Poirot, Yuyutsu, Lexi, OUG, Squeers, et al.

Poirot's suggestion is very pertinent. The nature of symbol as opposed to sign is a matter I intended to raise earlier but overlooked.

A sign is based on a one-to-one correspondence with its referent.

A symbol, on the other hand, can stand for a number of things simultaneously, although they may be inter-related. Thus symbols are commonly employed in poetry and other arts as a way of presenting layers of meaning and multiple viewpoints and possibilities. Furthermore, different people may espouse different meanings for the same symbol. The national flag is a good example.

Another quick example. In mathematics the numeral 1 is a sign, corresponding to the number (concept) 1. However, thinking as an artist, poet or numerologist I may see 1 as a symbol representing such things as "a beginning", "leadership", "egotism" or many other possibilities.

Another topic worth discussing in much more depth! But again I must leave it for another time...

Lexi <"...discuss the functions of religion.
Why is religion universal in human society?"

An interesting question Lexi.

I believe that religion originated in ancient times, soon after humans evolved well enough to walk upright on the Earth. The forces of nature at the time were difficult to understand without imagining that some 'good' and 'bad' beings, usually to do with nature, like Sun Gods, Earth Mothers, Sea Gods etc, were responsible for the good and bad things that happened to them back then.

Thus, it would follow that they would think that if they offered 'gifts' to these 'gods' then maybe floods, droughts, earthquakes etc wouldn't happen. Eventually, offering gifts changed to offering words, or prayers, in some societies.

Like the monarchy, religion was probably necessary in the past.
It was used by 'brighter' or more educated people to control the masses, and obtain riches from them, in order to ensure their souls were not damned etc.
It kept them in line so there wasn't anarchy and chaos.

These days however, more people are educated, and many more people in more societies know right from wrong, and thus don't need religious leaders to 'guide' them anymore.

Many more people are able to think through the issues of life all by themselves now, so religion is less important in our modern world.

crabsy et al,

I was treating "symbol" and "sign" as synonymous, indicating language broadly so as not to overcomplicate the point.

Saussure's structuralism was superseded (acquiring its "post") by the realisation that the sign has no "one-to-one correspondence with its referent", rather the signified is the unstable and "intertextual" nebulae, or aporia, of usage, be it philosophical, theological, or a shopping list. All linguistic systems, with which we think, are riddled with contradiction and ambiguity; what Derrida called "Différance": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction#Diff.C3.A9rance.
Moreover all experience, sensual or psychical, is given to the subject in that same ambiguous and culturally negotiated, or current, confusion. Meaning (signification) can be likened to a neural pathway that's currently favoured (by usage) among the aporia of possibilities. That is why "knowledge", history, aesthetics, justice, ethics etc., however compelling are perennially unstable; of a period or culture, and subject to revision.
Regardless of naive affirmations about how things are in themselves, or what constitutes "truth", or "meaning", or God, these are aporetic concepts in the matrix of the intertext, and inaccessible (what Lacan called the "Real") otherwise. "There is nothing outside of the the text"--"for us".
The question for many is whether there is ontological experience apart from the historicised "meaning" that is sedimented in the present and in the subject.
This indicates the value of meditation, if indeed it is possible to clear the mind sufficiently of verbiage to see beyond the complex illusion we habituate. The atheist will insist there is nothing "beyond"; the agnostic, that even if there is, it cannot be apprehended (my position, which is why I insist we should concentrate on the here and now, and "human" ethics and universals). The theist often treats the beyond with all the familiarity of his own backyard, shamelessly rendering his credulity in the very aporetic language, indeed the cliches and platitudes and rationalisations and institutionalised wishful-thinking s/he's inherited/concocted.

If you want to get at the "truth", forget everything you know!

Poirot,
>>How would either of you define God...What is God? Is everything God, as in everything is energy?<<
"Everything is God" is called pantheism, usually considered a kind of atheism. However, as I wrote, in distinction to mathematics, there are no basic concepts (that need not to be defined, because everybody agrees on their meaning, like sets, relations, mappings etc) on which other definitions can be built. This applies especially to any attempts to “define” God in a way that everybody would understand the same way, as, say the definition of a compact topological space.

Of course, there are “definitions”, e.g. in my dictionary: “(in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.” which makes sense only to those who accept without defining the terms involved. If you try to define them - for instance, what is a supreme being, you soon end up with circular definitions.

Yuyutsu,
My I suggest you do not start with studying the three volumes of Tillich’s classical “Systematic Theology”, but rather look at his much more concise “The Courage to Be” (Collins, The Fontana library, 1983) discussed by relda, me and others in the above link.

I agree that one needs to clarify what one means by the material world. I described it as everything that can be investigated by science; I do not call it a definition, for reasons explained above. So, of course, this needs further explanation of what knowledge does investigation by science convey.

However, in distinction to God, The Spiritual etc. everybody - theists, atheists, even Buddhist if they don’t ignore science - agrees that it “exists”, although how can science “know it” is a more complicated question of philosophy of science, notably contemporary physics (QM), where it is of secondary importance whether or not you believe that "it is all there is", as Sagan put it. (Presently, I am struggling to understand what Van Fraassen understands by “constructive empiricism” - in distinction to “scientific realism” - since his conclusions, that even a philosophical dilettante like me can understand, are close to mine.)

Also, I should stress that by science I always mean natural science as I think is implicit in English; so I was also surprised, to find the Department of Psychology (but not Sociology) belong to the Faculty of Science in my Australian University.

>>The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao” etc.
Compare with the Western ““What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent” (Ludwig Wittgenstein) or “Ein begriffener Gott ist kein Gott”, something like “A conceptualized God is no God” (Gerhard Tersteegen, an 18th century German protestant mystic). Maybe your rejection of God as what you call a “thing” is not unlike Tersteegen’s rejection of God as “conceptualized”.

I agree with Lexi that this has become a very interesting discussion, even if - as I suspect, though it cannot be helped - we often speak past each other.

the crux of the current issue is that george is right
""we often speak past each other.""

so lets agree that this difference..isnt as important as that with which we agree[i was going to write conqure]..but words with big numbers of letters..to often have a narrow definition..[of exclusive and often tribal signification..in trying to avoid over comlication

this brings us back to sign or symbol

[the image in my mind mow is mary;symbol/image or sign
yet under it all just..another huh?-man mother
[most certainly..NOT the mother of god]

i was going to point out that the 'a course in miracles'
channeled by an athiest jewess...from jesus himself
spends much time with L-earning..not naming things

[not prejudging...'things'..
by according them..with a name]

i coverd that in depth..years ago
further here..[at olo]

as well as here..[where it begun]
http://www.celestinevision.com/celestine/forum/viewforum.php?f=29&sid=0081426e00b9c1b956d85b8e1ccf0a19

or rather here
http://www.celestinevision.com/celestine/forum/viewtopic.php?t=784

but as im banned for life...there
im doing it here/now...but over trying to start all over again

people will believe as they believe
religion is embedded..within your id
right in the place..god is meant to be..for too many
as well as dead dying or dormant..

where others refuse to see
the one god..for the forrests of religeons..

[all religeon are like many well's..
[all drawing the same waters from the one water source]
the one..*source of ALL life..sustaining the living with*in us all*

ahhhh...men
know what you are being
is the first step to finding out who is doing it