Ignostic?

[ThePainefulTruth]

According to the Ignostic page here, an Ignostic is someone whose position is that, "I don't know what you mean when you say, 'God exists' "

God, as a minimum, would have to be the self-aware conscious embodiment of all that exists, including the natural and supernatural, knowledge and imagination. Yes, that would indirectly include evil, but evil only exists in the mind of fully self-aware man, and would have to be consigned to oblivion when he dies.

God could have always been, or come into existence with the advent of the universe, but that's essentially irrelevant for Ignostic purposes, as is the question of evil.

BTW, the Ignostic Creed above is somewhat belligerent in that it not only says that they don't know what "God exists" means, it implies that they don't really care or want to know and aren't asking.

I answered anyway.

[Divine Insight]

According to the Ignostic page here, an Ignostic is someone whose position is that, "I don't know what you mean when you say, 'God exists' "

In that case it seems to me that an Ignostic could not always take that stance. One a person defines what they mean by "God" then the Ignostic has been enlightened to what a specific person is claiming when they say "God exists".

God, as a minimum, would have to be the self-aware conscious embodiment of all that exists,

Apparently that's your personal opinion. I don't necessarily agree with that opinion. God may not be "self-aware" at all when not in the state of incarnation. To assume that God would need to be self-aware when not incarnated is a huge assumption. It may be possible that God has not "self" to even be aware of when not incarnated. The very illusion of "self" may be a product of incarnation.

So I see no reason why anyone would need to accept your personal "minimum requirement" for God. That would be the God that you are defining and potentially arguing for or against.


For example, I can define God as simply 'The entity that has experiences". There is not need to define any "self" nor is there any need to define any "consciousness" beyond that consciousness required to actually have experiences.

Moreover, my definition of God demands that God does indeed exist, and that we, and most likely all animals, and possibly even plants, are indeed God. It's a pantheistic view of God that does not require that God has any "self" or "consciousness" beyond the experiences that it has through incarnation.

Have said this, I must also be quick to point out that this definition of God does not need to be limited to just this definition. Since I don't claim to know everything about God, and I even claim that God is a "mystery" (i.e. the foundation of mysticism), I recognize that God could be something more than this and probably is. Therefore I not only embrace a pantheistic view of God but I also embrace a panentheistic view of God. In other words, God is probably something more than the sum total of what is actually known to exist.

Yes, that would indirectly include evil, but evil only exists in the mind of fully self-aware man, and would have to be consigned to oblivion when he dies.

I agree with this. But this is not a problem within a pantheistic or pantheistic view of God because the concept of evil in an incarnation is indeed a subjective illusion and has no reality outside of that incarnation. Therefore it would indeed be consigned to oblivion when the incarnation ends.

So I would actually agree with you on this last point, but that would not be a problem in the case of a pantheistic or panenthistic God.

There's also something more than you haven't seemed to have recognized. If God is panentheistic (i.e. something more than all that is known to exist), and God does have some sort of "supreme supernatural consciousness and recognizable self", then God could keep track of what men had deemed to be immoral or evil during an incarnation and hold them responsible for that after the incarnation is over.

This of course becomes far more complex because now it appears that we have a "God" holding itself responsible for it's own immoral actions within an incarnation. But actually things something far more interesting that could occur in this scenario.

If this God is capable of creating incarnations where conscious experiences are limited to an illusion of an individual self, then clearly this God can recreate that same situation at any time. Therefore it may indeed be possible for this God to "resurrect" any incarnated form at any time. If that's true, then this God could resurrect only those forms that God deems to have been a "good experience".

