You ask ''how in God's name are we even discussing the proofs or disproof of God when we don't even know what it is we are trying to prove?''
It's the conceptual god that we are trying to proof or disproof, yes the way common Judaism portrays god is someone that has a personality הדבק במדותיו מה הוא רחום אף אתה רחום וכו' and that's how it's portrayed בדרך פשט and the same with Christian and Muslim religions they all portray god as someone with a personality, according to Jewish religion god likes only Jews and hates Christians and Muslims, according to Christians god hates Jews and Muslims and loves only Christians, and so on, that's some personality.
This is where the questions come from, but since your revelation that Jewish religion is all about existence and ethics, all questions go away, [I still don't know if you apply the same theory Christian and Muslim religions too], but you cant ask someone that has a certain perception on god why he needs proof, first you gotta teach him your perception and concept of god and then he wont ask does questions.
נשלח ב-5/12/2005 00:07
In the past I have flirted with the idea of interpreting the concept of God as a metaphor for existence in totality. The obvious advantage of this is that unlike other concepts of God, this God obviously exists without question.
The problem with it, however, is that it really doesn't explain anything. Everyone knows existence exists, it's impossible to deny. So there is no reason to affirm or to deny it. It just doesn't add any new information
Another disadvantage of it is that this definition of God is not what most people refer to when they refer to God, so it actually confuses things rather than clear things up as a good definition should.
The reason, I think, why some non-believers in traditional religious God will choose to define God as Existence is because it allows them to not define themselves as atheists, which is still a little taboo in the USA. I prefer the term non-theist if I need to identify my metaphysical beliefs, because it asserts that I don't believe in the traditional religious God, but it doesn't have the materialistic connotation as the term atheist has
נשלח ב-5/12/2005 00:09
What is to be gained by calling existence God?
Good point, it could be because I honestly think that once one dissects what one essentialy means when saying God it will be extremely close to meaning existence.
And this type of God is as factualy true as existence (being that they are one and the same.
So it may well be that to belabor the issue of God's 'provability' while not willing to delve into the issue of defining God first, is tackling it in the wrong order.
To the primitive man everything pulls to one another by an external spirit, the modern man doesn't add any mystical spirit, he just identifies the force and names it [gravity, in this case] but to lose sight of this force because it was conceptualized in a primitive format is not being intellectualy sound.
נשלח ב-5/12/2005 00:24
In the page before, Sachliel has quoted what I wrote in hebrew on this subject. I will try to reiterate a little. The main point of saying that existence is god, is to prevent oneself to deify anything else. Even one who claims himself an atheist, deifies his desires, heroes etc... By deifying Being we realize the absolute of absolutes where questioning stops, we realize that we cannot counterfeit the depth of our consciousness and we are prevented to holify anything that is not absolute like causuality etc...
נשלח ב-5/12/2005 02:10
Although it's likely that the writer(s) of the Torah didn't conceptualize God as Incomprehensible it don't need to be so. Doesn't the fact of the unwillingness of the Bible to allow names for Malachim (God) or the fact that God's name is Havyah/Existence show us what is essentially meant by the concept of God?
Do you think that once Locke understood that things aren't really existing in of themselves, he stopped talking about objects due to the fact that philosophically there are really no objects? As long that for the purpose of the discussion the concept of objects will do then I don't expect Locke to refrain from using the commonly accepted terminology of 'objects'.
Same with God in the Torah
There is no need to know any features of God ''it is only through His actions that we know him'' a euphemism for ''just think about the actions'' ''look at the world as a system''.
Stay with the whole shebang as a system that's here. Don't go any further there is nothing there. Give the system whatever name you want.
By claiming that there is an external power lurking behind the system you aren't really adding anything to you information base, for just as that external power has the power of doing everything you see, yet so does the System.
In truth there is nothing wrong to think of God at whatever philosophical level you are, Do I care if you call gravity a factual force or a 'spirit that pulls things to one another' as long as you'll apply this spirit or force to all applications equally
In the end we should really enumerate what we are trying to say when we believe in God?
That everything will be good in the end through God's intervention etc.? We should then ask ourselves what do we mean by good?
Good is whatever we want, want is whatever we expect, we cannot expect something to happen if we know for sure that it will never happen, so once we know true reality we don't expect anything other than the facts of existence, so our wants coincide with existence, so Existence is what is good.
Hence God/Existence is Good
Live in harmony with the facts of existence and you will never do anything other what is objectively in tune with the whole of existence (not whith your own subjective reality)
God is ethics and peace.
