The Relevance of the Concept of God
- Thread starter Syne
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And yet, we can easily find verses in the bible that contradict those attributes.
Then, please show us all where it states anywhere that the "concept of god" must be omniscient, or have any other attributes that can't be distinguished from what one conjures from their imagination?
I'm doing no such thing.
In other words, men can attribute anything they want to a god even though those attributes can be reasoned as contradictory, they obviously didn't think their attributes through very well.
Like I said, there are plenty of verses in the Bible showing God is not omniscient.
Here are some more verses, from Genesis alone...
Genesis 4:14-16
Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid. (v.14)
And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. (v.16)
Genesis 11:5
And the Lord came down to see the city and the town.
Genesis 18:9
And they said unto him, Where is Sarah thy wife? And he said, Behold, in the tent.
Genesis 18:17-21
And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do? (v.17)
And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and, if not, I will know. (vv.20-21)
Genesis 22:12
For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
Genesis 32:27
And he [God] said unto him [Jacob], What is thy name?
Consider Urantia related to your claim above!!!:
[quote='THE URANTIA PAPERS' epochal divine revelation (original emphasis in bold):](1122.11) 102:3.15 Science is only satisfied with first causes, religion with supreme personality, and philosophy with unity. Revelation affirms that these three are one, and that all are good. The eternal real is the good of the universe and not the time illusions of space evil. In the spiritual experience of all personalities, always is it true that the real is the good and the good is the real.[/quote]
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Wow, apparently your attentional bias precludes you from reading whole sentences. For example:
Only the concept of god provides a postulated observer whereby individuals can further develop an objective view of themselves.
Since I specified "god does not exist" and "examining the concept of god", "a divine observer" is most definitely a strawman. I have no idea how the nonexistent can be "divine", nor how a total surveillance-state could be considered "divine". Please enlighten me.
The whole OP is about developing an objective view of oneself. This requires an abstract concept of omniscience, but nowhere have I said it requires an actual observer, hence Ideal Observer Theory. Can you distinguish between an actual observer and the concept of one only used to imagine an objective perspective?
But thanks for continuing to prove both the childish concept of god typically held by atheists and the subsequent inability to apply the notion of omniscience to conscience.
Quit fishing for something you can easily attack (which seems to be your only real purpose in this thread). My notion is what I have already detailed in this thread. The most relevant attribute of the concept of god is omniscience, especially when internalized as a pattern for an objective perspective of oneself.
Childish is the notion that some external entity sits in judgement, meting out punishment and reward (which is the only notion every atheist in this thread has seemed capable of addressing, even if a complete strawman).
The gradient of concepts of god can be evaluated in terms of conscience. At the lowest ends we have police, parents, bearded deities in the clouds, and other authorities that can bring force to bear as punishment. These bypass conscience, as they rely solely on carrot and stick (and, often, being caught) rather than any personal conviction. Now the bearded deity in the clouds does include the attribute of omniscience, so it is feasible that people with that notion may overcome the purely consequentialist motivation. So any notion of god, internalized (which is the step atheists are definitively incapable of), has some potential value to conscience. You should notice that even my example of a surveillance-state does not assume any consequences, only observation.
At the higher ends we have the omniscient concept of god internalized to such an extent that it could very well lose its cohesion as something purely distinct from the individual, mankind, or the universe (such as karma). The higher end of the spectrum is just as difficult to explain to an atheist who does not seriously entertain even a childish notion of god as many adult concepts are to explain to a child. Buddhism is generally a good example of a higher notion of god, and those who view things like karma as consequentialist are the ones who do not understand it.
Celestial hosts? :roflmao:
I have humored your attempt to detour this thread into a Bible debate plenty. Like I said, if you insist on your ONE concept of god (one you claim you do not even believe in, so one wonders why you favor it other than the ease with which you can attack it, i.e. laziness) then you are not addressing the OP in any significant way.
Long before the age of any extant Bible fragments the handing down of the code purports the chain of custody to have gone this way:
When Anu the Sublime, King of the Anunaki, and Bel, the lord of Heaven and earth, who decreed the fate of the land, assigned to Marduk, the over-ruling son of Ea, God of righteousness, dominion over earthly man, and made him great among the Igigi, they called Babylon by his illustrious name, made it great on earth, and founded an everlasting kingdom in it, whose foundations are laid so solidly as those of heaven and earth; then Anu and Bel called by name me, Hammurabi, the exalted prince, who feared God, to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land, to destroy the wicked and the evil-doers; so that the strong should not harm the weak; so that I should rule over the black-headed people like Shamash, and enlighten the land, to further the well-being of mankind.
And son on. He goes on tracing the roots of the code expansively, dropping the names of dozens of gods and other celebrities along the way. Evidently the Israelites didn't get the news, although they borrowed it approx 1000 years after it was written. They just forgot where it actually came from and claimed it (and the belief that they alone we chosen by God) as their own.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Codex_Hammurabi_(King_translation)
Quit spamming.
And, I have humored your delusions, name calling and personal insults.
I don't see how any gods can measure up to the attributes proclaimed by men who haven't the brains to think through their own claims. That would address the OP.
Your silly claims from the OP were addressed long ago. However, denial has overtaken you.
