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tomarin
Guest
I think I see what you mean. Is the standard God of theism not transcendent then?
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Roscoe_Turner
Guest
Not always, as the “great mystery” yes, but there is much talk of the emotions of God,the hand of God, word of God etc, and you can’t anthropomorphize God anymore than Jesus. The Deistists reject the anthtoprophization and the notion of revelation.
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tomarin
Guest
And that we are made in his image and he loves us. That’s certainly anthropomorphization.
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tonyrey
Guest
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
Why would we bring meaning to a meaningless Creator?
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Roscoe_Turner
Guest
Not the creator, the creation. Our lives.Why would we bring meaning to a meaningless Creator?
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
How can we bring meaning to our lives if we live in a meaningless universe?
Either the whole of the universe is meaningless, or it isn’t.
You can’t carve out one piece of the universe as meaningfull while the rest is meaningless.
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Roscoe_Turner
Guest
Why not? My life has meaning to me, because it’s mine.
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ThinkingSapien
Guest
It kind of seems like you two may be using “meaningful” to express slightly different concepts.
Roscoe, in your case “meaningful” seems to indicate a specific relationship between an agent with a mind and some object(ex: a painting and an observer, a book and a reader, so on). Charlemagne’s in your case “meaningful” seems as if it is being used to indicate either a property of something that is independent of any agent/observer that is of limited quantity, like mass.
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JamesTheJust
Guest
Perhaps Roscoe is speaking of subjective meaning, whereas Charlemagne is talking about objective meaning.
Without God, subjective meaning is possible, but objective meaning is not.
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ThinkingSapien
Guest
In that context would “objective meaning” be a specialization (specific type) of “subjective meaning” where the agent with the mind is God?
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JamesTheJust
Guest
I’m defining objective as something that exists independent of humanity (i.e., objective morality). This can only exist if there is a Higher Being.
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Counterpoint
Guest
Deism holds that God is transcendent, but not immanent. Theism holds that God is both transcendent and immanent.
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belorg
Guest
You said ,“There is nothing random about self-determination. We are the ones who make our decisions; otherwise you are passing the buck.”
That is actually the same thing I claim. We determine what decision we are going to make, and that is not random because it is based on who we are.
That’s why you determine yourself to make certain decisions and I determine myself to make other decisions. The fact that you make other decisions is not a coincidence, it’s because you are you and I am I.
Only if the impossibility to change reveals God’s impotence. But, according to Thomists, it doesn’t.
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tonyrey
Guest
[/QUOTE]Only if the impossibility to change reveals God’s impotence. But, according to Thomists, it doesn’t. Do we lose our identity when we make a decision? There is a difference between changing and causing change. Not to intervene is a sign of impotence, ignorance or indifference, all of which are defects incompatible with divinity.
You’'re not a deist anyway, are you?
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belorg
Guest
belorg;11633952:
we are but** what **we are. According to materialists we are no more than links in a chain
Completely irrelevant, tony. You fail to make your point. This has nothing to do with materialism.
persons don’t count because persons don’t exist! They are legal fictions and nothing more than atomic particles. There is no such** thing** as “you” or “I”. The mind is merely brain activity and every single event is determined by things because everything consists of things! Materialists can’t have it both ways…Do we lose our identity when we make a decision? There is a difference between changing and causing change. Not to intervene is a sign of impotence, ignorance or indifference, all of which are defects incompatible with divinity.
Again, you fail to see my point. If not to intervene is the result of not being able to change oneself, then it is only a sign of impotence if not being able to change oneself is a sign of impotence, which, according to Thomism, it is not. Materialism has nothing whatsoever to do with this.
No, I am not. But deism is far more coherent than theism. Not coherent enough, for my taste, though.You’'re not a deist anyway, are you?
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Charlemagne_III
Guest
I believe what you meant to say is that your life has value to you. You hold onto it becasue you are afraid of entering the measningless void of death. But value is not the same as meaning.
That is why the existentialists of the mid-20th century (like Sartre and Camus) so often used the word “absurd” to describe life. For them life was meaningless, and for them suicide was a major issue. Why live in a meaningless void?
For more on this read Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus.
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Roscoe_Turner
Guest
No, I meant meaning. I can seek external confirmation or internal. In a reverse construction from Neil Young’s “Old Man” . “Doesn’t mean that much to me, to mean that much to you”
It’s not a fear of death, but the joy of life. The meaning of my life is a “lifelong journey”
, it unfolds daily.
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Counterpoint
Guest
The deistic God does not interact with the natural process; the theistic God does.
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ThinkingSapien
Guest
Okay, it seems as those two interpretations are compatible if not synonymous.
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