I said, regarding Scratch's attempted explanation of the sense in which God "exists":
God does not exist in a "plane of existence" corresponding to "the real". At all events, what is apparantly being stated here is, not to put too fine a point on it, that God does not exist. That is, if there are "planes of existence", and God cannot be associated with any of them, and reality, or various realities, are associated with the various planes, then it follows that God is devoid of the property of being real, since he is not a part of the planes of reality that are themselves necessarily associated with some form of reality. Any other existing plane, if it does not correspond to some kind of substantive "reality", seems to be a logical self negation; a "plane of existence" that has no corresponding reality upon which that very plane can subsist.
This philosophical giant, in his blistering response to my philosophical critique of his statement, said:
Very well, Loran: go ahead and try to explain matters of faith using logic. Please provide a logical explanation for the existence of Two Cumorahs. Or Kolob. Or the appearance of Moroni to Joseph Smith. (Or Moroni's Promise, for that matter.) Good luck with that, you booze-sucking, mush-headed, inbred, cow-chip-tossing, Right-wing hayseed.
Scratch is actually as good a creating long strings of clever cut downs, insults, and moral slanders as I am writing goofy song lyrics impaling antimos and exmos. However, regardless of whether we are speaking of matters of faith or anything else, Scratch made a kind onlotogical, or metaphysical argument that has an internal logical structure with logical consequences. In analyzing it, I found his claims to be logically self negating as well as rather nebulous. He did not respond to my critique.
My suspicion is that he really doen't know what to make of it.
To Plutarch: There are at least two understandings of the term "intellectual" that should be taken into consideration when throwing the term about. The first is the sense in which anybody who is involved with or makes a living within the world of or in the manipulation of the signs, symbols, and symbology of culture: that is, language (and/or imagery mixed with the use of language). In this sense, Madonna, Bill Maher, or Katie Couric are "intellectuals"; there world is the world of culture, media, language, words, and images combined with words. The other sense of the term is that describing serious thinkers, which is another thing altogether. There are many people who are not serious thinkers who are yet very articulate and well versed in the manipulation of the language. They are not experts in anything or "deep" thinkers on any subject but excellent verbalizers and can, if they have quick, agile minds, flummox others who are far more knowledgable than they in any of several ways.
In other words, "intellectual" doesn't necessarily mean smart, learned, or educated. A drug addled rock star writing vulgar lyrics with some social or political message is as much an intellectual as Hugh Nibley in the sense of working in the world of language and ideas. He is not an intellectual in the other sense.
We seem to have an abundance of the prior kind here, over the latter.