Why one might prefer to use the term "God" even outside of religion

MarkD

MarkD

Keeper of the Hounds & Garden
Location
San Francisco Bay Area
Yes another thread some will call silly which will wonder all over the place and which people will react to (if they do at all) in any manner they like which suits their actual mindset. I frankly think it is good for us in our ripe old age to ponder the big questions. So feel free to ponder too. How do you feel about agnostics and/or atheists using the word God to name the something greater which many intuit even if they were not brought up tightly in a religion? For me I only come to think about these things at all because of writing of British psychiatrist, literary scholar, philosopher and Neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist

For those who want to know more about his viewpoint without reading the 1500 page tome quoted here below or the 500 page earlier book, The Master and His Emissary, here is the video which drew me on to read them both.

" That awe and wonder are the end as well as the beginning of philosophy is one reason why God may be a better name than just ‘the ground of Being’ for this creative mystery. A phrase like ‘the ground of Being’, too, may have its conventional cultural baggage - in this case its presumed dullness. ..
So, providing we remain appropriately skeptical about language, we not only can use a term other than ground of Being, but, it seems to me, we must. Metaphysical argument can take us some of the way, but it deals only with the what, not the how. Even the rather abstract question ‘why should there be anything at all? Is not, after all, just an intellectual puzzle. It is a fundamental question - the fundamental question - for human beings; and we miss the point if we suppose it is a matter for abstract reasoning alone. In a wonderful passage Schelling writes about how we should prepare ourselves for an understanding of any subject:
First and foremost, any explanation should do justice to what is to be explained, not devalue it, explain it ‘away’, diminish it or mutilate it, simply so as to make it easier to grasp. The question is not ‘what view must we adopt so as to explain the appearances in a way that accords neatly with some philosophy?’, but precisely the opposite: ‘what philosophy do we need if we are to measure up to our object, and be on a par with it?’ It is no how the phenomenon must be turned, twisted, skewed or stunted, if need be, so as to be explicable according to principles which we have already resolved never to go beyond. The question is ‘in what way must we broaden our thinking so as to get a hold on the phenomenon?’
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..But he who refuses, for whatever reason, to broaden his thinking in this way should at least be honest enough to count the phenomenon amongst those things (which, when all is said and done, are for all of us plenty enough) that he does not understand; rather than drag it down and degrade it to the level of his own conceptions; and, if he is incapable of raising himself up to the level of the phenomenon, at least to stop short of holding forth about it in wholly inadequate terms. "

Pp 1860-61 The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World
by Iain McGilchrist | Nov 9, 2021
 

Thanks you for starting a religious thread with more topic focus than what usually occurs.

The term "god' in this modern era has different issues because we humans are also now in a science and technology era that limits its meaning versus centuries ago when philosophers would conjure up all matter of magic like actions without forces that were not easily criticized. A reason why this person uses the term Ultimate Intelligent Entity, UIE, that is not an entity with Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, OOO, powers. If one actually studies ancient civilizations or The Bible, it becomes quite evident god's did not have OOO powers though often limited magic like powers in some ways. A reason why polytheist societies had several gods for different purposes. Sort of like our media Superheros today.

For the anthromorphically oriented, consider the supposed age of our current universe of 13.7 billion years. If there is a god, then why in a universe as vast as we find with billions of stars and planets in billions of galaxies, did the supposed god wait so long for intelligent Earth monkeys to arise so astronomically long after such began as though they had such patience? Why did that god have to create so many redundant stars etc if our monkey world was the only one of significance that would be meaningful?

Of course, such is nonsense. But what isn't nonsense is the absolute physical reality that we intelligent DNA organic entities do exist whether that was a result of natural cause or some entity. And within a mere geologically moment in time have developed science and technology to the level we are now at the brink of creating vastly more intelligent non-organic AI entities. Consider how probable that should already have happened billions of years ago on other worlds, even if relatively rare, due to the sheer astronomical numbers?

And that folks is in brief why this person expects ancient UIE's have come to exist. Whether they have recently or have ever visited Earth remains an unknown though I'll suggest they do and hypothesize that before our technology era didn't have any reason not to visit if they could. One large issue are travel limitations due to light speed that may greatly reduce visitations by organics but essentially immortal less so non-organics able to periodically replace parts.
 
@David777.

I like your post, but my poor old brain doesn't want to wrap itself around such complexities.

I just want to look outside at my garden. When I sit in it quietly and let my thoughts wander where they will, sometimes words of wisdom from years past float up from the depths of my memory.

Today's words - "Be still, and know that I am God".

