Philosophy Discussion Forums

Dark Matter wrote:

Great said:

“What logical reason is there to call The All “God” rather than “the universe”?

Nameless said:

“Omni” is completely transcendental, unconditional, One.

I don’t understand why there’s a question.

To whom are you speaking?

The attribute of God cannot be "Omni-" - God is omni-evil?
Whatever the omni- it has to be the attributes that are essential and positive to God.

Namelesss wrote:Why, yes, Omni means ALL INCLUSIVE!!
All prett y, all ugly, all in between, all 'good', all 'evil', all stuff that makes you feel pleasant and all stuff that hurts!
ALL inclusive!

Then, is your omni-everything God an omni-baby_molestor, omni-pedophile?

It is your own arbitrary limitations that you place on the Omni, if it feels good to you, it's 'good'. If it hurts, it's bad. Are you a child? Don't you know that the best medicine hurts, and we do it anyway, and be grateful!
All this judgment that you display is your own biases and psychology at work, your own ego.
There is not anything that exists that is not God/Self!
That includes passing feelings that are uncomfortable.
'Good' and 'evil' exist in the judgmental eye of the beholder!
When we see either, we are looking in the mirror! What we 'see', is God!

Problem is you do not think philosophically, i.e. wisely.
Rationally and morally, an absolutely perfect God cannot be omni-evil but is morally omni-good and omni-benevolent, i.e. zero evil.

But as I had argued, an absolutely perfect God is an impossibility to be real empirically and rationally.

That is simply because, (and, yes, it is true) the Omni is completely transcendental, unconditional, One!, and cannot possibly be defined (limited) in an inherently limited dualistic system of observation.

By the way, an absolutely perfect God (the very definition of Perfection; Truth/Reality/Universal... ALL inclusive) is certainly 'rationally' produced! I have just done so! *__-

Yes, it is "rationally" produced but that is based on instinctual primal-reason [kindergarten] and not philosophical- refined-reason [PhD.].

To be really real, the basis must imperatively be empirical and rational [based on philosophical refined reasoning]. You cannot jump to conclusion [the nature of primal reason] and end up with an omni-God that is an omni-baby-sex-molestor or omni-evil.

Spectrum wrote:

The attribute of God cannot be "Omni-" - God is omni-evil?
Whatever the omni- it has to be the attributes that are essential and positive to God.

Namelesss wrote:Why, yes, Omni means ALL INCLUSIVE!!
All pretty, all ugly, all in between, all 'good', all 'evil', all stuff that makes you feel pleasant and all stuff that hurts!
ALL inclusive!

Then, is your omni-everything God an omni-baby_molestor, omni-pedophile?

I can't say it any better, ALL inclusive!!! Anything that you can fit into the blank.. is True!
The One is, by definition, ALL inclusive!
And yes, Dorothy, even the stuff that makes you uncomfortable! *__-

Problem is you do not think philosophically, i.e. wisely.

Alright Yoda,... this is going to be amusing...

Rationally and morally, an absolutely perfect God cannot be omni-evil but is morally omni-good and omni-benevolent, i.e. zero evil.

Rationally, a Perfect God/Universe/Reality is perfectly balanced. All inclusive of all apparent polarities!

"Every kind of partial and transitory disequilibrium must perforce contribute towards the great equilibrium of the whole.." - Rene' Guenon

Your arbitrary limitations on God/Universe/Truth... are logically and rationally irrelevant!
A mere admission of a very limited vision/Perspective.
And a God of which you speak, yet have no Knowledge/experience.

I rather like your posts, Nameless.

BTW, I wasn't talking to anyone in particular. I was just commenting on Greta's question, which didn't seem to make sense in view of your statement.

Namelesss wrote:Thus the One (unchanging, ALL inclusive) Universe, and all in it, must be God!
There is no argument against this Reality!

Greta wrote:There is an argument against the labeling, though. What logical reason is there to call The All "God" rather than "the universe"?

Namelesss wrote:To speak is to lie (why literalists remain clueless)!
In discussion, all is metaphor. We just pick a metaphor relate-able to the widest demographic, when writing/discussing.
It doesn't matter the Perspective (metaphor), they all refer to the same thing;

Existence = the complete Universe = Nature = Reality = Consciousness = Truth = Love = 'Self!' = God = Brahman = Tao = ... etc....
ALL INCLUSIVE!!'One'!

If the universe is in a multiverse, how might that affect your pantheist model? Would you simply expand the boundary and say "Multiverse = Nature = Reality = Consciousness ..." etc?

Greta wrote: If the universe is in a multiverse...

It is not, by definition!
Uni- = One! All is One!
One means ALL INCLUSIVE!
The 'multiverse' theory violates Occam's razor and is an ignorant statement that they are clueless, so, add a few more Universes to compensate for what they cannot explain!
Rather pathetic!
One (unchanging, ALL inclusive Universe. Irrefutable! *__-

Namelesss wrote:

Spectrum wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


(Nested quote removed.)

