Let me quote the opening post to refresh the topic and to place my summary within context.
2ndReign writes:
I don't believe in God personally but for the sake of discussion, I will concede that he does exist for the simple fact how can there be any kind of in-depth discussion on God if we are still arguing weather God exists or not.
Poe said...
quote:
If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in his inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into being? If we cannot understand him in his objective creatures, how then in his substantive moods and phases of creation?
As humans,we like to understand things. We feel the need to put them into some type of category, to name them. This has been a good thing for our species in many circumstances but in the case of God the ability to define or even name him is an impossibility. Yet that does not mean that it is not worth the attempt to gain some understanding of what God is, only that we must understand before we begin that defining something limits that something, and describing something often gets confused with defining something. You try to define your love of someone by describing why you love them. You attempt to define the sky by describing its properties,etc. So based on this,can you define God? Some if most would say that God is good, merciful, just, loving, and all powerful. All of these are words to describe him. It doesn't make them untrue, it simply avoided the bigger challenge, and that is defining him.
As pointed out in the OP, humans are the labeling species. We seem to need to place a label on everything, create definitions even when the definitions really tell us absolutely nothing about the object being defined.
Consider the oft quoted definition in this thread of "supernatural".
quote:
1.of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural; unexplainable by natural law or phenomena
Does that really tell us anything about the object being described as supernatural? I don't think so. What does "of, pertaining to, or being above or beyond what is natural" even mean beyond being a handy label we can stick on something to make us satisfied.
We also know as a fact that when we actually look at things claimed to be supernatural, they turn out to be just plain natural and not supernatural (whatever that really is) at all. The list is long, thunder, lightning, wind, sun, moon, earthquakes, floods, fire, famine, disease, seizures, dreams, hallucinations, eclipses, witches, hurricanes, tornadoes and yes, Gods and gods.
Look again at the oft quoted definition of a God:
quote:
1. (Christianity / Ecclesiastical Terms) a supernatural being, who is worshipped as the controller of some part of the universe or some aspect of life in the world or is the personification of some force Related adj divine
Again, what we see here is that word supernatural; an assertion that some people or group asserted that a supernatural being exists and is worshiped and that controls something.
That tells us about the people, that the group specified worships and assigns attributes, but tells us nothing about the object itself other than (as we see in the definition of supernatural above) that it is "unexplainable by natural law or phenomena"; an unknown.
It appears we are still no closer to being able to say what "supernatural" is, but we can perhaps say that some things are NOT supernatural.
We know for a fact that people have labeled things as supernatural that we have later found were totally natural.
Let's take a look at some Gods and gods. First let's look at the Hebrew god found in Genesis 2&3. Here we get some pretty specific information, it is a male, it walks, talks and looks like a human. It is unsure at times, seems to be learning on the job, proceeds by trial and error, creates by hand and magic but is a powerful ruler that commands a powerful army, interacts directly with its creation and is intimately involved.
So let's examine that concept. Is there any reason other than the fact that humans are writing the stories to think that a real GOD, if it existed, would be human like, would be unsure, would create by hand and magic, would be male, would walk and talk like a human ...?
We see they same characteristics in the Greek and Roman and Norse gods, a human that is powerful and can do magic but that in essence is just a powerful human often with very human weaknesses and failings.
In the Greek sagas there were the Younger gods and then there were the Titans but we have very specific information in the stories about where each lived and what each was like. The tales are filled with very human characteristics, fear, infidelity, jealousy, patricide, matricide, tricks, wars, incest, and all the characters even when symbolizing things like heavens (Uranus) or earth (Gaia) are human in form. Uranus is a male and gets his balls cut off and Gaia is a woman who has children.
Eventually though we have fully explored the places where these two groups lived and there are simply no traces of there ever being any habitation in those locations.
It seem clear that like the god character found in Genesis 2&3, The Olympians and Titans were simply characters in a story.
We can identify it seems with a fairly high degree of confidence things that are not supernatural.
But if there really was a supernatural critter, what can we label it?
I chose the term GOD since that is a term many people are already familiar with but in all caps to differentiate between that which really is supernatural and those things we just label as supernatural. But since I can't even describe or define or show or test or verify anything that really is supernatural, I cannot define, describe, show, test or verify such a critter.
If there really is anything that is supernatural I can say some things about what it is not but nothing about what it is.
I have a very high degree of confidence that it would be unlike anything I can experience in this natural world as a human; it would not be just another human, even a really powerful human, it would not be male or female or any gender we could assign. It would not be material, not live on Mount Olympus, not be human centric, not simply reflect human emotions, morality, customs, behaviors ...
I believe such a GOD exists, but it is simply a personal belief.
But I worship something I can wrap my mind around, not GOD but rather a God, a path, a map, a caricature, a human creation that is translated, labeled and defined in terms I can relate to. I also understand though that what I am worshiping is NOT the reality but just a placeholder.
Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!
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