Today of all days, that is very comforting.
 

MarkD said:
Yes another thread some will call silly which will wonder all over the place and which people will react to (if they do at all) in any manner they like which suits their actual mindset. I frankly think it is good for us in our ripe old age to ponder the big questions. So feel free to ponder too. How do you feel about agnostics and/or atheists using the word God to name the something greater which many intuit even if they were not brought up tightly in a religion? For me I only come to think about these things at all because of writing of British psychiatrist, literary scholar, philosopher and Neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist

For those who want to know more about his viewpoint without reading the 1500 page tome quoted here below or the 500 page earlier book, The Master and His Emissary, here is the video which drew me on to read them both.

" That awe and wonder are the end as well as the beginning of philosophy is one reason why God may be a better name than just ‘the ground of Being’ for this creative mystery. A phrase like ‘the ground of Being’, too, may have its conventional cultural baggage - in this case its presumed dullness. ..
So, providing we remain appropriately skeptical about language, we not only can use a term other than ground of Being, but, it seems to me, we must. Metaphysical argument can take us some of the way, but it deals only with the what, not the how. Even the rather abstract question ‘why should there be anything at all? Is not, after all, just an intellectual puzzle. It is a fundamental question - the fundamental question - for human beings; and we miss the point if we suppose it is a matter for abstract reasoning alone. In a wonderful passage Schelling writes about how we should prepare ourselves for an understanding of any subject:


..But he who refuses, for whatever reason, to broaden his thinking in this way should at least be honest enough to count the phenomenon amongst those things (which, when all is said and done, are for all of us plenty enough) that he does not understand; rather than drag it down and degrade it to the level of his own conceptions; and, if he is incapable of raising himself up to the level of the phenomenon, at least to stop short of holding forth about it in wholly inadequate terms. "

Pp 1860-61 The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World
by Iain McGilchrist | Nov 9, 2021
Click to expand...
Well now, atheists even have what they call their own churches.
Atheist churches are secular gatherings that celebrate the identities and beliefs of atheists, even though not everyone who attends identifies as an atheist. They often promote values like rational thinking and materialist philosophies.
 
David777 said:
Thanks you for starting a religious thread with more topic focus than what usually occurs.
Click to expand...
You're very welcome but while it is focused I think it lends itself to many different kinds of response. The question is why should anyone embrace the word "god" whether or not they are religious. Of course the religious of most traditional belief systems will but why should anyone else? Some religious might. prefer nons get their own term? As a non I would have always have found it irrelevant and avoided it until now. This is just a key passage in a 170 page chapter titled "The sense of the sacred".

David777 said:
The term "god' in this modern era has different issues because we humans are also now in a science and technology era that limits its meaning versus centuries ago when philosophers would conjure up all matter of magic like actions without forces that were not easily criticized. A reason why this person uses the term Ultimate Intelligent Entity, UIE, that is not an entity with Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, OOO, powers. If one actually studies ancient civilizations or The Bible, it becomes quite evident god's did not have OOO powers though often limited magic like powers in some ways. A reason why polytheist societies had several gods for different purposes. Sort of like our media Superheros today.
Click to expand...

All opinions welcome but I can't agree that gods are anything like superheroes. I agree with your point about OOO powers but I don't think there is room for any magic powers no matter how minor.

David777 said:
For the anthromorphically oriented, consider the supposed age of our current universe of 13.7 billion years. If there is a god, then why in a universe as vast as we find with billions of stars and planets in billions of galaxies, did the supposed god wait so long for intelligent Earth monkeys to arise so astronomically long after such began as though they had such patience? Why did that god have to create so many redundant stars etc if our monkey world was the only one of significance that would be meaningful?
Click to expand...

I can't imagine a God that acts as an engineer who thinks logically about everything with purposes which should make sense to us. We can disagree of course but I can't think of any justification for think so.


David777 said:
Of course, such is nonsense. But what isn't nonsense is the absolute physical reality that we intelligent DNA organic entities do exist whether that was a result of natural cause or some entity. And within a mere geologically moment in time have developed science and technology to the level we are now at the brink of creating vastly more intelligent non-organic AI entities. Consider how probable that should already have happened billions of years ago on other worlds, even if relatively rare, due to the sheer astronomical numbers?

And that folks is in brief why this person expects ancient UIE's have come to exist. Whether they have recently or have ever visited Earth remains an unknown though I'll suggest they do and hypothesize that before our technology era didn't have any reason not to visit if they could. One large issue are travel limitations due to light speed that may greatly reduce visitations by organics but essentially immortal less so non-organics able to periodically replace parts.
Click to expand...
 