Then, is your omni-everything God an omni-baby_molestor, omni-pedophile?

I can't say it any better, ALL inclusive!!! Anything that you can fit into the blank.. is True!
The One is, by definition, ALL inclusive!
And yes, Dorothy, even the stuff that makes you uncomfortable! *__-

Problem is you do not think philosophically, i.e. wisely.

Alright Yoda,... this is going to be amusing...

Rationally and morally, an absolutely perfect God cannot be omni-evil but is morally omni-good and omni-benevolent, i.e. zero evil.

Rationally, a Perfect God/Universe/Reality is perfectly balanced. All inclusive of all apparent polarities!

"Every kind of partial and transitory disequilibrium must perforce contribute towards the great equilibrium of the whole.." - Rene' Guenon

Your arbitrary limitations on God/Universe/Truth... are logically and rationally irrelevant!
A mere admission of a very limited vision/Perspective.
And a God of which you speak, yet have no Knowledge/experience.

So you are willing to accept your God is omni-everything and your God is an omni-baby_molestor, omni-pedophile, an omni-evil.
In this case, you do not have any sense of morality at all. The consequence is you are condoning real evil, i.e. child molesting. genocides, etc.
Note the fact is 5.4 billion out of 7+ billion theists will find your views abominable.

It appears you are holding the pantheistic or panentheistic, i.e. God is all there is. I has stated before, I was a pantheist [re Brahman] for a long time. I had argued all ideas of God ultimately is an absolutely perfect God. I have also argued an absolutely perfect God is an impossibility to be real in the empirical-rational sense. Why you are driven to reify the pantheistic God is due to subliminal internal psychological desperation, albeit not as desperate as most of the Abrahamic monontheist.

An absolute perfect God [monotheistic, pantheistic, panentheistic, etc] is merely an idea which is illusory and I have proven it is impossible to be real in the empirical-rational sense. The onus is on you to prove it is real in the empirical-rational sense.

Spectrum wrote:An absolute perfect God [monotheistic, pantheistic, panentheistic, etc] is merely an idea which is illusory and I have proven it is impossible to be real in the empirical-rational sense. The onus is on you to prove it is real in the empirical-rational sense.

This is getting boring.
You have proven/demonstrated nothing, nor have you managed to refute anything that I have offered.
No wonder, I come from experience/Knowledge and you come from imagination/ignorance.
And your emotionally, psychologically based/biased 'logic' fails completely!
Demanding that a transcendental unconditional all inclusive 'Truth' completely fit into the miniscularity of your conditional ignorant thoughts/ego is absurd.
Have a nice day.

Namelesss wrote:

Greta wrote: If the universe is in a multiverse...

It is not, by definition!
Uni- = One! All is One!
One means ALL INCLUSIVE!
The 'multiverse' theory violates Occam's razor and is an ignorant statement that they are clueless, so, add a few more Universes to compensate for what they cannot explain!
Rather pathetic!
One (unchanging, ALL inclusive Universe. Irrefutable! *__-

How many times have we all seen people say online:

"If you think x then are y (or a z)"? I used to do it myself. "If you think differently to me, I will not check what you mean but judge you to be " clueless", "ignorant" and "pathetic" - unless you immediately submit to my beliefs".

It's just minor league bullying, without substance. Noise. I fear no insults from you or anyone else because you lucked out and I am indeed a rather clueless, ignorant and pathetic woman hence my presence on philosophy forums rather than philosophy departments. Still, I'm sure we can all do much better than pointless ad hominem attacks. We can leave that other forums and social media.

My point was that there is another layer beyond just applying etymology (I took Latin too), because what we refer to as "the universe" is only an assumption - an assumption that this particular cluster of galactic superclusters is the sum total of reality.

Who is to say there are not incredible voids between what we call "the universe" and other "universes" (which in that case would actually be a megacluster of galactic megaclusters, although in subjective terms they could perhaps be thought of as universes)? Perhaps the idea that our mega megacluster is the only one is naive? A century ago we believed that the Milky Way comprised most of the "universe", with just some random scattered stars around us. Meanwhile the ancients believed the Earth to be the centre of the universe.

Ditto perhaps the notion of "knowing God"? Maybe that's akin to our gut microbes knowing us as a person? It's a balancing act between having the confidence to push forward with ideas but the humility to accept that it may be futile.

Namelesss wrote:

Spectrum wrote:An absolute perfect God [monotheistic, pantheistic, panentheistic, etc] is merely an idea which is illusory and I have proven it is impossible to be real in the empirical-rational sense. The onus is on you to prove it is real in the empirical-rational sense.

This is getting boring.
You have proven/demonstrated nothing, nor have you managed to refute anything that I have offered.
No wonder, I come from experience/Knowledge and you come from imagination/ignorance.
And your emotionally, psychologically based/biased 'logic' fails completely!
Demanding that a transcendental unconditional all inclusive 'Truth' completely fit into the miniscularity of your conditional ignorant thoughts/ego is absurd.
Have a nice day.

