What God isn't is what God is--isn't it?

by Terry 13 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Sayswho

  Ok then, good pionts Terry...what he isn't is a good communicator, or loving...why? because he doesn't apply his own teachings to himself!

  If he was what is his attributes would suggest we wouldn't be in this deplorable state.

  • Justice?
  • Wisdom?
  • Power?

    ---

  • Know as a loving god?
  • Merciful?
  • Kindness?
  • Joyful?

  Look around, what do you see?

  Edited to add: I now think there is a creator but not what I was thought as to be a loving god. When more determinable evidence is available I may change my mind...but not until then.

  SW
• 

  Terry

  Please understand how words affect your THINKING.

  You can hold a CONCEPT in your mind and become confused about the reality of it.

  Take the word: CHAIR.

  Wouldn't you agree you KNOW what that word MEANS?

  But, it is just a CONCEPT and not an ACTUAL instance.

  Look at the vast differences in ACTUAL instances of "chair".

  

  What is my point?

  The word GOD is like the word: CHAIR.

  It is a concept that needs an INSTANCE to be anything other than a concept.

  Billions of different people give their imaginative instances:

  

  SO WHAT?

  A CONCEPT (God or gods) is only as real and meaningful as the INSTANTIATION of it. Imaginary/real.

  You know what a PLACEBO is?

  It is a pill without active ingredients which is administered by a trusted physician which achieves the SAME EFFECT as a pill with ACTUAL active ingredients.

  The MIND takes over and does the "work" instead of the pill.

  When people go out of their way to insist that "God" IS.....they employ words without instantiation.

  It has the same effect as a REAL instantiation for people willing to "believe".

  I'm not trying to DISPROVE god. I'm not trying to BELITTLE god.

  People NEED god. But, what they cannot do is speak MEANINGFULLY about god.

  There is NO INSTANTIATION other than placebo.

  The "words" themselves do not attach to "meaning."

  All humans can ever achieve is an ASSERTION about a word as purely conceptual as GOD.
• 

  tec

  Let's make up a word for ALL THERE IS. Let's call it ATI. (All There Is.)

  Okay.

  Don't we have to include GOD if He...um...IS?

  Sure.

  How does ATI differ meaningfully from the Universe of my definition?

  Just because we call something... all that is... does not make it TRUE. Nor does it make it true that we know all that is in the universe.

  That is the difference. The universe that we understand is not all that is. I mean, there are multi-verse theories now as well, right?

  When we make the effort of ...removing...God from our definitions of anything at all.....aren't we creating a dodge or deflection and avoiding

  the discussion altogether?

  Depends on whether it is true or not, or if we know what we are talking about.

  We can use the word gee oh dee G.O.D. to REPRESENT deity but we cannot pretend to fill that word with meaning unless...well...we FILL that word with meaning.

  Yes.

  Is GOD what god IS? That constrains god to ONLY that and nothing more.

  I listed stuff above of what/who God IS.

  Love, Spirit, Creator.

  How is god transcendent if constrained in that way?

  Not sure what you mean here.

  Or, let's go about it backwards. God is NOT what god isn't.

  Okay.

  What would that be? Could god BE what he isn't if HE WILLED IT?

  Not trying to be silly. Simply demonstrating the construct called: GOD only works as an anti-concept.

  Except that He doesn't... He IS Spirit, Love, Creator...

  It satisfy the need to feel like we have information when we really don't have any.

  It might for some.

  But we do have information; in the above, and in Christ... the IMAGE of God.

  Now, if you want to talk some philosophical idea of 'god', then perhaps we have a bit less.

  1. Neither you nor me nor anybody we've ever known has SEEN Christ (or god).

  Cannot agree with you there (and i realize you are speaking present tense), but could only offer you hearsay.

  However... I and people I know (present tense) have HEARD Christ.

  2.We all read the stories in the bible. Those are words and not people.

  There are people behind the words, but I get what you are saying and agree.

  3. I've seen Moby Dick in my imagination, in movies and in book illustrations. Jesus too. But, that isn't real.

  Agreed.

  4. In what way isn't Jesus actually His own father? Are we going to say we "see" that meaningfully?

  I don't know what you mean. He isn't His own Father.

  5. When I say "grasp" and when you say "grasp" I can't imagine it is the same "grasp"!

  I think it is the same meaning for us both... but... I think perhaps that we are drawing upon different sources for our understanding.

  1. Spirit is a metaphor and not a "thing" to be defined. Are we talking Plato here? The bible gives us Plato's "spirit".

  Spirit can be a metaphor in some instances I suppose.

  But I am speaking of a thing. We are all spirits, for instance. Spirit inside 'clay vessels'. Clay vessel is a metaphor for these physical bodies.

  Spirit is a being. A form of life.

  2. Energy is, as far as any physicist can offer: the movement of particles or the potential movement of particles

  We are all energy. I believe physicists are also learning that there is no solid... everything is moving, energy.

  3. Creator? That is assuming into evidence something science itself has never detected and only those who play fast with words can claim.

  Did you mean for this thread to be about scientific proof?

  I thought you said God was spirit? If God created everything out of himself---the universe is spirit. Is it?

  Is this not assuming that matter cannot come from spirit.

  God created using Christ? We are back to Plato and the demi-urge! Recycled Greek philosophy.

  Well, I would say that the life (Christ) came long before greek philosphy ; ) (or the Greeks for that matter)

  Peace,

  tammy
• 

  Terry

  Tammy's whammy:

  Just because we call something... all that is... does not make it TRUE. Nor does it make it true that we know all that is in the universe.

  That is the difference. The universe that we understand is not all that is. I mean, there are multi-verse theories now as well, right?

  The same thing would equally apply to Spirit, God, Jesus, Love, etc. Just because we call them by those words does not make them true.

  

  My favorite book in the whole universe (Oops, I mean, planet Earth) is

  Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter.

  I reply to you by quoting by way of the Wikipedia entry on Strange Loops:

  Hofstadter thinks our minds appear to us to determine the world by way of "downward causality", which refers to a situation where a cause-and-effect relationship in a system gets flipped upside-down. Hofstadter claims this happens in the proof of Gödel 's Incompleteness Theorem :

  “

  Merely from knowing the formula's meaning, one can infer its truth or falsity without any effort to derive it in the old-fashioned way, which requires one to trudge methodically "upwards" from the axioms. This is not just peculiar; it is astonishing. Normally, one cannot merely look at what a mathematical conjecture says and simply appeal to the content of that statement on its own to deduce whether the statement is true or false. (pp. 169-170)

  ”

  Hofstadter claims a similar "flipping around of causality" appears to happen in minds possessing self-consciousness. The mind perceives itself as the cause of certain feelings, ("I" am the source of my desires), while according to popular scientific models, feelings and desires are strictly caused by the interactions of neurons.