Warrigal said:
I just want to look outside at my garden. When I sit in it quietly and let my thoughts wander where they will, sometimes words of wisdom from years past float up from the depths of my memory.

Today's words - "Be still, and know that I am God".
Click to expand...

That speaks to me too. I don't think of God as being in conversation with me but as you say when we are given insight and inspiration you realize sometimes you just need to be open to it and not rush to just do something. God isn't a separate entity but pervasive in everyone and everything, including us. I feel it most in nature too.
 
Indeed. No actions without forces (aka magic), no rabbits forming inside hats. I'm an intelligent enough entity to understand why that fact does not require a god to reach the answer just like abstractly adding 2 together with 3 equals 5. And when such does not, I reject whatever's possibility with certainty.

My comment was meant to criticize traditional Christian religious anthropologic views that Earth and humans have been the center of some universe master plan by some intelligent entity even though Jesus Christ may indeed share some ultimate existence as I expect. That usual view would be greatly more illogical given evidence though not impossible. For example if the god of this universe was occupied for all that delay for other reasons like (A big fun meeting with other universe gods at their favorite winter ski resort.) ;) then the issue was just understood incorrectly.

So yes gods can't be like superheros but if like UIEs they might have amazing ancient technologies that could deceive intelligent science primitives on visited planets. All this is why I prefer to use the term UIE versus god because that god term immediately conjures up magic like powers in common use. It is only now in this science era we can now evaluate how likely many things might be. For this person, time travel will never be possible especially back in time that I expect is only by nature a time forward phenomenon. Likewise thumbs down on other simultaneous dimension sci-fi ideas, warp powered hyper light speeds, matter transfer through space (ala Beam Me Up Scottie!), scifi favorites.

Such powerful entities would likely never try to explain to primitives why what primitives terms "god" or "gods" were actually not just one of their powerful entities but possibly several they were fine being called the same or different gods in each case.
 
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David777 said:
Indeed. No actions without forces (aka magic), no rabbits forming inside hats. I'm an intelligent enough entity to understand why that fact does not require a god to reach the answer just like abstractly adding 2 together with 3 equals 5. And when such does not, I reject whatever's possibility with certainty.

My comment was meant to criticize traditional Christian religious anthropologic views that Earth and humans have been the center of some master plan by some intelligent entity even though Jesus Christ may indeed share some ultimate existence as I expect. That usual view would be illogical given evidence though not impossible. For example if the god of this universe was occupied for all that delay for other reasons like (A big fun meeting with other universe gods at their favorite winter ski resort.) ;) then the issue was just understood incorrectly.

So yes gods can't be like superheros but if like UIEs they might have amazing ancient technologies that could deceive intelligent science primitives on visited planets. All this is why I prefer to use the term UIE versus god because that god term immediately conjures up magic like powers in common use. It is only now in this science era we can now evaluate how likely many things might be. For this person, time travel will never be possible especially back in time that I expect is only by nature a time forward phenomenon.
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God created logic to confuse monkeys for fun.
 
MarkD said:
That speaks to me too. I don't think of God as being in conversation with me but as you say when we are given insight and inspiration you realize sometimes you just need to be open to it and not rush to just do something. God isn't a separate entity but pervasive in everyone and everything, including us. I feel it most in nature too.
Click to expand...
The immanence and eminence of God.
 
David777 said:
Indeed. No actions without forces (aka magic), no rabbits forming inside hats. I'm an intelligent enough entity to understand why that fact does not require a god to reach the answer just like abstractly adding 2 together with 3 equals 5. And when such does not, I reject whatever's possibility with certainty.

My comment was meant to criticize traditional Christian religious anthropologic views that Earth and humans have been the center of some universe master plan by some intelligent entity even though Jesus Christ may indeed share some ultimate existence as I expect. That usual view would be greatly more illogical given evidence though not impossible. For example if the god of this universe was occupied for all that delay for other reasons like (A big fun meeting with other universe gods at their favorite winter ski resort.) ;) then the issue was just understood incorrectly.

So yes gods can't be like superheros but if like UIEs they might have amazing ancient technologies that could deceive intelligent science primitives on visited planets. All this is why I prefer to use the term UIE versus god because that god term immediately conjures up magic like powers in common use. It is only now in this science era we can now evaluate how likely many things might be. For this person, time travel will never be possible especially back in time that I expect is only by nature a time forward phenomenon. Likewise thumbs down on other simultaneous dimension sci-fi ideas, warp powered hyper light speeds, matter transfer through space (ala Beam Me Up Scottie!), scifi favorites.

