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I am an atheist in a supernatural God but I have come to see that as long as someone is talking about a subjective God, religion, spirituality, hell, heaven, angel’s, devils, demons, etc then I’m ok with it.

Even from my atheist position I have come to view a “God” from a metaphorical standpoint. I see the word God as a poetic personification of the natural world and the human concept of good that comes from the natural world.

For instance, you’re walking along a lake and find a beautiful rock filled with all different lovely colors. You bring that rock home and name it “Rocky”. Now Rocky exists but only as a rock. Similarly God exists but only as the beauty we see in the natural world.

Now I’m still an atheist, sometimes militant atheist, sometimes anti-theist.

But are atheists shooting themselves in the foot by trying to get totally rid of the God concept and all concepts dealing with religions?

Maybe we are. What are your thoughts?

SalC 6 Feb 23
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33 comments (26 - 33)

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God to me represents the most powerful energies vs the less powerful ones. That seems to also fit many other religions ideas of god, just that they try to add metaphors, like images to represent that idea. I do however assume, due to the prevalence of philosophical research on the topic, that most people agree with that. It seems as though the metaphors, or images are what people disagree on. I think even many atheists would agree that there has to be a most powerful energy or most powerful group of energies. Comments or ideas anyone?

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"I have come to view a “God” from a metaphorical standpoint. . .God exists but only as the beauty we see in the natural world."

Seems as cherry picked a god notion as the others to me.
Does not meet the definition of a deity for instance, so why call it "God" at all?

I am an Ignostic

I was raised a believer
AS a believer I thought understanding God of the utmost import.
SO I studied that.
Which is why I am today an Igtheist/Ignostic

Ignosticism is an Epistomologic position; it is a set of ideas refuting the importance of determining the existence of God. It claims that knowledge regarding the reality of God is altogether unprofitable.

It is the idea that every theological position assumes too much about the concept of God and other theological concepts; including (but not limited to) concepts of faith, spirituality, heaven, hell, afterlife, damnation, salvation, sin and the soul.

Ignosticism or igtheism is the idea that the question of the existence of God is meaningless because the term god has no coherent and unambiguous definition.

IF you cannot even define what you are talking about, or consider it beyond human understanding, how is it you can claim to know anything about it and keep your intellectual integrity intact?

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So god's nickname is Rocky? What happened to Cephas, Peter, Simon or whatever you want to call god. It makes no difference.

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You ask, "But are atheists shooting themselves in the foot by trying to get totally rid of the God concept and all concepts dealing with religions?"

Are you saying you want to get rid of people and to eliminate helping widows and orphans in need?

What "god" and "religious" concepts are you referring to and why does it seem you are rejecting or not acknowledging the "God" and "religion " concepts established and defined by biblical text

Religion ... pure and faultless is this: to help widows and orphans in need and avoiding worldly corruption. James 1:27

3 different references that people are Gods. With out disputing truth or fiction of Jesus character, it is written that Jesus style God argued that people are Gods.
Isaiah 41:23 Shew the things that are to come hereafter, that we may know that ye are gods: yea, do good, or do evil, that we may be dismayed, and behold it together.
Psalms 82:6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
John 10:34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

Word Level 8 Feb 25, 2020

The "ye are gods" reference is not really fair as it doesn't take into consideration that gods was never a unique title of deity. the word "elohim" in hebrew is simply a plurality of the root "el" meaning power and is equivalent of saying "powers" or "powerful". It is a plurality of power. The reason they add this, imho, was because it wasn't sufficient in their minds to call YHWH "el" because of the fact that judges, rulers, leaders, strong men, etc. could all be called gods (elohim) in the plural case but when talking about a single entity, the use of the plural was used to mean the equivalent of "el shaddai" or "god almighty". Since might is simply another word for power we can clearly see this distinction.

