God is not an Entity?

[Politesse]

Yes, but what does any of that have to do with the post you quoted? Is it that you don't understand what immanence means?

Disingenuous perhaps?

Immanence is a property that ghosts possess.

According to whom? I have only ever heard this property in reference to the divine, whether God or Brahman or what have you, and I don't see how it could possibly apply to a ghost. Why would a ghost be immanent in all things?

Perhaps some background on this issue would be helpful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanence

I am pretty sure, immanence, the Neoplatonic-cum-Christian philosophical term, is what Lion meant to reference. Not whatever odd definition you seem to have devised.

Immanence, if a correct way of thinking, would apply to all real things, so it certainly isn't at odds with them.

I have no idea what you're going on about with magic.

 

[just_me]

I don't get the point of this topic? Belief systems are belief systems and in being so facts are subjective. Proof of anything is relevant to the person uttering the word.

I remember a statment I read along time ago that I truly love. It stated that simply because we don't know everything, doesn't mean that we should automatically believe in a sky spirit. I don't see any reason that the reverse could not be true in the minds of those who believe in such things.

What matters is not to shove one's ideals down the throats of those whose ideals are different.

My question here would be, If the Christian community had not have embraced the conservitive political party and given themselves the ability to legally force others to adhere to their standards, whould any of this be relevant to those outside of the faith?

What if I believed I'm a billionaire but am not? Should other people be allowed to disagree with my belief? Should they be allowed to point out how I'm not a billionaire?

What if I told them my billions were not material but spiritual? Should they be able to tell me that there is no such thing as spiritual billions? Should I be able to tell them they don't understand that my billion dollars has immanence?

Should they write me off as kooky or worse?

What is this "Allowed"? People have been walking around on street corners for decades, carrying signs that state the world is ending. Does that mean it is ending the way the person presumes or can be saved by doing what he deems necessary?

Is his beliefs effecting you and are yours effecting his, as long as neither side pushes the other? This idea of spiritualism is one of subjective truths and carry's the same weight as do superstitions. The idea of proving or disproving God is the same as proving or disproving Luck. Even when you are fortunate enough to win the lotto, does that mean your winnings will gain you a good life or a life filled with satisfaction or one of drama and anxiety? If the latter is the case could you say the lotto winner was lucky?

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

What is this "Allowed"? People have been walking around on street corners for decades, carrying signs that state the world is ending. Does that mean it is ending the way the person presumes or can be saved by doing what he deems necessary?

If those poeple are climate scientists, then yes, most assuredly, we should do what they deem necessary.

 

[just_me]

What is this "Allowed"? People have been walking around on street corners for decades, carrying signs that state the world is ending. Does that mean it is ending the way the person presumes or can be saved by doing what he deems necessary?

If those poeple are climate scientists, then yes, most assuredly, we should do what they deem necessary.

Why would Scientists be walking around on street corners. I imagery I was trying to portray is that of the street preacher. Scientist have my full support.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Yes, but what does any of that have to do with the post you quoted? Is it that you don't understand what immanence means?

Disingenuous perhaps?

Immanence is a property that ghosts possess.

According to whom? I have only ever heard this property in reference to the divine, whether God or Brahman or what have you, and I don't see how it could possibly apply to a ghost. Why would a ghost be immanent in all things?

Perhaps some background on this issue would be helpful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanence

I am pretty sure, immanence, the Neoplatonic-cum-Christian philosophical term, is what Lion meant to reference. Not whatever odd definition you seem to have devised.

Immanence, if a correct way of thinking, would apply to all real things, so it certainly isn't at odds with them.

I have no idea what you're going on about with magic.

I believe you. You honestly don't see it as a semantics thing?

I'm trying to get you to understand that there is no difference between magic and real magic, between spookiness and immanence, between divine and pretend, etc. Looking at things through a theological or christian or platonic or religious or philosophical lens doesn't change that. You can't turn a bottle of ketchup into a bottle of mustard by changing the label. You cannot change the contents of an empty jar by saying it is full of divinity. Words are just labels. This is something that is difficult for religiously steeped folk to comprehend, let alone appreciate and understand.

