Ignosticism: What Is God?

quatona said:

So you´re an atheist theist?

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Given the definition of an atheist insofar as I am not a theistic Satanist, but a theist insofar as I am Christian, then I suppose that's true (that I am an "atheist theist"). That may well sound odd, clumsy, but as Wittgensteing put it in TLP language has it's limits. I think that here, we're just at the limit of the ordinary usage of "theist" and "atheist", and we seem to hit an apparent paradox.

Doh. Or maybe I could just say I am a Christian and not a Jew, Sikh, Muslim etc.

When someone asks me the question "Do you believe in god?" most of the time I don´t understand the intention and the context. In most cases when I tried to answer according to the intention and context I guessed the further process of the conversation showed me that my guesses were wrong.

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Ok fine, you need to clarify your understanding of what they mean, from a vague idea to something more precise. Great! However in some cases this is superfluous e.g "Pass me the milk please" -> "What do you mean by "milk"?.. "What is a fluid, just so that we're sure?"...."What shade of white are we talking about?"..."Can you give me an unambiguous sample of that?" "You want me to pass you on which side?" etc.

I´m not a great fan of intention reading, anyways.

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Fine.

Furthermore, in most of the discussions about the term "atheist" many people do not at all care about the context but start with "You say you are an atheist, so you saying [insert assumptions based on the weird atheism-concept of the person speaking]."

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It was you who introduced the topic of believing in one God and not another, and asking if that made one a theist or an atheist, or something along those lines, remember? All I tried to do was find a solution to a treacherous problem where the language we commonly use can naturally seem wrongheaded (there being "atheistic theists"). Maybe "I am Christian in the RCC" will do fine for present purposes? Are we still meant to be discussing that issue?

Just yesterday I came across a god concept that described a view that I can easily accept (needless to say it didn´t have anything to do with an omnipotent omniscient creatorbeing a la Christianity, though). What do you think: Should I call myself a theist henceforth? Or should I call myself a theist in certain contexts and an atheist in others?

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I am not sure what you should do. But not knowing what to call yourself is a different issue to whether "God" means anything, except perhaps in some form of asylum - and there the issue is hopefully resolvable by modern medical treatment. You know that as well as I do.

Or, if we are getting philosophical we ought to remember that "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language" rather than an attemt at it. Selah.

I think the proper answer to "Do you believe in god?" is always "God? What do you mean?". As far as I understand it correctly, that´s ignosticism in a nutshell.

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Fine. That's not the definition of ignosticism as outlined in the OP. In any case, your response - to look at the meaing of the terms in a question - is just good analytic philosophy, and applies to lots of topics for debate besides theology. For instance in sociology class, before answering "Is poverty correlated with low intelligence" we have to ask what do the individual terms "poverty" and "intelligence" mean? Of course, these terms are contentious, just as the term "God" is, but there are meanings or definitions of them outlined in various researcher's papers and textbooks just as we find conceptions of God in theological discussions etc.

quatona said:

I think this discussion would have a chance of making better progresses once everyone would understand that all we can define is words. Nobody´s trying to define god (that´s wordsalad) - if anything they are trying to define "god".

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What? They are defining the term "god" right?

UnReAL13 said:

I'm not the person who invented those definitions. When you say "beyond natural", you imply something "above" natural. "Super" would be the synonym here, which contrasts with the meaning of the word "natural".

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But where does the concept of superficial* (and the implication of self contradiction) fit in to the ordinary usage / standard / plain English definition of the term "supernatural"? Or are we just imagining things?

*relevant link

Lord Emsworth said:

I mean we could simply go and point to all the beauty, or the order inherent in the world and then say, "Whatever is behind that (beauty, order) that is God." This would be similar with showing a picture of a dog. And hey, why not?

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If you think that terms need to be defined ostensively if they should have meaning, then you should read, or reread Witgenstein's classic "Philosophical Investigations" (actually compiled posthumously from his notes IIRC) . In the first few pages he talks of the mistake of treating all definitions as if they were ostensive definitions, or talking as if all words were, or had to be defined ostensively i.e. by pointing to something.

Now this is a classic point. We don't necessarily find meaning in denotation, for instance we can't possibly point at the number, but we find meaning in usage. And as I pointed out in my first post in this thread the term "God" has a usage, which we find outlined in the dictionary definition of the term. And you know, as a good, practical rule authoratitive dictionaries don't contain words without meanings. If they did, they would probably never reach aardvark*!

*which is where, as we know, the fun begins!

sandwiches said:

I think I'll start over since you still don't get the point of my original question and the reason for my comparison of emotions with god. To quickly recap, I was trying to show that the reasoning use for 'ignosticism' in the OP seems inconsistent. That the whole philosophy behind it is that there is not one single, clear definition of the word 'god.'

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Is it that there's no one concrete definition? Or it is that the concrete definitions define so much of it as a mystery that even if you accept that "concrete" definition that it's meaningless to say you believe in it?

Start asking deep probing questions about how god works (i.e. the trinity, trans/consubstantiation, why god needed to have himself killed to save us from himself, etc) and you'll get back to the "it's all part of the great mystery of faith". It's an intentionally fuzzy concept, defined that way to make it impossible to disprove.

