetical, I don't know how you can get to the subconscious mind. Granted, there's you and your thoughts, but I don't know how you came to the subconscious.

Unfortunately, without argument, the rest falls away.

 

[Valjean]

Why define God? Is there a practical reason for it?

Because for a word to be a word, it must have a shared, communicative meaning, it must denote something. We cannot speak of God -- or any concept -- without a shared understanding of the terms used.

I apologize if this was previously addressed, but why can't there be both a natural world and a supernatural world layered ( in a manner of speaking ) one on top of the other?

There could, I suppose, but the numinous, supernatural world would be, by definition, undetectable and unknowable.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Why define God? Is there a practical reason for it?

Yes and it ties into ethics. In short all attempts of doing objective ethics are bound up on this one idea: There is something not subjective, individual and so on from which we can all draw a common, objective, universal and so on source for ethics.
But the problem is that requires in the end strong objective knowledge, but that is not possible, because strong objective knowledge is not with humans and any claim of objective ethics is in the end only imaginable as being with God. The problem is that God is unknowable in all versions, other than as what you believe what objective reality is, if you believe it is there and you claim you know what it is other than being objective reality in itself. But the problem is that nobody knows what objective reality really is. The rest follows as an answer to your 3rd question.

I apologize if this was previously addressed, but why can't there be both a natural world and a supernatural world layered ( in a manner of speaking ) one on top of the other?[/QUOTE]
Because of the problem of ontological dualism combined with causation, time, space and so on. Further how can one ontological different existence cause another. Either the cause is impersonal(natural) or personal(supernatural). There are other solutions, but the problem remains in these. Humans are subjective and the subjective supervenes on the objective. In other words supervenes means that you are caused by the objective, but it can't be turn into pure objective knowledge.
Now a fair warning, you don't have to tackle this. But in practice you will run into it none the less. Some humans like to claim objective ethics and it also involves something not them, yet they know it as them.
So one solution is to shown that it doesn't make sense to claim what God is other than what you believe objective reality really is.
Some atheists know objective reality is an impersonal reality and judge other humans according to it. Some humans use pure reason and logic as part of objectivity, but in practice it is subjective. It is always how they in part subjective evaluate other humans and their behavior. Some use that they know the personal God. The list goes on, but in the end no matter what name you give God/objective reality/what ever nobody knows what it really is and nobody has strong objective knowledge.

In practice we all individually or as individual groups of we versus them do morality and/or ethics subjectively. A group of we is in the end not objective either.

Yeah, it is long, but it is not that simple. If it was simple you would be wrong and I right, simply because I said so. But you know that is not how it works, right? Well, it works so in the other direction too. But that understanding requires that we both know that morality and ethics are subjective and that is no always the case. And once you start debating objective ethics, you will if it continues, it will hit what objective reality really is.
Is ethics from God? Is ethics simply outside humans in nature itself? Is ethics objective in the end as per biological evolution? Is ethics objectively rational with pure logic and reason independent of all subjectivity? The list goes on for all this attempt, but they all share in the end this - I believe I know what objectively is better than you. Even virtue ethics or intuition claims end there. Don't trust yourself and don't learn for yourself. Trust something else, which I know is better for us all; i.e. that is the objective.

 

[PureX]

No, I don't play the belief game. It's knowledge or nothing.

Except that knowledge, for we humans, is based on relative functionality and the assumption that if it works for us, it's 'true' (for us). Which is, itself, a "belief game".

 

[usfan]

I see 2 possibilities, for origins and the universe:

1. Goddidit
2. Nuthindidit

Since we want to keep with cutesy caricatures, they both should have them.

But more exactly, the 2 possibilities are,

1. Supernatural/sentient Being Cause
2. Atheistic naturalism

The evidence is the same, and anyone can plug them into either model and construct a plausible speculation.

But 'proof!?' Hardly. Belief and opinion, shaped by many factors, is all there is.