Religious folk tend to take words and then claim objective existence simply because the word exists. I find that intriguing. What is your soul, for example? Is it composed of the same material as this thing you call divine? Is it you? Because someone invents the words soul and immanence and divine are we now supposed to think those things are real?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I don't get the point of this topic? Belief systems are belief systems and in being so facts are subjective. Proof of anything is relevant to the person uttering the word.

I remember a statment I read along time ago that I truly love. It stated that simply because we don't know everything, doesn't mean that we should automatically believe in a sky spirit. I don't see any reason that the reverse could not be true in the minds of those who believe in such things.

What matters is not to shove one's ideals down the throats of those whose ideals are different.

My question here would be, If the Christian community had not have embraced the conservitive political party and given themselves the ability to legally force others to adhere to their standards, whould any of this be relevant to those outside of the faith?

What if I believed I'm a billionaire but am not? Should other people be allowed to disagree with my belief? Should they be allowed to point out how I'm not a billionaire?

What if I told them my billions were not material but spiritual? Should they be able to tell me that there is no such thing as spiritual billions? Should I be able to tell them they don't understand that my billion dollars has immanence?

Should they write me off as kooky or worse?

What is this "Allowed"? People have been walking around on street corners for decades, carrying signs that state the world is ending. Does that mean it is ending the way the person presumes or can be saved by doing what he deems necessary?

Is his beliefs effecting you and are yours effecting his, as long as neither side pushes the other? This idea of spiritualism is one of subjective truths and carry's the same weight as do superstitions. The idea of proving or disproving God is the same as proving or disproving Luck. Even when you are fortunate enough to win the lotto, does that mean your winnings will gain you a good life or a life filled with satisfaction or one of drama and anxiety? If the latter is the case could you say the lotto winner was lucky?

People should always talk with each other. Agreed, sometimes they are talking at each other and past each other and only trying to achieve some emotional gratification.

 

[atrib]

Cant believe there are folks still who define the nature of reality in terms of 'particles'.

Can't believe there are folks who still define the nature of reality using the superstitions of our Bronze Age ancestors.

What does the Bronze Age have to do with anything??? Are you attempting to claim that Christian theology somehow predates the Bronze Age which ended more than a millenium before the life of Christ? Is Newtonian physics a "Dark Age Superstition" by the same measure and grasp of history?

No. I mean that the texts on which the Bible is based were authored during the Bronze Age.

This is not a slur on our Bronze Age ancestors; they did not know any better. But people living in the 21st century should know better. That was my point.

Newtonian physics is not based on divine revelation; it is a model of reality based on observation and inference. Anyone on the planet can go out and verify Newton's findings for themselves, which you can't do with the model of divine creation found in the Bible. So no, I would not categorize Newtonian physics as superstition.

 

[atrib]

Everything is ruled by the Standard Model of particle physics.

I assume "ruled" is a metaphor here, but I'm a bit confused as to what it is a metaphor for? What is this model, in concrete terms, and what does it mean for it to "rule" something else? If you're trying to make a case against theism, openly personifying and anthropomorphizing the fundamental forces that govern the universe is a rather puzzling way to start. What is theism, if not a personification and anthropomorphization of the otherwise inaccessible source of the universe?

By ruled I mean that every particle that makes up humans and everything around us and everything we interact with are governed by certain rules, what we sometimes call the laws of nature. The Standard Model defines this family of particles, and how they interact with each other through the four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force. When I say ruled or governs, I am NOT anthropomorphizing said rules, or using a metaphor; I am trying to describe a scientific concept using lay terminology instead of quantifying the rules using equations and numbers.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

By ruled I mean that every particle that makes up humans and everything around us and everything we interact with are governed by certain rules, what we sometimes call the laws of nature. The Standard Model defines this family of particles, and how they interact with each other through the four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force. When I say ruled or governs, I am NOT anthropomorphizing said rules, or using a metaphor; I am trying to describe a scientific concept using lay terminology instead of quantifying the rules using equations and numbers.

And folks like myself, yes, we get that. We understand that there is no known way to arrange those particles to make them divine, or to create a soul or to confer immanence. Those properties in fact contradict the very logic and sensibility of a standard model and its predictive power.

It's interesting that religious folk scoff at the notion of an eternal cosmos, even though they experience it every moment. Yet they willingly adopt as eternal a spooky creature that makes things. There simply must be some level of comfort in inventing a pattern like that to explain things, given the fact that such a claim can never be demonstrated or observed. It must be purely emotional and is certainly anti-intellectual.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Immanence in theological terms is somewhat controversial in theological circles.

