• JerseyFlight
    782
    [The reason I have classed this post in "General Philosophy" is because it essentially aims to deal with the axiom of all philosophy, the being of thought. The notion of God is merely a vehicle used to make a point about thought. I do not believe this post belongs in the Philosophy of Religion section because it is not dealing with the formal arguments for religion, it is making a point about thought and thought is not religion.]

    In the first instance, the very formation of the Phantom-Deity is itself the outcome of a thinking process, without this process there is no Phantom. The Deity is a formation of thought, it is not a concrete substance. No one denies the idea, but none can prove the substance. It is not the same when it comes to mountains and trees, there are even bones left over from the concept of Mark Twain.

    The idea of God is vastly inferior to the concrete function of thought's power. The real question is why does one need God when one has thought? (Of course, the theist longs to credit his special deity with the virtue of bringing thought into being, only this is materially false, it was thought, coupled with the instability of fear, that birth God, it was not God who birthed thought).

    When three doctors stand over a dying child desperately trying to save his life, are we really supposed to believe that God is in the room cheering the doctors on? "Come now, good chaps, just try a little harder, I know you can save him." This picture shatters our delusions of the concept, properly contextualizing it back to the fictitious realm of the idea.

    Every qualitative invention brought into the world was brought by thought, technology is predicated on thought and technology is the key to human flourishing. When we say that thought is a power far superior to any God, we are not merely playing games with words, not merely inventing new Gods, we are referencing the concrete facts of human history. My guess is that most, if they were forced to choose, would pick technology over God, and in fact, this is precisely what the modern religious world has done.

    Between the man of God and the man of thought there can be no contest, the man of God lives in the world of the man of thought. Religion has been around for thousands of years, it knew nothing of germs or particles, more importantly, it kept man groveling in the dust, clashing over petty ideals.

    The bottom line is that thought is a power far superior to any concept of God, but this power is not neutral, it can be used to destroy the world or save the world. It is not merely the thinker's duty to think, but to learn how to use thought for the purpose of maximizing human quality.   

    "Thinking is higher than space and time." Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k
    Well, I haven't thought about God for some time, and there was apparently nothing He could do about it. Until now, thanks to you. You're working for Him, aren't you?
  • JerseyFlight
    782
    Well, I haven't thought about God for some time, and there was apparently nothing He could do about it.Ciceronianus the White

    There you have it friend. A concept void of any substance, negation without ramification.
  • Pantagruel
    3.3k
    the axiom of all philosophy, the being of thoughtJerseyFlight

    With you to here. I don't take issue with the phantom-deity ideas, but for me it doesn't add to (or detract from) the idea that the being of thought is my central motivation.
  • deletedusercb
    1.7k
    it is very unlkely that thought is your central motivation. It is more likely that it is emotions. (I am not insulting or ad homing you, this is true for all of us. Motivations and desires set us in motion. )
  • deletedusercb
    1.7k
    It seems to me the title of the thread is misleading. You aren't comparing the power of thought to the power of God. You believe God is only a product of thought and has no independent existence. You assert something in the title and the text reasserts this by saying God is only one of our thoughts. So in relation to the title, we just have an assumption/assertion, not an argument.
  • JerseyFlight
    782
    You believe God is only a product of thought and has no independent existence.Coben

    This is what all the evidence tells us.

    we just have an assumption/assertion, not an argument.Coben

    Well now, arguments are based on premises, which are themselves assertions.