 

[dybmh]

@mikkel_the_dane ,

I read your reply, and all of it makes good sense to me. I cannot find fault in it.

But I still do not see a practical usage for it outside of this:

Seeking objective universal ethics and morality is impossible. Therefore, the best any human can do when making a decision on what actions to take is to evaluate each circumstance on a case by case basis and do their best to do no harm.

Because seeking universal objective ethics and morality is impossible, each and every human will inevitably cause harm unintentionally even under the best circumstances.

Therefore accurate judgement of ethical vs. unethical and moral vs. immoral is impossible.

The best any person can do when making a judgement, is to attempt discover the intention of any given action, who benefits from it, and who is harmed.

 

[Valjean]

I see 2 possibilities, for origins and the universe:

1. Goddidit
2. Nuthindidit

Since we want to keep with cutesy caricatures, they both should have them.

But more exactly, the 2 possibilities are,

1. Supernatural/sentient Being Cause
2. Atheistic naturalism

The evidence is the same, and anyone can plug them into either model and construct a plausible speculation.

But 'proof!?' Hardly. Belief and opinion, shaped by many factors, is all there is.

1. Goddidit (not an explanation, but an assertion of agency)
2. Atheistic naturalism (physics didit?)
3. Unknown.

Q: Is "origin" an appropriate word, given our understanding of theoretical physics?

In the absence of evidence/proof, what is the default position? Wouldn't the reasonable approach be to withhold belief pending evidence?

 

[shmogie]

And reductio ad absurdum we go.
For 2 contradictory claims of the same, one is false as per logic.
Likewise there can't be 2 contradictory claims of knowledge for the same.
Now if you know and I don't know for the same world, one of then is false. But there is more.
If I don't know, I can't even write this text and you can't even answer me, but rather if all there is, when I do something without knowledge is nothing, then that is absurd.
Do play nothing with a skeptic. Nothing is not really nothing, it is the absence of something, yet something else. Nothing is a compound word made up out of the speech act of no and the word for something tangible; a thing. Nothing is not nothing, it is the idea of nothing and that is something.

So if you Know and I don't, I believe and I can get way with it, because we are communicating in fact as a fact for the everyday world.
Now for God with souls, Hell, Heaven and what else you could add, you can believe that you Know. Only God Knows. Whether there are an afterlife, what kind and where you and I respectively end up is a question left to God. As much as You Know, I just don't do that. I leave that to God, whether God is the natural world or a personal God. If God is the natural world, we die, if God is a personal God, you might go to Hell or Heaven, if God is reincarnation, then there is that.

So in the end we both use faith, I just admit, but I don't claim Knowledge of God actually is. I believe what God is, is that God is fair in some sense what ever that is depending on what kind of God there really is. I am in a natural world or I am in a supernatural world with souls and what not. What I don't believe in, is that I am a Boltzmann Brain or that I go to Hell, just because I don't know like you.

So you deny that God has revealed at least some of who he is to humans, and that those humans speak with authority about that experience ?

 

[Twilight Hue]

Ok

I had to look up Boltzmann brain.


Boltzmann brain - Wikipedia

 

[Valjean]

So you deny that God has revealed at least some of who he is to humans, and that those humans speak with authority about that experience ?

Odd, then, that no two report the same message. Surely the Author of the Universe could make Himself clear, if He wanted to, and deliver a consistent, unambiguous communique.

 

[shmogie]

Odd, then, that no two report the same message. Surely the Author of the Universe could make Himself clear, if He wanted to, and deliver a consistent, unambiguous communique.

Those differences are a sign of authenticity, not in-authenticity.

First, No clearer sign of scrubbed and made up material supposedly written by different people exists than total agreement on small details.

Second, I can tell you as a retired LEO that people can see or hear the exact same thing, yet report the details differently depending upon perspective. Because the narratives are not totally consistent in every detail confirms them, rather than not.

The differences are minor, and do not take in any way from the critical messages from God.