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

[Belinda]

Nick quoted Simone Weil:

"...It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in God. He has only to refuse to believe in everything that is not God.

What makes Nick think that what he calls "secularism" is not of God? Those whom he derides as "secularists" are as knowledgeable about God as anyone else. Nick apparently cannot doubt his own convictions. A man who has complete faith in his own version of truth is an idolater. A man who has complete faith in Simone Weil's ,or any other person's, version of truth is an idolater.

Secularism is a God. it is the God of the Great Beast and quite skilled in defending its kingdom.

Why believe? Why not verify? If what secularism provides satisfies your need for meaning, why bother with philosophy or the essence of religion? They just get in the way of a happy life.

Some have a greater need for the experience of meaning the world cannot provide so are attracted to its source. I support their search while you ridicule them as naive. We have chosen our paths.

People who are unable to doubt may indeed also be "secularists". Any idea, including "secularism", that is not open to doubt is idolatrous. You, Nick, idolise your own point of view as you are apparently unable to tolerate uncertainty. Your chosen point of view, Nick, may well be viable for you yourself. However your point of view, Nick, would be acceptable to others only if you presented it hypothetically, while acknowledging doubt.

"Why not verify" you ask, Nick. The reason is that a metaphysical proposition can't be verified or falsified. The import of a mystical experience cannot be verified or falsified. Absolute certainty has been shown over and over again throughout man's past to cause death, loss, and suffering. Man's past experience shows that those whom you call "secularists" are more likely to be capable of uncertainty than are fanatical religionists.

[Eodnhoj7]

Here's what was turning me on...



Ha ha ha. Do you know what humor is... or do you think you're the center of everything in the Universe?

Whatever you say, justify it how you want...I frankly don't care...it appears at it appears.

Well, I guess that's how it appears to YOU. Odd. I don't think most people would make such a ridiculous assumption that I was hitting on them! But you have proven to be full of inaccurate assumptions that you never apologize for. I have told you the truth. But you blow it off as if you know better. Either you misunderstand or willfully ignore that things (and people) are not what YOU think they are. Such rudeness in falsely accusing me of all that you have surely reveals that you are a very toxic person.

You are the one keeping the conversation going...

[Nick_A]

Nick quoted Simone Weil:



What makes Nick think that what he calls "secularism" is not of God? Those whom he derides as "secularists" are as knowledgeable about God as anyone else. Nick apparently cannot doubt his own convictions. A man who has complete faith in his own version of truth is an idolater. A man who has complete faith in Simone Weil's ,or any other person's, version of truth is an idolater.

Secularism is a God. it is the God of the Great Beast and quite skilled in defending its kingdom.

Why believe? Why not verify? If what secularism provides satisfies your need for meaning, why bother with philosophy or the essence of religion? They just get in the way of a happy life.

Some have a greater need for the experience of meaning the world cannot provide so are attracted to its source. I support their search while you ridicule them as naive. We have chosen our paths.

People who are unable to doubt may indeed also be "secularists". Any idea, including "secularism", that is not open to doubt is idolatrous. You, Nick, idolise your own point of view as you are apparently unable to tolerate uncertainty. Your chosen point of view, Nick, may well be viable for you yourself. However your point of view, Nick, would be acceptable to others only if you presented it hypothetically, while acknowledging doubt.

"Why not verify" you ask, Nick. The reason is that a metaphysical proposition can't be verified or falsified. The import of a mystical experience cannot be verified or falsified. Absolute certainty has been shown over and over again throughout man's past to cause death, loss, and suffering. Man's past experience shows that those whom you call "secularists" are more likely to be capable of uncertainty than are fanatical religionists.

But what you've written is not true. Are you willing to question why you believe something so obviously false?

I have written on the necessity for a seeker of truth to make the impartial effort to engage in the Socratic axiom to "Know Thyself." It necessarily begins with the premise that "I know nothing." Yet you insinuate an attitude of certainty that defies this basic axiom I believe in. I have also written on Kierkegaard and Simone Weil

“One must not think slightingly of the paradoxical…for the paradox is the source of the thinker’s passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling: a paltry mediocrity.” Kierkegaard

"When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door." -Simone Weil

They both are suggesting the basic attraction to the paradox the certainty of secularism denies. I value the contradiction and the willingness to approach it in oneself. Blind belief and blind denial are repulsed by it.