    Maybe you should try interacting with the premises, as opposed to merely trying to characterize my position?
  • Pantagruel
    3.3k
    ↪Pantagruel it is very unlkely that thought is your central motivation. It is more likely that it is emotions. (I am not insulting or ad homing you, this is true for all of us. Motivations and desires set us in motion. )Coben

    Hmm. Well, that may be, it wasn't exactly what I meant though. To be precise, the idea of the being of thought is my central motivation. Trust me, I've had 55 years to think about it, this one I have pinned down.
  • MAYAEL
    239
    Thought? Or imagination?
  • JerseyFlight
    782
    Thought? Or imagination?MAYAEL

    Thought. Not sure how that wasn't clear?
  • jkg20
    405
    Interesting that you quote Hegel. At least under some interpretations of Hegel, although he did not accept God as a being, and he had a conception of God far more sophisticated than any naive Abrahamic one, he nevertheless did think God was real, the apogee of reality in fact. Your "phantom deity" sounds a little like the God of positive revelation, which almost by definition is a concept hard for a rational mind to accept, but for Hegel it was probably just a starting point.
    "This possibility to know God lays upon us the duty to do so..." Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
    Perhaps for Hegel God and thought, although intially in apparent contradiction, become finally synthesised in Spirit?
  • JerseyFlight
    782
    Perhaps for Hegel God and thought, although intially in apparent contradiction, become finally synthesised in Spirit?jkg20

    VERY IMPORTANT: Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis has nothing to do with Hegel's position. This is a distortion and gross simplification of his philosophy. Please do not feel defensive as I bring this up, I am not trying to attack you here friend, there is no possible way you could have known this. We are taught this error through online media and institutions, and Hegel is very intimidating to read. He reduced Goethe to silence when they had lunch together.

    I do not know enough about Hegel's specific notions of theism to discourse on it with any kind of authority. One thing is certain, his idea of God would indeed be far more rational than any God produced through revelation. One of my friends has pointed out to me repeatedly in Hegel's writings that Hegel holds religious knowledge far lower than philosophical knowledge. And of course, he is correct. My friend also brings up the relevant fact that it would have been very hard for Hegel to dissent from Christianity in his time... so it is a most interesting question, because we read him repeatedly denigrating religious knowledge in the logic, if he was an atheist would we know it?

    If you're interested in reading a good introduction on Hegel, one that also covers a great deal of ground in a short space, see Andy Blunden, Hegel for Social Movements.
  • MAYAEL
    239


    Well it's just that you said you had been thinking about this for 55 years however you seem to be misusing the word thought .

    As far as i understand the meaning of thought is form created in the mind, rather than the forms perceived through the five senses

    And the imagination is the image-making power of the mind; the act of creating or reproducing ideally an object not previously perceived

    In other words imagination is the power to create what has not been seen or known yet.
  • Outlander
    1.8k
    Well now that I'm sure you know neither I suppose we can focus more on the questions in your OP.

    Which largely are akin to asking "why does one need a father when one can have a kid?"... of course, we'd just delve into a theological debate beyond this point so those are just my remarks on the subject presented.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    1.8k
    In this moment I am euphoric, not because of any phony God's blessing but because I am enlightened my own intelligence.
  • Sir2u
    3.2k
    The real question is why does one need God when one has thought?JerseyFlight

    Because technology had not, mainly because it did not really exist, provide answers to certain questions that arose as humans developed into civilized beings. And it has still not provided all of the answers man wants.
    When science can say "The purpose of life is............" and provide adequate proof things might change.
  • jkg20
    405
    VERY IMPORTANT: Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis has nothing to do with Hegel's position.
    Well, that seems a little too strident. English speaking idealist interpreters of Hegel such as McTaggart and Stace, different kinds of idealist admittedly, but no idiots either of them, find in Hegel's dialetic the "Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis" model. It's not the be all and end all of his philosophy of course and those interpreters might be wrong, but it seems too involved an exegitical issue to just discard it out of hand as you do.
    As for Hegel's theism, if it exists, we can certainly agree that it is very much more sophisticated than any acceptance of a revealed Christian religion, and for sure given his context he might have felt obliged to tow a Lutheran line in his everyday life even if he had no real Christian faith. The quotation I gave comes from his lectures on history, and in that work he takes revealed religion as simply a starting point.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    I think you're taking this a bit too far - it's like a cat with fangs and claws thinking that fangs are claws are far superior than everything else and cats know better.
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    In this moment I am euphoric, not because of any phony God's blessing but because I am enlightened my own intelligence.BitconnectCarlos

