Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Xenophon]

Personally, I do not ascribe to any pantheon of merciful deities (at least the deities I put credence in are only intermittently of sunny disposition and rather more likely to be bellicose or cranky.) That being said, the biggest reason not to go killing in the gods' name seems to be to be twofold: 1) the gods do not need, want, or even very much care about our approval or its lack. 2) it's ill-manners to kill someone simply because he does not resemble myself as to opinions. Ill-mannered and, I might add, pretty damned insecure.

On the other hand, I can see going to war if others inflict their aesthetic standards on me too stridently. (Mohammed Atta was that degree simpatico: he drifted into Al Qaeda at least partly out of disgust with Cairo's modernizing architectural drift.) I can certainly understand direct action against the very notion of a strip mall. I am not sure this would be a "holy war" exactly. Certainly it would be a noumenal one. So I suppose the deities are, by implication, being dragged back into the fracas through the back door.

[Alan Masterman]

Xenpohon actually raises a very interesting philosophical issue. "God", if he or she is worthy of the name, is surely far too intelligent to care whether I believe in him or her, or not.

The author W Somerset Maugham made the point that it is puzzling how we ascribe to God many of the personal qualities which we despise in our fellow human beings: an insatiable appetite for praise, a vengeful and vindictive nature, a pathological jealousy of competitors... like WSM, I can neither respect nor love a deity whose moral standards fall so far beneath my own.

[Stoppelmann]

Personally, I do not ascribe to any pantheon of merciful deities (at least the deities I put credence in are only intermittently of sunny disposition and rather more likely to be bellicose or cranky.) That being said, the biggest reason not to go killing in the gods' name seems to be to be twofold: 1) the gods do not need, want, or even very much care about our approval or its lack. 2) it's ill-manners to kill someone simply because he does not resemble myself as to opinions. Ill-mannered and, I might add, pretty damned insecure.

You would be a strange human being (although there are enough around) if you did believe in a pantheon of merciful deities because these belong in ancient literature and have a mythological existence.

On the other hand, I can see going to war if others inflict their aesthetic standards on me too stridently. (Mohammed Atta was that degree simpatico: he drifted into Al Qaeda at least partly out of disgust with Cairo's modernizing architectural drift.) I can certainly understand direct action against the very notion of a strip mall. I am not sure this would be a "holy war" exactly. Certainly it would be a noumenal one. So I suppose the deities are, by implication, being dragged back into the fracas through the back door.

I don't see the terrorist violence so much as following a divine calling but understood by them to be an act of martyrdom for the greater good. It is, especially in suicide killings, an act of desperation in the face of an all-powerful enemy. There are war examples on all sides, and the victors decide whether they are heroes or blind fanatics. Of course, there are also examples in novels and films that seem okay in that context, but even then, it is a question of how they are portrayed.

For us in the West, many of us are a little sheltered from such atrocious circumstances and cannot imagine doing such a thing, and anyone who does is a monster. However, if you are permanently bombed, lose family members, are hungry and have no perspective for your life, you might think differently. Mohammed Atta may have been in Germany at university, but he was probably moved by the suffering he saw. The twin towers were, after all, the symbol of Western domination over his people. It was, to be clear, an act of atrocity, but how would you think if you attended a wedding and almost everybody was wiped out in an airstrike?

[Sculptor1]

Xenpohon actually raises a very interesting philosophical issue. "God", if he or she is worthy of the name, is surely far too intelligent to care whether I believe in him or her, or not.

The author W Somerset Maugham made the point that it is puzzling how we ascribe to God many of the personal qualities which we despise in our fellow human beings: an insatiable appetite for praise, a vengeful and vindictive nature, a pathological jealousy of competitors... like WSM, I can neither respect nor love a deity whose moral standards fall so far beneath my own.