Now we have a creator God who is creating incarnations of it's own self as "individual souls" that can then be resurrected at a later time to create a utopia of "good incarnations". The bad, or "evil" incarnations will simply be forgotten from the memory of God.

~~~~~

I'm not saying that this scenario is true. But what I am saying is that it is possible to imagine such scenarios.

Therefore when you say something like, "God, as a minimum, would have to be ..." You're not really allowing for all the possibilities. Instead you are attempting to put God into a box that you feel you can reject on some specific grounds.

Of course, if you are talking about the Biblical God then this is certainly not your fault, because the Bible has already placed God in an extremely limiting box.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 1 by ThePainefulTruth]

Why would a God need to embody all that exists?
Why would it need to embody anything?

Incidentally, apatheism is the position of not acting or caring as if a God does or doesn't exist.

Theological noncognitivism is the idea that words like God are meaningless, ignosticism is a form of theological noncognitivism where you claim that clear coherent definitions of God are important or otherwise the concepts cannot be meaningfully discussed (wikipedia, paraphrased)


With regards to this, one can easily see how words such as God which are phrased in other religious words, that have no real connection to words used to apply to things that are actually real, can be without coherent definition.

For instance, calling God supernatural is meaningless without defining what supernatural actually means. And even then, natural in this context is itself a word originally from Christian theology, which itself could be considered either too vague or too specific (i.e. "relating to earthly human or physical nature as distinct from the spiritual or supernatural realm.").
Even non-physical itself can be vague. Everything that we know that exists in reality is physical. How can you explain the non-physical in terms of the physical?

The issue isn't so much that there aren't definitions, or that in some cases there aren't very specific definitions, but none of the definitions that do exist actually ground the concept in anything we're actually aware of.
It's turtles upon turtles all the way down.

[ThePainefulTruth]

According to the Ignostic page here, an Ignostic is someone whose position is that, "I don't know what you mean when you say, 'God exists' "

In that case it seems to me that an Ignostic could not always take that stance. One a person defines what they mean by "God" then the Ignostic has been enlightened to what a specific person is claiming when they say "God exists".

Yeah, except they could close their eyes and cover their ears to insure they wouldn't know. If they take an active stance like that, non of them would read my post and thus wouldn't respond to it.

God, as a minimum, would have to be the self-aware conscious embodiment of all that exists,

Apparently that's your personal opinion. I don't necessarily agree with that opinion. God may not be "self-aware" at all when not in the state of incarnation. To assume that God would need to be self-aware when not incarnated is a huge assumption. It may be possible that God has not "self" to even be aware of when not incarnated. The very illusion of "self" may be a product of incarnation.

If God isn't self-aware, it wouldn't have any will, It would just react, like the ocean reacting to the wind, which in turn is reacting to the Sun.

For example, I can define God as simply 'The entity that has experiences". There is not need to define any "self" nor is there any need to define any "consciousness" beyond that consciousness required to actually have experiences.

Sorry, I think you just made the argument against yourself.

[Divine Insight]

If God isn't self-aware, it wouldn't have any will, It would just react, like the ocean reacting to the wind, which in turn is reacting to the Sun.

I disagree with your unsubstantiated claim here.

For example, I can define God as simply 'The entity that has experiences". There is not need to define any "self" nor is there any need to define any "consciousness" beyond that consciousness required to actually have experiences.

Sorry, I think you just made the argument against yourself.

Not at all. But I've clearly made an argument that is apparently something you find hard to understand. But that's your problem not mine.

Before someone can even begin to argue my concept of God with me they must first demonstrate that they can understand the concept.

Also, I think you need to keep in mind that you may be reacting to "evangelical" or "proselytizing" religions.

I personally couldn't care less whether you understand my concept of God, nor do I care to try to convince you of it.

But for you to tell me that it my concept of God makes no sense is utterly absurd. Especially when you clearly have no clue of the deeper philosophical concepts behind it.

And finally, it appears that you are the one who has a problem with any concept of "God". I don't. So once again, this is entirely your problem, and not mine.

If an Ignositc claims to not understand my concept of God even after I have explained it to them, then that's their problem, not mine.

[ThePainefulTruth]

If God isn't self-aware, it wouldn't have any will, It would just react, like the ocean reacting to the wind, which in turn is reacting to the Sun.

I disagree with your unsubstantiated claim here.

If we didn't have self-awareness, then we wouldn't have will either. We'd only be reacting by instinct and conditioning.

If an Ignositc claims to not understand my concept of God even after I have explained it to them, then that's their problem, not mine.

Not sure who you're talking to here, because I'm not an Ignostic. And if you presented your concept of God here, I must have missed it.

