Riviera de la Mancha
dawnofthelight
Riviera de la Mancha
dawnofthelight
Riviera de la Mancha
Not really.
love=existential claim of reality.
god=existential claim of reality.
The same proofs one give for love fall exactly in lock step with the kinds anyone will give you of God; they do not mandate a given conclusion. They exist in an existential sense because both are not firmly rooted in reality but are considerable for their claimed roles to have in relevance to our personal existence:
1. relating to human existence: concerned with or relating to existence, especially human existence
2. philosophy crucial in shaping individual destiny: in the context of existentialism, involved in or vital to the shaping of an individual’s self-chosen mode of existence and moral stance with respect to the rest of the world
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2004 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
How we accept and define love, like how we accept, if at all, and define God, directly influence our lives. These choices control how we see the world, others, and how we interact with them, which is the only means that make anything real at all or of any importance.
When I said "existential" I mean "pertaining to general existence." I'm sorry if you understood otherwise; I'm not using dictionary definition. So, according to my definition, show me the connection and how the connection is sufficient to come to your conclusion of epistemologically equating love to God. I also meant:
God= existential claim of a thing in reality.
Corrections, corrections. Hopefully I won't need to clarify or correct what I say much more.
Why work on your own personal view of this word? I operate only under the philosophical use of the word, not a single person's own subjective choice. If this is the case, then I can change any number of words to make them mean what I want and produce any kind of ridiculous conclusion. I operate out of objectivity, not subjectivity. If you look at both definitions, both pertain to existence in general, for existence only has meaning if we accept its affects to us. A rock is meaningless to me if I refuse to accept that it is a rock. Even when thrown at me and causing me harm, if I dont accept it, it might as well not exist. My pain is real and I can accept that, but the rock is still removed and is thus meaningless. My belief does not change its existence to what is objective, no doubt, but it does change its importance to me, which in turn controls its very state. Existence is inherently has a personal component to it that controls for its affects. Anything then does not attain full existence until it is accepted by me finally. Nothing is important if does not affect the person viewing it or interacting with it. It will simply just be.
In short, yes, you will still have to explain more.
Even so, God makes no sense as a claim of a thing; he is the the thing we are discussing. There is no force higher than God if he exists, so He is not a claim of anything. He is a fact if his existence is agreed upon.
An edit by the way:
Quote:
Anyway, I said love= personal emotional abstraction. It is a verb that can only be judged and used with personal criteria, as long as it adheres to its most conventional usage and basic idea, which I have yet to articulate and make specific in my head. "God's existence" cannot; "God" has a personal definition, and whether something is a God is judged by a popular cultural criteria. However, depending on the personal definition, its existence would require more than personal adherence and belief to be believed in. Here, we're primarily discussing the Christian God, usually defined as an omnipotent, omniscient being, and is specified as having created the world, that exists. From that definition, we know his existence depends on proof, or evidence; otherwise, it depends on logical justification or the most probable alternative as a belief (i.e. "I believe God exists" ); all of these criteria for choosing belief in God or to prove God are considered best. Love...what is love? How is it detected by an outsider? The previous criteria is not going to work on this, therefore, we have to look at it's limits and extents, and choose the best criteria from there, although maybe inevitably flawed, because obviously, our former criteria still has it flaws.
I know you cannot change an objects existence with your claims if it really exists, but we are limited to our claims and our criteria. Again, we can only start from ourselves and reach up to him, not reach up to him, and look down at ourselves. I'm not saying epistemology makes something true, simply saying that through epistemology we get to know how to get to that truth or the truth most likely. If we can only measure, we will measure, whether God exists, and use that is our criteria. Take some of hat I just said as metaphor.
Man is the measure of all things, but all men must measure correctly, correct to the extent of their limits, to get closer to the correct measure.
