The non-existence of Gods

[rational experiences]

Start by proving or disproving these

Qualities of God: omnipotence, omniscience, benevolence, supreme virtue, lives in an unconditioned eternal reality, omnipresence, immaterial, timeless, spaceless, has wisdom and knowledge that is irrefutable, all knowing and wise, has specific laws of justice, can literally do anything, supernatural, is the supreme moral authority, interacts with humanity by God's own governing spirit, has a plan to defeat all adversaries deemed to be evil, plan and purpose of God is being carried out in the world, carrying out the redemption of those whom heed God's commandments, author of Salvation, absolutely fair, has performed miracles, miracle worker, cannot and will not lie, always speaks truth, pure heartedness, holy, cannot and will not do evil or sin, God is love above all things, The most merciful, cannot and will not change in character, Supreme creator of a fallen world, the only true just avenger, expects true followers to put God's will first and foremost, expects true followers to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them, wills that all be saved, must grant the freedom of will to accept or reject God for the sake of true fellowship, what did I miss?

lives in an unconditioned eternal reality

Male human self bio owned consciousness, quotes "living".

If you ask a male in science, when the O stone mass is the END of a hot dense state cooled in the state spatial vacuum, then in fact the Heavens owns no quote to a science theist stating facts of advice, creation in space.

Hence the presence heavenly gas mass cannot be termed relative to scientific thesis in reality.

For the living unconditioned eternal reality is what he expresses consciously as a man/male and a human claiming it.

Science therefore owns no status of inference about owning the theme eternal in a false theist storytelling quoting that the infinite is also the eternal and if I get to understand the body of space, as the infinite then I will own a non stop resource.

For it is what his human greed developed a thesis about. Yet he owns the heavenly stone mass gases...that by string puts those stone gases back inside of the stone planet body. Why he cannot use them in any science theme.

As a rational explanation why he was proven wrong before seeing he did destroy attack life on Earth 3 times before in science machinery reactions.

When life owned teaching of God relative to the planet of stone as the philosophy of the stone, no matter who he thinks self is today to discuss God in a new thesis of relativity, he cannot remove how God in science was theorised before.

Yet his egotism says he is allowed to. God by definition was described how it was scientific theorised as the planet. And its heavenly gases from stone.

If you ask science okay as a consciousness in science relativity you want to theory a self belief in the presence eternal. Where is it? It cannot be living by a human condition for we own living and we also die.

Then you realise he owns the same sort of spiritual quote that a spiritual human quotes. Nature and the animals and the humans came out of the eternal.

Our story quotes...due to space, an emptied out burnt converted eternal mass put gases by a mass volume back into space. Which communicated as that mass back to the eternal, to alter its ability to speak its own spirit language. So it released its owned spirits who came into the atmospheric body and converted....to be a living spirit before and then became a converted living spirit who then died because we got converted.

So we no longer rationally in any science theory own any living spirit, for it was given death as its inheritance.

However humans quote, when I die I still own one of the highest spirits.

Some people began to quote, when I die I fly off into the heavenly clouds and be with God and Jesus. When clouds historically evolved out of hot dense gas mass released into space, vapour and evaporation conditions cooling in a spatial vacuum, as origin of clouds.

Our life water however, what we need to remain alive, evaporated in a huge massive event off the ground and flew off into the heavens to cool the burning spirit gases. And our images, carbonised mass of microbes that we use for our body energy made images. That history said death was given to human life, as another form of sacrificed life death.

I never believed I was any angel...and wondered why a human could not quote that self was the highest ownership of the spiritual life and body. But have since learnt why so many humans believed that when they died they went into the cloud heavens....when it was a scientific cause and effect of a human doing to it a human.

Therefore as a lot of humans consciously believe in that thesis, many scientists who claim self spiritually motivated would also have believed it. Why the modern day science self wonders at what they are discussing in a God thesis, when it is not relative to the gases having by string of thoughts inference come out of a stone mass body that ended in spatial creation as relative to false thesis.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

OMGs... I've been out-modded! Every time I changed the code, it would revert it back for some reason. I think RF just hates me sometimes.



I suppose it technically depends on the concept of personhood being referenced (aka, one's foundational assumptions). My default map of the territory is influenced by a couple of streams of thought there - both environmental ethics as well as animism. When studying environmental ethics, one of the huge points of discussion we had is how we determine something is worthy of ethical consideration. As part of that conversation, we discussed the concept of personhood from a more philosophical standpoint and how this is to no small degree a subjective determination (aka, a lot more idealist than materialist).

In this context, there really isn't any materialist evidence for personhood since I'm referencing a subjectively determined quality projected onto something. We have some constructed ideal of "person" and that ideal is.... well... an idea. It's non-material and not bound by materialist assumptions. Maybe that clarifies where that comment came from a bit? The animism bit gets a lot more complicated and challenging to articulate sometimes, and not sure my brain is in that space right now. Plus it really deserves its own thread anyway.



Only to a point, though. Most words are polysemic, or have multiple meanings depending on context. This is part of how one can account for words being used differently in cultures speaking "the same" language. I use the words I use for a couple main reasons. One, I use the words I use because they were used that way long before I was born and there's plenty of precedent for it once you study theology more broadly. But the bigger reason is... I don't have a choice.

