philosophy of science: meaning and functions (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Friday, September 28, 2018, 12:23 (2248 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Quibbling: God is not human. Of course He has our thoughts, but with His degree of creation powers He is thinking at a level we cannot reach. Again, you can't seem to leave your humanizing view of Him, probably ground in your inability to accept His existence at His level of power.

dhw: I agree that God is not human, thank you for agreeing that he has our thoughts, but no thanks for not explaining what you mean by those thoughts being “at a level we cannot reach”. Tony agreed that he may have experienced boredom. So since he is God, his boredom would be at a level of boredom that we cannot reach. So what? Boredom is boredom.

David: You and Tony can believe He was bored. I don't. I envision God as eternal and with the purpose of creating thinking humans, which I suspect He has done many times in he past. I'm happy Tony supported you but as a committee of three our discussions don't prove any truths, just opinions. Since I am not God. His level of thought is something I imagine as beyond any thinking we can do. As God is imagined, we humans can only guess what He is exactly like.

Tony: And even that agreement is limited. For some reason, no matter how many times I say I disagree with that particular word because of the connotations, it keeps getting implied that I am in full agreement. My limited agreement is that as a single entity, God, eternal or not, would have reached a point beyond which it was impossible to grow without the presence of another entity. DHW reworded it as boredom, and I got tired of arguing the point. He can call it what he likes. However, I still think boredom is the wrong word.

David: Thanks for the clarification of your view. I certainly agree about the concept of boredom is totally wrong, as it is a humanizing view of God. I also do not think God has a 'need to grow'. I view him as all He can be or needs to be.

Tony: His name literally means: I am/will be what I am/will be.

This implies that he can change, or grow, to be what he needs to be in order to accomplish his purpose.

David: When God appears in the burning bush He says I am what I am. My encyclopedic dictionary which is part of the Masoretic text OT I have does not give that definition of God as you do. He is Lord or eternal, and eternal is considered the most proper . Again we are humans who try to describe Him. Another Jewish source I have describes the words for God as meaning Lord, Master, ruler and judge. I see no sense that He needs to grow.

that was from a Jewish translation, ironically.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.