Colossians 1:17, "And he is before all things, and by him all things consist."

That is, God sustains all things that exist, without this immanence supporting something, it world cease to exist. The problem is evil. If John tortures, rapes and murders Jane, then God is an accomplice to this moral evil. If God withdrew his immanence from a Jihadist's bombs, that Jihadi would not be able to kill innocents. Why then does God not act, if he is in facts as claimed, merciful, compassionate and loves us? And if God is not immanent, if he does not sustain the minute workings of the physical Universe, then is that outside of God's control, or does God create those laws, the secondary causes of the Universe? So we are right back at where we started when trying to slide around the immanence problem. Immanence is closely related to occasionalism. which has many of the same sort of problems.

 

[atrib]

Every particle that could conceivably interact with the matter/energy that makes up humans, and the immediate reality we inhabit, has been defined by the Standard Model of Physics. This does not mean that other particles do not exist, but that such particles would not interact with us at all, or so weakly so as to have no measurable effect.

I would have said, off the top of my head, that the Standard Model of Physics was defined by us, not the other way around. What exactly is it, and how does it define things, other than in the sense of being a useful mental model we use to describe the universe?

Every particle that could conceivably interact with the matter/energy that makes up humans, and the immediate reality we inhabit, has been described by the Standard Model of Physics. As the name implies, it is a model of reality created by us humans, and it includes:

1. All the particles known to man at the present time
2. A description of how these particles interact

Is that better?

I don't understand what "other particles" is meant to refer to here. Other than what?

Particles other than those known to man at the present time. Particles that have not yet been discovered by humans. For example, like the particles that might be associated with dark matter, as scientists speculate.

And what ARE these other particles to which you refer, if they aren't the ones we usually encounter?

There could be a whole collection of undiscovered particles out there. But we know that any such undiscovered particles could not interact with the stuff humans and our reality is made of.

And what has any of that to do with theology?

Religious beliefs are ultimately models of the universe. Just not good models. The idea that our universe was created by a supernatural god in 6 days about 6,000 years ago, as described in Genesis, is an example of such a model. While the existence of Biblegod cannot be falsified, certain claims made in Genesis can be tested against observations, and found wanting.

A universe in which God were made of particles, spooky or otherwise, would rather contradict the notion of an immaterial realm/power/force which seems to integral to most religious perspectives.

So what is this god made of?

The point Bilby and I were trying to make is that our current state of the knowledge (Standard Model of Physics) explicitly rules out any interventions by gods (supernatural forces). All interactions that are compatible with our reality have already been described, and no gods (supernatural interactions) have been found. Therefore, there is no way for a supernatural god to intervene in the affairs of humans.

Obviously, Christians do believe that God is at least occasionally made of particles - else, why the Eucharist - but not to be synonymous with them. At least, not in any version of the mythos that I have ever heard.

Exactly. God is material when it suits the Christians, supernatural when it doesn't.

So if any gods exist, they would not have the ability to interact with us.

If God is essentially immaterial, but immanent in the material, he or she or it is interacting with us whenever we interact with anything. Isn't that what immanence means?

You tell me. I am not proposing that God is a good model for our reality, but you appear to disagree, so feel free to explain how these interactions occur. You can't just wave your hands and say stuff; you have to back it up with facts and evidence. Facts and evidence that can be independently verified.

 

[Politesse]

I believe you. You honestly don't see it as a semantics thing?

Only in the sense that I think you are misunderstanding what a word means. Immanence is not a synonym for "supernatural", which is what you seem to be using it as.

I'm trying to get you to understand that there is no difference between magic and real magic, between spookiness and immanence, between divine and pretend, etc. Looking at things through a theological or christian or platonic or religious or philosophical lens doesn't change that. You can't turn a bottle of ketchup into a bottle of mustard by changing the label. You cannot change the contents of an empty jar by saying it is full of divinity. Words are just labels. This is something that is difficult for religiously steeped folk to comprehend, let alone appreciate and understand.

Words are just labels... but you are hoping I will think differently about something because you call it "magic", instead of one of the seemingly vast array of terms that mean the same thing to you

Because someone invents the words soul and immanence and divine are we now supposed to think those things are real?