In Psalms the context is clearly that gods judge between good and evil. Therefore "gods" in this regard should be translated as judges. The problem in Christianity is that they turn God into a species/race and then "godhead" into an office of authority that could be occupied by a trinity. To suit their beliefs they just modify the definition of things; each time going away from the original meanings of these words. And because THEY were caught up in the question of Jesus's divinity they never imagined that Jesus could use the same word in application to humans.

@ZealotX I concur with you for the most part about el and elohim. I am famuliar with these different root words and understand the "conceptual evolution thru translation", as I would loosely describe what has gone on with the words and their meanings.

With out debating truth or fiction: as best as I can for now, to give for an observation based on what is written as I have researched up to this point.

Genesis "God" created the "hosts" and man kind. As you explain about elohim, which is what I have simularly found: I think there is connection to these terms: Host, Angel and son of "God". These as I understand, man and angels, are created as apart of or from the "eternal".

Adam, som of God, given reign over earth? He was written as having intelligence to name animals. Homo sapian mean wise man. Wisdom is high intellegence capabilities.

Knowledge of good and evil is the 'super" of cognition capability. With knowledge of good and evil one can Judge between contrasts in a world of varying contrast. It takes a lot of wisdom and intellectual capabilities to have such judgments using or knowing good and evil.

1kings 3 : 9 Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?”

The biblical text follows out of Egypt and most do not understand nor know the connections that the biblical text actually saying in new testiment that the Egyptian stories come true.

The LORD Almighty will bless them, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance." Isaiah 19:25

The "Lord" of Israel was Egyptian.

As to Osiris of Egypt:
But he did not just represent death in the physical world, also rebirth or what you may call being born again.

a)   John 3:3 

Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again."

As to Osiris of Egypt:
He was married to his sister Isis, who was goddess of the sky and love. Isis and Osiris had a child Horus, who is believed by many to be a reincarnation of Osiris.

John 14:9 9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?

Osiris is usually identified as the God of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is also called the King of eternity, King of the living, Master of souls; He who appears as ram in Mendes, and the Sovereign of Amenti.(1) Another curious title that you will find for Osiris is the “Morning Star.”

This same Morning Star of Osiris found in the Book of the Dead, appears to be the same Morning Star that we can find in the Book of Revelation, where Saint John says, “I will give him the Morning Star (Rev. ii. 29).

John 1:1 In the beginning was the logos, the logos was with God and was God.

Logos, thought/word capabilities. What is anything with out cognition or thinking ability?

What is the highest of concepts to understand? Knowledge of good and evil.

Can cognition create? As written, Jesus character say: ... that born of pneuma is Pnuema. I think "Ruach"would be used instead of Pnuema if originally written in Hebrew. Ruach and Pnuema translated into English is Spirit which as a connotation of ghost. This I think is an error to use spirit with or as a connotation for ghost.

Jesus character referred to himself as "son of man". The man (people) having the Egyptian logos thoughts spoke Jesus character into existence. This follows with other themes of biblical ideals the "God" created by simply speaking it into existence. Speaking words is force with information. Ruach is a force. Air molecules have a force with intellageable pattern when words are spoken.

@ZealotX The people are the "creator-gods" that created Jesus character 'son of God" "son of man"

Kinetic energy or ruach, a force: like breath, wind or a storm is the "Eternal " and causation for things created.

What can be done, made, conflated, combined or created without movement, kinetic energy or any use of forces?

@ZealotX Cognition the "super" of known natural phenomenon. Yes, no?

Any one know chemistry? My high school chemistry teacher repeatedly said, "all roads lead thru moles". Meaning converting from one kind of unit to another must be calculated thru moles.

I would like to discuss aspects of this word - super. From defination of super it can be used in atleast two ways: the super superior greater of a KIND ( of a thing) or a KIND (some/any) super superior greater than another kind.

