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erectlocution ⊇ boxing jewels

id for God

[Ed. Note: Originally “published”07/11/03.]

In keeping with the generalized contemplative mood, Ben brings us to a religious activity that sounds like an id software release. Alas, this is not the case.

In saying that God has the freedom and power to do that which is logically impossible (like creating square circles), you are saying that any discussion of God and ultimate reality cannot be constrained by basic principles of rationality. This would seem to make rational discourse about God impossible. If rational discourse about God is impossible, there is nothing rational we can say about God and nothing rational we can say to support our belief or disbelief in God. To reject rational constraints on religious discourse in this fashion requires accepting that religious convictions, including your religious convictions [that there is no god], are beyond any debate or rational discussion. This is to bite a bullet.[more]

Take a run-through, and, if you please, leave a comment about how you did; whether you agree or disagree with your results; and whether the whole bit of it is god-awfully, excruciatingly numbing, or if, in fact, makes some sense to you. I won’t bias you by telling you how I did, and maybe that little teaser will bend your will to mine.


2 Comments

This reminds me of Nietzsche’s rather shortsighted argument that all inside experiences (which should thus include his own rationale concerning God - among anything else that is arrived at by reason alone) are misleading. If everything is misleading, than we’re all misled - a simple example of sawing off the branch one sits upon out from under himself. Most post-structuralists find this claim, among others, to be genius and central, but I find it rather lazy and ironic - considering Nietzsche himself had much to say about God in human history, a revisionalist’s approach that he arrived at by a great deal of inside experience (and shaky logic).

I wonder if there’s not a place for some moderation in making such a claim. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to presume that most if not all of our experiences are understood incompletely. If we then decide upon a definition of “misleading” which might denote, at its simplest end, incomplete direction, then I don’t think the argument is so shortsighted. That’s not unlike saying that withholding truth is as much a lie as providing counterfact.

I haven’t read Nietzche, so that’s just a first blush based on what you mention.

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