The rock may exist, and we might be ignoring it, or the rock may not exist, and we're only living up to that fact. However, if we have no reason to believe the rock is there, we are justified, and everyone else should do the same as me and not believe because it's most rational. I'm not ignoring a reality, we're simply constructing truths and fallacies out of my available and most reliable truths to get there. If our limited tools says no, it is no, yes, it is yes, because I cannot go any further than my limited tool. There are only correct tools for humanity; some people use the wrong ones, so what they say is correct, may as well be wrong. We call something true and correct because we are limited by our limited tools and there limited conclusions to say so. I am suspicious that you're confusing something with something else here, apart from God and love, and it's at the tip of my tongue, but I can't articulate it.
we know his existence depends on proof, or evidence; otherwise, it depends on logical justification or the most probable alternative as a belief -------dawnoflight
I have always since I began posting argued that one can be logically justified to believe in God and that proof does in fact exist. What you continue to do is connote epistemic culpability with my case, which I have never done.
All evidence, like all evidence for any kind of love, will consist of an objective event one chooses to attribute to it the manifestation of love. Lets say my mother bakes me my favorite cake. I choose to class that as an action of love, and have many logical reasons for doing so, such as it is difficult to make, she had to take time out of her schedule, she sees no benefit other than my happiness, etc. Yet, no matter how inductively sound a case I can make for my choosing to see this as an act of love, it is not a deductive case that makes you or anyone to epistemically culpable to agree. This means that you are not forced to agree that this is in fact a sign of love based on my reasons.
The previous criteria is not going to work on this...-----Dawnoflight
How so?
Inorder for love to be real to anyone past the person who claims it, we all use " proof or evidence" to decide if this love, this claim someone has made is true. This is why one cannot simply say the words; all humans demand some act, some manifestation, or proof of this love. As such, both God and love structurally demand the exact same things.
The last part made no sense at all.
And, no, he is not a fact if his existence is agreed upon. He is a fact if his existence is observed or shown evidence for. There's still a possibility you are wrong, thus it remains a belief, not a fact. Second, existence has meaning not if we accept it affects us but have justification to accept a belief that it affects us; you need to have a reason to believe it affects us. Love is an experience you can only experience; it is an immediate self-evident experience. However, God is different; God's existence is a claim of reality, and that means it is thus applicable to everything else of reality, which means universal proof is required. All you can deduce is that your conceiving of God's existence affects you in different ways, but that does not prove his existence, and it is not even to be considered personal proof. God exists because he affects me, I believe he affects me because he exists; that is your line of thinking; circular reasoning. Your claim to be personal proof isn't proof at all; perhaps personal, but not proof. The thing is, you are automatically and immediately drawing a connection between your indirect immediate experiences to God's existence; that's not logical. You have no proof of this connection or assumption; they have alternative and more likely explanations. I can believe my GF cheated on me and this will affect me, but it gets me no closer to reality unless this belief has justification. The rock's existence becomes meaningless, but does not make it any more non-existent; it is only meaningless if I don't believe the rock is there (which would be ridiculously silly if I feel it and directly experience it), which means, the fact that I don't believe it and that thus that it doesn't affect me does not justify my disbelief, because I need the disbelief first for that to be able to happen.
