God and belief in the Supernatural - affect on ethics

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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Belinda
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Re: God and belief in the Supernatural - affect on ethics

Post by Belinda »

popeye1945 wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 6:04 pm Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy wrote:
What does it mean to say that God is substance and that everything else is “in” God? Is Spinoza saying that rocks, tables, chairs, birds, mountains, rivers and human beings are all properties of God, and hence can be predicated of God (just as one would say that the table “is red”)? It seems very odd to think that objects and individuals—what we ordinarily think of as independent “things”—are, in fact, merely properties of a thing, items that inhere in something else. Spinoza was sensitive to the strangeness of this kind of talk, not to mention the philosophical problems to which it gives rise. When a person feels pain, does it follow that the pain is ultimately just a property of God, and thus that God feels pain? All of this has given rise to a great deal of scholarly debate as to what Spinoza means by saying all things being modes of or “in” God. They may also explain why, as of Proposition Sixteen, there is a subtle but important shift in Spinoza’s language. God is now described not so much as the underlying substance of all things, but as the universal, immanent and sustaining cause of all that exists: “From the necessity of the divine nature there must follow infinitely many things in infinitely many modes, (i.e., everything that can fall under an infinite intellect)”.
[" The "universal, immanent and sustaining cause of all that exists" is, if you imagine set theory circles, the circle that holds the universal set. Many people say Spinoza was not a pantheist but a panentheist.
Joseph Campbell's "The Power of Myth" . I have not read it but it gets good reviews and Joseph Campbell is an authority on myths.
I should say I take a sociological view when I discuss the topic of 'Religion'. Sociologically, religions usually include myths, moral codes/taboos, and rituals such as church attendance, or kneeling to pray, or observing Xmas.
Belinda,
I think what is going on here is a desire for an anthropomorphic God, we can't settle for anything less. Whatever is the ultimate source is a mystery and a mystery it remains. Totality though, is a term one can wrap one's mind around even when that totality is beyond actual knowing. At present I believe Spinoza was a pantheist. Regarding Joseph Campbell, I quote, "Mythology is the other man's religion", so mythology when believed is religion. Actually, I do not believe reality is a thing, it is a condition and there are conditions within reality and it is the human condition that experiences things, but they only exist to the life condition. I feel some support for this in that modern physics tells us that ultimate reality is a place of no things. The things we do experience is the relation of one condition to another condition, things are effect/experience.
[/quote]Desire for an anthropomorphic God is answered by Jesus Christ who was both man and God. Unfortunately many Xians don't understand Trinitarianism. I myself understand the father and son metaphor but the Holy Ghost eludes me.
popeye1945
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Re: God and belief in the Supernatural - affect on ethics

Post by popeye1945 »

Belinda.

Is not an anthropomorphic god what we wish to get away from?
Belinda
Posts: 8030
Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2016 10:13 am

Re: God and belief in the Supernatural - affect on ethics

Post by Belinda »

popeye1945 wrote: Sun Apr 24, 2022 7:35 pm Belinda.

Is not an anthropomorphic god what we wish to get away from?
We can't do it! Even people who believe the essence of good is not a big man-shaped Being need to have the concept of good explained in human terms so we can actually do it.

There is no religion or sect that does not include some prophet, avatar, guru, acting stand-in, or supernatural son. Religions are man made and are as they are for human purposes.

Religious Humanism recognises how men try to perfect themselves.

Ibn al'Arabi:
“Do not attach yourself to any particular creed exclusively, so that you may disbelieve all the rest; otherwise you will lose much good, nay, you will fail to recognize the real truth of the matter. God, the omnipresent and omnipotent, is not limited by any one creed, for he says, ‘Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of al-Lah’ (Koran 2:109).”19
popeye1945
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Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:12 am

Re: God and belief in the Supernatural - affect on ethics

Post by popeye1945 »

Belinda,

Excellent!!!!
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