...And theism as well, for that matter.
This is a follow up, of sorts, to my previous thread, where I asked how God can be love when he appears to not meet the biblical definition of what "love" is. After a while, the discussions I had got me thinking, and I began to ask myself a much more profound question; that question being "what is God?"
Let me first start by asking you a question: What is God? Or to be more precise; what is the ontology of the concept known as God?
What say you? I'm sure some of you theists out there are thinking "God is loving" or "God is holy" or "God is just". And I'm sure there are some atheists out there thinking "God is cruel" or "God is arrogant" or "God is unjust". Those answers do not suffice; you have not described the actual ontology of God; those are simply attributes that you claim God possesses.
For example; the positive ontology of myself is that I am made of matter. I am of bone and flesh. You can also describe me as arrogant, condescending, bitter, mean spirited, argumentative...yadda yadda yadda, but those are just secondary attributes that can only be applied to me after my ontology has been established. What I actually am is bone and flesh. That is my ontology.
Some would say, "God is immaterial" or "God is transcendental". Okay, fantastic. We have established what God is not, but we have yet to coherently establish what the concept of God actually is.
Which brings me to the point of this thread; why I find atheism and theism to be both equally illogical. If the theist is going to claim that God exists, he must first establish a coherent ontology of this concept that he refers to as "God" before he asserts its existence. The same is true for the atheist. If he is going to assert that God does not exist, he is first required to establish a coherent ontology of this concept that he refers to as "God" before he asserts its nonexistence. If you can't do that, then debating whether or not this undefined concept actually exists or not is, in my opinion, irrelevant until a coherent ontology is established. What is the point of debating over something that has not yet been defined?
So, what are your thoughts/comments?
-Sun_Tzu-
you bring up a great point. this might be a very huge post but then again i probably won't be able to go into as much detail as i would have a couple months ago. this is all stuff we debated in my very interesting introductory philosophy class and im glad to share this with you to ponder if you haven't heard any of this.
so the ontological argument for god's existence. there was one monk named anselm from canterbery, about a thousand years ago, who thought he proved the existence of god as such. some people say god only exists in the mind and not in reality, but they at least agree that if god were true, god would be the most superior being of all. well, he stated that if something can exist in the mind, then its not as superior as something that can exist in both the mind AND reality (aka, practically anything, a wall, a cookie , etc). so that means that all these beings would be more superior than god, which we already established is the most superior being. thus, god MUST exist because of this logical impossiblity: there cannot be something superior to god and also nothing superior to god, that is nonsense.
so my professor made us read another argument from a philosopher who i cant remember, but he proposed that this whole argument is nonsense. think about it, you can make an argument for the existence of any ideal thing this way, just replace god with something like a perfect island (thats the example we had). there is in fact no such thing as a perfect island, or a perfect country, etc. so this kind of argument could be considered nonsense
ages ago the greeks had another idea but i read the most recent version of this theory as explained by thomas aquinas (medieval times). he proposed that there are only 2 possible explanations for our existence. either we are a chain of beings whose only existence is explained by an infinite regression of former similar brings, or we are a set of beings created by god. he questioned, how could there be an infinite regression of infinite beings? there would be no supreme purpose to each one's existence because each one is created by some former being which was merely created by some other ordinary being. they proposed that there is some prime cause, an uncaused cause, and this cause is god.
my favorite reading about this discussion was by a man named j.l. mackie. he discussed how evil could possible exist in the world. without going into detail with every premise, he proposed that most people would agree, without any concession of both of these premises, that god is wholly good, and god is omnipotent (i know there's one more but i can't seem to remember it, if someone can help me out if this premise is absolutely crucial that would be great). so people try and weedle their way out of the existence of evil by saying all kinds of things: like evil is a necessary ingredient of good, or necessary counterpoint to good. to these propositions, mackie merely says, if god is wholly good and omnipotent, why cant be create a perfect world where all humans act with good will and make a world with all good and no evil? god should be able to bypass that ingredient or counterpoint argument if he is trully omnipotent. someone might say if god makes everyone act good then he is taking out free will and is merely puppeteering the people. well why can't god make their good will inherent without any need for interference?
i hope these discussions might expand your mind in multiple ways. i really loved that class, we discussed things in such ways as i never thought were possible before.
im very sorry if someone who is much more knowledgable than me (aka anyone with more than one class in philosophy, which is many) finds few or many faults in these agruments, these are what i can recall from my memory of the course and i tried my best to piece it together to the best of my ability. please don't bash or flame just because something is wrong by the slightest, but still by all means please feel free to correct me, albeit respectfully.
personally, i consider myself an agnostic because although i am very inclined to believe that there is no god, i do entertain the possibility. im just not the religious type, i don't believe science can explain everything, like the birth of the universe, unless it has always existed, but i do believe that the chance that there is this all powerful being that has created our world is very small as religion was after all created by man, and i just don't think we can have contact with god in any way to be honest. all those people who ages and ages ago claimed to have these visions i think were just power hungry or full of themselves, that sounds like an immature comment but its just the way i feel about it. the concept of god is warped and different for everyone, and its just not coherent enough for me to believe that there is such a thing out there.
some of you are probably thinking, why be on the fence about it then on the chance that god does exist and then you're screwed if you don't pray or worship god? well thats a great point and one that is actually discussed by another philosopher whom i cant remember anymore. he thought that it is statistically favorable to believe in god because if you do blieve in him, well you have infinite gains if he does exist (in the afterlife or reincarnation or whatever you want to believe) and only finite losses if he doesnt. but, if you dont believe he exists, you have inifnite losses if he does exist and only a finite loss if he does not. of course im not sure i agree on that last finite loss part, for example you could become very very depressed due to your shattered faith and lose all hope in the purpose of life, but that is pretty debatable as well.
hope this is a worthy post for at least one person. great topic sun tzu.
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