Dveikus Ba'shem is gettin rid of your 'Ani', Bitul Hayesh, becoming one whith the Ein Sof with the Eternal.
נשלח ב-5/12/2005 02:16
Ani, you write
''Live in harmony with the facts of existence and you will never do anything other what is objectively in tune with the whole of existence (not with your own subjective reality)''
don't you mean "not only with your own subjective reality"? since your subjective reality is part of the whole existence? (And maybe the most important part to you)
''not with your own subjective reality''
come to think of it, I'm not even sure if this is possible, because everything gets filtered and processed in our own minds, it's not like we can understand anything with out it being altererd by our subjective world view
''Dveikus Ba'shem is gettin rid of your 'Ani', Bitul Hayesh, becoming one whith the Ein Sof with the Eternal.''
is this possible? Is this desirable? would you want to give up your personal identity even if you could?
נשלח ב-5/12/2005 03:21
Spinoza,
I'll respond to your issue about subjective reality a little later due to time constraints at the momment. But let me respond to your question about the desirability of becoming one with the whole of Existence, Bitul Hayesh if you will.
It's not a question of desirability it's a simple fact that there really is no 'me' to speak of, I am a collection of certain awareness which in essence are certain forms of existence's there is no real me. So desirable or not this is what it is.
Spinoza,
This is a key part of the whole thing. Whatever is being said as 'this is what should be done' really means this is what it is. In the philosophy of Hatamah there is no real Preive laws it's all Deive, no 'ought' only 'is'.
נשלח ב-5/12/2005 06:56
Spinoza,
What I mean by subjective reality is a reality which you know is not the actual reality; you know that this reality is tinted pink due to the pink shaded sunglasses you are wearing. Sure you are only going to live your life based on your own reality (it's not only that you can't think about 'true' reality because it's filtered by you, there actually is no 'true' reality, whatever you truly see is true reality) but you have to have it consistent within your reality i.e. if you are aware of the fact that you are wearing shades then you already know that the colors you see are not accurate i.e. you know that when you will remove the shades it will be different. Or when you are looking at something from a certain angle you know that this is only one specific perspective so you can't tell yourself that this is 'your' reality because even in your reality you know that it's only one perspective of it.
Once I allow for the facts (the facts that you are aware of, that is) to reign supreme I don't have any conflicts in my own reality, I am in harmony with reality that is when I will be called a truly ethical person for I will not see reality from only from a perspective of myself due to my being aware that it's only one angle. Perspective A is only one of many perspectives and there is no priority of that perspective simply because it's from the direction/perspective of myself.
I'm afraid the above is a bit convoluted, I'm not expressing myself clearly. If so please make me aware of it. Thanks
נשלח ב-5/12/2005 06:59
Tzuriel,
You may be right about מה הוא רחום etc. but at the same time it is common knowledge that לית מחשבה תפיסא ביה כלל.
Spinoza claims that he learned in Yeshiva that there is no way of conceptualizing God. So there.
נשלח ב-6/12/2005 01:01
Spinoza claims that we are all inevitably subjective.
My question to him, Can I tell this guy who's wearing pink shades to stop claiming that everything is pink? Can I tell him that it's only from one particular angle (him looking thru the shades) that it is so, and that he should please look at things objectively?
Will he then be right by saying that we are all inevitably subjective, so he might as well be subjective in his own (subjective) way?
How is this guy wrong?
נשלח ב-15/12/2005 08:58
*How is this guy wrong?*
First of all, this guy is not wrong. If he wants to keep on his glasses, that is his choice. We may not agree with his choice, but that doesn’t make it wrong.
But your analogy isn't a good one. He could take off his glasses and then see the world like everyone else does, but he chooses not to. Our mental hardware and software (for lack of a better way of describing it), however, is built into our minds and can not be changed by our will, because that is what controls our will.
נשלח ב-22/12/2005 11:11
Its very posible that we cant be perfectly objective
but why should that stop us from being as objective as
we can.
On a deeper level, its not only that we can strive to
be as apobjective as possible, we actually are almost
forced to be as objective as we can. For once we see
that this specific perspective is just one aspect of a
certain phenomena and that there are different
perspectives as well, just as valid ones mind you, we
have essentially looked at it more objectively, for we
have agreed to our selves that this is NOT the only
perspective. Once we have come to this point there is
no turning back,
So to the point where we see an option of us being
more objective we are essentialy forced to be just
that, except if we are going to contradict this
selfsame awareness, then we are contradicting
ourselves, we are then living in a conflict.