Emotions are different. It's hard to give an exact definition because happy is a broad term. Despite that, people can pretty easily pick up when other people are happy and will generally agree on the big picture emotional state of others. Not to mention we can hook people up to EEGs and get consistent results relating to different emotions. It's way different from the god example because no one's going to say "you can't be happy because no one can fully appreciate the mystery of emotions" - contrast that with e.g. the Christian God, which is specifically and intentionally defined to be impossible to understand.

To put it as plain as I can: I cannot understand how you can claim to not be able to answer the question: "Do you believe in God" on the basis that the word 'god' can mean many different things to many different people but you're able to answer the question "Are you happy?" despite the fact that there are just as many different definitions of the word 'happy' as there are for 'god.'

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This I agree with. Unless you're arguing that the total lack of a definition for god makes you a believer, ignosticism is just a more specific version of atheism towards certain types of god concepts.

IMHO, when believers say god's a mystery they want you to think "well maybe that means god is hiding out there somewhere". Ignostics call them on this game - if you can't tell me anything more than "it's some mysterious something with no concrete attributes" what the heck does it even mean to ask if I believe in it. In a way it short circuits the whole "absolutely disprove this fuzzy thing which will change as soon as you try to nail it down" game that some believers play when they can't produce a positive reason for their belief.

Now I'm seeing a lot of different interpretations on what ignosticism is... Seems like the word is becoming a bit vague, to me.

At any rate, let's try this:
You're having a conversation with me and I define 'God' as Miley Cyrus, the singer. Now, do you understand the question: "Do you believe 'God' exists?"

I still want to see what criteria ignostics use to know if meaning is present in a term. I say look at the use of a word, and the use of a word is found in a good dictionary.

UnReAL13 said:

So how do you know this young lady actually saw anything? Maybe she was hallucinating.




It actually is being studied at Fermilab and CERN. Particle collisions bring us closer and closer to unraveling this mystery.




I suppose you have some other general self-fulfilling prophecies that could've easily been deduced analytically, without any kind of divine intervention. Why not just prophesy that there will be people who will be skeptical to all spiritual claims, and even some who disbelieve such claims. Oh but I guess that already happened.




Measuring the effects of something doesn't ultimately determine the root cause. If this was true, then black holes exist definitely as they've been described. But nobody has actually been able to observe a black hole, we've only seen the effects that a potential black hole generates.




Yes, they are more concrete. There are no conflicting accounts for their existence.




Since there's no historical evidence for the "Catholic" interpretation of "God", then yes.




Genesis 1:26 - 'Then God said "Let us make people in our image, to be like ourselves."'

Sounds awfully pluralized there. Considering the original word was "Elohim", this line of scripture makes a bit more sense. But then you'll try to rationalize this with your triple-god trinity.




So it's unfair to take your holy book literally? Are you saying the people who wrote Ezekiel didn't mean what they had written?




Is Jesus Christ specific enough? Who or what was Jesus Christ exactly?

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Now, I was carefully formulating an answer for all your statements, but when I got to the end, I realized that you had put this here. Is this the way you would like someone to address you? The question in red would make a third party inspector suspect you either are not at all interested in anything substantial, or perhaps I have failed to state things in a simple enough way for you to understand.

And, no, CERN is really attempting to find the Higgs Boson. The existence or non-existence of something created still does not address the ultimate 'why' question.

sandwiches said:

Now I'm seeing a lot of different interpretations on what ignosticism is... Seems like the word is becoming a bit vague, to me.

At any rate, let's try this:
You're having a conversation with me and I define 'God' as Miley Cyrus, the singer. Now, do you understand the question: "Do you believe 'God' exists?"

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"Miley Cyrus, the singer, is God" is a metaphor. As is Received's (a poster around here) user-title, "Dylan = Deity".

None of that is about theology. It is all about music*.

So, in such a context the question "Do you believe 'God' exists" refers to Cyrus' person, life, songs - although the question phrased like that does sound a little odd.




* ok, ymmv

GrowingSmaller said:

If you think that terms need to be defined ostensively if they should have meaning, then you should read, or reread Witgenstein's classic "Philosophical Investigations" (actually compiled posthumously from his notes IIRC) . In the first few pages he talks of the mistake of treating all definitions as if they were ostensive definitions, or talking as if all words were, or had to be defined ostensively i.e. by pointing to something.

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Yeah, ok you are somewhat right. But pointing at stuff is still a good way to demonstrate usage.

GrowingSmaller said:

Now this is a classic point. We don't necessarily find meaning in denotation, for instance we can't possibly point at the number, but we find meaning in usage.

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5 exclamation marks: !!!!!
5 question marks: ?????
5 letters: sfieo
and so on.

But, ok, understood.

GrowingSmaller said:

And as I pointed out in my first post in this thread the term "God" has a usage, which we find outlined in the dictionary definition of the term. And you know, as a good, practical rule authoratitive dictionaries don't contain words without meanings. If they did, they would probably never reach aardvark*!

*which is where, as we know, the fun begins!

