Timeline for Is there anything to call "the idea or concept of God"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 8, 2017 at 16:37 | comment | added | Allen More | What do you mean by "imagine"? | |
| Dec 7, 2017 at 21:18 | comment | added | user8159 | But how can you imagine anything for the words "that thing that created everything but itself" to refer to? If you can, and I surely can't, then all I have are the words "that thing that created everything but itself". | |
| Dec 7, 2017 at 21:14 | comment | added | user8159 | "Black hole" is a misnomer. It's not a hole at all. It's a star that has collapsed down upon itself to a very small size, but it still has the same gravitational attraction that the star had before it collapsed.. Black holes can be detected. That's an easy concept. Ever watch the Science channel? | |
| Dec 6, 2017 at 16:56 | comment | added | Allen More | If by "conception" you just mean "full knowledge and comprehension of", then I would agree, a human understanding of something like a god seems unlikely, but such understanding is not necessary for reference. I.e. I don't really know anything about black holes and I've never actually seen one, or a child can say they like dump trucks while having nothing close to comprehension of the complexity involved in how they operate. In less layman terms, a Fregean sense does not require every property of the indicated item be expressed in order for reference to succeed. | |
| Dec 6, 2017 at 16:56 | comment | added | Allen More | Ok, so you aren't saying that the concepts in the exemplary definition are contradictory, but that because you could not imagine how a thing could create everything but itself or what that thing would be like, the word "god" fails to refer. I would say, that if there was a god and I wanted to refer to it as "...You know, that thing that created everything but itself." the reference would succeed despite me having pretty much no other knowledge about it. | |
| Dec 6, 2017 at 13:56 | comment | added | user8159 | Indeed it is easy to have a concept for the row of letters "volcano" to refer to. I can close my eyes and picture Mt. St. Helens spewing ash and lava like it did back in the 80's. It's the row of letters "God" or the circular definition "God is that which created everything but God" that I can get no concept for. That purportedly defines "God" in terms of "God". | |
| Dec 6, 2017 at 13:38 | comment | added | user8159 | It's not a matter of whether a row of words purported to make up a definition is considered as contradictory or non-contradictory. It's a matter of whether I can have a concept or idea of anything for it to refer to. As it is, I am unable to have any concept or idea of anything for "that which created or caused everything but itself" to refer to. That is, I am unable to believe that anybody can think of or imagine anything which that row of words can refer to. If you think you can, then can you tell me how to? | |
| Dec 5, 2017 at 17:17 | comment | added | Allen More | The case of god is the same, if were to I find a thing that created everything but itself I could identify it as meeting the mentioned definition of God which is sufficient to have successfully utilized the concept despite the fact that I would know nothing of how god operates, came to be, etc. Another related example is unicorns. Unicorns don't exist, but I can conceptualize them because they are composed of smaller concepts like 'equine' and 'horned' which I do understand. | |
| Dec 5, 2017 at 17:17 | comment | added | Allen More | In the case of the exemplary definition of god, "Creating everything but [itself]" is not inherently contradictory like "round square" is, and similar to my volcano example, I can construct a corresponding concept of god just as I can a volcano, out of familiar substituent concepts. This concept would be limited, i.e. I might not know exactly how a volcano works or how they form, but I can talk about them and recognize one if I ever saw one, etc, so I grasp the concept of a volcano. | |
| Dec 5, 2017 at 17:17 | comment | added | Allen More | Ok, I think I have a better idea of what you're getting at. Despite the fact that I understand the components of the phrase "A round square", i.e. I know what it means to be round and to be square, does not mean that I can conceive of such an object. Here is a thought experiment: say that you had never seen a volcano in your life, but you knew what mountains were and you knew what lava was. If someone described a volcano to you, I think you could get a solid grasp on the concept. | |
| Dec 5, 2017 at 4:17 | comment | added | user8159 | Re: the verb "create". We learned the verb "to create" from and only from hearing and reading sentences of the form "X created Y", such as "Edison created the incandescent lamp" where X was one part of the universe and Y was another part of the universe". "That bird created that nest". But it makes no sense to say "One part of the universe named God created another part of the universe called the universe". All I see is the capitalized three letter sequence "God". All our words are learned in terms of the already existing universe. | |
| Dec 5, 2017 at 4:05 | comment | added | user8159 | Allen Moore says "What exactly do you think a concept is? " To have a concept of something for some words to refer to is to be able to imagine something for them to refer to. I cannot imagine anything for the words "creator of everything except itself" to refer to. I know of no reason to believe that you can either. Can you? | |
| Dec 4, 2017 at 18:00 | comment | added | Allen More | I think the issue might be how you are using the word concept, or conceptual. What exactly do you think a concept is? | |
| Dec 4, 2017 at 18:00 | comment | added | Allen More | The conception of God I was using was the one proposed in the original post. Its pretty simple to understand, we know what it means to "create" something and we know what "everything" refers to so it is possible to determine whether something has the described properties if we know enough about it. The original claim was that there are no coherent conceptions of god; I argue that the exemplary conception of god "created (or caused) everything but [itself]" is coherent for the reasons I mentioned previously. | |
| Dec 2, 2017 at 17:23 | comment | added | user8159 | You have only mentioned very conceptual things, such as a celery stalk,a lobster. I have vivid concepts for the rows of letters "celery stalks" and "lobsters". But I have no concept of anything for the row of letters "God". I don't believe you do either. You haven't shown that you do. You've only shown that you believe that you do. I say over and over that if you have some words or rows or alphabet letters but no concept of anything for them to refer to, then what do you have other than a bunch of alphabet letters? | |
| Dec 1, 2017 at 22:32 | history | answered | Allen More | CC BY-SA 3.0 |