One of the major consequences of cultural hegemony is that they control use of language. Words used to describe things in other ways straight up disappear out of the vocabulary. Vestiges of it can sometimes still be there, but they're obscure terms and people aren't going to know what they mean anyway. So I am left with two options: use obscure terms nobody knows the meaning of anyway (assuming I have even that much, which I rarely do)... or use the available equivalents that are the closest fit. The long and the short of it, when you're a religious minority (and I'm sure you have experience with this yourself) others are going to be confused no matter what words you use. You can't win. Ever. You have to explain the basics of your worldview over and over, and even then you get people throwing in your face "that's not the definition of that word." It's frustrating and stalls out real, substantive conversations about our religions. Others throw obstacles in my face I can't do anything about because I can't not use words.

This, perhaps, is why I set a very low bar for what gods are. If you tell me something is one of your gods, I take that at face value. I won't demand your gods meet my definition of gods. I won't call them false gods. I won't say they aren't real. I just accept what people tell me about their gods. I've had to deal with too much crap about it myself to do otherwise, I guess. And maybe I ask "what about these makes them gods to you?" It's a question I wished I was asked more often, because it gets at why the following is a non-issue and that I'm not using the word "gods" arbitrarily:



The decision to deify something isn't done on a whim; rather, it carries a very special and particular meaning. It designates things as worthy of worship. What that means varies, but one philosophy of religion professor put things well to me once, I think. They taught that one of the only attributes of gods common to all cultures is that gods are fundamentally greater. That is, they are higher powers than us. Gods (or similar words) is the term we use to describe that transcends humanity in great and grand way.

Because I have studied the sciences heavily, one of the things I came to know is how utterly dependent I am on various aspects of nature for my existence. They are, to me, unquestionably qualified as higher powers, worthy of worship. Without them, I wouldn't be here. No humans would. This recognition of dependence (or interdependence at times) is what tends to fuel the theistic impetus or deification. It is the acknowledgement that one is part of something greater and the gratitude that comes with simply existing as part of it. For me, the gods are the world (natural/immanent); this is the typical polytheist view. For others, the gods are what's behind the world (supernatural/transcendent); this is the typical monotheist view. But both sentiments stem from expressing that fundamental sense of something greater and grander than us. Something worthy of praise, respect, and gratitude (aka, worship) - those are the gods.

Sorry. That was long.

That is one **** good post. You really know your stuff.

 

[Left Coast]

OMGs... I've been out-modded! Every time I changed the code, it would revert it back for some reason. I think RF just hates me sometimes.

What?? RF is glitchy?? No!

I suppose it technically depends on the concept of personhood being referenced (aka, one's foundational assumptions). My default map of the territory is influenced by a couple of streams of thought there - both environmental ethics as well as animism. When studying environmental ethics, one of the huge points of discussion we had is how we determine something is worthy of ethical consideration. As part of that conversation, we discussed the concept of personhood from a more philosophical standpoint and how this is to no small degree a subjective determination (aka, a lot more idealist than materialist).

As someone who is a pretty new vegan, largely due to ethical considerations, this is a philosophical topic that fascinates me. I actually agree that ethical considerations should extend beyond homo sapiens. And FWIW, I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of self-identified materialists likely agree. They may not agree to the extent I do, but very few people think animals are owed zero ethical consideration. That said, I don't think I owe my shower curtain particular ethical consideration. It's a synthetic sheet of fabric that is inanimate and unconscious. Do you think I owe ethical consideration to my shower curtain? I don't mean what I do with it in relation to other people we'd agree I should behave ethically toward (e.g. I can't throw it in my neighbor's yard as trash when it's ripped and I'm done with it). I mean ethical consideration to the shower curtain itself, because of what it is. Is my shower curtain a person?

I don't ask these questions to be an ***, but because I genuinely want to understand what you're thinking here.

In this context, there really isn't any materialist evidence for personhood since I'm referencing a subjectively determined quality projected onto something.

The fact that the definition is subjectively contrived doesn't mean there can't be evidence for the thing once we've defined it. Chess is a completely arbitrary game; it's rules were developed subjectively. But once we agree on those rules, we can say objectively whether a move is legal or illegal, given our rules. Similarly, once we define what person means to us, we can look out in the world, observe something, and determine if it meets the criteria. We do this constantly, with all kinds of labels. "Person" is a label that, I fully admit, might have some fuzzy boundaries, but it is functionally sufficient to at least determine most cases. And where it's fizzy, we can specifically identify in what way it's fuzzy, given a certain example.

We have some constructed ideal of "person" and that ideal is.... well... an idea. It's non-material and not bound by materialist assumptions. Maybe that clarifies where that comment came from a bit? The animism bit gets a lot more complicated and challenging to articulate sometimes,

and not sure my brain is in that space right now. Plus it really deserves its own thread anyway.

I would greatly enjoy a thread explaining animism.

Only to a point, though. Most words are polysemic, or have multiple meanings depending on context. This is part of how one can account for words being used differently in cultures speaking "the same" language. I use the words I use for a couple main reasons. One, I use the words I use because they were used that way long before I was born and there's plenty of precedent for it once you study theology more broadly. But the bigger reason is... I don't have a choice.

One of the major consequences of cultural hegemony is that they control use of language. Words used to describe things in other ways straight up disappear out of the vocabulary. Vestiges of it can sometimes still be there, but they're obscure terms and people aren't going to know what they mean anyway. So I am left with two options: use obscure terms nobody knows the meaning of anyway (assuming I have even that much, which I rarely do)... or use the available equivalents that are the closest fit. The long and the short of it, when you're a religious minority (and I'm sure you have experience with this yourself) others are going to be confused no matter what words you use. You can't win. Ever. You have to explain the basics of your worldview over and over, and even then you get people throwing in your face "that's not the definition of that word." It's frustrating and stalls out real, substantive conversations about our religions. Others throw obstacles in my face I can't do anything about because I can't not use words.