What you define as my certainty is just welcoming the shared experience of reaching the contradiction and the paradox. I know that blind denial is intolerant of it since it believes in its dominance. As I've written, those like Jesus and Socrates invited us to experience the contradiction within ourselves. This is intolerable for influential people in the world who demand certainty from their psychological slaves. That is why those like Jesus and Socrates had to be killed. They recommended what is intolerable for a world built on denial.

Of course it is possible to verify. It begins with efforts to "know thyself." But who knows how? Do you learn it in school? No. A person has to find those with understanding. But this is not so easy because there are so many charlatens all too willing to take money from the gullible. But the point is that it is possible.

But you have to agree that to accuse someone like me who begins with the premise that we live in Plato's cave and that I know nothing of blind certainty in matters of the human condition and its relationship to the conscious source for creation is just silly. How could I support the value of reaching the contradiction and the paradox if I were to block the experience by emotional certainty? Be honest: what has given you the impression that I am a victim of blind emotional certainty?

[Belinda]

Nick wrote:

Secularism is a God. it is the God of the Great Beast and quite skilled in defending its kingdom.

I have never understood what you mean by "secularism" except that it's a word you use to denote what you disapprove of.

Why believe? Why not verify? If what secularism provides satisfies your need for meaning, why bother with philosophy or the essence of religion? They just get in the way of a happy life.

What in your opinion is "the essence of religion"?

A happy life can be got from happy pills or frontal lobotomy and is not why I want to live.I bet most people would rather live with truth and goodness than with happiness.

As I said earlier, you cannot verify or falsify metaphysical propositions or the import of mystical experiences .

"Why believe?" you ask, Nick. The best reason to believe is to get the best available evidence and use the best judgement. Faith used to be the best reason to believe but has been superceded by scientific enlightenment.

Nick wrote:

Some have a greater need for the experience of meaning the world cannot provide so are attracted to its source.

Indeed some do . However those who do this are not doing philosophy.

Nick wrote:

I support their search while you ridicule them as naive. We have chosen our paths.

They do seem to be a little naive if they so choose without also having examined probabilities.
___
I was glad to read that you embrace uncertainty.

Embracing uncertainty, one cannot be absolutely sure of one's own motivations. I don't quite understand what you have faith in, Nick. I do urge anyone seeking to have faith in anything at all to subject it to strenuous doubt. Unfortunately modern life is so complicated that we really have to trust certain professionals, such as the pharmacist who might recommend this or that remedy, or the learned physicist who tells us about the very small or the very large. However one useful dictum for sussing out the snake oil seller is to ask whether or not this person has a financial or other personal interest in their claim. Another useful guideline is result of peer review.

Concepts of God can be subjected to the above criteria. Narratives concerning God can also be judged pragmatically, although I do recommend traditional ethics such as the Golden Rule.

[Reflex]

Buridan’s Ass poses a difficult problem for agnosticsm.

Objecting to theism on the grounds that modern theism is rooted in "iron-age gods" is a logical fallacy called the "genetic fallacy." (I've seen a lot of that here!) Even so, there another logical paradox that puts an interesting spin on its dismissal. It's called the ship of Theseus paradox.

[Nick_A]

Belinda

I have never understood what you mean by "secularism" except that it's a word you use to denote what you disapprove of.

Secularism simply means worldly. Secularism is a mechanical reaction to what is happening in the world of an individual and within the world itself.

In contrast Universalism sees the world as part of a hierarchy of conscious intentions manifesting as levels of reality within our great universe. From this perspective the world as opposed to being the center of everything is just a step in a great ladder of conscious intent.

Our species is dual natured. We have an animal part which arises on the earth and has completed its evolution. We also have a higher part which descended from a higher level of reality. It is this higher part that is drawn to higher values and higher conscious potential unnatural for earthly animal life. It is the seed of evolved humanity. Our lower part thinks it is absurd and gets in the way of progress. It is only concerned with worldly situations and daily life.

What in your opinion is "the essence of religion"?