OR.
"Intelligence" is a word that does not even apply to an all powerful god. Such a thing has no temporality, needs, wants, desires, schemes, plans, strategies, even consciousness - as all these things imply a LACK, of something. It can have no personal qualities, it cannot have a personality in any sense.
Further. No praise, worship or adherence to any moral rules would be indicated or required were such a thing as an all powerful god to exist. Such a creator would have made us exactly the way we are and would have to have known about what we were going to do, behave and act since the dawn of time. Serial killers and political tyrrants were all made by god in the sure knowledge of the consequences.
One mught even question whether it was even appropriate to attribute such a thing as "knoweldge to such a thing as god.

[Stoppelmann]

Xenpohon actually raises a very interesting philosophical issue. "God", if he or she is worthy of the name, is surely far too intelligent to care whether I believe in him or her, or not.

The author W Somerset Maugham made the point that it is puzzling how we ascribe to God many of the personal qualities which we despise in our fellow human beings: an insatiable appetite for praise, a vengeful and vindictive nature, a pathological jealousy of competitors... like WSM, I can neither respect nor love a deity whose moral standards fall so far beneath my own.

OR.
"Intelligence" is a word that does not even apply to an all powerful god. Such a thing has no temporality, needs, wants, desires, schemes, plans, strategies, even consciousness - as all these things imply a LACK, of something. It can have no personal qualities, it cannot have a personality in any sense.
Further. No praise, worship or adherence to any moral rules would be indicated or required were such a thing as an all powerful god to exist. Such a creator would have made us exactly the way we are and would have to have known about what we were going to do, behave and act since the dawn of time. Serial killers and political tyrrants were all made by god in the sure knowledge of the consequences.
One mught even question whether it was even appropriate to attribute such a thing as "knoweldge to such a thing as god.

I think that our problem is that both theists and atheists are restricted by a two-dimensional idea of the divine, which, according to the etymology, at around 1300 CE, was connected with a broader idea of a "soothsayer, sorcerer, astrologer," from Old French devin "soothsayer; theologian" and directly from Latin divinus, "soothsayer, augur," noun use of an adjective meaning "of or belonging to a god," from divus "of or belonging to a god, inspired, prophetic."

The idea that someone speaks the truth from an inspirational source is perhaps not seen in connection with gods today, although our language still uses the spiritual basis of the word. That is to say that we still see inspiration as an integral part of creativity. Unsurprisingly, this can also be applied to negative outcomes in extreme situations, especially in armed conflicts. But, as we know, armed conflicts can have multiple causes, and they're often complex interplays of various factors rather than single, isolated causes, even if appearances suggest otherwise.

As I mentioned above, God may be a metaphor for the greater good associated with a particular lifestyle which a group of people could perceive to be in danger. It should be enough to point out that America, for example, considers what happens in the Middle East as a potential threat to its national security, which essentially means a threat to its lifestyle. Although military intervention, in this case, is not portrayed as a divine order, the correlation is obvious. Why do we condemn violence from one side and not the other?

I think we tend to assume that violence in the name of a god is different to any other kind of violence, possibly because, in our time, religious violence has been desperate rebellious violence, which is almost always an affront to our understanding of civilised behaviour. It is also often perpetrated by people from a different cultural background that many consider primitive. But it also has to do with the way our media portrays it. The difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is a matter of preference and perspective.

[Sculptor1]

Xenpohon actually raises a very interesting philosophical issue. "God", if he or she is worthy of the name, is surely far too intelligent to care whether I believe in him or her, or not.

The author W Somerset Maugham made the point that it is puzzling how we ascribe to God many of the personal qualities which we despise in our fellow human beings: an insatiable appetite for praise, a vengeful and vindictive nature, a pathological jealousy of competitors... like WSM, I can neither respect nor love a deity whose moral standards fall so far beneath my own.

OR.
"Intelligence" is a word that does not even apply to an all powerful god. Such a thing has no temporality, needs, wants, desires, schemes, plans, strategies, even consciousness - as all these things imply a LACK, of something. It can have no personal qualities, it cannot have a personality in any sense.
Further. No praise, worship or adherence to any moral rules would be indicated or required were such a thing as an all powerful god to exist. Such a creator would have made us exactly the way we are and would have to have known about what we were going to do, behave and act since the dawn of time. Serial killers and political tyrrants were all made by god in the sure knowledge of the consequences.
One mught even question whether it was even appropriate to attribute such a thing as "knoweldge to such a thing as god.

