If a Christian god exists, why does he pretend to not exist? cont. godditit vs n

Started by fencerider, March 06, 2017, 08:00:32 PM

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Solomon Zorn

Quote from: Baruch on March 10, 2017, 02:21:35 PM
Definition of words isn't neutral, it is rhetorical at the gut level, no prisoners taken.  If you control the language, you control how people think.  I don't let others make me their verbal bitch.
Unconventional definitions of words are fine, as long as everyone in the discussion is using the same definition. Which is where the problem lies. When using a special definition, anything you might say is subject to semantic misunderstanding. This is compounded on internet forums, where newcomers to a discussion may not have read all the posts on that thread, and assume you are using a common definition.
If God Exists, Why Does He Pretend Not to Exist?
Poetry and Proverbs of the Uneducated Hick

http://www.solomonzorn.com

Blackleaf

Quote from: Baruch on March 10, 2017, 02:21:35 PM
Would you describe "American" as male, dark haired, from Krypton, wears spandex, fights bad guys .... neither would I.  Why not?  Definition of words isn't neutral, it is rhetorical at the gut level, no prisoners taken.  If you control the language, you control how people think.  I don't let others make me their verbal bitch.

That and Morgan Freeman is much better at playing G-d, than G-d.  Morgan isn't an asshole.

If God is like Morgan Freeman's version, he might as well not exist. All he does is fix lights, give super powers to random people, play pranks on the few people he directly communicates with, make excuses for not doing anything to help anyone, and telling other people to do his job. If God is just one of the bros he's not any more remarkable than any other bro. But then you think we're both demigods, so godship really isn't anything special in your view anyway.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Baruch

Quote from: Solomon Zorn link=topic=11392.msg1170119#msg1  70119 date=1489175642
Unconventional definitions of words are fine, as long as everyone in the discussion is using the same definition. Which is where the problem lies. When using a special definition, anything you might say is subject to semantic misunderstanding. This is compounded on internet forums, where newcomers to a discussion may not have read all the posts on that thread, and assume you are using a common definition.

We can only have the same definitions, if we are the same person.  And per Heraclitus, the same person doesn't have the same definition, over time.  How can people "discover" what definition I am using today ... if it is different than yesterday ... yes, reading all 12000 posts of mine might give a clue, but then you need the context to understand those.  Once a person has been some place for awhile ... they are no longer the salt boy, they have become a sea, if not an ocean.  We have semantic misunderstandings?  Well then that requires friendly conversation, not argument over Funk & Wagnalls.

See, we don't agree on even what a conversation is.  If it is rhetoric, then you can you can tear my polymorphic definitions from my cold dead lips.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: Blackleaf on March 10, 2017, 06:23:23 PM
If God is like Morgan Freeman's version, he might as well not exist. All he does is fix lights, give super powers to random people, play pranks on the few people he directly communicates with, make excuses for not doing anything to help anyone, and telling other people to do his job. If God is just one of the bros he's not any more remarkable than any other bro. But then you think we're both demigods, so godship really isn't anything special in your view anyway.

Your definition of G-d ... like many others here ... "something that will make me crap my pants, like going over the top of the first tall rise in the roller coaster".  Everyone defines things, for their own purpose.  I don't dispute your choice of purpose, only your apparent lack of self awareness.  You are aware of how much bull shit there is, but like almost everyone, you can't smell your own.  And why should you?

I became aware, after many decades ... that I didn't have to accept anyone's definition for anything, not even the dictionaries.  I found out that dictionary writers famously (at least for Voltaire) have agendas.  Today with out totalitarian global society, it is a political agenda.  Of course "pop culture" is a source of common meaning .. but we all know that our lives have turned into crappy reality TV, right?

With me it is a Zen thing.  At first a mountain was just a mountain.  Then a mountain was no longer a mountain.  Eventually a mountain was just a mountain, but no longer the same mountain.  As a theist humanist by choice, I have to ... have to define things in terms of humanity.  And it has to be a humanity that isn't materialist.  Materialist humanity satisfies the agenda of Capitalism and Communism.  After many decades, I have rejected Winston Smith's fate.

In the course of my personal development, I didn't have to end up as a theist, or even Jewish.  I have had lots of "alternative ending novella" choices to make, and I ain't done until I'm done.  Your personal development is different (as it has to be).  We are just chatting away, being the monkeys we are.  There are so many people, and the choices we make are exponentially greater than the number of people at any given time, it is a wonder we can even chat at all.

