Honest question. Is this site a religious site?

Making up silly names doesn't really do anything except suggest you want to ridicule faith.

We call it God because that is the word we have. Like we call trousers trousers. What we mean by it roughly is that which is celebrated and sought by self-consciousness's pursuit of of meaning and union in a material and separating universe.

'God' is different from but related to that need for meaning -- like colour is different from but related to our perceptual faculties. It isn't inherent in the universe (it isn't 'out there'), but that doesn't make it 'just subjective' either.

I don't know if I actually stand by any of what I've said, just thinking aloud. Will try somehow, sometime to follow up the reading justa, and the novel you recommended Iorek.

ah but is it an Abba weekend rev?

I have now read the whole thread. I have to say that UQD has been intellectually mullered by Threadworm, Iorek, Ruty, Cote, Rustbear and others. But agree they probably had God on their side.

amuminscotland - but how and why do you perceive it as "god"? Why not the Great Green Arkleseizure or the Invisible Pink Unicorn? Or is the name irrelevant? Would you have perceived it had you not been culturally conditioned to "look for something"?

I find the "cargo cults" story a very interesting one which has a lot of resonances in the culture and rituals people have built up around religion in the Western world.

cargo cults

I agree with you Threadworm about shifting from atheism. The older I get the more unsure I become. I know so many intelligent, educated and cultured people of faith that I very much entertain the possibility that it's me who's got it all wrong.

which people WISH, sorry

It's actually not true that I'm "not interested" in it. I am interested in anything which people which to admit for evidence of the supernatural or "god".

The fact that it's not actual evidence, of course, won't matter a jot to those who are determined to keep their minds so open that their brains fall out...

I've, ahem, dabbled with narcotics UQD. Not quite the same effect.

Thanks, UQD, I'll stick with the sherry if it's all the same to you.

Or you could all just go and take loads of drugs. Same effect.

Because we perceive it as "God", and not as our own selves yearning for something. And that sense, that feeling, that experience, is just as strong and convincing (internally to the person who has that experience) as the things that we can experience with our senses. And the concept that it we are sensing something outside of ourself is utterly compelling.

You expressed surprise earlier about how anyone intelligent could manage to believe in fairies. Well, as someone intelligent, there is my answer. I cannot ignore something which I detect with my senses, even if I cannot fully describe or explain what it is or how I sense it.

From there, I have to try to combine this concept with all the other things which I believe to be true, which in most other cases are things to which I can apply scientific method, Occam's Razor, etc.

because we strive to understand something outside the possible definitions of our vocabulary, as threadie says, something that lies in the relationship between our sensory capacities and the world. I mean, Wordsworth, Milton and Bach weren't stupid. They were entirely aware of the possibility that their yearnings were just that, and that God was made up. But the thing that fuelled their creativity was space between doubt and faith, the possibility that God, a loving Creator, really did exist. Without that dichotomy these works of art would not exist.

But it's entirely possible for people to have "worshipped" and created beautiful art and music and architecture and for there still to be nothing "there" behind - beyond, within, under, inside, whichever preposition is currently in vogue - these earthly things. Why call it "god"? Why not just call it the human need to seek meaning?

There is a painting, UQD. It is all of the worship of all theists over the millenia. Plus all sacred art and music. Plus a lot more. That's where God is.

Philosophers managed to get themselves in a muddle about whether there was 'really' colour. Colour lies (somewhere) in the relationship between our sensory capacities and the world.

God lies (somewhere) in the relationship between our capacity to seek/ascribe/etc meaning/union/etc, and the world.

We made a mistake, historically. We said that the only reality is something 'out there', mystically beyond out perception of it. We got beyond that mistake when it came to the analysis of the material world. We still struggle with that mistake in religion.

But we don't need the 'mystical beyond'. All the truth , objectivity, that we need is in the meanings that we confer with our everyday engagement with our encountered world.

It is all obvious after the consumption of Tesco's Finest Pale Ale. Biscuits are spiritually bankrupt in comparison..

you have much luthidity and inthight rev. [cracks open second bottle of cider]

Swedes - you may have missed when I said above that if people believe in god 'because you "feel" it or think there "must be something out there", as a lot of people do, then fine - I think we can agree we are coming from totally different places, will never agree, and can move on.'

Threadworm, I appreciate your analogies, but I don't think they work. The chemical analysis of paint is indeed irrelevant to the appreciation of art - but that's because nobody is doubting the existence of the painting, for one thing.

I also feel there is often a false equivalence being made between "the evidence that something exists" and "the lack of evidence that it doesn't". The two are weighed against each other in arguments as if they cancel each other out on the scales and should lead to a default position of "we can't know." But they don't. If you want to assert the existence of something positively - a god, a demon, crystal healing, the Easter Bunny - you need to provide some kind of objective indication that it exists, otherwise you could make up any old rubbish. As David Icke and L Ron Hubbard have done. There has to be an understanding that people won't just take it on trust, which is why most people see through these two charlatans and others.

I can't provide evidence that God doesn't exist, that's true - but that's not my role. I can't provide evidence that the Loch Ness Monster, the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas, leprechauns, Thetans and the Invisible Levitating Pink Dragon don't exist either. But somewhere along the line, there is a sensible grown-up consensus on the grounds of likelihood that these mythical things "probably" don't. I'm genuinely interested in how and why we reach that sensible grown-up consensus, and what prevents us reaching a similar one about god(s)?

Ruty

Threadworm - Managing such pith and perthpicathity whilthst pithsed on Pale Ale is impressive.

Oh, plenty of evidence for feelings Swedes!

Da was paraphrasing Carl Sagan I think. Being 'open' to god is no where near saying you believe in god. I think mostly this means, if there were robust evidence to be discovered the existance of a god, science (and scienticts) would be open to that - as that is the nature of science. He's being a bit sneaky saying that really, the old rascal!

There is plenty of awe to be had in science too.

perthpicacity.

that's kind of what i was trying to say Threadie without your pith and perthpacity....