I think that our problem is that both theists and atheists are restricted by a two-dimensional idea of the divine, which, according to the etymology, at around 1300 CE, was connected with a broader idea of a "soothsayer, sorcerer, astrologer," from Old French devin "soothsayer; theologian" and directly from Latin divinus, "soothsayer, augur," noun use of an adjective meaning "of or belonging to a god," from divus "of or belonging to a god, inspired, prophetic."

The idea that someone speaks the truth from an inspirational source is perhaps not seen in connection with gods today, although our language still uses the spiritual basis of the word. That is to say that we still see inspiration as an integral part of creativity. Unsurprisingly, this can also be applied to negative outcomes in extreme situations, especially in armed conflicts. But, as we know, armed conflicts can have multiple causes, and they're often complex interplays of various factors rather than single, isolated causes, even if appearances suggest otherwise.

People are ignorant of the etymology, and never think about the origin of the word in any way. Such arguments of etymology as so often empty.
You've only to consider the passage of "psyche" through the last 2500 years to see that. We get from Breath to spirit to mind and back again.
None of this helps point to an actual phenonenon, but most commony clouds the subject in mumbo jumbo - accepted with religsh by one generation and ridiculed by the next.
Just because a word "divine" exists, does not attest to anything other than the imagination of those in whose lips the word forms. So tis of very little relevance that such a word as Divine, came from a verb to predict, or an airy-fairy dustbin category, used as a place holder for everything we cannot explain.

As I mentioned above, God may be a metaphor for the greater good associated with a particular lifestyle which a group of people could perceive to be in danger. It should be enough to point out that America, for example, considers what happens in the Middle East as a potential threat to its national security, which essentially means a threat to its lifestyle. Although military intervention, in this case, is not portrayed as a divine order, the correlation is obvious. Why do we condemn violence from one side and not the other?

Maybe shmaybe. God is also a word used by millions of people since time immemorail to indicate a superbeing; usually a man of some kind with superpowers such as creation. It can also be used for a bewildering collection of aniimals, primary forces and weather events. IN fact there seems very little limit to the use of thise word. Money can be called a God. or a celebrity. There is no doubt that 2000 years ago, gos were quite common place. Divi Augustus for example. Divinity, meaning more than just soothing was applicable to many. And like the Kim's of NK a leader was empty without such an epithet.

I think we tend to assume that violence in the name of a god is different to any other kind of violence, possibly because, in our time, religious violence has been desperate rebellious violence, which is almost always an affront to our understanding of civilised behaviour. It is also often perpetrated by people from a different cultural background that many consider primitive. But it also has to do with the way our media portrays it. The difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is a matter of preference and perspective.

True

[Lagayascienza]

Why not kill in the name of God? Indeed, why not? It's nothing new. It's what people have been doing ever since they invented gods, and in ever greater numbers, especially since they invented organized religions. As Pascal said, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

[Stoppelmann]

People are ignorant of the etymology, and never think about the origin of the word in any way. Such arguments of etymology as so often empty.
You've only to consider the passage of "psyche" through the last 2500 years to see that. We get from Breath to spirit to mind and back again.
None of this helps point to an actual phenonenon, but most commony clouds the subject in mumbo jumbo - accepted with religsh by one generation and ridiculed by the next.
Just because a word "divine" exists, does not attest to anything other than the imagination of those in whose lips the word forms. So tis of very little relevance that such a word as Divine, came from a verb to predict, or an airy-fairy dustbin category, used as a place holder for everything we cannot explain.

As I’ve explained elsewhere, the sophistication of ancient languages is enormous considering how many people assume that we are the sophisticated ones. My philologist friend coined the phrase, “Hebrew is like an ocean, Greek like a river and modern languages like a puddle.” This reflects the reductionist perspective that has taken over in many areas, not only language but also the lack of interest in where words came from.