This, perhaps, is why I set a very low bar for what gods are. If you tell me something is one of your gods, I take that at face value. I won't demand your gods meet my definition of gods. I won't call them false gods. I won't say they aren't real. I just accept what people tell me about their gods. I've had to deal with too much crap about it myself to do otherwise, I guess. And maybe I ask "what about these makes them gods to you?" It's a question I wished I was asked more often, because it gets at why the following is a non-issue and that I'm not using the word "gods" arbitrarily:

I readily concede, that "god" is one of those words that gets used a million different ways depending on who's talking. I also recognize that Abrahamic religion takes up most of the oxygen in these conversations, and all non-Abrahamic concepts don't fit in Abrahamic boxes.

In a conversation with a theist, I try to let the theist define what they mean by "god," so we're using the word the same way. There is a point, however, where we have to step back and say that some things just strain credulity and language to call gods. If everything is a God, then nothing is a God, no?

The decision to deify something isn't done on a whim; rather, it carries a very special and particular meaning. It designates things as worthy of worship. What that means varies, but one philosophy of religion professor put things well to me once, I think. They taught that one of the only attributes of gods common to all cultures is that gods are fundamentally greater. That is, they are higher powers than us. Gods (or similar words) is the term we use to describe that transcends humanity in great and grand way.

Because I have studied the sciences heavily, one of the things I came to know is how utterly dependent I am on various aspects of nature for my existence. They are, to me, unquestionably qualified as higher powers, worthy of worship. Without them, I wouldn't be here. No humans would. This recognition of dependence (or interdependence at times) is what tends to fuel the theistic impetus or deification. It is the acknowledgement that one is part of something greater and the gratitude that comes with simply existing as part of it. For me, the gods are the world (natural/immanent); this is the typical polytheist view. For others, the gods are what's behind the world (supernatural/transcendent); this is the typical monotheist view. But both sentiments stem from expressing that fundamental sense of something greater and grander than us. Something worthy of praise, respect, and gratitude (aka, worship) - those are the gods.

Let's break this down a bit by looking at what you mean by "worship." You described it as praise, respect, and gratitude.

Now, why would I praise the Sun for shining? Praise is something given to someone who does some act that's admirable or noble. But the Sun isn't a person, and hasn't consciously done anything, and can't hear your praises. So why would we praise it?

Similarly, why would we respect it, and what would it even mean to respect something that you have no ability to influence or interact with?

I can certainly be grateful for the Sun, but my gratitude isn't toward the Sun as though the Sun paid me a kindness. It's simply gratitude for the fortune of the situation. I have no reason to thank the Sun for something it didn't intentionally do.

So the fact that some thing is "higher" than me, ie I couldn't exist without it, I'm dependent on it, etc. isn't a reason in itself to worship the thing.

Sorry. That was long.

Not to worry.

 

[Left Coast]

That is not quite the meaning. Seeing earth as a mother is not the same as seeing it is flat. One is a relationship that an individual has to the earth the other is a statement about the earth's shape. This is the distinction between a religious concept and a factual concept. The one is the perspective of the individual and does not need to make scientific sense and the other is an evidence based evaluation of the Earth.

This is a dualism that I find...perplexing. why should religious concepts be immune to factual analysis? I would rather have views that are factual. I don't understand why religion needs to be put in a separate box to be evaluated by different criteria than how we evaluate any other ideas. Ironically, that kind of thinking is a product of the Western Enlightenment that produced deism and modern progressive theism.

As far as the Earth being your mother, if you mean that in a metaphorical or symbolic sense, peachy. And so I can understand why you'd say that's not something strictly factual. But if you mean that the Earth is actually a sentient being, then that actually is a statement we can assess scientifically, as with the Earth's shape.

The concept of god has been so distorted by the dominant Abrahamic religion that it becomes difficult to see it from a different perspective. A concept such as god is very hard to define. Does a god need to be supernatural? why? Does a god need to be conscious, all powerful or all knowing? Human concepts for what is a god have been extremely varied through human existence. I challenge you to define what a god is with reasonable evidence then you can as me why use a word that is difficult to find a meaning.

Let's save time and cut to the chase: what do you mean by the term god? And what things that demonstrably exist fit the definition of that term?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Sure there is. We're alive, we're conscious, we employ agency, we engage in actions that require intelligence, etc.
...

There is no scientific evidence for consciousness, agency and intelligence as those are not empirical as observable sensible experience.
You can't see consciousness, agency or intelligence. They have no physical properties.
You have properly never checked what subjectivity is relevant for this, because you don't have to because it works for you everyday, so there is no reason to check. What you are unaware of, if that is the case, is that like some other (sub-)cultures your belief system doesn't actually match the requirement that your beliefs must be backed up by evidence as per science.

So here is how beliefs without evidence as per science works. We humans can mimic behavior and words are behavior and give rise to further behavior including that they "code" how brains work. So you are "coded" by your western culture to behave in a certain way by how your cultural upbringing in the end result in the actual neurological configuration of your brain.
That applies to all of us, but some of us can break the "cultural code" by learning to recognize and analyze subjectivity and not just take it for granted. We in effect become "coded" in a different way.

In other words you properly can't see your cultural upbringing, because you are it and you haven't looked because there is no reason to look because it works subjectively. Everybody around you think and feel the same way so for you as western, so it must be with evidence as per science. There is no reason to doubt that belief system and in the end we are playing a subjective game of objectivity, reason, logic, proof, truth, evidence, science, rational and what not for which all of these words in part have a subjective "encoding" and value.
Now of course you are an individual, but in general terms you are "coded" by your culture. That off course also apply to everybody else including me. The difference is that for some cases of of behavior, you are your subjective behavior without noticing that it has no objective evidence, but you take for granted that it has, because your culture has in effect as one of it highest subjective values objective evidence.