SUPER
above; over; beyond.
"superlunary"
to a great or extreme degree.
"superabundant"
extra large of its kind.
"supercontinent"
having greater influence, capacity, etc. than another of its kind.
"superbike"
of a higher kind (especially in names of classificatory divisions).
"superfamily"

I would like to try to make comparison of cognition to be like moles. Maybe, to say "all things known lead thru cognition. "

Single cell organisms (and zygote) evolved by way of chemical reactions to become people. I could post a video that explains DNA is a form of intelligence. Monkey(prehuamans?) and other known creatures have cognition but of a lesser capabilities than supercreatures know as homo sapiens. The cognition of or existence of a kind superior to people kind would have to be known thru cognition.

In considering cognition as its own "kind" of phenomenon as seen with levels of cognitive ability with in known creatures. The answer to the question of a higher cognitive ability than seen in humans is not cognitively understood by humans.

If all known "kinds" were listed, what kind would be superior even superior to any kind above people kind? Cognition capability is the "super" of any kind what so ever.

John 1: 1 in the beginning was the logos, the logos was with God and was God.

Logos is word/thought capabilities, cognition.

@ZealotX Powerless all-powerful.
All knowing
Would an all knowing all powerful know how to be powerless and/or not-knowing?

How can this be seen, demonstrated and nailed down in a representative form?

Power
Noun (as in a person place or thing)

  1. the ability to do something or act in a particular way, especially as a faculty or quality.
  2. the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.
    Power
    verb (as in the action of a noun)
  3. supply (a device) with mechanical or electrical energy.
  4. move or travel with great speed or force.

Electrons have power.
the uncertainty principle states that the position and velocity cannot both be measured,exactly, at the same time (actually pairs of position, energy and time) uncertainty principle derives from the measurement problem, the intimate connection between the wave and particle nature of quantum objects.

It is purported that a representation of all-powerful was nailed down once.

John 1:14 ...logos become flesh.

What can be thought/said about the powerfulness or powerlessness of words?

Matthew 27:46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" (which means [by one translation] "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" ).

So to say it is uncertain how to nail down all- powerful representation but when it is nailed down it doesn't appear all-powerful.

@word
I love your interest on this subject.

The hebrew word malakim (angel) really just means messenger. So, like "elohim" how can you distinguish "messenger" to always means a non-human? See, we come from the stand point of trying to figure out who or what exists in the "heavenly realm" when I think that the writers were speaking to an audience that may have been significantly less concerned. When Jacob wrestles with the "angel" it is also described as though he wrestled with "God" even though the Mosaic version of God had a destructive physical presence that humans could not stand to get close to and one in which God himself, as if radioactive, couldn't prevent people from getting hurt if they got too close (it was a volcano), but somehow you wrestle with God? But again, they didn't necessarily mean what we, of a different time and culture, think they meant.

And yes the whole "son of God" thing becomes controversial only because we define a "son" in terms of biology. So when they thought of God they thought it must at least be of the same "kind" or "species" as if there was ever any literary thought put into describing the "species" of God. No. They never wrote about his origin or anything having to do with his species or biology or anything like that. Why? I would almost say that perhaps their view of God, originally, wasn't as literal. And so that's why it didn't matter how many eyes God had or where exactly he lived. In the clouds? In space? In Orion's belt? Why so far from Earth if he's the one who designed the planet and could live anywhere he wanted? But all these scientific questions don't matter because their concern wasn't the same as ours.

@word
My oldest daughter is not my oldest biologically. But I raised her since she was 2. Son and daughter, to a being who doesn't procreate could only mean nurture over nature. It means that it is more of a spiritual offspring like the way Elon Musk might be a "spiritual" successor to Tesla. So when God called Adam his son, or when God called David his son, (and of course it was the writers saying this, not some kind of supernatural being) it was simply a recognition of, not what they were, but who they were. This is how the bible represents Yeshua/Jesus. It was never saying he was "God the son" as these words don't exist in the bible for good reason. It was saying that if you want to know what God is like, here is a man who reflects the artist the same way that a statue or a painting reflects the person who did it. But people didn't really care who God was because they just wanted him to save them from death. So because they didn't care they thought the bible was talking about WHAT (species) Yeshua was. And the reason I believe they were so confused is because the whole eternal life thing is more of an NT concept. And even "eternal life" can mean different things such as being legendary or living in people's hearts and minds long after death. And in that case, David and Moses are "eternal".