First it is impossible for you to prove your pantheistic God is real from the empirical-rational basis. If so bring verifiable and justifiable evidence to prove it.

When you claim an all-inclusive God, you are faced with various dilemma.
As I had pointed out, there is the moral question, you can't have a God that is a child-molestor and omni-evil.

When you claim, your God is ALL-there-IS, you have a problem of impossibility of verifiability as there is no vantage point to stand out to obtain an objective view of your so-called God. The only perspective is that from your own subjective self which is vulnerable to the selfish ego.

So, all you have is a groundless thought-based idea.
This thought-based-idea is void of any empirical elements, thus an impossibility to be real within empirical-rational reality.
The only tenable explanation to such a thought is, it is driven by existential psychological impulses.

I used to lean on the idea of Brahman - the all inclusive.
I soon learn of all the opposing points above against the idea of Brahman.
To clue you in, note the paradigm shifting view of Buddhism in countering the idea of Brahman with the concept of Sunyata.

In Buddhism, the philosophy direct one's attention inward to one own self to manage the internal ego rather than diluting one's attention to something out there.

Spectrum wrote:As I had pointed out, there is the moral question, you can't have a God that is a child-molestor and omni-evil.

What about a developing deity, which at this early stage of the universe's growth still contains significant amounts of chaos?

Greta wrote:

Spectrum wrote:As I had pointed out, there is the moral question, you can't have a God that is a child-molestor and omni-evil.

What about a developing deity, which at this early stage of the universe's growth still contains significant amounts of chaos?

That is the point why there is no God in the first place.
For every attempt to justify God existence, theists will be cornered with a dilemma in relation to reality because God was and is never real in the first place.

Theists will give all sorts of excuses, e.g. the Universe was completed within 7 days, so there is no transitory chaos. If there is evil, then it is a test by God. Why??? .. Only God knows.

God is an impossibility to be real within empirical-rational reality.
What is real is the existential psychological impulses that drive [subliminally] the desperate to cling to an idea of God which does work to soothe the existential angst.

Spectrum wrote:

Greta wrote: (Nested quote removed.)

What about a developing deity, which at this early stage of the universe's growth still contains significant amounts of chaos?

That is the point why there is no God in the first place.

Using this logic, if we did not exist before fertilisation, then that demonstrates that we don't exist.

There may be more to reality than we realise, possibly some seemingly far fetched things. Not an anthropomorphic deity, obviously, but perhaps something more akin to the notions of more sophisticated believers ... the ground of being ... whatever.

You will not convince if you make assumptions about the ultimate nature of reality that we cannot possibly rationally make with the information we have today. For all we know, God is not existent now but may emerge later in the universe's life.

Greta wrote:

Spectrum wrote: (Nested quote removed.)

That is the point why there is no God in the first place.

Using this logic, if we did not exist before fertilisation, then that demonstrates that we don't exist.

There may be more to reality than we realise, possibly some seemingly far fetched things. Not an anthropomorphic deity, obviously, but perhaps something more akin to the notions of more sophisticated believers ... the ground of being ... whatever.

You will not convince if you make assumptions about the ultimate nature of reality that we cannot possibly rationally make with the information we have today. For all we know, God is not existent now but may emerge later in the universe's life.

Here is a interesting take from Russell which compare the secular and theological sense of reality and why we need to be philosophical rather than theological; i.e.

• 1. The known - scientific and others
  2. The No-man's land - philosophy
  3. The certain reality of the theologian -God.

Bertrand Russell wrote:Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation.

All definite knowledge – so I should contend – belongs to science; all dogmas as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man’s Land, exposed to attack from both sides, and this No Man’s Land is philosophy. Almost all the questions of most interest to speculative minds are such as science cannot answer, and the confident answers of theologians no longer seem so convincing as they did in former centuries.

Is the world divided into mind and matter, and, if so, what is mind and what is matter? Is mind subject to matter, or is it possessed of independent powers? Has the universe any unity or purpose? Is it evolving towards some goal? Are there really laws of nature, or do we believe in them only because of our innate love of order? Is man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water impotently crawling on a small and unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is he perhaps both at once? Is there a way of living that is noble and another that is base, or are all ways of living merely futile? Must the good be eternal in order to deserve to be valued, or it is it worth seeking even if the universe is inexorably moving towards death? Is there such a thing as wisdom, or is what seems such merely the ultimate refinement of folly?

To such questions no answer can be found in the laboratory. Theologies have professed to give answers, all too definite; but their very definiteness causes modern minds to view them with suspicion. The studying of these questions, if not the answering of them, is the business of philosophy.

You will note I am not making anything definite with reality.

What I have done is being definite that theology cannot be definite, i.e. simply declare they are 100% certain God exists are real.

Spectrum wrote:You will note I am not making anything definite with reality.

What I have done is being definite that theology cannot be definite, i.e. simply declare they are 100% certain God exists are real.

I agree with this entirely. My only quibble is ever with perceived certainty with these things.