Maybe shmaybe. God is also a word used by millions of people since time immemorail to indicate a superbeing; usually a man of some kind with superpowers such as creation. It can also be used for a bewildering collection of aniimals, primary forces and weather events. IN fact there seems very little limit to the use of thise word. Money can be called a God. or a celebrity. There is no doubt that 2000 years ago, gos were quite common place. Divi Augustus for example. Divinity, meaning more than just soothing was applicable to many. And like the Kim's of NK a leader was empty without such an epithet.

The fact that we have become utilitarian in everything (including language) isn’t a recommendation for us as a species but shows our lack of cultural sophistication. The point that Alan Watts made, that if music was goal orientated, we would only have crashing crescendos because the point of music is music itself, not to achieve something, is still relevant. We’re always in a rush to get somewhere, use something, achieve something, and seldom ask why. That question could reveal more truth than we really want because it might even show how futile it all is.

If evoking God was about finding the meaning of it all, we might find that what we regard as work could be better conceived as play. What if the point of life is discovery like it was when we were children, finding things, investigating, and imagining? What if the meaning of life is cooperation and aiding each other to self-actualisation? Of course, we find warped and deviant forms where power is the ultimate goal, and perverse kinds of worship take over from wholesome awe at the complexity of life and the universe. Creativity is essentially mimicking the amazing diversity on our planet, and the word recreating in the 14th century meant “refreshment or curing of a person, refreshment by eating,” which reflects a modern phrase, “You are what you eat!” Your body renews every cell by using what you eat, effectually recreating yourself.

If we could take that example of sustainability and apply it to all of nature, that might give us more meaning than our treadmills, and evoking a spirit of creativity would not seem so far-fetched.

[Sculptor1]

People are ignorant of the etymology, and never think about the origin of the word in any way. Such arguments of etymology as so often empty.
You've only to consider the passage of "psyche" through the last 2500 years to see that. We get from Breath to spirit to mind and back again.
None of this helps point to an actual phenonenon, but most commony clouds the subject in mumbo jumbo - accepted with religsh by one generation and ridiculed by the next.
Just because a word "divine" exists, does not attest to anything other than the imagination of those in whose lips the word forms. So tis of very little relevance that such a word as Divine, came from a verb to predict, or an airy-fairy dustbin category, used as a place holder for everything we cannot explain.

As I’ve explained elsewhere, the sophistication of ancient languages is enormous considering how many people assume that we are the sophisticated ones. My philologist friend coined the phrase, “Hebrew is like an ocean, Greek like a river and modern languages like a puddle.” This reflects the reductionist perspective that has taken over in many areas, not only language but also the lack of interest in where words came from.

Ancient languages whether more or less sophisticated does not bear any relevance to the thread topic, nor does it indicate whether "divine" is a useful or realistic category.

Maybe shmaybe. God is also a word used by millions of people since time immemorail to indicate a superbeing; usually a man of some kind with superpowers such as creation. It can also be used for a bewildering collection of aniimals, primary forces and weather events. IN fact there seems very little limit to the use of thise word. Money can be called a God. or a celebrity. There is no doubt that 2000 years ago, gos were quite common place. Divi Augustus for example. Divinity, meaning more than just soothing was applicable to many. And like the Kim's of NK a leader was empty without such an epithet.

The fact that we have become utilitarian in everything (including language) isn’t a recommendation for us as a species but shows our lack of cultural sophistication. The point that Alan Watts made, that if music was goal orientated, we would only have crashing crescendos because the point of music is music itself, not to achieve something, is still relevant. We’re always in a rush to get somewhere, use something, achieve something, and seldom ask why. That question could reveal more truth than we really want because it might even show how futile it all is.

No. Our cultural sophistication is at its highest level, and as moderns we can enjoy a bewilderingly huge resources of a multitude of cultural influences unknown and inaccessible to the narrowly focused ancients. THe fact that we can talk about the ancients and know so much about ancient culture from every corner of the world should make you realise that simple fact. Socrates knew of Keltic, Egypt, Levantine, Persian, possibly Indian culture, little else. As moderns we can talk about all that he knew, things that came before him, after him and in every place on earth unimagined by Socrates. Papua New Guinea, and Japan; Apache and Olmec were as unknowable to Socrates as the planet Pluto.