The essence of religion has two parts. The first is the “exoteric” which acts as a policeman in society and stimulates the awareness of ethics or what people should DO. Naturally worldly religious corruption takes place at the exoteric part since people are always telling others what to do.

The second part is the “esoteric.” Its concern is for what we ARE in relation to human conscious evolutionary potential. For those open to it, the esoteric branch is really an esoteric school which supplies techniques for allowing a person to become themselves. Its purpose is to balance the higher and lower parts of our collective essence making the next step from mechanical evolution into conscious evolution possible.

As I said earlier, you cannot verify or falsify metaphysical propositions or the import of mystical experiences .

Why not? If a person has an experience that cannot be explained by our senses or imagination, why reject it? It is personal proof.

"Why believe?" you ask, Nick. The best reason to believe is to get the best available evidence and use the best judgement. Faith used to be the best reason to believe but has been superceded by scientific enlightenment.

I don’t know what you mean by faith in matters of the need to experience human meaning. As I see it blind emotional faith is faith IN something and I consider it to be a weakness when it defies logic. Conscious faith is the faith OF Christ. It is the ability to retain a psychological connection with the above and what is happening around us. Conscious faith simultaneously connects the vertical and horizontal realities that remain divided as creatures of reaction. Conscious faith is a human potential.

However those who do this are not doing philosophy.

What do you call doing philosophy? I accept Plato’s definition of philosophy as the love of wisdom. Plato also said to “know thyself.” Isn’t that doing philosophy?

Concepts of God can be subjected to the above criteria. Narratives concerning God can also be judged pragmatically, although I do recommend traditional ethics such as the Golden Rule.

This IMO is one of the greatest mistakes of secularized religion. It creates a needless war between blind belief and blind denial depriving us of understanding. Simone Weil explains:

“The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation.”

[Reflex]

Why believe?" you ask, Nick. The best reason to believe is to get the best available evidence and use the best judgement. Faith used to be the best reason to believe but has been superceded by scientific enlightenment.

Whoa! Where did you hear that nonsense?

Faith is, and always has been, based on reason.

[Belinda]

Nick wrote:

Secularism simply means worldly. Secularism is a mechanical reaction to what is happening in the world of an individual and within the world itself.

That is your own definition. Eccentric definitions do confuse, but thanks for your definition anyway.
"Mechanical reaction" disparages and you might try to substitute a non-judgemental term.


Nick wrote:

In contrast Universalism sees the world as part of a hierarchy of conscious intentions manifesting as levels of reality within our great universe. From this perspective the world as opposed to being the center of everything is just a step in a great ladder of conscious intent.

You were right to propose a contrast to your definition of 'secularism' . Now you introduce yet another eccentric definition; this time of universalism. I'll overlook your implication that an ism can see. . Thus far it seems to me that what you call "secularism" is what I'd agree to call 'worldliness' together with impulsive and unreflecting behaviour. And what you call "Universalism" is what I'd call intelligently thoughtful behaviour together with the vision that the everyday world is not the only order of being. Wishful thinking possibly accounts for your notion that intelligently thoughtful behaviour is higher in some hierarchy. This is common and I do it myself although this is because we are both basically sort of religious people.


Nick wrote:

Our species is dual natured. We have an animal part which arises on the earth and has completed its evolution. We also have a higher part which descended from a higher level of reality. It is this higher part that is drawn to higher values and higher conscious potential unnatural for earthly animal life. It is the seed of evolved humanity. Our lower part thinks it is absurd and gets in the way of progress. It is only concerned with worldly situations and daily life.

You are unduly snobbish regarding animals. Evolution is not top down but is bottom up. To claim the evolution is top down is superstitious and unreasoning.

What in your opinion is "the essence of religion"?

Nick wrote:

The essence of religion has two parts. The first is the “exoteric” which acts as a policeman in society and stimulates the awareness of ethics or what people should DO. Naturally worldly religious corruption takes place at the exoteric part since people are always telling others what to do.

The second part is the “esoteric.” Its concern is for what we ARE in relation to human conscious evolutionary potential. For those open to it, the esoteric branch is really an esoteric school which supplies techniques for allowing a person to become themselves. Its purpose is to balance the higher and lower parts of our collective essence making the next step from mechanical evolution into conscious evolution possible.