Now of course I am no different. I am not rational as with only objective evidence. Rather I admit that I am in part subjective and that I have beliefs without rational, objective justification. So let us pin point that part of the western culture. It goes back to old classical Greek culture and rests on the belief that everything can be explained rationally. Because western science is a result in part of the assumption and that rationality is better than other forms of understanding it is hard to break for some humans.
How? Well, it is a foundational dogma that you can't doubt rationality or question if it has limits, because of how thinking and feelings work. If you believe in rationality and question that, you get the first person subjective emotional experience of it being meaningless. But if you haven't learned that the feeling of it being meaningless is a subjective result based on that you actually take rationality as being universal, you will dismiss it as irrelevant.

So here it is for philosophy. To learn to check any belief system without taking your own subjective assumptions for granted takes in general years of training and has no practical value. You don't need to learn it, because if you are well enough adapted to your surrounding culture, it has no practical use to learn to doubt your value system and your beliefs. You might become a sub-culture within your culture, but even that doesn't tell you if you have broken the spell of "rationality" and all its brother and sisters. Greek philosophy, Christianity and western atheism are in general connected by the idea of justified evidence. You can observe that simply by looking at this forum and the obsession with proof, evidence and what not.

So here is the philosophical test for subjectivity and the limit of objective evidence.
Someone: I demand evidence as per science and rationality for everything.
Me: I don't. I have checked and I don't need that.
Someone: That makes no sense and you are irrational in effect.
Me: Correct. You have just stated a fact about a part of the world. Namely that irrationality works, because I am using it and now you are going to judge me as in effect being really unreal and not a part of reality. The problem is that you can't explain how it is then possible for you to communicate with me, if I am really unreal and not a part of reality.

Some people in effect take their own subjectivity for granted in that they use it as an objective, universal standard for making sense. That is a combination of philosophy and psychology and the actual falsification of it, is to check if you can in effect believe differently and get away with it.
So let me tell you the result of that. Yes, you can and you are looking at it, because it is what I am doing and here are the technical classification for it. It is a case of limited cognitive, moral, cultural and subjective relativism.
And it ends here:
(1) The truth-value of any statement is always relative to some particular standpoint.
(2) No standpoint is metaphysically privileged over all others.

That applies to all claims of what reality really is and all ideas of an universal singular method of only one kind of truth. That includes objective truth as in effect being science.
The game we are playing here is the idea of the correct answer to everything. And the correct answer is, that this in part demands on what you believe the correct answer is.
That is also for me. I just know that, so in some cases the correct answer is irrational, subjective and without any objectively justified truth, proof or evidence.
The principle in sociology is that unreal belief have real consequences and you are looking at it. So how you deal with that as you, is something you do and that depends on your actual subjective belief system.

Subjective beliefs are real and you can't in effect turn everything into objective, scientific physical referents. You can only subjectively deny that it is relevant and don't notice that you are not doing science, but than you are in effect confirming my claim. You are subjective because you behave differently and that is what can't be turned in to science.
If you want the technical problem, it is within physicalism. It is the problem of non-reductive or reductive physicalism.

So yes, I have been doing philosophy everyday for over 20 years now and I am not "nice", because I will go subjective and irrational on you, if you claim that everything can be done with science and rationality in effect.

If you want it as a test, then you have to learn to test if the scientific way of testing has a limit and yes it has. You can't use science in the strong sense on subjectivity. You can only subjectively deny that it is relevant, but when you check your reasoning, you can learn that you are not using science or objective rationality. But again that takes training and you don't need that.

Regards and love
Mikkel

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...
As someone who is a pretty new vegan, largely due to ethical considerations, this is a philosophical topic that fascinates me. I actually agree that ethical considerations should extend beyond homo sapiens. And FWIW, I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of self-identified materialists likely agree. They may not agree to the extent I do, but very few people think animals are owed zero ethical consideration. That said, I don't think I owe my shower curtain particular ethical consideration. It's a synthetic sheet of fabric that is inanimate and unconscious.

Well, since you accept philosophy as relevant in effect the bold and underscored part is not a fact. It is an assumption about how consciousness works and in some considerations even a thermostat is animate and conscious if you look closer within
philosophy.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...


If you can't explain what a word means, why use it?

You can't see as see what a word means so it is not real as per science, because you can't observe meaning. I use non-science if it works, because what works, is subjective in part in the end. All truth and evidence is in the end what apparently works subjectively in part for a person. There is a whole category of words, which have no objective referent and depend on the subjective referent those words have. I.e. their relative subjective meaning and value as they work differently.
The meaning of God to me is a feeling. I can't express that in rational and scientific terms, but it is still real and has meaning to me. The meaning is just not cognitive. And if you don't have that feeling, you can ignore it as irrelevant to you and claim it also must be irrelevant to me, because it doesn't meet your subjective understanding of meaning.

 

[wellwisher]

Has anyone read the psychology of Carl Jung? Jung was the star pupil and protege of Sigmund Freud. Jung and Freud were close but had a falling out. Jung went out on his own after posing this observation to himself ( to paraphrase), "If one went through therapy and psychoanalysis and was able to reach a position of self actualization, would one necessarily be in a place of eternal utopia? One still has to live in an imperfect world with many problems beyond your control. To fully achieve perpetuate bliss, one would also need to change the world."

