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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« While no positive description of God is possible, one can still state what God is not … Regarding where I got the "information", I infer it because it would simply constitute a logical contradiction if we attempted to attribute God with any qualities, including gender, shape, form, or even existence »
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Of course, we can say whatever we like, Yuyutsu, but remember that in many animist religions, God may be lightning or thunder, a river or a mountain, a tree or a rock. Perhaps in your religion you can decide what God is not but that may be just your own personal concept of God – or, as you say : an inference on your part – but an inference from what ? A religious text, or a certain number of reliable, independent (non-religious) sources ?

Also, from a purely rational point of view, I do not see how you can be certain of what something is not if it is impossible for you to know what it is.
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As regards the rest of your post, the only (hopefully) intelligent comment I can make is that I see it as yet another manifestation of your religious faith – no less admirable than that of George which I also admire.

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Dear Banjo,

«but remember that in many animist religions, God may be lightning or thunder, a river or a mountain, a tree or a rock.»

What people (animist or otherwise) say about God makes no difference regarding what God actually is or is not.

The difference between, say, animists and Christians, is only in the choice of gods and goddesses which they use as a technique to represent God; in other words, in the particular object(s) on which they focus their devotion to God.

- And as long as and to the extent that gods and goddesses help people to build their character and devotion to God and reduce their attachments to the world, this is very good.

«but an inference from what ?»

Pure logic. For example, if you assume that God is omnipotent, then could God create a rock so heavy that He couldn't lift it? Such paradoxes arise from the mistaken assertion as if God was an object. Objects are obviously subject to the rules of logic, yet (unlike gods and goddesses, trees and rocks) God is not.

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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I understand that the precise number of religions in the world is not known, but it is thought to be about 4,300. Each has its own theory of “God, Gods, Goddesses, and other supernatural entities”.

Judging from the details you provided in your latest post, your particular “God” appears to be somewhat narcissistic, to say the least. You write, for example :

« … they focus their devotion to God »

« … gods and goddesses help people to build their … devotion to God and reduce their attachments to the world … »

I also note that you say he is not logic :

« Objects are obviously subject to the rules of logic … God is not »

Well, if that’s what you want, Yuyutsu, I guess that’s the way he has to be.

After all, he's your "God", not mine.

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BP: We can reject the concept of “God”, but the only way to completely reject religion is to refuse to respect the rules of society (with the risk of ending-up in jail) Society has assimilated religion and all law-abiding and respectable citizens live by it.

I think the opposite is truer. Society invented God in order to control its citizens there-by enforcing the Rules of Society. "If you don't behave the Boogieman will get you. You can run or hide but the Boogieman always knows where you are."

Yutsie:
The difference between, say, animists and Christians, is only in the choice of gods and goddesses which they use as a technique to represent God;

Peoples represent Gods/Goddesses as objects to show a particular aspect of a God/Goddess. Eternal = Mountain, Strong = Elephant, Punisher = Snake, Wise = Owl, etc. That's why there are so many representations of Gods/goddesses, especially in Hinduism & the old Pantheism Religions.

As with the Trinity. God the Father represents the Over-all System, Jesus represents the seen world & the Holy Ghost represents the unseen World.

Dear Banjo,

You have got a point in saying there is a difference between belief in God and awareness of the religious roots of one’s culture. So instead of

“a good example of what happens if a culture sees its own religious roots as merely figments of imagination”

I should have written

“a good example of what happens if a culture sees God, who was the raison d’être of its religious roots as merely a figments of imagination”.

I refered to this distinction in

“They namely know the difference between Christian religion - (i.e. others’ belief in God that they can live with) and a post-Enlightenment civilisation begot by Christianity (that they want to defend), but...”

As for islamisation - e.g. along the lines of Houellebecq’s Submission - as I wrote, neither of us will see when, in what form, or whether at all, it will happen. Anyhow, the “vacuum” that is being filled in was meant to be on the sociological (population’s prevailing cultural preferences that even in post-Christian Europe are Christian), not psychological (personal conversion of individuals) levels.

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Dear Jayb,

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Thank you for those interesting comments. Allow me to make the following remarks :

You wrote :

« Society invented God in order to control its citizens there-by enforcing the Rules of Society. "If you don't behave the Boogieman will get you. You can run or hide but the Boogieman always knows where you are" »
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My understanding is that, indeed, rulers always have and continue to use religion in order to control their subjects. However, as regards the “invention” of “God”, here, in my view, is how it happened :

« It appears that we human beings branched off from our common ancestor with the chimpanzees about five to seven million years ago. Life in those early days must have been quite terrifying, not only before we developed intellectual faculties superior to other biological species, but even long after we were able to employ them. Nature, for no apparent reason, often became terribly aggressive. We found ourselves subjected to violent hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, volcanos, droughts, snow storms, bush fires, as well as the occasional devastating meteorite. We had no warning and no explanation for any of it.

It is not surprising that little by little, due to the development of our intellectual capacity to conceptualise, we gradually replaced our instinctive reaction of terror to these natural phenomena with logical, supernatural explanations. Animist religions, which continue to be largely present today, attributed a god or spirit to each of earth’s physical features as well as to each of the terrifying manifestations of nature. The concept of anthropomorphic gods soon followed. Human characteristics such as reason, motivation, personality and the possibility to communicate were attributed to the animist gods.

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(Continued …)

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