I agree about the social control function of religions, together with your criticism of that means of social control.Again I disapprove of your eccentric vocabulary .
The, what you call, "esoteric" part of religion is simply culture.Some cultures of belief or faith are more conducive to individual freedoms.

Nick wrote:

As I said earlier, you cannot verify or falsify metaphysical propositions or the import of mystical experiences .

Why not? If a person has an experience that cannot be explained by our senses or imagination, why reject it? It is personal proof.

"Why not" you ask. Firstly because we all tell stories to make sense of our experiences. Secondly because our senses deceive us. See The Allegory of the Cave by Plato.

Nick wrote:

"Why believe?" you ask, Nick. The best reason to believe is to get the best available evidence and use the best judgement. Faith used to be the best reason to believe but has been superceded by scientific enlightenment.

I don’t know what you mean by faith in matters of the need to experience human meaning. As I see it blind emotional faith is faith IN something and I consider it to be a weakness when it defies logic. Conscious faith is the faith OF Christ. It is the ability to retain a psychological connection with the above and what is happening around us. Conscious faith simultaneously connects the vertical and horizontal realities that remain divided as creatures of reaction. Conscious faith is a human potential.

I sort of mostly agree with what you say that faith is in the wider sense of 'faith'. I had meant faith in the sense of religious doctrine and all-pervading way of life and society.

Nick wrote:

What do you call doing philosophy? I accept Plato’s definition of philosophy as the love of wisdom. Plato also said to “know thyself.” Isn’t that doing philosophy?

What Plato said about the nature of philosophy is insufficent. Philosophy is a modern academic discipline that has adopted and become refined by insights from modern sciences.

Nick wrote:

(I had wriiten "Concepts of God can be subjected to the above criteria. Narratives concerning God can also be judged pragmatically, although I do recommend traditional ethics such as the Golden Rule.")

This IMO is one of the greatest mistakes of secularized religion. It creates a needless war between blind belief and blind denial depriving us of understanding. Simone Weil explains:

“The mysteries of faith are degraded if they are made into an object of affirmation and negation, when in reality they should be an object of contemplation.”

Simone may be right for all I know. For ordinary people such as myself who am not a mystic reason is a better way to approach truth and goodness.

[Belinda]

Why believe?" you ask, Nick. The best reason to believe is to get the best available evidence and use the best judgement. Faith used to be the best reason to believe but has been superceded by scientific enlightenment.

Whoa! Where did you hear that nonsense?

Faith is, and always has been, based on reason.

As I replied to Nick "I had meant faith in the sense of religious doctrine and all-pervading way of life and society."
which is faith as opposed to what we normally call reason.

Faith in the psychological sense of trust is , I agree, reasoned to some degree.

[Reflex]

Why believe?" you ask, Nick. The best reason to believe is to get the best available evidence and use the best judgement. Faith used to be the best reason to believe but has been superceded by scientific enlightenment.

Whoa! Where did you hear that nonsense?

Faith is, and always has been, based on reason.

As I replied to Nick "I had meant faith in the sense of religious doctrine and all-pervading way of life and society."
which is faith as opposed to what we normally call reason.

Faith in the psychological sense of trust is , I agree, reasoned to some degree.

Whew. I missed that. Sorry. I'm so used to people associating it with blind belief I jumped the gun.

[Nick_A]

Belind

Thus far it seems to me that what you call "secularism" is what I'd agree to call 'worldliness' together with impulsive and unreflecting behaviour. And what you call "Universalism" is what I'd call intelligently thoughtful behaviour together with the vision that the everyday world is not the only order of being. Wishful thinking possibly accounts for your notion that intelligently thoughtful behaviour is higher in some hierarchy. This is common and I do it myself although this is because we are both basically sort of religious people.

As I see it, worldliness is the advanced ability to experience the world as a whole rather than being caught up in attachments to fractions of the world. Worldlines is to be desired.

In contrast secularism is exclusive. Even the classic definition of the separation of church and state is exclusive by definition and IMO based on emotional denial. Worldliness is open to the experience of grace to expand conscious understanding while the negativity of exclusive secularism by definition denies the help of grace coming from above.