Let us all be blessed together, everyone accordingly to their beliefs, myself in my belief that this "God" of yours is just another unreal one among many that there are. A mythology like any other that ever existed.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
This thread has never been an academic examination of concepts of god. From the very first post, it's been the assertion that even if God doesn't exist (and it was assumed rhetorically that he doesn't), it's still necessary that people believe that God exists (in the form of an omniscient observer), in order for their consciences to fully develop. Then you proceeded, at the bottom of your first post, to tell us that's why it's reasonable that good people should distrust and even discriminate against atheists, because by your lights atheists are people with stunted and disfunctional consciences.
Theology takes place within religious traditions, whose presuppositions theology typically takes as given and a-priori.
Your point would be stronger if it used the phrase 'philosophy of religion'. The philosophy of religion differs most noticeably from theology in that it doesn't grant priority to revelation. There's less emphasis on ensuring that the results of argument remain within the boundaries of orthodox religious tradition.
But here in the West, most of the concepts and presuppositions of the philosophy of religion are still derived from the Christian tradition, the culture in which the philosophy of religion developed. The philosophy of religion is still primarily concerned with the existence of the "Abrahamic" monotheistic 'God' figure. It examines the traditional 'theistic proofs', the 'problem of evil', and so on. So in real life the philosophy of religion still overlaps a great deal with philosophical theology. In particular, it's still assumed that 'God' has the kind of attributes that Christian tradition has given it.
It's only comparatively recently that the philosophy of religon has started expanding its scope to consider ideas derived from non-"Abrahamist" traditions and from other historical periods.
In an earlier post, I pointed out that many cultures don't have omniscient gods. Gods often work at cross purposes and even trick each other. As I recall, your response was something to the effect that these were early prototypic god concepts that had yet to reach their full development. So you clearly have some paradigmatic image in your mind of what "the general concept of god" should ideally be. And that seems to be something along the lines of the "Abrahamic" idea, a single personalized monotheistic god with a bunch of "omni" attributes. The relevant one in this thread is omniscience.
If we look at religious ideas around the world, throughout history, things are more diverse than that. There's monotheism and polytheism in no end of different varieties. There are transcendent divinities and immanent divinities. There are personal divinities and impersonal divinities. God is thought to be knowable and god is thought to be unknowable. It's all over the map.
What we find is that mankind's ideas of divinities are relative to the religious traditions that generated them. We sometimes forget that, since both Islam and Christianity have spread the "Abrahamic" group of ideas all across the planet by colonialism and conquest. People sometimes assume that the "Abrahamic" version is the only one there is, or at least the best and most developed, the yard-stick that all other ideas of divinity are measured by.
Anthropomorphism isn't just imagining God with arms and legs, occupying a human-like body. Imagining God as a subjective personality like ourselves, a being that's conscious, that knows, and forms judgements, is anthropomorphic too, only now the anthropomorphism is psychological instead of physical.
Strawman, as I have said, in this thread, that the only necessity for belief is in children, who lack the abstract thinking skills to otherwise utilize the concept.
And you have yet to show why else objective and relative moralities should differ, other than by the conscience which informs them. (And I have addressed relative morality in its own thread, which you seemed to have abandoned. http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...t-be-trusted&p=3127419&viewfull=1#post3127419 )
Not necessarily.
Theology is the systematic and rational study of concepts of deity and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.
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The history of the study of theology in institutions of higher education is as old as the history of such institutions themselves.
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In some contexts, theology is pursued as an academic discipline without formal affiliation to any particular church (though individual members of staff may well have affiliations to different churches), and without ministerial training being a central part of their purpose. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology
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The history of the study of theology in institutions of higher education is as old as the history of such institutions themselves.
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In some contexts, theology is pursued as an academic discipline without formal affiliation to any particular church (though individual members of staff may well have affiliations to different churches), and without ministerial training being a central part of their purpose. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology
And? How many times do I have to correct you that I have not been discussing a particular "God" in this thread? Since you digress into criticizing philosophy of religion as well, it seems your criticism is largely vacuous. There is no substantial difference between how theology and philosophy of religion define the typical traits attributed to the concept of god.
Just because you associate omniscience with a strictly Abrahamic god is your own myopia.
Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. Common among these are omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God
I already asked you why such an in-fighting pantheon is not as ubiquitous as it once was, and I surmised that a further refined ideal better served conscience and social cooperation. Again, ad nauseam, not assumed to exist, so cannot be a personally involved. Hence the discussion of deism.
See my last post to you for a description of the gradient of concepts of god.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...ncept-of-God&p=3137737&viewfull=1#post3137737
And? I have already addressed in this thread an extremely wide variety of concepts of god, nowhere distinguishing Abrahamic concepts as primary. Again, this is your own bias.
And? You are just a fount of tangential trivialities today. I never said anthropomorphism was strictly by form, and imaging god as ourselves is exactly why the authors of the Bible would give its god seemingly non-omniscient behavior.
Now are you ever going to actually reply to direct responses to your posts (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?136662-The-Relevance-of-the-Concept-of-God&p=3137737&viewfull=1#post3137737) or is that just your tactic to frustrate discussions and allow you to play dumb about what arguments of yours have already been addressed (like this one you never replied to: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?136662-The-Relevance-of-the-Concept-of-God&p=3132867&viewfull=1#post3132867)?
Abstract concept of God in the OP? :roflmao:
I did that all the time, then I turned 8.