Religions have succeeded

[Nearly Sane]

You linked judging good with imposing one’s mind set with worship.
Worship of God may not start with the act and effort of judgment but with the experience of God’s holiness which tells you exactly where you stand in the moral landscape.

No, Sriram linked imposing a mindset on god. I merely pointed out that if by judging god you are imposing a mindset on it, then that applies to any judgement including that it is 'holy' whatever that means 

What do you mean by holy/holiness.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Saying something is all knowing and all powerful id exactly imposing your mindset. What's this god protecting you from?

Oh and saying something is all knowing is a claim to being all knowing oneself else how could you make such a claim with any validity.

In what way? I would say Sriram's point in making the claim was to acknowledge his own limited knowledge. Comparing his own inferior knowledge to something that is higher than him. You can conceptualise entities that are better than you. In a monotheistic concept, whatever you come up with needs to be something that has no superior hence going for the term 'all-knowing'. Not sure though whether Sriram is going for the monotheistic concept. 

[Nearly Sane]

In what way? I would say Sriram's point in making the claim was to acknowledge his own limited knowledge. Comparing his own inferior knowledge to something that is higher than him. You can conceptualise entities that are better than you. In a monotheistic concept, whatever you come up with needs to be something that has no superior hence going for the term 'all-knowing'. Not sure though whether Sriram is going for the monotheistic concept.

In order to judge something as all knowing as opposed to knowing more than oneself, one would have to have all knowledge. It's the same issue if you judge something infallible or inerrant.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

You worship something because you think it worthy of worship.

Ok - am assuming you don't mean theists do an evaluation in the sense of a pros and cons list and if you reach a certain score it's probably worth worshipping. I would say evaluations are feelings-based - your sub-conscious brain has the desire to worship. Your conscious brain becomes aware of this desire and weighs up whether to act on it.

That is precisely impising one's mindset on it. If you cannot judge god bad, you cannot judge it good either.

I agree that if you think something is worthy of worship you see something good in it based on your own definitions of good and bad i.e. your own mindset. I think the evaluation uses your conscious and sub-conscious brain. I think people's brains discern different things i.e. they have their individual concepts of god, based on what appeals to them, even if they claim to worship one god.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

In order to judge something as all knowing as opposed to knowing more than oneself, one would have to have all knowledge. It's the same issue if you judge something infallible or inerrant.

If any theists are claiming they have evaluated and judged something as having all-knowledge then yes, I would ask how they assessed this. I would think they mean it's a belief based on them allowing the concept that all-knowledge is possible.

[Nearly Sane]

If any theists are claiming they have evaluated and judged something as having all-knowledge then yes, I would ask how they assessed this. I would think they mean it's a belief based on them allowing the concept that all-knowledge is possible.

Their belief other than telling me that they have it is therefore worthless.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Their belief other than telling me that they have it is therefore worthless.

Depends how you define 'worthless'

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

But why single these people out as victims of natural death. If you aren't murdered or suffer an accident you have a natural death. Why aren't you including them? God has the power and the knowledge to prevent those far more numerous deaths. The question is why does God not suspend the laws of nature or climatic or geomorphological or astronomic processes?

How are you defining Genocide since you are putting God in the Dock, surely the defendent needs to hear your charges.

And finally a reminder. I am not the one in the dock here.

The god you claim to exists is benign, all-knowing and all-powerful. “He” could therefore have prevented the tsunami, and thus the colossal pain and misery and suffering that came with it. That a sociopath may have committed lots of genocides is not a reason not to prosecute him for any one of them.     

[Nearly Sane]

Depends how you define 'worthless'

No justification

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

No justification

Not sure what you mean by justification. Do you mean a person should be able to Justify their belief to someone else through some kind of objective process? Given it's a belief in a supernatural concept, there isn't such a process? 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

The point is that...if a God exists and has created the world...we cannot possibly expect him to think like us and have the same values and priorities as we have. We will not be able to even comprehend his point of view.

He would know why he has created the world along with all its features....and he would know how to handle it.

So.....superimposing our mindsets on to a God and judging him on that basis, doesn't make sense at all.

This makes no sense. Theists (Christians in this case) “superimpose their mindsets” on their god every time they something about “Him” – whether good, bad or indifferent. If you want to claim one thing for “god” – being good for example – then there’s no inherent bar to being able to claim anything else. Your reasoning produces just a god about which nothing can be said (because, according to you, “we cannot possibly expect him to think like us and have the same values and priorities as we have”), which is more deistic than it is theistic.         

[Nearly Sane]

Not sure what you mean by justification. Do you mean a person should be able to Justify their belief to someone else through some kind of objective process? Given it's a belief in a supernatural concept, there isn't such a process?

