Is the concept of "God" necessary, let alone real?

[Greta]

Greta wrote

In response your insulting comments, I will not longer take the low road with you and trade ad homs. Enough. More than enough. Nausea.

There is no such thing as an insulting comment. Insult may be intended but a person can only allow themselves to become insulted.

For months you complain, whinged, moaned and cried about people being insulting towards you. Your blatant hypocrisy is almost amusing.

Meanwhile, you have trolled and destroyed what had been a good and productive thread. Mission accomplished.

[Beauty]

For what its worth I agree with you that we don't know the creator. To make matters worse we don't know ourselves. We don't know what we are and why we are here. So we are left with a lot of opinions about the creator and what we are. Now that being the case, in your opinion, is there a way for a person to have a reasonable idea of the relationship between a creator which seems to be beyond the limitations of our senses and what we ARE? What would it take for a person to "know thyself?"

"Do you wish to know God? Learn first to know yourself." - Abba Evagrius the Monk.

I'm impressed. I'm sure it could be alarming as to our relationship with the creator, with the creator being a different being, on top of that we don't really know ourselves but only see ourselves through our mind. The more important thing is that creator being different from our spirit, then who gives the creator authority to make our spirits, for I don't think anyone should hold that right. So then it is possible our SELF comes up itself.

[Reflex]

The God concept can be unnecessary for a person absorbed in social life and acquiring prestige. Yet for those in need of the experience of meaning not provided by societal life, the God concept and the inner direction furthering it is essential.

I like that!

The problem is that this is not true. I am almost a hermit and, if I was interested in prestige, I would have a very big problem because I have none.

Do not embrace weak arguments just because they ostensibly are on your side. Rather, you should challenge them as you would challenge any other wild generalisation.

What did I say, Greta? Did I say it was true? It is a broad and vague generalization that corresponds with my experience.

BTW, did you watch the video I linked to? It puts the kibosh on your “maybe” response to everything.

[Greta]

The creator and created may well just be one. By the same token, who and what we are and what create can be seen as false boundaries. We don't know.

Nobody knows these things for sure. I am more inclined to trust the judgement of those who admit that they don't know than those making certainty claims about that which they cannot know for sure.

When people rely on bluff and rhetoric then they make clear that they have an agenda that they value more than reason.

Then you have Nick, who not so long ago complained about how "secularists" are always insulting him, who now figures that insulting behaviour is not the responsibility of the perpetrator. Accountability - personal, practical and intellectual - is out of fashion in the west today.

[Greta]

I like that!

The problem is that this is not true. I am almost a hermit and, if I was interested in prestige, I would have a very big problem because I have none.

Do not embrace weak arguments just because they ostensibly are on your side. Rather, you should challenge them as you would challenge any other wild generalisation.

What did I say, Greta? Did I say it was true? It is a broad and vague generalization that corresponds with my experience.

BTW, did you watch the video I linked to? It puts the kibosh on your “maybe” response to everything.

You liked an untrue statement - and it was noticed.

I must have missed the video. Whatever, there is no possible way to put aside the uncertainties of reality unless you believe human senses to be infallible and humans capable of understanding everything from the surface of a planet. It is absurd to imagine that at this point of time that we can understand all these fundamental issues. A civilisation a million years more advanced would see such braggadocio as stunningly naive, like a child claiming that he's the fastest runner in the world.

Is there a problem with admitting uncertainty in philosophy?

[Reflex]

Is there a problem with admitting uncertainty in philosophy?

Yes. Like I said, if everyone doubted everything the way you do, civilization would have never gotten off the ground.

Here's the link: First Civilizations: Religion (This is the second episode; Episode 1 is about war)

[Greta]

Is there a problem with admitting uncertainty in philosophy?

Yes. Like I said, if everyone doubted everything the way you do, civilization would have never gotten off the ground.

Here's the link: First Civilizations: Religion (This is the second episode; Episode 1 is about war)

Ah, now I remember. The copyright owners deem Antipodeans unworthy of viewing the video. We are very bad people down here, you know

Even if belief was needed to get civilisation started, now we can use logic and reason and build upon the ideas rather than mentally reinventing the wheel. There will always be the occasional intuitive maverick revolutionary like Einstein to stir things up when the linear path stops making headway.