He came to the conclusion there has to be more to psychology than just personal and ego-centric psychology, which often divides us and creates disfunction. From that beginning he developed the thesis of the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious was a deeper part of the human psyche, that was common to all humans. In modern terms, it would need to be connected to our common human DNA. The collective unconscious would be similar to the personality firmware within the brain's natural operating system, that define those basic human propensities, which define us as a species. Culture is learned behavior connected to the ego, while collective human propensities exist apart from culture and makes us all human, independent of any cultural conditioning. This would be how humans could unite as a family.

The way he went about proving his thesis was to analysis collective human symbolism from ancient times, forward. Much of this symbolism came from religion, since religion was the source of so much spontaneous and perpetuated human creativity. Statues to the Gods survived from antiquity.

What Jung noticed was the various religious symbolism had common trends, which overlapped everywhere, even in places where there was no record of interaction between cultures. These common trends had to be spontaneously induced, and stemmed from firmware within the operating system of the human mind. Jesus would call this the inner man, as oppose to the ego, which is the outer or cultural man. The Buddha also saw this and left the outer man of culture, to seek the inner man which was common to all.

In terms of Jungian Psychology, religious symbols like angels and God appears to be a projection from within. Projection is how it can exist to some individuals; intuitive feeling, but may not be easily seen by others. The attributes attributed to God and the divine realms was given so much weight, because these parts of the human psyche and operating system of the human brain, were above the ego, in firmware priority and potential.

These firmware or archetypes as Jung called them are the source of higher human potential. Science would prefer simulate higher human potential, outside itself with machines. While religious people do this the natural way, using what is free and common to all humans; faith in the inner voice.

 

[Left Coast]

@mikkel_the_dane:

You and I have gone rounds a number of time before. Your belief system, as I've tried to understand it, reduces to a kind of incoherent absurdism. As I hope is obvious, I disagree with you that there's no empirical way to measure consciousness or sentience. But the absurdism of your beliefs makes it difficult for us to have any kind of productive conversation. So I'm not going to reply further to you here. Apologies if you were hoping for more of a dialogue.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

@mikkel_the_dane:

You and I have gone rounds a number of time before. Your belief system, as I've tried to understand it, reduces to a kind of incoherent absurdism. As I hope is obvious, I disagree with you that there's no empirical way to measure consciousness or sentience. But the absurdism of your beliefs makes it difficult for us to have any kind of productive conversation. So I'm not going to reply further to you here. Apologies if you were hoping for more of a dialogue.

There is an indirect way if you accept a set of metaphysical assumptions. And for the everyday world we all apparently share that works. We can agree on that. But the moment we go wide enough for what really matters, it breaks down.

Thank you for your kind and thoughtful answer.

 

[Quintessence]

That said, I don't think I owe my shower curtain particular ethical consideration. It's a synthetic sheet of fabric that is inanimate and unconscious. Do you think I owe ethical consideration to my shower curtain?

[/COLOR][/FONT]

This is getting more into that animism territory again, so I'll try to keep this relatively brief. I haven't done as much academic study of animism as I'd like, but there are a couple important take-homes that are worth keeping in mind. One - that animist cultures were not vegetarian. In other words, just because something is a person doesn't mean it is sacrosanct. Two - that animist cultures differed in what they granted personhood too. In other words, not everything is considered a person. Animism is a different way of expressing relationships than many human persons are used to. It means you have relationships with things human persons consider "inanimate" or "unworthy" of such relationships. A lot of how that plays out is based on individual or personal experience.

I would say if you have a connection with your shower curtain - say it has special significance to you - then it is owed respect as a member of your household. If you do not feel such a connection, then you don't have a meaningful relationship. There are many "inanimate" objects in my house I feel stronger connections to. Most notably is the Ancestral Clock in my living room. There is a lot of story behind it and as the name implies, it connects me to my ancestors on my mother's side. When I had to get it repaired once, it felt like a bit of soul had been ripped out of my house. It is not "just a clock" for me, and I will mourn its loss. Others who don't identify as animists develop similar relationships with "inanimate" objects, so my story isn't really unique. It's just something humans naturally do.

Now, why would I praise the Sun for shining?

[/COLOR][/FONT]

Because you want to.

That other post was already long enough, so to add an important bit that was left out? Deification is an attribution - it describes a relationship you have with something. It is something you get to determine for yourself. There's no expectation that others want to worship the same things (at least in polytheism and other theisms that don't proselytize). If anything, there's the expectation that you only worship what you feel is worthy so you don't create "false gods" so to speak in your life. Always grant worship authentically to who you are and whose you are. If you don't see the reason, then don't do it.

Praise is something given to someone who does some act that's admirable or noble. But the Sun isn't a person, and hasn't consciously done anything, and can't hear your praises. So why would we praise it?

To follow up on the above, keep in mind that from my perspective, I don't demand something to be a "person" (however that is understood) for something to be worthy of worship in the first place. Nor do I believe in litmus tests before I'm allowed to express gratitude. In fact, I find a question like this kind of shocking because demanding something pass some sort of test like that just sounds really rude and makes one off to be an insufferable ingrate. Why wouldn't I express gratitude towards something I owe my existence to? Why would it even matter if that something is "conscious" or "intelligent" or passes some other sort of arbitrary litmus test? I don't get that line of thinking.

 

[ecco]

You have to answer the following. For a deistic creator God, that don't show Herself to humans and have created this universe at the time of the Big Bang by creating the Big Bang, how do you go about showing that this God does not exist and is not just unknown.