[Divine Insight]

If we didn't have self-awareness, then we wouldn't have will either. We'd only be reacting by instinct and conditioning.

What exactly do you mean by "self-awareness"?

Does a cat or dog have self-awareness?

Does a worm have self-awareness?

Does a plant have self-awareness?

You make all these claims, but I have no clue what you even mean by them because I'm not sure how you are using your terms. What exactly do you feel constitutes self-awareness?

[ThePainefulTruth]

[Replying to post 1 by ThePainefulTruth]

Why would a God need to embody all that exists?
Why would it need to embody anything?

Because that's the only way to be omnipotent, and omnipresent, and omniscient. If God isn't all of those things, then It would either be running from one world to the next to see what was going on (missing out on the rest of the universe all the while), or the model of the clockmaker who created the universe and walked away would be--though it's absurd to think that would be so.

Incidentally, apatheism is the position of not acting or caring as if a God does or doesn't exist.

Hmmm, another word for materialist.

Even non-physical itself can be vague. Everything that we know that exists in reality is physical. How can you explain the non-physical in terms of the physical?

Are thoughts and emotions physical? Can you show or even theorize how they are inescapably attached to the brain? Do you know what the universe is expanding into, or if there is something beyond the Planck space-time gaps in the fabric of the universe? They are a barrier to the natural elements of the universe, but what if there are non-natural or supernatural elements that could pass, like thoughts or consciousness.

[ThePainefulTruth]

If we didn't have self-awareness, then we wouldn't have will either. We'd only be reacting by instinct and conditioning.

What exactly do you mean by "self-awareness"?

Does a cat or dog have self-awareness?

Does a worm have self-awareness?

Does a plant have self-awareness?

You make all these claims, but I have no clue what you even mean by them because I'm not sure how you are using your terms. What exactly do you feel constitutes self-awareness?

Almost all animals can be said to have some form of consciousness. Some animals have demonstrated primitive self-awareness, mostly dolphins, primates and elephants. I believe humans are the only life on Earth that demonstrates full self-awareness, which beyond primitive self-awareness of say recognizing that that is you in the mirror, to realizing that other people have self-awareness like you do, and finally awareness of the inevitability and permanence of death. Without full self-awareness we are innocent and have no moral free will which we can exercise instead of instinct. Without it, we wouldn't be able to realize what we're about to do to him or her would be like if we were in their shoes. Without it, morality can't exist.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 8 by ThePainefulTruth]

... No, materialist has two meanings
1) That all real interactions are material
or 2) Obsession with wealth

Apatheists may well be theists. Apatheists just don't care or aren't even interested in the concept of theism (or even explicit atheism).

I don't see why being omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient would mean embodying anything. I guess I don't understand what you actually mean embodying things.
//

You could say that there are different contexts for existing, and that none of these are non-trivially matched by the non-physical. Similar to a namespace in programming, something may only exist within one scope but not another - for instance, Gandalf exists in fiction, specifically Gandalf exists within Tolkien's lore of Middle-Earth - but he does not exist outside of fiction.

Qualia themselves (such as thoughts, emotions, illusions; all experiences) only 'exist' subjectively; within the scope of an individual. To bring them out of that scope is not possible - because they would no longer be qualia. I recall saying "everything we know that exists in reality", when I said reality I was not referring to personal experience.
Illusions exist in exactly the same sense that qualia do; e.g. thoughts and emotions. (they are a kind of qualia)

That's not to say the concept of a specific quale, or even the concept of qualia (or the concept of the concept... etc) are themselves qualia - they exist in a shared environment, they exist socially (i.e. across the experiences of multiple individuals).

What is an experience? An observation from within a system. Nothing more, nothing less. If that is insufficient and you wish greater explanation, then you might be starved of it forever. There is no need to separate the experience from the system's processing. No more information is expressed. You just make the language more convoluted and the model less parsimonius.

Do I know what the Universe is expanding into?
The answer is either nothing or more physical stuff (by definition) in higher dimensions.
Any other answer would not be reasonable at this stage. Which is a better hypothesis differs between different models of particle physics.
(I'm assuming you aren't talking "what is it becoming")

"Is there something beyond the planck space-time gaps in the fabric of the Universe?"
I don't see how this is particularly relevant, (and that's not even taking into account that only some models like quantum loop gravity propose discrete spacetime), but if by "beyond" you mean "between" then of course nothing by definition.
Similar to how in the set of natural numbers, nothing exists between 1 and 2.

Once again we encroach on the "natural". What is even meant by this? How would thoughts or consciousness be supernatural?

Ignosticism is certainly seeming to me to be more and more reasonable.