If evoking God was about finding the meaning of it all, we might find that what we regard as work could be better conceived as play. What if the point of life is discovery like it was when we were children, finding things, investigating, and imagining? What if the meaning of life is cooperation and aiding each other to self-actualisation? Of course, we find warped and deviant forms where power is the ultimate goal, and perverse kinds of worship take over from wholesome awe at the complexity of life and the universe. Creativity is essentially mimicking the amazing diversity on our planet, and the word recreating in the 14th century meant “refreshment or curing of a person, refreshment by eating,” which reflects a modern phrase, “You are what you eat!” Your body renews every cell by using what you eat, effectually recreating yourself.

Would you like to run this by yourself and unpack it before asking me?

If we could take that example of sustainability and apply it to all of nature, that might give us more meaning than our treadmills, and evoking a spirit of creativity would not seem so far-fetched.

?

[Stoppelmann]

No. Our cultural sophistication is at its highest level, and as moderns we can enjoy a bewilderingly huge resources of a multitude of cultural influences unknown and inaccessible to the narrowly focused ancients. THe fact that we can talk about the ancients and know so much about ancient culture from every corner of the world should make you realise that simple fact. Socrates knew of Keltic, Egypt, Levantine, Persian, possibly Indian culture, little else. As moderns we can talk about all that he knew, things that came before him, after him and in every place on earth unimagined by Socrates. Papua New Guinea, and Japan; Apache and Olmec were as unknowable to Socrates as the planet Pluto.

Hahaha, that was a good one.

But one word is fitting: Bewildered. I think humanity is very bewildered as in "confused as to direction or situation; having been led into perplexity or confusion."

[Lagayascienza]

Humanity has always been bewildered. Bewildered is part of what it means to be human. That why humanity invented gods. Doing so was a sort of assuage for their bewilderment. If you can't figure it out, outsource the head work to a god. Easy. It works for some.

[Stoppelmann]

Humanity has always been bewildered. Bewildered is part of what it means to be human. That why humanity invented gods. Doing so was a sort of assuage for their bewilderment. If you can't figure it out, outsource the head work to a god. Easy. It works for some.

That's a typically lazy, uninformed opinion, especially considering they had little to go on and produced the society you live in. Learn about the shoulders we stand on before you criticise them.

[Lagayascienza]

I did not criticize. I said only that theism is an effective strategy for some. Obviously, you don't like that, but that doesn't mean it's not true.

[Sculptor1]

No. Our cultural sophistication is at its highest level, and as moderns we can enjoy a bewilderingly huge resources of a multitude of cultural influences unknown and inaccessible to the narrowly focused ancients. THe fact that we can talk about the ancients and know so much about ancient culture from every corner of the world should make you realise that simple fact. Socrates knew of Keltic, Egypt, Levantine, Persian, possibly Indian culture, little else. As moderns we can talk about all that he knew, things that came before him, after him and in every place on earth unimagined by Socrates. Papua New Guinea, and Japan; Apache and Olmec were as unknowable to Socrates as the planet Pluto.

Hahaha, that was a good one.

But one word is fitting: Bewildered. I think humanity is very bewildered as in "confused as to direction or situation; having been led into perplexity or confusion."

I tell you the historical truth and you laugh.
Not a convincing repost.
You are like a nasty old man on a porch shouting at passers-by saying "It was better in the old days". Well no it was not.

[Sculptor1]

Humanity has always been bewildered. Bewildered is part of what it means to be human. That why humanity invented gods. Doing so was a sort of assuage for their bewilderment. If you can't figure it out, outsource the head work to a god. Easy. It works for some.

That's a typically lazy, uninformed opinion, especially considering they had little to go on and produced the society you live in. Learn about the shoulders we stand on before you criticise them.

We are all standing on shoulders. This means we can see further and know more now that at any time in history.