Please show where your stated entity is a god that is or has been recognized by reasonable percentage of the population. Please show where your stated entity is a god that has attributes normally attributed to a God.


You could just as well say that I cannot disprove that God is a pin that is stuck in the lapel of the Easter Bunny. And then you could pat yourself on the back for a job well done.

Nonsense.

Now let me be specific about your problem.
Your hurdle is the cosmological principle as it connects to the Big Bang. Observations confirming the Big Bang rests on the cosmological principle but as a principle it is not science, it is a strong philosophical assumption, so if you claim we can apply pure science on the Big Bang and show there is no God involved, we can't because the proof rests on a strong philosophical assumption.
So you have to prove the cosmological principle, but you can't. It is unprovable.
In essence I chose a part of science that relies on an unproveable assumption.

See above.

No matter that, your proof rests on philosophy and not science and you have failed using science and logic.

You can really judge my proof before I fully present it? You knew beforehand that I was going to use the cosmological principle? That must prove that you have Godly Omniscience. Oh, but it doesn't and you don't. Therefore your comment is just more self-indulgent nonsense.

 

[ecco]

Polytheism is tied to an animist worldview.

Is that true of the Romans and Greeks with their many SuperHuman gods?

 

[Quintessence]

Is that true of the Romans and Greeks with their many SuperHuman gods?

Absolutely. Many, many gods in both of those traditions are personifications of natural/social phenomena. Individual rivers and cities had their own governing gods/spirits. I mean, nature is superhuman.

 

[ecco]

Absolutely. Many, many gods in both of those traditions are personifications of natural/social phenomena. Individual rivers and cities had their own governing gods/spirits. I mean, nature is superhuman.

Perhaps I should rephrase...are there animist aspects of gods like Athena, Eros, Zeus, Baccus, etc?

 

[Left Coast]

This is getting more into that animism territory again, so I'll try to keep this relatively brief. I haven't done as much academic study of animism as I'd like, but there are a couple important take-homes that are worth keeping in mind. One - that animist cultures were not vegetarian. In other words, just because something is a person doesn't mean it is sacrosanct. Two - that animist cultures differed in what they granted personhood too.

What do you think is a person? You don't need to speak for all animists, I'm interested in what you think.

In other words, not

everything is considered a person. Animism is a different way of expressing relationships than many human persons are used to. It means you have relationships with things human persons consider "inanimate" or "unworthy" of such relationships. A lot of how that plays out is based on individual or personal experience.

I would say if you have a connection with your shower curtain - say it has special significance to you - then it is owed respect as a member of your household. If you do not feel such a connection, then you don't have a meaningful relationship. There are many "inanimate" objects in my house I feel stronger connections to. Most notably is the Ancestral Clock in my living room. There is a lot of story behind it and as the name implies, it connects me to my ancestors on my mother's side. When I had to get it repaired once, it felt like a bit of soul had been ripped out of my house. It is not "just a clock" for me, and I will mourn its loss. Others who don't identify as animists develop similar relationships with "inanimate" objects, so my story isn't really unique. It's just something humans naturally do.

I can definitely relate to treating certain inanimate objects as special or having a kind of nostalgia related to being family heirlooms. Many people name their cars. But their special treatment of the objects isn't borne out of an ethical obligation to the object. It may be borne out of an ethical obligation to another human, who asked them to care for it, for example. And they recognize that their "relationship" to such objects isn't really a relationship, because it's completely one-sided. They recognize that any personification they do of the objects is completely in their heads.

I'm not convinced that's what's happening in your case. Or is it?

Because you want to.

Sure, that's almost a truism. I'm trying to get at what underlies your desire, what your thought process is.

That other post was already long enough, so to add an important bit that was left out? Deification is an attribution - it describes a relationship you have with something. It is something you get to determine for yourself. There's no expectation that others want to worship the same things (at least in polytheism and other theisms that don't proselytize). If anything, there's the expectation that you only worship what you feel is worthy so you don't create "false gods" so to speak in your life. Always grant worship authentically to who you are and whose you are. If you don't see the reason, then don't do it.

That's enlightening, because generally relationships are a two- or multi-sided thing. What you're talking about is a completely one-sided "relationship." The other party has no agency to accept or reject the relationship, and you are the sole arbiter of the terms of the relationship. It sounds like it's just a label you create in your mind. So, why do that? Other than that you want to, that's clear. Why do you want to? What's the motivation? On a related note, were you raised in a pagan tradition? Or did you convert?

To follow up on the above, keep in mind that from my perspective, I don't demand something to be a "person" (however that is understood) for something to be worthy of worship in the first place. Nor do I believe in litmus tests before I'm allowed to express gratitude. In fact, I find a question like this kind of shocking because demanding something pass some sort of test like that just sounds really rude and makes one off to be an insufferable ingrate. Why

wouldn't I express gratitude towards something I owe my existence to? Why would it even matter if that something is "conscious" or "intelligent" or passes some other sort of arbitrary litmus test? I don't get that line of thinking.

It's not that you're not allowed to. No one said anything about forbidding your Sun worship. I'm trying to understand the rationale behind why you do it.

If you're inside a building, a wall near you is keeping you alive right now. So if we ask your same question again, applied to that situation: Why wouldn't I talk to a wall? Why wouldn't I thank it for keeping me alive? The answer, I would hope, is fairly obvious. I wouldn't thank it because it has no ability to receive my thanks, no ability to communicate anything back to me, it's going to keep being a wall and keeping me alive whether I say thank you to it or not. And the Sun is no different. If you are calling me rude or an insufferable ingrate for daring to ask, "Why do you talk to a wall/the Sun?" I have to say...I'm a little baffled by your shock and the offense taken. You're engaging in behavior is pretty atypical and that I don't see a very clear rationale for. So I'm asking...why would you do that? Isn't that a pretty reasonable, down-to-earth question?