But we all know how personal bias can make a situation look different. And so I think once the church started to represent the path to eternal life, a lot of these words and concepts took on meanings that were supporting roles in a movie that was all about that quest for the chalice, just like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They don't care about God. They don't even call him by name. Half the time they're praying to Jesus because he's less scary than Yahweh. But Jesus was human and he died. He's not in heaven (I mean even in the theology of the bible). He thought he was going to be the king of Israel and that his disciples would be his ministers and officials. It simply never happened. He wasn't that much different from some of the Muslim clerics we think of as terrorists.

@word
And that's why I have a problem with John 1:1. They used a lot of metaphor in the NT. Like what is born of flesh is flesh. What is born of spirit is spirit. The baptism of John was from sin but the baptism of Jesus was said to be with "the holy spirit" and with "fire". This was to be a spiritual rebirth, not a physical rebirth. It was all about purity and righteousness. The more righteous and pure you were the more you fit the description and standard of being a "son of God" (See 1 John 3 for absolute confirmation). There is supposedly new manuscript evidence that supports the JW rendition "and the Word was a god". In my mind, however, God doesn't always mean deity but "power". So it could easily be saying that Word (which imho is the spoken word of God that was used in creation to create everything) is power(ful). Everything was created by it (the word of God) and without it was nothing made. So if you understand this, which lines up perfectly with Geneis 1 without inventing some knew theology to explain it, then it is easy to understand how God's (continued) word, the SCRIPTURES (ie. especially the Torah) had became FLESH in the form of a man who had perfected the art of living by it and had a perfect understanding of it and therefore the will of God as related through it. The "Word of God" becomes flesh in the hearing and doing of the word as it says plainly in James 1:22.

It's not metaphysical. It's metaphorical.

The funny thing is that Christians do not live in such a way to achieve this "children of God" (1 John 3) standard because they think it is literally their belief in Jesus being the literal son of God that will save them from death. But the point was never about salvation from death, but rather salvation from sin. They simply believed that the "wages of sin is death". And this doesn't necessarily mean the death and eternal life of the individual, but rather could mean the destruction of a person's genetic lineage. Look at how important they make lineage in the bible. This person begat this person, and so on. Sin catches up to you and can destroy both you and your children. Otherwise, your DNA... your genetic code... that is you... can live on in your children. And so the question is whether or not your "nation" lives or dies, not a single individual. Adam isn't just the name of one person. It is the name of humanity. Adam = human.

But because Christians are trying to win eternal life they don't necessarily become the kind of people, people of spiritual lineage to God, who can live in perfect love and harmony. And so they still fight and send their sons and daughters to die on distant battlefields and be replaced by foreigners and their former slaves. Sin has a way of catching up just like the idea of "karma".

@word
Now if you investigate the Johanine comma, or if you're already familiar with it, it shows us just how far biased people were willing to go; to actually insert their bias into the text. For what purpose? Obviously this doesn't change what was written. It only changes what is believed. Who cares? Those who profit on controlling this "knowledge of eternal life" would profit. This is why they told people to give up their treasures on earth (to the church) so that they could have treasure in heaven. This is somewhat similar to the idea of pharoahs storing their treasure in their tombs.

You're on the right track with "ruach". Ruach basically means "breath". So if you think about how the bible uses this in Genesis as the "breath of life" and MAN became a living soul, it is the breath of life that is always inherited from God. And that was the difference between normal creation and the creation of humans; breathing into man's nostrils, "spirit". And because this is a NON-PHYSICAL susbstance people should really not take this a literal transfer or "same species" connection. We all have the same spirit/breath within us but we don't all behave that way and this is the point of the NT and baptism.