I lack faith, Reflex, and "they" say faith is advantageous in life. Thing is, advantageous is not necessarily true when one is teasing out philosophical riddles. For instance, an athlete may believe /she is the best, but that is ultimately a gee-up rather than a reality. Yet, is a gee-up helpful if one has the kind of bland realism that I embrace? If you don't believe the gee-up, it won't work. Yet belief may also be belief in one's talent, hard work or instincts rather than supernatural or unrealistic inspirational notions.

[Belinda]

Nick wrote:

Two questions for you. The first is why bad music and bad reasons sound often appear so good?

Pleasure is not the only criterion of good, and on occasions the good has no component of pleasure. It's not easy with foresight or even with hindsight to identify the good. Attempts to identify the good only by a criterion of pleasure lack reason.

[Reflex]

Ah, now I remember. The copyright owners deem Antipodeans unworthy of viewing the video. We are very bad people down here, you know

Even if belief was needed to get civilisation started, now we can use logic and reason and build upon the ideas rather than mentally reinventing the wheel. There will always be the occasional intuitive maverick revolutionary like Einstein to stir things up when the linear path stops making headway.

I lack faith, Reflex, and "they" say faith is advantageous in life. Thing is, advantageous is not necessarily true when one is teasing out philosophical riddles. For instance, an athlete may believe /she is the best, but that is ultimately a gee-up rather than a reality. Yet, is a gee-up helpful if one has the kind of bland realism that I embrace? If you don't believe the gee-up, it won't work. Yet belief may also be belief in one's talent, hard work or instincts rather than supernatural or unrealistic inspirational notions.

Too bad. It's a good video that puts to rest any notion that civilization can arise without religion (or war, according to the first episode). It's not about what's true, but what works in bringing people together.

"We can use logic and reason and build upon the ideas rather than mentally reinventing the wheel" is a faith-statement, a conceptual interpretation of your religion. I lack the faith you have in the human intellect. I need only ask, "Who's logic? Who's reason?" in order to destroy your premise that logic and reason are sufficient.

The video concludes with:

Those who believe together, stay together. It doesn't matter so much what we believe, just that enough of us share the belief. This was true for the first civilizations; it's true today. Religion: the soulmate of civilization.

[Greta]

I'm more interested in what is real rather than what is efficacious.

I'm only in this for curiosity's sake, not as an exercise in academia or personal growth, although I understand why people choose to do that. I've always been more of an intellectual scavenger than one who dedicates their life to a point of focus as you seem to have done. Different aptitudes and temperament.

[uwot]

Ah, now I remember. The copyright owners deem Antipodeans unworthy of viewing the video. We are very bad people down here, you know

We can't be much better in the UK; I couldn't watch it either.

The video concludes with:

Those who believe together, stay together. It doesn't matter so much what we believe, just that enough of us share the belief. This was true for the first civilizations; it's true today. Religion: the soulmate of civilization.

Well without seeing the argument presented, the defining feature of all early civilisations is that they were founded on floodplains, where agriculture is relatively easy. This is true of the Yellow River in China, the Indus in India, the Tigris/Euphrates in Mesopotamia and the Nile in Egypt. What keeps a civilisation together is cereal crops. What is also characteristic is that the different communities and city states that made up early civilisations had a range of different religious beliefs, much as most nation states do today.

[Belinda]

Reflex wrote:

"Who's logic? Who's reason?" in order to destroy your premise that logic and reason are sufficient.

Deductive logic is universal. True, inductive logic and reasoning is local and relative to others' logic and reasoning. Most people when they say " reason" mean Enlightenment reasoning which is naturalistic and sceptical.

[Nick_A]

Greta wrote

In response your insulting comments, I will not longer take the low road with you and trade ad homs. Enough. More than enough. Nausea.

There is no such thing as an insulting comment. Insult may be intended but a person can only allow themselves to become insulted.

For months you complain, whinged, moaned and cried about people being insulting towards you. Your blatant hypocrisy is almost amusing.

Meanwhile, you have trolled and destroyed what had been a good and productive thread. Mission accomplished.

