On 28 January 2014 16:17, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: > On Jan 27, 2014, at 4:38 PM, LizR <[email protected]> wrote: > > On 28 January 2014 09:21, Jason Resch < <[email protected]> > [email protected]> wrote: > >> But Jason I want to ask you a direct question, and this isn't rhetorical >>> I'd really like an answer: If there is no all encompassing purpose or a >>> goal to existence and if the unknown principle responsible for the >>> existence of the universe is not intelligent and is not conscious and is >>> not a being then do you think it adds to clarity to call that principle >>> "God"? >>> >> > >> I consider this question equivalent to asking "If there is no elan vital >> found within organisms, does it still make sense to call those organisms >> life?" Asking this question illustrates the attitude of holding the word in >> higher esteem than the idea, which to me seems little different from a kind >> of "ancestor worship" (which you are also opposed to). I think there is a >> common kernel of idea behind the word God, which is common across many >> religions, though each religion also adds various additional things on top >> of and beyond what is contained in that kernel. If our theories lead us to >> conclude God has or doesn't have these attributes, that is progress, and >> our definitions ought to update accordingly, just as we did not throw out >> the word "life" when we discovered it is just matter arranged in certain >> ways. Similarly, even if we were to determine God is not "omnipotent", or >> not "conscious", should we abandon that word and come up with something >> else? Should we do this every time we learn some knew fact about some >> thing? If we did, it seems to me that any old text would have an >> incomprehensible vocabulary, as scientific progress forced us to adopt knew >> words each time we learned something new. >> >> Nevertheless, might there not be a threshold beyond which it seems > ridiculous to drag a word and its associated baggage? > > Perhaps, but what word would you nominate for the infinite, transcendent, > eternal, uncreated, immutable, ground of all reality? Or for those minds > that simulate whole worlds and universes for fun? >
Tao would be a possibility. But see below. > > We are far from proving such (god-like) things do not exist, and I would > say the opposite is the case: their existance is a consequence of many > theories, including most of the everything type theories popular on this > list. > I never claimed we were. I was merely looking for a suitable word. Hence we *could *say the planets move in epicycles, but we prefer to call them orbits, since that word doesn't carry the baggage of a discredited theory. Similarly, we don't talk about the aether, but space-time; we don't talk about elan vital, but DNA....I'm sure you can think of a few similar examples. Élan vital and DNA are two explanations (theories) of life. Just as the > "Abrahamic God" and the "comp God" are two explanations (theories) of that > which is responsible for our existance. > My point was that we didn't carry across terms from earlier theories *where they were likely to cause confusion*. And there seems to be some confusion over this one. > > Explanations may fall in and out of favor, but the phenomenon to be > explained persists. > Obviously this is often the case, although sometimes the phenomenon turns out to be part of something else (electricity and magnetism, space and time....) I think "God" has enough baggage that the answer to John's question should be "no". Although given the unconscious reification of various things (matter, maths, minds...) we might still want a relatively neutral term for "the (possibly unknowable) principle behind the universe". Any suggestions? > > (Assuming most people on this list are Westerners, I suppose we could try > "Tao" ... or maybe "Ylem" ?) > > I think that might be somewhat more prone to misinterpretation. I think > "god" is a little more neutral since it does not refer to any particular > religion. > > I was looking for a word that was unlikely to be in the religion of any of the people on this list, with the possible exception of Raymond Smullyan. I think a 3-letter word is just the right length. However, maybe "Tao" doesn't really work... I quite fancy calling it "ORR" myself (after George Orr). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