I'm definitely open to discussing DNA as an intelligent system which, to myself as a programmer, could develop into sentient life due to the presence of randomness within a rule based system. Christians often deny evolution is possible because they only depict it as being random. But it's actually part chaos part order because there are laws in physics. So we are really a product of chaos being forced into an orderly system just like creation in Genesis 1 but without a creator.

@ZealotX Thanks for replies. No time to comb thru all right now. But a quick link to a video that I like part of. Skip to 6 minutes and 10 seconds to skip Christian dogma to get point made about DNA being intellegence.

@ZealotX one thing I see according to what is written is that each of the 12 disciples being considered leaders of the 12 tribes would be like their own rule makers. So, I do not see new testiment books written by different disciple/apostle to be taken as one coherent uniform set of laws and definitions for God. It would seem to me each apostle is leader and giving his defination, rules, etc. For his tribe or those following that specific apostle.

I would have to search for Paul the apostle explination about Christian being body of Christ with mind of Christ. Atheist website opposed to christianity gives a decent almost correct explination of how Paul is explaining how "Jesus style God" exist by way of psychological meme. www.christianitymeme.org

I created a God as a model to help explain my observations of Paul's explination of Jesus style God. I created Taco God so a person could know themselves and believe in themselves. And put an end once and for all t illogical atheism. This is not to imply that a person must eat a taco to believe in themselves, a person can very well believe in themselves with out eating a taco.

Whereas, the fact tacos exist, people exist and people really eat tacos gives for a real existent God because as I created Taco God as any one and every one that has eaten at least one taco in their life.

Taco God is very much knowable because you know yourself, that is if you have eaten a taco. If you haven't eaten a taco but you know someone that has, then you might could get to know them so that you could know about a taco God.

You are not forced to eat a taco and not forced to go around waving the Taco God label if you have eaten a taco but are not inclined to advertise being a taco God. What taco God does do for people is to free them from being forced to carry the title of illogical atheist. I understand, people like this title for what ever reason and illogical can have entertainment value. So, for entertainment purposes a person can go around with the illogical atheist title and entertain others with illogicalness of the sort, "I lack belief that anyone has ever eaten a taco ". And of course, people can find that funny and entertaining, which there is nothing wrong with good intentioned entertainment even if it is portraying illogicalness.

Illogical atheism can be seen as a part of surrealism a form of entertainment to brighten and entertain others.

sur·re·al·ism
/səˈrēəˌlizəm/
noun
a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images.

@Word sorry, but I couldn't really finish it due to the lack of logical integrity. I know the dog is supposed to represent randomness but this is neither how evolution develops or how intelligence develops. AI, for example, has to learn. And it does that by trial and error and reincorporating that information back into itself. Evolution does this through procreation and inheriting genetics from the parent organism. If an AI was constantly being "reset" it wouldn't learn and would just be random. But the fact that evolution is able to learn because the failed choices don't survive to reproduce. Our thoughts are random too, not because we think random thoughts but because we all have unique patterns to our neural network. DNA isn't like a dog trying to type. DNA is the language through which biological organisms learn and remember. Because chemistry has rules, it "begets" a language of its own. And because chemicals have different properties to them, they will have different behaviors when they interact just like people have different behaviors when we come together and interact (in a community such as this for example). Some interactions are downright hostile and end swiftly and violently. Other interactions keep going because of mutual correspondence or attraction. This could be like mindedness. At any rate, if you look at the patterns of behaviors of different chemicals then how they behave makes sense and they can form bonds and structures. Many of these structures, like the snowflake, are highly organized, more so than a group of people purposefully trying to stand in line or create patterns when they can't see the picture they're trying to form. But if there is a rule... that we all follow... for example "everyone hold hands and hold your arms out at an angle, That angle will determine the shape that's created. I don't have to see the result to know that. So, if someone wants to give a lecture on evolution or intelligence and they leave out the rules that force randomness to conform, then I cannot take them seriously. Because they don't want to believe in the science and what's possible. They just want to believe what they already believe. If the Earth wasn't in the spot it was, then life on this planet wouldn't be possible; at least not carbon based life. The reason why we can't find life anywhere close to us is because conditions have to be right for it because there's no god that is creating life on different planets with the absolute power to do so. The idea of creation is dependent upon the rules of physics because even if you said "we were magically created by God issuing verbal commands to a terraforming super computer you can't get around the fact that he had to do it on the 3rd planet from the sun. And if God cannot defy physics in order to create us there's no reason to believe he can defy physics at all. And a God that cannot defy physics... isn't a god. It's just an E.T.

