Are religious words incoherent?

[McCulloch]

It's clearly a fishy word. But it certainly means something, doesn't it?

Are there clear, consistent, unambiguous, coherent meanings to any or all of the following words?

• God
• spirit
• spiritual
• soul
• supernatural
• miracle
• faith
• sin

[FarWanderer]

It's clearly a fishy word. But it certainly means something, doesn't it?

Are there clear, consistent, unambiguous, coherent meanings to any or all of the following words?

• God
• spirit
• spiritual
• soul
• supernatural
• miracle
• faith
• sin

No, but I will offer definitions for how I might use these words.

God -
1. The ultimate nature of reality concieved of in terms of personal will
Spirit -
1. Mood, attitude
2. Will, feelings, self-awareness
3. An entity composed entirely of will, feelings, thoughts
Spiritual -
1. Of or concerning will, feelings, self-awareness
2. Of or concerning the psychologically meaningful but otherwise indescribable
Soul -
1. The core of a person's identity
Supernatural -
1 (of abilities). Of or concerning manifestation of personal will not expressed through a physical body
2 (of entities). Willful entities that don't have physical bodies, or that have physical bodies that defy the laws of physics.
Miracle -
1. A happy event that violates the laws of physics
2. A happy event that defies rational expectations
Faith -
1. Trust
2. Hope with strong conviction
Sin -
1. An act known to be immoral, but committed anyway

[FarWanderer]

[Replying to post 4 by OnceConvinced]

A miracle an intervention by the person of God in the course of events.

Low probability events are not really miracles.

The problem with how we define miracles (as low probability events or unnatural events) is that really every human action defies the laws of nature. Think about everything you did today and how impossible it is for matter to do that. But we are so used to doing them that we think it is natural.

I have defined a "miracle" as "a happy event that defies rational expectations". What do you think of that?

[Miles]

It's clearly a fishy word. But it certainly means something, doesn't it?

Are there clear, consistent, unambiguous, coherent meanings to any or all of the following words?

• God
• spirit
• spiritual
• soul
• supernatural
• miracle
• faith
• sin

You mean meanings that won't be disputed? No.

[OnceConvinced]

I have defined a "miracle" as "a happy event that defies rational expectations". What do you think of that?

I would say that's really dumbing down the meaning of the word miracle. And for one thing just because it defies a rational expectation to one person does not necessarily mean it defies rational expectations of another. Some people seem to want to stop at "goddidit" because they are too lazy or are not educated enough to look for other explanations.

[enviousintheeverafter]

It's clearly a fishy word. But it certainly means something, doesn't it?

Are there clear, consistent, unambiguous, coherent meanings to any or all of the following words?

• God
• spirit
• spiritual
• soul
• supernatural
• miracle
• faith
• sin

Certainly we could stipulate clear, unambiguous, and consistent meanings for any of these terms, but the question would then be what our definitions have to do with how these terms actually function in religious discourse. And the answer would, inevitably, be very little; the actual usage of terms like "God" or "spirit" is incredibly ambiguous and inconsistent. Take the proper name, "God", in the Christian tradition- given the multiplicity of things God is described as doing, saying, and being in the Bible, its incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to give any clear specification of all the attributes of God without either running into contradiction, or parting ways with the Biblical narratives. In light of this, its even been claimed that some religious terms, "God" in particular, are essentially/fundamentally ambiguous (e.g. Kaufmann 1958). But I think FarWanderer's comment here couldn't be a more spot-on assessment of the situation; when it comes to terms like "God", there is something fishy going on- the term is unclear, ambiguous, and of questionable conceptual consistency, and terms applied to God do not mean what they usually mean... But that isn't to say that its meaningless, or incoherent; it clearly means something- after all, to be meaningful just is to have a usage/usages in linguistic practice. And the term "God" does at that. Hopefully we've learned from the 20th century positivists that a failure to live up to an (idealized or artificial) standard of convenience or practicality of meaning or linguistic usage is not a credible criterion of meaning in general- if your criterion of meaning has the result that terms that figure prominently in all kinds of linguistic activity are not in fact meaningful, that means your criterion of meaning is inadequate, not that the terms are actually meaningless. If anything, the problem with terms like "God" isn't that they're meaningless, but that they're too meaningful; an important distinction, I think, even if the result is sometimes the same in practice.

[Hamsaka]

I have defined a "miracle" as "a happy event that defies rational expectations". What do you think of that?

I would say that's really dumbing down the meaning of the word miracle. And for one thing just because it defies a rational expectation to one person does not necessarily mean it defies rational expectations of another. Some people seem to want to stop at "goddidit" because they are too lazy or are not educated enough to look for other explanations.

Ah, this is interesting (maybe only to me, I guess I'll find out). "Rational expectations" can be sifted and separated from irrational expectations, I think. I can see how a cognitive process that reaches irrational conclusions could be called a 'rational process' conducted with erroneous assumptions (premises), so I guess that supports your statement in bold above.

[Blastcat]

It's clearly a fishy word. But it certainly means something, doesn't it?

Are there clear, consistent, unambiguous, coherent meanings to any or all of the following words?

• God
• spirit
• spiritual
• soul
• supernatural
• miracle
• faith
• sin

I have the definitive definitions. I think we are done after this. How could anyone disagree?

God - Someone to blame things on, as in "Oh my god, I just stubbed my toe!"
Spirit- Something to drink on a cold winter evening, and every subsequent evening.
Spiritual - Music that inspired most of American pop music, to be listened to with a fine glass of spirits.
Soul - A musical genre that came out of the Spiritual.
Supernatural - A pretty cheesy T.V. show
Miracle - Something to be whipped
Faith - Someone to be whipped
Sin - Christian Heavy Metal