Matthew 22

18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Being worldly respects obligations to the world. It doesn’t deny the importance of simultaneously giving our conscious attention to the direction of the source of our existence. It is what develops a human as opposed to a conditioned societal perspective.

You are unduly snobbish regarding animals. Evolution is not top down but is bottom up. To claim the evolution is top down is superstitious and unreasoning.

I didn’t mean to claim evolution is top down. Animal evolution is bottom up. Man’s higher part entered the world through top down involution, not bottom up evolution. Conscious evolution is just the normal continuation of the limits of mechanical evolution into conscious evolution.

The, what you call, "esoteric" part of religion is simply culture.Some cultures of belief or faith are more conducive to individual freedoms.

You seem to be only concerned with societal adaptation. This is the goal of the exoteric path. The esoteric path is concerned with what we ARE in relation to the potential for human being. Do you sense the difference between adaptation and evolution?

"Why not" you ask. Firstly because we all tell stories to make sense of our experiences. Secondly because our senses deceive us. See The Allegory of the Cave by Plato.

But intuition is neither a habitual or sensory response. It is a conscious experience a person can invite.

What Plato said about the nature of philosophy is insufficent. Philosophy is a modern academic discipline that has adopted and become refined by insights from modern sciences.

Quite true and also why I have no interest in academic philosophy. It seem only good for getting a job in a university or trying to show off about facts a person has learned. But for seekers of truth and the love of wisdom, it is meaningless. In reality it serves to destroy the traditional awakening purpose of philosophy

"If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows." ― Plato, Phaedrus

Nothing is remembered so the goal of academic philosophy is either egoistic or financial benefit. Lacking meaning it cannot lead to human understanding. If this is all academic philosophy is, it is really more fun and meaningful chasing women.

[Belinda]

Nick, we will have to simply disagree about man's "higher part "originating in a supernatural order of being. I think that man's "higher part" comes from culture ,and to some extent from the individual's innate ability. I don't aim to persuade you to change your mind, I just wanted to know your narrative. There is a difference between cultural adaptation and genetic adaptation. It may indeed be the case that genus homo is now at the fullest possible genetic adaptation, in any case man's genetic adaptation is very slow--- imperceptible really. Man's cultural adaptation is perceptible and sometimes quite rapid.

You quoted:

“So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Remember that Jesus was a Jew suffering under the brutal Roman occupation of Palestine. His God was the Jewish God.It made sense to accede to Caesar's taxation demands so that the Roman regime would be a little more permissive towards the practice of Judaism. It was hypocritical of certain Jews to render their consciences over to Caesar.

[Nick_A]

Belinda

Nick, we will have to simply disagree about man's "higher part "originating in a supernatural order of being. I think that man's "higher part" comes from culture ,and to some extent from the individual's innate ability. I don't aim to persuade you to change your mind, I just wanted to know your narrative. There is a difference between cultural adaptation and genetic adaptation. It may indeed be the case that genus homo is now at the fullest possible genetic adaptation, in any case man's genetic adaptation is very slow--- imperceptible really. Man's cultural adaptation is perceptible and sometimes quite rapid.

Yes we must disagree and it is good that our basic disagreement is stated without animosity. You deny conscious evolution which most do and limit humanity to cultural adaptation. What Meister Eckhart wrote is meaningful for me but not for you

The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut seeds into nut trees, and God-seed into God. Meister Eckhart

My objection as I have stated many times is the animosity directed against students who feel the seed of the soul but are trapped in institutions of child abuse called secular schools. Their spirit killing attitudes lead to metaphysical repression in the young which easily leads to a premature spiritual death. But it is the way of the world and only a few can survive it.

[Reflex]

My objection as I have stated many times is the animosity directed against students who feel the seed of the soul but are trapped in institutions of child abuse called secular schools. Their spirit killing attitudes lead to metaphysical repression in the young which easily leads to a premature spiritual death. But it is the way of the world and only a few can survive it.

I am in total agreement with you on this, Nick. And in my experience, church Sunday school can be just as secular as any other social institution.

[Reflex]

His God was the Jewish God.

Only in a very narrow sense. Jesus' God may have originated in the Jewish tradition, but He made clear that his Father is the God of all men.

Recall the ship of Theseus paradox.