Nothing Follows From a Belief in God

[_huckelberry]

A useful definition of God is a combination of two things. One, God is the ground of being. Two God is our ultimate concern.

The classic "proofs" of Gods existence concern themselves with the first item only. That is why they point to a something which has few personal characteristics.

My first thought reading the opening of this thread was, true but nobody who is a practicing theist starts thinking aboug God from a proof of Gods existence. The path is the other way around. Consider the Bible. It contains no proofs of Gods existence. Instead it follows the experience of a group persuing their sense of ultimate concern. They discover the idea of God on that path. Later theorists came up with proofs of God as a thousand year later afterthought.

One might look at the history of the idea of God. People all over the world have had a sense there was a spriitual dimension to our life. Many people have been very flexiblity about how they might talk about and relate to that dimension. In fact most older relgions, say Native American, are more concerned with actions interelating to the rhealm of spirit power than in haveing set definitions of who that might be referring to. People developed a variety of gods that image pieces of that spriitual rhealm which expressed something of their ultimate concern. There were parades of images like masks. They could and often were understood as interchangeable. (speaking of the classic period of polytheism). The idea of a God who is personal and ultimate developed from that background. It was a conclusion not a starting spot. Further, it took another thousand years for people to bother with proofs.

[_Coggins7]

In the name of Cuthulhu...

[_Mercury]

In the name of Cuthulhu...

Why does it not surprise me that you would invoke that name? If there was a god that I thought you could get behind it would be one of the old ones.

[_John Larsen]

So if you believe in God, which is a reasonable thing to do, you still have the problem of proving any other belief about the nature of God or the Universe from that belief.

I fail to understand what is so reasonable about belief in God any more than belief into "Spagetti Monster", "Alien Abductions".
Could you elaborate what you see as "Reasonable"?

The belief in God is reasonable because it offers a solution to the central problem of existence. Namely, that anything exists at all--which is completely absurd. However, the existence of God is equally absurd. So both the belief and non-belief in God are equally ridiculous thus equally reasonable.

The problem is once you ascribe any attribute at all to God, you have crossed the line into the unreasonable, because there is no way to defend the actual existence of that attribute.

That is why I say it is reasonable to believe in God. The is why I am indifferent to the existence of God. I am not agnostic, I just don't believe the existence of God is relevant.

[_John Larsen]

A useful definition of God is a combination of two things. One, God is the ground of being. Two God is our ultimate concern.

I will grant you that the former, namely "being" exists. However, I am not so sure that anything akin to an "ultimate concern" has any meaning. Please explain.

[_huckelberry]

John, You say you doubt there is some ultimate concern we have. I wonder if you are seeing a blocking idea,that some being gives us a job. That may not be a clear image. Do we not all have some sort of concerns. How else do we get out of bed in the morning?

It could be considered, if we have some concerns that matter the word ultimate might be meaningful even if what it is is not a simple thing one can put in a bowl in the morning.

[_John Larsen]

John, You say you doubt there is some ultimate concern we have. I wonder if you are seeing a blocking idea,that some being gives us a job. That may not be a clear image. Do we not all have some sort of concerns. How else do we get out of bed in the morning?

It could be considered, if we have some concerns that matter the word ultimate might be meaningful even if what it is is not a simple thing one can put in a bowl in the morning.

Are you trying to suggest that humanity has an ultimate concern, or we each have our own individual ultimate concern?

[_huckelberry]

Are you trying to suggest that humanity has an ultimate concern, or we each have our own individual ultimate concern?

John, I can grapple with my own ultimate concern. I could not presume to supply one to you. Much less could I create one for the entire human race. In my experience the word ultimate make it impossible to wrap it up into one identifiable thing. It is closer to something lying behind the various more graspable things I find myself concerned about. It allows me to consider if somethings that worry me at a moment might not be that important. My experience so far is that the phrase functions more as a question than some set answer for me.

[_John Larsen]

Are you trying to suggest that humanity has an ultimate concern, or we each have our own individual ultimate concern?

John, I can grapple with my own ultimate concern. I could not presume to supply one to you. Much less could I create one for the entire human race. In my experience the word ultimate make it impossible to wrap it up into one identifiable thing. It is closer to something lying behind the various more graspable things I find myself concerned about. It allows me to consider if somethings that worry me at a moment might not be that important. My experience so far is that the phrase functions more as a question than some set answer for me.

My belief is that there is no intrinsic ultimate concern, but that it created by each individual. Your anwser seems to confirm my suspicions.

[_Some Schmo]

It seems to me that if there really were a god, he'd be neither benevolent nor malevolent, given the fact that the world we live in is neither benevolent nor malevolent.

Could you run by me again your reasoning as to why the creation must match the creator in its characteristics? As you can readily see, it is very possible that God could be benevolent while the creation itself could be neither benevolent or malevolent.

Regards,
MG

True, the nature of a creation could be different from it's creator, but in the case of a god who apparently set up the world with us in mind, I would think he would try to make the experience match the sort of characteristics he/she thinks are important. People who create generally do so in order to express themselves, or at least, create something that ends up being an expression of themselves. Would a god be any different? I suppose if you think so, that's fine, but that's one arbitrary attribute you've assigned to him that is different than the arbitrary attribute I've assigned to him. One thing is certain; the attributes we've assigned to god reflect something about us, not him.

As the discussion of this thread indicates, I'm making assessments about the nature of god based on my own perspective. All I was really trying to get at was that we create god in our own image, as GIMR noted after reading my post. It's just a random shot in the dark. The truth is, I don't even believe there is a god, so any claims as to what I think his nature would have to be if he actually existed at all are certainly subject to error, but no more so than anyone else's claims regarding this imaginary entity.