@ZealotX ruach is a force often attributed to being a/the creative force. The zygote that brought about you, was you the zygote? Did your chemical reaction based cognition begin as a zygote to build and create your brain cells developed from chemical reactions to house your cognition capability in your brain cells because of kinetic energy, chemical reaction and brain waves?

@ZealotX in·tel·li·gence
/inˈteləjəns/
noun

  1. the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.

From zygote to birth, or at birth, are their skills of some kind that organisms are able to apply or do because of instincts?

@Word

ruach, at its basic definition, is spirit; therefore "ruach ha kodesh" means "the holy spirit". The bible will also tell you that "God is a spirit" and "holy" is added to differentiate from other spirits. So you can certain call God a spirit or you can call the spirit a force. "Force" and "power" are the synonymous and like I said before... El = power. Therefore El (god) = force.

As far as zygotes and chicken vs egg scenarios, keep in mind that Genesis was never a book about science. The word spirit is used, mainly because believers had to conceive of their God as an invisible force instead of the visible idols made by human hands. Of course many gods were simply "forces of nature" and you couldn't see them, just their "creation" or their effect upon creation.

So as far as zygotes, yes at that stage of development I was a zygote. The zygote wasn't an egg that I hatched from. It is DNA that "evolves" us from that stage into something greater. But that's how everything in the universe is. Everything starts out being chaotic and basic particles. But then natural laws affect them, matter and anti-matter cancel each other out, and stars spit out heavier material. Simplicity becomes complicated as particles merge, form bonds, and together become something greater.

This doesn't stop conception. Every time we consume food, those compounds are broken down and are reassembled to become fat and energy. The mechanisms are all right there for all to see and so we can see how nature behaves and how things evolve over time. But since our bodies have a record of this evolution, contained in our DNA, that sperm cell can quickly turn into a person in less than 9 months.

But none of this was understood by ancient humans who thought it was God that made many women barren. They giving credit to "force" to explain nature and there are many forces in nature but none of them are conscious and deciding of our destiny.

@ZealotX I have recently been told of research of slime mold. I have not dug into much myself but I understand the research has shown slime mold to display intelligence capabilities.

@Word

I view biology as a kind of biological machine. We operate very similar to the same way a computer does. Certain operations of a computer are hard wired into physical components. But everything else is built on top of that. Order is provided by the layout of the motherboard and the way the electronics are connected together. This is what we're born with. So yes, some instincts exist from back before our species gained greater intelligence. We have a flight or fight response the same way lesser evolved species do. Even plants have it to some degree, but they can't move under normal circumstances. So when those physical components of the mind grow, that basic framework of intelligence is already there. That's why we have the capacity for higher thought.

I would also say that cells are the basic technology of all life. And this is often overlooked. Cells have their own life cycles. And they live independently of the life of the body which is a composition of cells. Not to mention the amount of micro-organisms living inside us to the extent that we aren't really a single organism, but rather a universe unto ourselves. The same nature of the universe exists within us because we are a system within a system within a system the same way that atoms are.

Because cells are the basic technology you have to think of them both as cell, as an organ, and as a body. So just like these cells have genetic information, giving them specific instructions, different from other cells, is the same way that intelligence isn't binary. There are simply levels of intelligence that represent levels of complexity. You cannot judge the lowest level of complexity by the highest level of complexity.