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Dictionaries contain words that are used. They attempt to reflect and describe usage. While making also slight prescriptive statements about how words should be used. But ultimately, if the populace decides to use a certain string of letters in a totally new fashion, as not yet found in a dict, then ultimately the dict will succumb.

GrowingSmaller said:

Ignostics: what are the necessary and sufficient conditions that need to be met for a word to have meaning?

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That depends on a lot of things:
- the subject (e.g. is the term meant to point to something that´s in our common experience or is it supposed to be something exceptional; is it meant as a generic term or meant to point to one particular object?)
- the purpose of the conversation
- is the term supposed to be a keyword?

...just to name the first that come to mind.

Simply put: When I (sufficiently for the given purpose) understand what you are talking about I can start considering to give my opinion about your concept.

The onus is on you, because you are arguing the case about "God" being meaningless.

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I think there is no onus on me at all. I have no obligation whatsoever to take your concepts into consideration.
You want to talk about your concept "God", you want to communicate something, you want my opinion about your concept - so you are the one who has an interest in making himself understood.
Personally, I can easily live without the term "god" since I hold no concept that requires the use of such a term. It plays no part in my views.

GrowingSmaller said:

I still want to see what criteria ignostics use to know if meaning is present in a term. I say look at the use of a word, and the use of a word is found in a good dictionary.

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In a good dictionary you typically find a list of different usages for a given word.
1., 1a. 1b.
2., 2a., 2b. 2c.
3.
etc.

GrowingSmaller said:

Ignostics: what are the necessary and sufficient conditions that need to be met for a word to have meaning?

The onus is on you, because you are arguing the case about "God" being meaningless.

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GrowingSmaller said:

I still want to see what criteria ignostics use to know if meaning is present in a term. I say look at the use of a word, and the use of a word is found in a good dictionary.

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Yes, ideally we look at the exact context in which an instance of a word is used. This either involves taking the already present context of the conversation into consideration, or it might involve second guessing. Or maybe it might involve creating a context which to use for looking at usage - by asking, or so.


Of course, in my book, when I am to use the word "God" sans any kind further context created, by for instance looking at what the other people mean by it, IOW if I stick to my own devices, then God is a contradiction and next to too hazy at that. Of course, you would first need to understand what I actually mean by "God". And why.


So, in the end, if people refuse to make the word as they use it intelligible to me ... I don't need it. I can - and will anyway - always fallback to what I wish to see expressed by "God".



But back to your question ... If I see little rhyme or reason in the use of a word across different people, or if very often I have the impression that the person I am conversing with is very confuse in their application of a word (such as "God") then I cannot but conclude that there is nothing or only little in there for me, that there is no meaning to be imparted to me.


And one more thing about dictionaries ... Watch out that you don't put those things on a pedestal. Dicts are useful, but they only go so far.

quatona said:

I think there is no onus on me at all. I have no obligation whatsoever to take your concepts into consideration.
You want to talk about your concept "God", you want to communicate something, you want my opinion about your concept - so you are the one who has an interest in making himself understood.

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*nods*

Ignosticism, in this thread, seems to indicates objecting to all definitions that are longer than one sentence and/or that contain words that are objectionable.

It is not a very productive way to use time, nor does it prove anything logical whatsoever to treat other peoples positions in this way. Nor does it make one look smarter than the other, except, possibly if you are in the same generic group.

GrowingSmaller said:

Ignostics: what are the necessary and sufficient conditions that need to be met for a word to have meaning?

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As I´ve told you yesterday recently someone called something "God" that pretty much matches one of my concepts. Consequently I could claim that I am a theist now. Yesterday I called myself an "atheist", today I would call myself a "theist" - without having changed my views one bit.
Likewise, your and my worldviews haven´t gotten any closer, but today we could agree that both of us believe that "God exists".
Does that give you an idea why proper definitions are a prerequisite for any conversation that exceeds mere semantics?
You keep making it sound like it is an inappropriate demand on my part - whilst actually it would be in your own best interests, as well (provided you are interested in meaningful conversation).

fated said:

Ignosticism, in this thread, seems to indicates objecting to all definitions that are longer than one sentence and/or that contain words that are objectionable.

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There's a difference between specific god concepts and the god concept as a whole. Ignosticism generally refers to the idea of god in general. We know that their are lots of definitions, but until someone actually works out which one is the correct definition, it makes very little difference to the overall situation. We can reject individual definitions but we have no idea if that definition is the correct one.

It is not a very productive way to use time, nor does it prove anything logical whatsoever to treat other peoples positions in this way. Nor does it make one look smarter than the other, except, possibly if you are in the same generic group.

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Yes, because the point of ignosticism is to look smart.

SithDoughnut said:

There's a difference between specific god concepts and the god concept as a whole. Ignosticism generally refers to the idea of god in general. We know that their are lots of definitions, but until someone actually works out which one is the correct definition, it makes very little difference to the overall situation. We can reject individual definitions but we have no idea if that definition is the correct one.

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Oh, so its just another 'why bother?' agnostic type word. Well, if an all-good and personal God exists it would only be reasonable to work through the possibilities, and not just discard them. Agnostic seems to lack any good defense if its adherent uses it as a defense for having a lazy intent.