The no justification applies whether it's a for a supetnatural concept or not here. That said you are right if a supernatural claim is involved then there is no such process. I would suggest intersubjective rather than objective.

Since the belief is based on nothing, other than telling me what the person believes, it seens to have no value. What definition of worthless do you think means it isn't?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

The no justification applies whether it's a for a supetnatural concept or not here. That said you are right if a supernatural claim is involved then there is no such process. I would suggest intersubjective rather than objective.

Since the belief is based on nothing, other than telling me what the person believes, it seens to have no value. What definition of worthless do you think means it isn't?

I would agree it has no value to you. I assume it has a value to the person who holds the belief otherwise they would not continue to hold the belief. So just clarifying it's a subjective assessment of 'worthless'. I would say the belief is based on something that cannot be demonstrated to someone else.

Also I would say that someone else might not necessarily see the value even if it could be demonstrated, including other theists as well as atheists. So a Christian might hold a particular belief about a supernatural entity, wouldn't be able to demonstrate the value of this belief to another Christian who holds a different belief, and even if they could demonstrate the value to them, it might not seem of value to the other Christian.

This could apply to all beliefs I suppose - even if you could justify or demonstrate how you arrived at your belief, your belief might not be of value to someone else, so they wouldn't adopt it as a belief they hold.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,
 

The god you claim to exists is benign, all-knowing and all-powerful. “He” could therefore have prevented the tsunami, and thus the colossal pain and misery and suffering that came with it. That a sociopath may have committed lots of genocides is not a reason not to prosecute him for any one of them.   

But God if benign is benign on the Cosmic scale and even the zenith of your undoubted benignity “You, know what. It’s a beautiful Essex day i think I won’t give Vlad a hard time by playing him rather than the ball” isn’t a reference for cosmic benignity which we are told includes incarnation taking on the world sin on himself in order to fix our broken relationship with him and the resurrection to the life to come.
I don’t understand why you have singled out the tsunami here since it is not the greatest Accusation of Genocide. Since you haven’t brought up a definition of genocide and only mentioning a tsunami is a manipulation of data I have to question your suitability for the role of prosecutor. You are assuming guilt even though you haven’t specified the charges.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No, Sriram linked imposing a mindset on god. I merely pointed out that if by judging god you are imposing a mindset on it, then that applies to any judgement including that it is 'holy' whatever that means 

What do you mean by holy/holiness.

Holiness is that aspect of God’s character, presence and nature which when encountered convict one of one’s real place in the moral landscape.

[Nearly Sane]

Holiness is that aspect of God’s character, presence and nature which when encountered convict one of one’s real place in the moral landscape.

I have no idea what you are saying here.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

When you encounter God you realise how moral you really are because you have Him as the comparison.
Without him it's all guesswork.

[Nearly Sane]

When you encounter God you realise how moral you really are because you have Him as the comparison.
Without him it's all guesswork.

So having been saying people cannot judge god, you then judge god.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

But God if benign is benign on the Cosmic scale and even the zenith of your undoubted benignity “You, know what. It’s a beautiful Essex day i think I won’t give Vlad a hard time by playing him rather than the ball” isn’t a reference for cosmic benignity which we are told includes incarnation taking on the world sin on himself in order to fix our broken relationship with him and the resurrection to the life to come.

You seem to have regurgitated a semi-digested bowl of alphabet soup. What on earth are you even trying to say here?

I don’t understand why you have singled out the tsunami here since it is not the greatest Accusation of Genocide.

Relevance? Whether or not you understand the choice of possible genocides is neither here nor there, and nor for that matter is choosing any one such rather than a different one.   

Since you haven’t brought up a definition of genocide and only mentioning a tsunami is a manipulation of data I have to question your suitability for the role of prosecutor.

You didn’t ask for a definition and how on earth is quoting part of a Wiki entry verbatim “a manipulation of data”?

You are assuming guilt even though you haven’t specified the charges.

The “charge” is as I explained it: a (supposed) god who (supposedly) could have prevented it nonetheless sat idly by with arms folded as a tsunami killed a quarter of a million plus people, and thus allowed the colossal pain and misery and suffering that came with it. How much more fucking genocidal do you want? 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

When you encounter God you realise how moral you really are because you have Him as the comparison.
Without him it's all guesswork.

Leavis aside the utter bollocks of the sentiment, you’re contradicting yourself here. First you seem to agree with Sriram’s “superimposing our mindsets on to a God and judging him on that basis, doesn't make sense at all” and in the next breath you “superimpose” your “mindset” on your “god” by judging this (supposed) god to be morally perfect.