For a naturalist, being in nature (minus tourists) is a wonder.  i get that too.  For me being among people, and being a person (I have yet to be a redwood tree) is a wonder.  And yes ... people are irritating.  I am a clam who won't clam up ... don't mind the pearl I am making here ;-)  I choose to accept people as they are (with much effort) ... I project my irritation on G-d (like the patient does to Freud).  Of course my G-d is going to be Jewish in that case ;-)

I find that a deeper atheism, comes from a deeper misanthropy.  And I get the misanthropy, I have that condition too.  Mine drives me to heresy, not atheism.  One can make all the epistemological arguments one likes, and people love to argue.  But it is mere shadow boxing.  Unless I am a person, conversing with another person, not an agenda arguing with different agenda ... then I have run aground in the shallows.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Solomon Zorn

Quote from: Baruch on March 11, 2017, 05:13:18 AM
We can only have the same definitions, if we are the same person.  And per Heraclitus, the same person doesn't have the same definition, over time.  How can people "discover" what definition I am using today ... if it is different than yesterday ... yes, reading all 12000 posts of mine might give a clue, but then you need the context to understand those.  Once a person has been some place for awhile ... they are no longer the salt boy, they have become a sea, if not an ocean.  We have semantic misunderstandings?  Well then that requires friendly conversation, not argument over Funk & Wagnalls.

See, we don't agree on even what a conversation is.  If it is rhetoric, then you can you can tear my polymorphic definitions from my cold dead lips.

De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da...

If I say to someone, "Quit Barukin' me," they might be inclined to think I mean, simply, "Quit taking me to task, over pedantic minutia," when I might instead mean, "Quit exploiting the ambiguities of language, for your own amusement," or in some instances, I might mean, "Quit changing the subject of a thread, and pretending it's a natural tangent."

They are all legitimate definitions, it just depends on context.
If God Exists, Why Does He Pretend Not to Exist?
Poetry and Proverbs of the Uneducated Hick

http://www.solomonzorn.com

Blackleaf

"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

fencerider

I skipped over it too Zorn. I meant to go down that path. If there is no available evidence of a Christian god because he wants to pretend he doesn't exist, then why is he pretending? Or if the Christian god doesn't want us to know that he exists why should he bother us at all or be making rules for us?

Quote from: Baruch on March 11, 2017, 05:23:19 AM
Your definition of G-d ... I didn't have to accept
Do we have a standard definition of god on this website?
"Do you believe in god?", is not a proper English sentence. Unless you believe that, "Do you believe in apple?", is a proper English sentence.

Baruch

Quote from: Solomon Zorn on March 11, 2017, 10:02:49 AM
De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da...

If I say to someone, "Quit Barukin' me," they might be inclined to think I mean, simply, "Quit taking me to task, over pedantic minutia," when I might instead mean, "Quit exploiting the ambiguities of language, for your own amusement," or in some instances, I might mean, "Quit changing the subject of a thread, and pretending it's a natural tangent."

They are all legitimate definitions, it just depends on context.

Seven billion different contexts ... so Bill Clinton was right ... what does "is" mean?
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: fencerider on March 11, 2017, 02:25:29 PM
I skipped over it too Zorn. I meant to go down that path. If there is no available evidence of a Christian god because he wants to pretend he doesn't exist, then why is he pretending? Or if the Christian god doesn't want us to know that he exists why should he bother us at all or be making rules for us?
Do we have a standard definition of god on this website?

In a word ... "No" - Dick Cheney ... man of laconic brevity.  People like to argue from their own authority, except for when they want to fall back on another authority, like the assholes who wrote the dictionary being quoted.  Either you know yourself, for yourself, what a word means (Humpty-Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland) or you are speaking gibberish (using words as magic, given that they have no empirical content for you).  So if I used the word "manatee" but didn't know what that was ... you might not realize that I am speaking gibberish, because it is a legitimate word in the dictionary.  Complicated metaphysical words (like exist) are used that way, all the time.  That is why philosophers bother to think about them, because even they don't know what they are talking about most of the time.  Another example ... people who talk about economics, frequently use jargon, that they don't understand, to sound impressive.  Similarly all the equations which have no real connection with reality (because of the massive assumptions required to justify them).  Out of a thousand professional economists, only 12 predicted the 2008 contraction ... and many of them were just guessing and got lucky.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Solomon Zorn

If the common definition of a word, doesn't mean what I need that word to say, then it is usually incumbent upon me, to find another word.
If God Exists, Why Does He Pretend Not to Exist?
Poetry and Proverbs of the Uneducated Hick

http://www.solomonzorn.com

Solomon Zorn

Quote from: fencerider on March 11, 2017, 02:25:29 PM
I skipped over it too Zorn. I meant to go down that path. If there is no available evidence of a Christian god because he wants to pretend he doesn't exist, then why is he pretending? Or if the Christian god doesn't want us to know that he exists why should he bother us at all or be making rules for us?
Good questions for a Christian, but I don't think there are any around here lately.
If God Exists, Why Does He Pretend Not to Exist?
Poetry and Proverbs of the Uneducated Hick

http://www.solomonzorn.com

Unbeliever

God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Baruch

Quote from: Solomon Zorn on March 11, 2017, 04:30:02 PM
If the common definition of a word, doesn't mean what I need that word to say, then it is usually incumbent upon me, to find another word.

Noah Webster is your Pope.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

I like Sisson's Word and Expression Locator - it's got all the best words...
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Solomon Zorn

Quote from: Baruch
Noah Webster is your Pope.
Loki is yours...or do you spell it L-ki ?
If God Exists, Why Does He Pretend Not to Exist?
Poetry and Proverbs of the Uneducated Hick

http://www.solomonzorn.com