On 1/27/2014 7:17 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
On Jan 27, 2014, at 4:38 PM, LizR <lizj...@gmail.com
<mailto:lizj...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On 28 January 2014 09:21, Jason Resch <jasonre...@gmail.com
<mailto:jasonre...@gmail.com>> wrote:
But Jason I want to ask you a direct question, and this isn't
rhetorical I'd
really like an answer: If there is no all encompassing purpose or a
goal to
existence and if the unknown principle responsible for the existence of
the
universe is not intelligent and is not conscious and is not a being
then do you
think it adds to clarity to call that principle "God"?
I consider this question equivalent to asking "If there is no elan vital
found
within organisms, does it still make sense to call those organisms life?"
Asking
this question illustrates the attitude of holding the word in higher esteem
than
the idea, which to me seems little different from a kind of "ancestor
worship"
(which you are also opposed to). I think there is a common kernel of idea
behind
the word God, which is common across many religions, though each religion
also adds
various additional things on top of and beyond what is contained in that
kernel. If
our theories lead us to conclude God has or doesn't have these attributes,
that is
progress, and our definitions ought to update accordingly, just as we did
not throw
out the word "life" when we discovered it is just matter arranged in
certain ways.
Similarly, even if we were to determine God is not "omnipotent", or not
"conscious", should we abandon that word and come up with something else?
Should we
do this every time we learn some knew fact about some thing? If we did, it
seems to
me that any old text would have an incomprehensible vocabulary, as
scientific
progress forced us to adopt knew words each time we learned something new.
Nevertheless, might there not be a threshold beyond which it seems ridiculous to drag a
word and its associated baggage?
Perhaps, but what word would you nominate for the infinite, transcendent, eternal,
uncreated, immutable, ground of all reality? Or for those minds that simulate whole
worlds and universes for fun?
Supposing there is a "ground of all reality", as some would nominate the strings of string
theory and others computations of a universal dovetailer, why would suppose in advance
that this GOAR is infinite, transcendent(whatever that means), eternal, or immutable. If
you're not going to jump to conclusions, carrying baggage with you, let's just call it
goar. And I would remind you that there is not necessarily a goar. I still like the
virtuous cycle of explanation:
physics->biology->intelligence->consciousness->observation->language->mathematics->physics->...
We are far from proving such (god-like) things do not exist, and I would say the
opposite is the case: their existance is a consequence of many theories, including most
of the everything type theories popular on this list.
Hence we /could /say the planets move in epicycles, but we prefer to call them orbits,
since that word doesn't carry the baggage of a discredited theory. Similarly, we don't
talk about the aether, but space-time; we don't talk about elan vital, but DNA....I'm
sure you can think of a few similar examples.
Élan vital and DNA are two explanations (theories) of life. Just as the "Abrahamic God"
and the "comp God" are two explanations (theories) of that which is responsible for our
existance.
Explanations may fall in and out of favor, but the phenomenon to be explained
persists.
I think "God" has enough baggage that the answer to John's question should be "no".
Although given the unconscious reification of various things (matter, maths, minds...)
we might still want a relatively neutral term for "the (possibly unknowable) principle
behind the universe".
Any suggestions?
(Assuming most people on this list are Westerners, I suppose we could try "Tao" ... or
maybe "Ylem" ?)
I think that might be somewhat more prone to misinterpretation. I think "god" is a
little more neutral since it does not refer to any particular religion.
But it refers to an immortal person, and singular at that.
Brent
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