And to tie this back to animism and ancient paganism, I think most pagans who have worshipped the Sun have done so because they believed the Sun was actually a conscious deity/spirit who could respond to their prayers (or that there was a conscious deity who controlled the Sun, as Apollo in Greek myth), as Frank alluded to earlier in the thread. Correct? So what you're describing isn't that, either. You don't think the Sun is a conscious deity, you don't think your prayers influence it (or do you?), etc. So even from a pagan perspective, I'm just not understanding the rationale here.

 

[Bear Wild]

This is a dualism that I find...perplexing. why should religious concepts be immune to factual analysis? I would rather have views that are factual. I don't understand why religion needs to be put in a separate box to be evaluated by different criteria than how we evaluate any other ideas. Ironically, that kind of thinking is a product of the Western Enlightenment that produced deism and modern progressive theism.

As far as the Earth being your mother, if you mean that in a metaphorical or symbolic sense, peachy. And so I can understand why you'd say that's not something strictly factual. But if you mean that the Earth is actually a sentient being, then that actually is a statement we can assess scientifically, as with the Earth's shape.



Let's save time and cut to the chase: what do you mean by the term god? And what things that demonstrably exist fit the definition of that term?

I have no dualism in my religion. Human behavior is is not immune to factual analysis but we have evolved into social animals and as such create a framework to our relationship to the universe around that. I have learned to accept my animal emotionally driven nature and enjoy it when it comes to religion. The western enlightenment was flawed in its development of the concept of the rational mind. Science has taught me I am driven by emotional responses that are controlled by rational regulation.

Yes mother earth (Hertha) is symbolic but at the same time earth is more than just a planet. In its entirety, it is a dynamic interplay between organic and inorganic elements and far greater in its interplay than just its individual elements. Earth is a goddess and sacred being both wonderous and mysterious to me and worth my devotion. Do I thing that the earth has a consciousness like a human - no it has so many conscious beings living on it. So what is a god or goddess to me - it is the sacred aspects to our world to be respected.

So you ask me what a god or goddess is - it is the sacred aspect of our would worth reverence. No need for supernatural, which gives us nothing, No need for a brain that thinks like humans, the natural forces are creative enough to give us the diversity of life on the planet that I respect and cherish. No need for a god to speak to us in human language, the natural speak of this world is infinitely more eloquent and meaningful than any human words (which are only a fraction of the language of this world). So any objections to this definition of a god or goddess?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Please show where your stated entity is a god that is or has been recognized by reasonable percentage of the population. Please show where your stated entity is a god that has attributes normally attributed to a God.

Please only using science and logic to justify your first demand. Strict science and logic only!!!
So for being a God, it is a creator God that has created the universe. I.e. started the Big Bang. That is standard religious reasoning, the universe can't come about by itself and thus a God started it all.

You can really judge my proof before I fully present it? You knew beforehand that I was going to use the cosmological principle? That must prove that you have Godly Omniscience. Oh, but it doesn't and you don't. Therefore your comment is just more self-indulgent nonsense.

Yes, I can because we are talking about all of the universe and how you can use science on all of the universe. You use observation in that there haven't been observed any Gods related to the claims of Gods and that science and logic explain it differently.
Further you admitted that that unknown doesn't mean doesn't exist. So you can't have parts of the universe, which can't be checked by science.

If you are going by induction, i.e. there are no Black swans, it stops right there. Because then it is so far unknown, but that doesn't mean doesn't exist. You admitted that yourself.
We are 2 in this debate and I have done this before too. Your options are limited because you use science and logic. There are only so few ways you can do that with the methodologies of science and logic.

Now let us go deeper. That I say that God created the Universe, doesn't cause it to be so. Nor that someone says there are no Gods. The act of saying something about something outside a given person doesn't cause it to be so. That goes for both existence and non-existence.
So here is what you are doing. I will use a standard teapot as example. You say that there is no tea in it and I look and say, that is correct, there is air in it, so there is no tea. That involves observation and logic.
So your argument is this. People claim something exists. We check and by science find out something else is going on and by the ontological version of the law of non-contradiction there can't both be and not be something at the same time and space and in a given sense.

Consider this by way of a chess game. In any given position for the next move there is a limited number of moves possible. That same is the case by the standards of science and logic. You use science and logic. That limits how you can use arguments to support your claim.
So I can anticipate your next move by way of the opening you chose because not all moves will win or indeed be science and logic. You try to "win" by proving by science and logic that Gods doesn't exist.
So here is the formal version of your argument:

-Something is not so just because it is claimed to be so.
-You check by observation and apply logic in part.
-For all Gods claimed we have checked by observation and there are no Gods.

The following version you could try doesn't work:
-All cases of Gods has been humans claiming there are Gods for other reasons than claiming there exist Gods, therefore there are no Gods.
Now I will show you, how this version doesn't work.
From the fact, that there are other reasons for claiming Gods exist, doesn't determine if Gods exist. That is so, because if someone claimed bacteria existed for another reason than biology, that doesn't solve if bacteria exist or not. The existence of something outside the minds of humans are determined by looking outside.

As for the psychology involved I have no problem stating something is unknown and that includes that it is unknown what the actual metaphysical status of reality is.
Now that connects to my answer involving the cosmological principle. That is not science and while I accept what we can in practice check if there is tea or not in a teapot we can observe, we can't check using pure science, what happen back in time around the Big Bang. That is theoretical physics, because it is in part speculative and not just based on direct observation. The speculative part involves philosophy as per the cosmological principle.