Which one do you intend to plump for, or do you plan to flip-flop between them?     
 

[Sriram]

You people are over intellectualizing the point. When we say that God is omniscient and omnipotent...we are relinquishing all ideas of what God could be. It  automatically means that we are removing all our limitations from God. It means that he is much more than what we can imagine or comprehend.

Once this characterization of God is assumed....it doesn't make sense to impose our limited ideas of morality on to him and to judge him on that basis.

Saying that we humans are forming such ideas of God and thereby we are imposing our ideas and mindsets on him, doesn't make sense.  All ideas and philosophies are thought out or imagined by humans only. That is obvious....  But by stating that God is beyond our comprehension we are removing this restriction.....

My personal ideas of God could be different which is besides the point.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Leavis aside the utter bollocks of the sentiment, you’re contradicting yourself here. First you seem to agree with Sriram’s “superimposing our mindsets on to a God and judging him on that basis, doesn't make sense at all” and in the next breath you “superimpose” your “mindset” on your “god” by judging this (supposed) god to be morally perfect.

Which one do you intend to plump for, or do you plan to flip-flop between them?     

When you encounter God you are in the presence of the Judge and there is no intellectual weighing up of God's goodness or holiness only surrender to a new relationship...or flight.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

You people are over intellectualizing the point. When we say that God is omniscient and omnipotent...we are relinquishing all ideas of what God could be. It  automatically means that we are removing all our limitations from God. It means that he is much more than what we can imagine or comprehend.

Once this characterization of God is assumed....it doesn't make sense to impose our limited ideas of morality on to him and to judge him on that basis.

Saying that we humans are forming such ideas of God and thereby we are imposing our ideas and mindsets on him, doesn't make sense.  All ideas and philosophies are thought out or imagined by humans only. That is obvious....  But by stating that God is beyond our comprehension we are removing this restriction.....

My personal ideas of God could be different which is besides the point.

I agree the abstract concepts of the omnis could be taken as relinquishing of ideas of what God could be. But in practice, whether gods exist or not, once a theist starts communicating ideas about their god that go beyond describing the omnis and saying god is unknowable, they give the impression that it is their mindset they are communicating. Religions seem to be a human attempt at articulating gods and morals in the languages and tools of communication available to people.

Given language is limited, as words can be interpreted in different ways by the speaker and listener based on their nature and nurture, language/ dialects change over time and location etc, context alters the meaning, and people don't communicate all the thoughts buzzing around their brains and in their sub-conscious that might give more nuance to their words, I think the intended meanings at the time of communication from one person to another could easily get lost in translation. As we don't have any other tools other than language the resulting ambiguity is part of the package. I think ambiguity is an unavoidable part of human communication when we talk about complex abstract concepts such as gods and morals.

[Nearly Sane]

When you encounter God you are in the presence of the Judge and there is no intellectual weighing up of God's goodness or holiness only surrender to a new relationship...or flight.

It's interesting that both you and Sriram have used the words intellectual/intellectualising pejoratively. I'm afraid you both sound as if you are saying that given you cannot provide any form of justification for your position, you'll just say justifications are bad.


It also means that you both perform a sort of bait and switch by saying judging a notional god is impossible but you know your god is fandabidozi but that's not a judgement. That you say you are not thinking rationally about is not a get out clause for being logically contradictory.

[Sriram]

I agree the abstract concepts of the omnis could be taken as relinquishing of ideas of what God could be. But in practice, whether gods exist or not, once a theist starts communicating ideas about their god that go beyond describing the omnis and saying god is unknowable, they give the impression that it is their mindset they are communicating. Religions seem to be a human attempt at articulating gods and morals in the languages and tools of communication available to people.

Given language is limited, as words can be interpreted in different ways by the speaker and listener based on their nature and nurture, language/ dialects change over time and location etc, context alters the meaning, and people don't communicate all the thoughts buzzing around their brains and in their sub-conscious that might give more nuance to their words, I think the intended meanings at the time of communication from one person to another could easily get lost in translation. As we don't have any other tools other than language the resulting ambiguity is part of the package. I think ambiguity is an unavoidable part of human communication when we talk about complex abstract concepts such as gods and morals.

I agree with you.

God as a concept is one thing and God as an experience is another thing. When we philosophize, we describe God as omnipresent, omnipotent, universal etc. This is our attempt to understand 'God' intellectually.

But when we experience him it is more as a subtle inner presence. This is the personal God that some people experience. Describing this presence becomes difficult and therefore most people take recourse to religious imagery and traditional deities. Here the language becomes more emotional and a socially accepted one.