Love is much like offense in it's nature. "Love" is an attribute done by criterion and individual introspection and behavioral evaluation. "Offense" for example is like love in the way that not all of us get offended by the same thing, and we all have a spectrum of reactions to something that is offensive to us. In other words, you may say for example that my post is offensive. Since you can only prove this 100% to yourself, you know. But, I can justify my believe to an extent, or believe it because of it's perceived probability. Your expression of an emotion increases the chance of its actuality. My criteria of what behavior and expressions signify a certain emotion depends on my own immediate emotional and behavioral experiences. Since you can only 100% prove to yourself how you're feeling emotionally, I can only access it through you. I have no choice but to believe your emotional claims, unless a "deceiver" is detected or relevant contradictory observances of expression, I will believe otherwise; I will believe that your emotion either changed or that you were lying. Why? I am only limited to such a criteria. Anyway, think of love as a concept rather than a reality. God's existence is different. God's existence is a claim of a thing existing in reality. We're able to reason his probability and whether he is favorable from other alternative beliefs that are relevant. Except, he has not been justified so far, so he is to not be believed. Just like I can call something offensive, I can call something love; however, I cannot call a dog a cat if it is not a cat or simply state the Spaghetti Monster exists without logical justification. There's a difference between these words which is hard for me to articulate. I can say something is tasty and you differ my opinion, but the matter of fact is, something being tasty to me, and the Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster existing are different matters. Same with love and God. We do not attribute love to the manifestation, we attribute the manifestation to love. We interpret it and make an assumption of love. We don't assume it's love and just from that, that every action these people do is love in some way. A God is different, just as the existence of the Giant Flying Spaghetti monster whom hides in an un-findable place is different. God's immaterial nature does not make him any more equal to love; ghosts or invisible men may be immaterial. Does it make them any more true, philosophically or scientifically? "Love" exists because it represents a personal idea or abstraction of (a) real event(s) or (a) direct experience(s). "God" is different; at least the "God" we're referring to; a specific God: the Christian God. If the word "god" no longer assumes any meaning, then you cannot approve or affirm it, thus you will disbelief in it. Why? Disbelief is the default position. "Ignosticism" only applies in certain circumstances when words lose their meanings. Were you to say that "god" means "backpack" and you said "god exists" I would believe you. However, if you say God is a backpack, as in the Judeao-Christian God or Deist God, you'd have to prove it, much like you would have to prove whether "d**k", which means walking thing, is a dog or not; they must reconcile and have proof. But, to me, atheism is a rejection of the general theist God, all gods, or the deist god included. So I am atheist.
I'm clarifying my "view" of this word. And? You know, many philosophers define their words, an their not always in the conventional usage and definition. The point is to avoid equivocation. I'll be talking about one thing, and you of another; our debate will not function this way, and since you're addressing my post, I clarify in what I mean independent of dictionary meaning. If you can find a word that I can instead use, tell me. Otherwise, I'll invent a new word: existentish. How's that?
Quote:
God makes no sense as a claim of a thing
God's existence does, however. And, if their is a highest being, why must it be God? Can it not be an alien? The Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster? If you have no evidence for any of these things existences you cannot claim them to be a highest being, because that would require its existence, which is yet to be provided or shown sufficient reason to be believed in. Notice we're talking about the Abrahamic God(s) (having omnipotence, omniscience, perfection, creating the world, sending Jesus, etc.). So, you're committing equivocation. If you believe in the Abrahamic God, then you think the Abrahamic God is the highest being, but doe he have to be? First you must prove his existence before stating he is.
God has no manifestations that directly point to him. God's existence is a claim of reality; love is an abstract concepts. Like I told you, love is to be used subjectively to be defined in whichever way you wish; like offense, love's criteria is personal. The criteria for God's existence is not. Interpersonal relationships and very flawed assumptions have nothing to do with reality. I cannot prove to you the Spaghetti Monster exists by spraying sauce on me; there is no reason to attribute this to the Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster cursing me because there are better alternative explanations. The "evidence" for love is it's manifestations; we have seen the connection between behavior and emotion. We have not seen the connection between the existence of God, and nature. We always have alternative explanations that are more probable, and thus makes God an unnecessary explanation for experiences. You're associating natural occurrences and experiences as manifestations of God's existence, but first you have to prove or show it's better to believe God exists before saying these are manifestations of God OR you must show proof or logical justification for thinking natural occurrences and personal experiences relate to God at all.
The way I interpret you is that you are simply saying: "I believe he exists, I think his existence is true; it's subjective (although it shouldn't be), I have personal proof, blah blah blah." A cop out to avoid assessing the unfounded-ness of God's existence.
To prove something is offensive you only need to prove you are offended, and to logically justify believing someone else is offended is evaluating their behavioral reactions, intent from your part, criteria of offense from your part (i.e what
you think is offensive), and expressions.
Furthermore, as has been noted, you are using circular reasoning ('I believe it; do you agree with my belief? If yes, it is thus true to me'; you're using your belief to reinforce your belief and the beliefs of others including you to reinforce the believes of other including you; nuh-uh, mister. And your 'God exists because he affects me, I believe he affects me because he exists.'), and, in my opinion, some red herrings.