So here is my move explained. Your opening is to use science and ontological logic as per the law of non-contradiction. That limits your options because you have to check by using observation as per science. You can't use philosophical or psychological reasons. You are committed to using observation to check.
Now for your concrete move I choose to counter with a creation God at the time of the Big Bang. Such a version is in effect already accepted for the creation part by e.g. the Catholic Church. Now we can argue with rational justification if that is reasonable, but that is not science. That is philosophy.

So you chose the rules and I followed the rules as per science and logic. The existence of Gods are per science decided by observation and not philosophy or psychology.
Thus I chose to answer with the limitations of theoretical physics in regards to the Big Bang.

Now ecco, just as you in all likelihood have done this before and so have I. I have done it for over 20 years now functional day and day out for the general problems of: How do we know with proof when we claim something?
I am skeptic and that is what skeptics do. They check general and specific claims of proof.

So don't use psychology or philosophy outside logic. Stick to science and logic. And now your move.

 

[Quintessence]

What do you think is a person? You don't need to speak for all animists, I'm interested in what you think.

It's hard to describe. The best way I can think of to put it is that they are individual characters in the world I exist in. They have their own distinct natures or identities, their own ways of life or existing, their own dynamic cycles of becoming (births) and unbecoming (deaths), their own connections with others, their own distinct natures that change as they interact with other characters. I guess it's a way of understanding identity and relationships? A feeling of sorts? It is hard to put to words. We have largely lost good ways of talking about it so I struggle to articulate it.

And they recognize that their "relationship" to such objects isn't really a relationship, because it's completely one-sided.

Any connection and interaction between two things is a relationship - they do not require "consciousness" for either party. Perhaps a good way to describe animism is to point out the animist does not believe in one-sided relationships?

The other party has no agency to accept or reject the relationship, and you are the sole arbiter of the terms of the relationship.

I don't think agency is that important here, nor do I see myself as a sole arbiter. Relationships just happen by virtue of things existing in the same time and space as each other (and beyond - all things in the universe are interconnected and interrelated). The relationships (or interactions, if one prefers) we have with other persons (or characters or objects if one prefers) are determined by the natures of the persons involved. I do not really arbitrate that, and neither does the other person. It is... kind like an emergent property of the universe? Some describe these inevitable relationships or interactions as a "universal consciousness." I tend to avoid such language, though.

As for why see things this way? It's... just the way I see things and experience things. Almost no one is raised Pagan and I am no exception, but I spent a lot of time in the woods as a kid. The interactions I had there? I experienced a sense of characters/spirits/persons there before I knew the word "animism" or "paganism." I would go out in the woods to listen to Wind. Wind didn't speak English, but there was a communication there... a feeling - like Wind was the Voice of the Forest. I've had these kinds experiences from a very young age, and that's probably why I jumped on Paganism once I learned it existed. It reflected my experiences and was community that actually understood what I was experiencing.

For those who have never had these kinds experiences, animism - or seeing gods/spirits/persons in nature - is probably incomprehensible. I learned there are humans who can't visualize, so it is not hard to suppose there are humans blind to the voices of non-human persons especially when mainstream culture conditions its people to ignore all of them. What we believe about the world dramatically impacts how we interact with the world. If you believe what you are told about humans being the only persons, you will treat other non-human persons accordingly.

In an age where the failure of humans to consider non-human persons is wrecking the planet, I think the perspective of animism is more relevant now than it's ever been. So many have forgotten how (or refuse) to listen to the wind, or speak to the stones... I just... don't have a lot of hope. When you view the world around you as "inanimate objects" it's a free pass to use and abuse. When you see the world as full of individual characters/persons with their own natures, you pause a bit. You think about that relationship, their nature and your nature, what you take and what you should perhaps give back. It promotes a deeper respect and stewardship of the land and the peoples living there. Animism isn't necessary for such respect or stewardship, but it creates a stewardship that isn't anthropocentric in orientation.

So why give thanks to the things that build up our world? Because you want to. Because that's what your life experiences tell you to do. Because you can hear the "voices" of non-human persons even if others can't. Because you recognize your total dependence on all these other persons. Because it cultivates good character to say thanks and count one's blessings. Because it is, well... one's religion (way of life). Others have different ways. Others may not understand because it is not their way. That's fine.

 

[Left Coast]

I have no dualism in my religion. Human behavior is is not immune to factual analysis but we have evolved into social animals and as such create a framework to our relationship to the universe around that. I have learned to accept my animal emotionally driven nature and enjoy it when it comes to religion. The western enlightenment was flawed in its development of the concept of the rational mind. Science has taught me I am driven by emotional responses that are controlled by rational regulation.

My issue was with your belief that religious claims shouldn't be subject to the same critical thinking as any other belief.

Yes mother earth (Hertha) is symbolic but at the same time earth is more than just a planet. In its entirety, it is a dynamic interplay between organic and inorganic elements and far greater in its interplay than just its individual elements. Earth is a goddess and sacred being both wonderous and mysterious to me and worth my devotion. Do I thing that the earth has a consciousness like a human - no it has so many conscious beings living on it. So what is a god or goddess to me - it is the sacred aspects to our world to be respected.

What does sacred mean to you? It seems like a "god" to you is just...something you deeply respect or value? Which is fine, as far as it goes. I can deeply respect or value something without thinking of it as a deity, and I imagine you can too, so I just wonder what the dividing line is.