    I understood that reference.
  • JerseyFlight
    782
    English speaking idealist interpreters of Hegel such as McTaggart and Stace, different kinds of idealist admittedly, but no idiots either of them, find in Hegel's dialetic the "Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis" model.jkg20

    It doesn't matter if the Pope says it, this is not in Hegel. Citation please? See Hegel Myths and Legends by Jon Stewart.
  • JerseyFlight
    782
    I think you're taking this a bit too far - it's like a cat with fangs and claws thinking that fangs are claws are far superior than everything else and cats know better.TheMadFool

    This is a false analogy. While you are right about thought having a very bland and pathetic dimension to it, in contrast to the ever shifting idea of God... claws and fangs exist, Cat Deities do not.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    1.8k


    I don't troll often but this thread was just too much for me.
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    I think that thought has the power to dictate any narrative, whether it be to argue that thought itself is the superior power to any god or the opposite. As thought answers to nothing but itself.
  • JerseyFlight
    782
    I think that thought has the power to dictate any narrativeJudaka

    It does indeed, but it is greater than this. It has the capacity to transcend narratives, even to correct itself.
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    We agree that it can dictate any narrative, thus,
    It has the capacity to transcend narratives, even to correct itself.JerseyFlight
    this too and the opposite. Wouldn't you agree?
  • JerseyFlight
    782


    I'm pretty sure I do, but I'm not quite clear on what you mean by opposite?
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    That thought does not have the capacity to transcend narratives, this is something one could think differently about. Without any rules, can pretty much just assert whatever right?
  • JerseyFlight
    782
    That thought does not have the capacity to transcend narrativesJudaka

    I suppose emotions could transcend narratives, but it's damn unlikely, and certainly not the way to achieve the optimum of this result. You will not catch me arguing as you have here, I don't even see the point in it.
  • jkg20
    405
    There is a distinction to be made between two claims. The first claim is that Hegel knowingly and rigidly attempted to apply a thesis/antithesis/synthesis dialectical method to every philosophical issue he thought about. That is very certainly false, you are correct, and is an error Stace makes for sure, but from memory I do not believe that McTaggart does and certainly more recent commentators like Houlgate definitely do not. Having said that, there is the different claim that the result of Hegel’s analysis in a given specific case fits the dialectical form thesis/antithesis/synthesis. For that claim, it does not matter whether one can find explicitly in Hegel a reference to that particular method, since it is an interpretative issue. The usual example brought forward by members of the thesis/antithesis/synthesis brigade is the Being/Nothing/Becoming analysis at the beginning of the Logic, but even there you have those like Houlgate who disagree. I do not stand on any particular side on that debate. All that having been said, the main idea behind my casual reference to the ideas of contradiction and synthesis in regards to thought and God was simply that an Hegelian analysis might show how any kind of opposition or tension between reason and religion, thought and God, could be resolved and Hegel scholars like Stephen Crites believe that it can, and in fact was resolved by Hegel.
  • EnPassant
    665
    The Deity is a formation of thought, it is not a concrete substance.JerseyFlight

    Thought is being 'I think, therefore I am'. Being is God. The power of thought is God, in our minds. When the mind thinks it moves through God as a fish moves through the sea.
  • Frank Apisa
    2.1k
    In the first instance, the very formation of the Phantom-Deity is itself the outcome of a thinking process, without this process there is no Phantom.JerseyFlight

    So you are suggesting that something invented...is invented, or a "product of thought.

    Okay...I guess that makes sense, but why even bother pointing that out. You are essentially saying "A fictional character is a fictional character."

    Then you go on to say something else rather obvious...that without the thought, the "invented something" would not exist. In other words, without the "thoughts" Mark Twain invested in Huckleberry Finn...there would be no Huckleberry Finn"

    Also okay. But...what is the point?

    Finally, you seem to suggest that, therefore, no kids who do the kinds of things that Huck did...exist?

    Wow! Bit of a stretch, wouldn't you say?
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