Such powerful entities would likely never try to explain to primitives why what primitives terms "god" or "gods" were actually not just one of their powerful entities but possibly several they were fine being called the same or different gods in each case.
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Your ideas are reasonable, but they don't answer the question "How did the universe --I mean the egg of the Big Bang --come to exist?"
I know, baby steps.
 
gruntlabor said:
Your ideas are reasonable, but they don't answer the question "How did the universe --I mean the egg of the Big Bang --come to exist?"
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There is a lot of desperate rapid tapdancing going on in cosmology today trying to salvage the "Big Bang" hypothesis. New and more powerful instruments have added even more doubts about the entire premise.
 
I am at a neutral point of understanding in that I always assumed there are things I attribute to god without hard evidence these are the result of and from god. The problem I have relating to god is Christianity. In my world of understanding Jesus goes hand in hand with god and that seems like extra baggage when all I want is a relationship with god, not through Jesus. Why do Christian's insist the only way to god is through the son of god? I just don't buy. Jesus seems more like fairy tale than the possibility of one god of which i adhere to.

Christian's are stuck on Jesus and I don't see the attraction. I don't accept Christianity as the only to have an understanding and a relationship with god. God connects us with all that is and was created in whatever way it all began and continues to be. Religion has it's own agenda and restrictions for the common purpose. God just happens along to sweeten the pot in an effort to gain members to fulfill its purpose on earth, under disguise of good and wholesomeness.

The problem with religion, people accept it as the only way to know god. I disagree. Humans have the capacity to know god without religious interference, but people see this as blasphemy because religious institutions teach us this way for their own personal gain. I go to church primarily for my wife and friends who also attend church services, not to worship Jesus or partake in communion, but to be near people I care about. No one there, except my wife knows how I feel about Christianity, and I plan to keep it that way unless someone asks me. Until then, as far as everyone knows I am there to worship as everyone else.

God has never been an issue with me. Religion on the other hand is a cheap reference to god to serve mankind in their quest for spiritual development.
 
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Mr. Ed said:
In my world of understanding Jesus goes hand in hand with god and that seems like extra baggage when all I want is a relationship with god, not through Jesus. Why do Christian's insist the only way to god is through the son of god? I just don't buy. Jesus seems more like fairy tale than the possibility of one god of which i adhere to.
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I had that same thought too at a very early age: God is the big man, creator and giver of gifts. Go to the source. But people seem to love Jesus more.
 
MarkD said:
How do you feel about agnostics and/or atheists using the word God to name the something greater which many intuit even if they were not brought up tightly in a religion?
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It sounds like training wheels for believing, although I'm sure you have something else in mind.
 
JustDave said:
I had that same thought too at a very early age: God is the big man, creator and giver of gifts. Go to the source. But people seem to love Jesus more.
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Jesus seems like a waste of time, perhaps if I knew Jesus I would feel differently. maybe i do I just don't realize it.
 
I do feel like a word or two needs to be said about the priests of different religions. I ancient times they ruled the masses by the sacred messages they recieved from their god/s and told the masses. Those instructions and words were sacred, anything that went against that dogma was profane, or outside of God. As time went on the profane became easier, and the sacred was invaded by the profane, today it has been demystified, and the sacred is the profane.

But that is what has been espoused by some of the wisest of teachers and spiritual leaders. That there is no difference between the sacred and the profane. They are the same thing. To find God, look anywhere at any time and there you have it. It is always present, and we are not one iota separate from it. :)
 
@Mr. Ed has rather eloquently described much of my own issues with “religion”. I will call myself agnostic if put on the spot. I do not adhere to the premise that all things revolve around the belief that Jesus is a direct offspring of God (born of the virgin Mary). I use God as a way to relate to others in a context they can relate to.
 
Paco Dennis said:
As time went on the profane became easier, and the sacred was invaded by the profane, today it has been demystified, and the sacred is the profane.

there is no difference between the sacred and the profane. They are the same thing. To find God, look anywhere at any time and there you have it. It is always present, and we are not one iota separate from it. :)
Click to expand...
Einstein said that the biggest mistake people make is in thinking that anything is separate from anything else.
 
JustDave said:
It sounds like training wheels for believing, although I'm sure you have something else in mind.
Click to expand...

For me it is recognizing there is something sacred which is all inclusive which religion is always trying to take charge of and almost always screwing up in the process. God/gods are not their trademarked property. Claims of exclusivity are an indication of good intentions gone bad, time to look elsewhere.
 


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