Man! You're a fast learner. Yes, I have been pressing to keep the discussion about a possible god-entity within the realm of the abstract. And this is indeed very difficult, which is one point that I want everyone to see! (Crafty me!)
Not to question your excellence as a teacher - but in this particular instance you were more like carrying coals to Newcastle.
However, the discussion will almost immediately break-down if I allow a specific divine identity to slip in, whether that entity is Vishnu, or the Lord Jehovah. So, I think it is possible for us to generically frame in our minds, at the beginning, (in a kind of Fregian, or Searlian way) a god-entity who exists outside of time and space, and who has sat there, for eternity (for however 'early' or 'long' that may be).
Well, as much as I appreciate your will to provide a workable god-concept (without adding theological bells and whistles), I have problems accepting this one: It appears to be self-contradictory. Or, at least you would have to provide definitions of "eternity", "long" and "early" that render them meaningful atemporal concepts.
I agree it seems very difficult to do--that is, holding a god-concept, or imagining a divine entity, but we can do so with out adding other specifics that take us then into the orbit of today's World Religions.
To be honest, I doubt that very much. I specifically doubt the ability of a believer to let go of the conceptual frame that renders his god concept meaningful to him (don´t misunderstand me: I am not blaming them for this inability.)
Look, in your above efigious definition, you didn´t even mention God´s creatorship. I´m sure, though, that you naturally assume it, and that it will turn out to be a trait of this "efigy" sooner or later.
On other occasions, you have simply posited God to be personal (after all, you call It "He" - male even), sentient, feeling, thinking, emotional, needy, etc.
I totally believe you that you would like to talk about PhilosophyProperGod, a generic god concept without theological baggage. But then, you are - naturally and understably - so comitted to your own god concept that you inadvertantly smuggle it in, bit by bit.
Let´s hypothetically say it turned out that God isn´t the creator of everthing, that God isn´t omnipotent, not omniscient, that God is but an unpersonal force, that God isn´t good (even evil maybe) etc. - wouldn´t you conclude that this entity isn´t God, rather than adjusting your god concept?
That's a good point! We do often relate God with good because we want to have a safety net of sorts at our metaphysical disposal. But, our consideration of 'the Good's' relation to a god-entity doesn't have to be limited by that hopeful purpose alone.
Correct, it doesn´t have to be. Then again, it seems to me that there are pretty good down-to-earth explanations for the human habit of transcending stuff. We needn´t add transcendental explanations (particularly since they themselves fall in the category that they are supposed to explain).
On another side of the issue, which we haven't pummeled yet in the same way that we have begun to do with the god-entity, is the abstract nature of 'the Good,' which you've implied, I notice, to be something we can't reference except by and through our own cognitive, real-life, non-abstract experiences. Possibly. If this is the case, then we need to discuss Plato's Forms and his idea of 'the Good' first, and see if we can dispense with his ideas. Or we may find out that we can't dispense with it? (Maybe we don't, but I defer to you to start us thinking on that...)
Well, my knowledge of ancient Greek philosophy has become a little rusty over the decades (probably because at some point I ceased to be impressed by it).
Anyway: As his hypothesis of "Forms" appears to be a transcendental (and thus unfalsifiable) concept itself, I am not willing to accept the burden of disproving it.
To be quite frank, at this point I am quite content with rejecting it on basis of the fact that I find it quite creative but also pretty wild. It doesn´t seem to explain anything for which there isn´t a solid down-to-earth explanation.
...and that, my friend, is why we aren't simply looking at the concept of god, or a god-entity, alone, but at the relationship of the concepts between God and the Good, and whether Good is intrinsic or extrinsic, real, or humanly imagined. What ideas do you have brewing about all of this, Quatona?
My personal take? It´s actually pretty simple.
"Good" is a human term of valuation based on our experience of "desirable".
I have always observed a tendency of humans to first transcend their concepts into the abstract (possibly even to the point of stripping them off any context or frame of reference in which they have come to use them), and upon seeing then vanishing into the open space that way, they try to regain a grip on them by reifying, anthropomorphing, personifying, obejctifying them.
In a nutshell.
IMO it´s a matter of psychology more than anything else.
Have I lost my mind? Or, do we need to take the Red Pill or the Blue Pill?
If you ask me: As long as we don´t expect a word to have meaning outside the frame of reference in which we have come to use it (or even outside any frame of reference at all), we are on the safe side, sanitywise.