I don't see how this makes religious words different from any other sort of word. You might, if you were a lazy thinker, imagine that saying "equation" makes equations real, but they are no more or less a real thing for having been described. If you aren't a lazy thinker, you are probably already aware that words are in reference to things, not identical with them. Religion is irrelevant. Everyone uses words to refer to abstract concepts on occasion.

- - - Updated - - -

Everything is ruled by the Standard Model of particle physics.

I assume "ruled" is a metaphor here, but I'm a bit confused as to what it is a metaphor for? What is this model, in concrete terms, and what does it mean for it to "rule" something else? If you're trying to make a case against theism, openly personifying and anthropomorphizing the fundamental forces that govern the universe is a rather puzzling way to start. What is theism, if not a personification and anthropomorphization of the otherwise inaccessible source of the universe?

By ruled I mean that every particle that makes up humans and everything around us and everything we interact with are governed by certain rules, what we sometimes call the laws of nature. The Standard Model defines this family of particles, and how they interact with each other through the four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force and weak nuclear force. When I say ruled or governs, I am NOT anthropomorphizing said rules, or using a metaphor; I am trying to describe a scientific concept using lay terminology instead of quantifying the rules using equations and numbers.

Ah, so it is the "equations" that you believe have the power to govern. How do they do this?

 

[atrib]

Ah, so it is the "equations" that you believe have the power to govern. How do they do this?

I think we are having trouble communicating with each other. The equations are a model of reality. They can be used to predict or quantify how matter and energy interact, and explain various phenomena. The equations don't control nature; they are a description of nature, a set of man-made tools used by scientists to understand how nature behaves. Nature does what it does, and we try to understand what nature does using tools like the Standard Model.

Bilby provided a detailed explanation of how the Standard Model rules out godly interventions in an earlier post. There are plenty of websites that go into the details of the Standard Model. You can also read books on the subject. Or you can watch some of Sean Carroll's lectures on YouTube, dealing with a wide range of topics like time, cosmology, general relativity, particle physics. He does an excellent job of explaining complex concepts in terms that most ordinary people (non-physicists) can understand.

 

[Politesse]

Ah, so it is the "equations" that you believe have the power to govern. How do they do this?

I think we are having trouble communicating with each other. The equations are a model of reality. They can be used to predict or quantify how matter and energy interact, and explain various phenomena. The equations don't control nature; they are a description of nature, a set of man-made tools used by scientists to understand how nature behaves. Nature does what it does, and we try to understand what nature does using tools like the Standard Model.

That is always what I have always thought models were, and were for. What I am confused about is your claim that the Standard Model somehow "rules" or "governs" the universe, as opposed to being a sort of shorthand for what we have observed about it. The Standard Model as a model, I understand. The Standard Model as a fundamental cause of anything, I do not. How does description become prescription, in your mind? This is something that we in the social sciences at least are extremely careful not to do, confusing description and prescription. But without such confusion, I don't see how any of your other statements make sense. You say they are metaphors, but what for exactly?

Bilby provided a detailed explanation of how the Standard Model rules out godly interventions in an earlier post. There are plenty of websites that go into the details of the Standard Model. You can also read books on the subject. Or you can watch some of Sean Carroll's lectures on YouTube, dealing with a wide range of topics like time, cosmology, general relativity, particle physics. He does an excellent job of explaining complex concepts in terms that most ordinary people (non-physicists) can understand.

I don't think it is so much the model itself that is confusing me, so much as the cosmology you seem to be trying to craft from it. I get how the SM describes things, but explaining them, let alone explaining them to the exclusion of any other alternative explanation, strikes me as a much more grandiose claim.

 

[atrib]

That is always what I have always thought models were, and were for. What I am confused about is your claim that the Standard Model somehow "rules" or "governs" the universe, as opposed to being a sort of shorthand for what we have observed about it. The Standard Model as a model, I understand. The Standard Model as a fundamental cause of anything, I do not. How does description become prescription, in your mind? This is something that we in the social sciences at least are extremely careful not to do, confusing description and prescription. But without such confusion, I don't see how any of your other statements make sense. You say they are metaphors, but what for exactly?

This has been clarified more than once. The problem is not at my end.