Of course none of this true. This raises the question as to why the efforts of those like Jesus and Socrates had to result in their death. The secular mind must deny in the nastiest ways possible whatever questions its imagined superiority. It accuses others of what it is guilty of. In my case there is nothing to complain or moan about. It is to be expected. The secularist's attitude towards my beliefs are the same as has been experienced in the past. It is the nature of the beast

[Nick_A]

For what its worth I agree with you that we don't know the creator. To make matters worse we don't know ourselves. We don't know what we are and why we are here. So we are left with a lot of opinions about the creator and what we are. Now that being the case, in your opinion, is there a way for a person to have a reasonable idea of the relationship between a creator which seems to be beyond the limitations of our senses and what we ARE? What would it take for a person to "know thyself?"

"Do you wish to know God? Learn first to know yourself." - Abba Evagrius the Monk.

I'm impressed. I'm sure it could be alarming as to our relationship with the creator, with the creator being a different being, on top of that we don't really know ourselves but only see ourselves through our mind. The more important thing is that creator being different from our spirit, then who gives the creator authority to make our spirits, for I don't think anyone should hold that right. So then it is possible our SELF comes up itself.

I distinguish between the creator which IS as opposed to creation which is an ever changing PROCESS. The process of creation takes place within ISNESS,

My God concept is similar to Plotinus concept of the ONE

https://www.iep.utm.edu/plotinus/#SH2a

From this perspective the universe is the body of God. Obviously if the Source is outside the limits of time and space, it is NOW for the ever changing process of creation taking place within NOW.

Are you familiar with :”The great chain of being?” For many, “being” either exists or it doesn’t. They don’t recognize different qualities of being that initiate from the Source and through the process of involution create unique qualities of being.

The more important thing is that creator being different from our spirit, then who gives the creator authority to make our spirits, for I don't think anyone should hold that right. So then it is possible our SELF comes up itself.

How do you define your “SELF?

“The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self.” ― Albert Einstein

If he is right, our SELF or our personality created by environment arose from below so did come up by itself.

What if Man is dual natured? Suppose the collective soul or essence of an individual has a higher part which descended from above and a lower animal part arising from the earth as with all other organic life on earth. Then the distinction between God and LORD God makes sense. Man on earth didn’t initiate with God but rather further down in creation at the level of the Sun (son)

This is why the seeker of truth needs faith. Do you distinguish between the faith OF Christ and faith IN Christ? It is often confused. The faith of Christ is the inner recognition of a higher level of reality. Faith IN Christ doesn’t require this recognition. Without active faith as a human quality we quickly devolve into a quality of being attached to the earth deriving human meaning and purpose from societal dictates. History reveals the results of this “faith.”

So the bottom line is that the word God, like love and art, is a word with a host of potential meanings. Is God necessary is a question which cannot be answered because of our attachment to a particular god concept. Belief in God or disbelief in God is a meaningless expression without further clarification.

Do you believe it will ever become possible for an experiential realistic understanding of God and of Man to become the basis for a healthy free society proving God necessary?

[Nick_A]

Greta wrote

Then you have Nick, who not so long ago complained about how "secularists" are always insulting him, who now figures that insulting behaviour is not the responsibility of the perpetrator. Accountability - personal, practical and intellectual - is out of fashion in the west today.

As usual, Greta responds emotionally. For example, you can throw all your intended insults at me but they are meaningless in the context of concepts. Do your intended insults have anything to do with the reality of spirit killing and metaphysical repression in school systems?

I lack faith, Reflex, and "they" say faith is advantageous in life. Thing is, advantageous is not necessarily true when one is teasing out philosophical riddles. For instance, an athlete may believe /she is the best, but that is ultimately a gee-up rather than a reality. Yet, is a gee-up helpful if one has the kind of bland realism that I embrace? If you don't believe the gee-up, it won't work. Yet belief may also be belief in one's talent, hard work or instincts rather than supernatural or unrealistic inspirational notions.

But what of the minority, especially the young trapped in institutions of psychological child abuse called schools? What of these unfortunates who have begun for whatever reason to distinguish between the faith OF Christ and faith IN the Beast? They intuitively feel that objective human meaning and purpose does not arise from the Beast. What is this egoistic satisfaction that comes from killing eros in the young? You can say with conviction that you lack faith. It is the position of secularism. So the innocent have to suffer. If their physical bodies aren’t killed by abortion, then their spiritual bodies are attacked.

Under these circumstances is it any wonder that teen suicides are on the rise.

Although suicide is relatively rare among children, the rate of suicides and suicide attempts increases greatly during adolescence. Suicide is the third-leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), after accidents and homicide.