People often see the "final product" and think "wow... that's just too amazing to have happened by chance". And they're right. It didn't. But it also didn't happen by chance of some random being with superpowers happened to come along. The probability of a being of this nature existing is extremely less probable than evolution. Because now they're suggesting that there is a chance that a being, not only always existed but had magical powers. The probability of this is disregarded entirely by believers who scoff at the possibility of a scenario that doesn't involve magical powers. But the thing that's truly amazing is the cell.

@ZealotX you mentioned something about a learned aspect. I just thought of an ideal I have had. I wrote an explination about omniscient, all-knowing God thingie ideology. From a logic point of view "learning " is something in and of itself that to "know" one would perhaps have to experience a process of learning experience going from not knowing to gaining information having learned. My thoughts on a logical all-knowing God thingie is that the something or some bit of information of theall-knowingness would have to be acquired or learned at some point. Meaning that before experiences of learning for the fact of know what it is to learn, that before there was knowledge or an experience not learned. How could '"learning" be experienced or known before it is learned?

@ZealotX I am forwarding to you this link that has explination about such words as we have talked about. As with a lot of things I may take it with a grain of salt or dislike some of the context that doesn't seem correct or well supported otherwise I like most of this information for reference to original meanings and usages.

For the most part what you explain seems to be mostly accurate.

[hebrew-streams.org]

I do not like translation of ruach into spirit. I think spirit has too much of a connotation of ghost. I recently seen an old video of one of my favorite childhood T.V. shows. I will have to give it thought to articulate it into words but this video gives me ideals of better explaining ruach rather than using the word spirit.

@Word Excellent point about learning vs all-knowing.

It is learning that is the key to intelligence. The process of learning strengthens our capacity for knowledge and helps us "process" information.

The claim that God is omniscient has to be viewed through the lens of what was intended. Did they (because I don't think God ever verbally claimed anything like this in scripture) mean that God knows everything? Or that God knows everything that is known. These two options are radically different, as you can see.

One of the ways in which the latter argument is possible is if God exists within every living creature, and we are all just extensions of God the same way the universe is expanding. This is not at all likely what they went but at least then God would automatically know everything anyone learns or discovers.

But there is indeed a lot that deserves to be said for experience as a teacher. For example. "God is good". But why? If God never experienced the outcome of evil then why wouldn't he choose evil whenever it suited him? In fact, this is why we humans choose between both good and evil because it is based on our experiences. I might not want to choose evil due to the experiences I've had. And there's no way that God didn't learn anything in the process of human history. Otherwise, he couldn't have made the comment that he regretted making humans and he would never have actually repented for anything, much less stand down on destroying the Israelites because Mr. Savior, Moses, talked him out of it. No, he would have already known what Moses point was before he made it, as well as every word Moses was going to say before he said it.

@Word
I don't like "ghost" either. I think they used spirit more so as a non-physical "part" or aspect of a person. Because God, to them, didn't have a body, they simply said he was a spirit. And logically, he could only be a spirit because a body would be a severe limitation.

@ZealotX I do not like using the word "God" much especially in a specific sense. As a general term maybe.

Here I have give what I would define for the word God.

God defined as a word of open definition and usage, in that any person could give any usage or define it in any way, whether logical, provable, real, surreal or not. 

There are some things labeled by this word that have more popularity than others. There are groups of people that give a certain definition to this word that the agree on and follow for that group. There are those that would say there is nothing in existence that this word would properly label. 

There are those that do not have evidence for a reason to label anything with this word. There are those that could never know what to label with this word. 

A very uncommon word for how it is used comes from Germanic origin of meaning to call or invoke and now in fact exist as a word in English spelt with the letters G, O, and D.

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Sounds like Spinoza's brand of Secular Pantheism.

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"as long as someone is talking about a subjective God, " As in only in people's heads?

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Yes!

skado Level 9 Feb 23, 2020
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Okay.

JimG Level 8 Feb 23, 2020
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