Bilby provided a detailed explanation of how the Standard Model rules out godly interventions in an earlier post. There are plenty of websites that go into the details of the Standard Model. You can also read books on the subject. Or you can watch some of Sean Carroll's lectures on YouTube, dealing with a wide range of topics like time, cosmology, general relativity, particle physics. He does an excellent job of explaining complex concepts in terms that most ordinary people (non-physicists) can understand.

I don't think it is so much the model itself that is confusing me, so much as the cosmology you seem to be trying to craft from it. I get how the SM describes things, but explaining them, let alone explaining them to the exclusion of any other alternative explanation, strikes me as a much more grandiose claim.

The Standard Model provides a description of every particle/interaction that could affect our lives.
The Standard Model provides no mechanism for a supernatural god to interact with humans and intervene in our lives.

 

[bilby]

The Standard Model describes the complete set of all possible effects on particles between the low and high energy bounds mentioned earlier.

This description can be used to make extremely accurate predictions about how matter will behave; It also allows us to make predictions about what would occur if there were one or more unknown particles or forces that are not described by the model - we would see easily measurable differences between theory and observation, if these existed.

As a logical consequence of these facts, it is certain that nothing can affect matter at energies compatible with life, other than the known and easily detectable particles and forces described by the model.

We do not detect any such particles and forces influencing humans in ways compatible with theistic claims.

Supernatural effects on natural matter at survivable temperatures are impossible. Only natural influences have the ability to affect matter - electromagnetism, gravity, and the two nuclear forces. Prayer doesn't produce any changes in these, that are compatible with interaction with an unknown or supernatural 'realm'. Death, conception and birth don't either - any hypothetical 'soul' is therefore not interacting in any way with the body, and is indistinguishable from non-existent.

Any future theories must include the results and predictions that are successfully and accurately predicted by the Standard Model - in the same way that the accurate predictions of Newton's gravitational theory are also generated by relativity.

It's no more possible that souls or gods could interact with humans than it is possible that sometimes things you drop could fall sideways.

Gods and souls are as physically impossible as perpetual motion machines. Actually, perpetual motion machines are slightly less improbable - that is, our physics would need to be horribly wrong for either to be possible; But the number of badly wrong observations we rely upon in the case of perpetual motion is slightly smaller (though still astronomical).

It's even more reasonable to rule out gods on the basis that they are incompatible with what we know about reality, as it is to rule out flying pigs, moons made from dairy products, or sideways gravity.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I don't see how this makes religious words different from any other sort of word.

That's what I've been saying, that the words don't matter. It's what I tried to illustrate by saying that putting a label that says "mustard" onto a bottle of ketchup doesn't change anything. We should not confuse communication with what we're attempting to communicate about.

 

[Copernicus]

I don't see how this makes religious words different from any other sort of word.

That's what I've been saying, that the words don't matter. It's what I tried to illustrate by saying that putting a label that says "mustard" onto a bottle of ketchup doesn't change anything. We should not confuse communication with what we're attempting to communicate about.

I think that Moogly has identified the crux of the argument. The problem with a word like "immanence" is that, although it refers to an aspect of physical reality, it still can't actually be used to support a belief in the intelligent agency that we call a "god" or "spirit". What a word actually means is more than how people choose to define it. The meaning of a word emerges from how people actually use it. So it is one thing to say that everything in physical reality is connected--that the universe somehow coheres. It is another to associate it with an intelligent agency such as the kind that governs human and animal behavior. When we say that God is "immanent", we are saying more than just that everything is connected. We are saying that it makes sense to associate intelligence and volitional agency with physical reality. It makes sense to pray to it and worship it. One can have a personal relationship with it. But all of that just begs the original question--whether it actually makes sense to associate all of physical reality with intelligence or intentional design.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Mission statement....
Literally thousands of agents........
Vast money making machine.......
Legal department to absolve agents of consequences...
Eternal customer loyalty program......
Monumentally self-absorbed CEO.......
God's a corporation.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I very rarely hear anything from or about God pushers these days. God seems to be disappearing. Maybe someday god will be nothing.

- - - Updated - - -

Mission statement....
Literally thousands of agents........
Vast money making machine.......
Legal department to absolve agents of consequences...
Eternal customer loyalty program......
Monumentally self-absorbed CEO.......
God's a corporation.

Bingo.