Thursday, February 10, 2005
Types of existence. Gad.
As Zisser writes in his blog:
"For some people, it's a fact that God exists. For others, it's a fact that God doesn't. Athiests might say that to bring your kids up without religion should be the status quo, because there is no God and we're merely telling them the truth. Deeply religious folks would probably say that they're merely instilling the truth in their kids. It's as true for them that God exists as it is for me and most people that women and men are equal, or that concrete is hard."
Personally, I do not think it is a supportable way of thinking about God, that It might be "as real as" the hardness of concrete.
Certainly the believers must make some ontological concessions when explaining their faith.
It's just a question of whether these concessions need to be 'sideways' or 'downwards'. A 'downwards' concession would mean that a believer is operating, more or less, on an assumption of hierarchy in the cosmos--like the Great Chain of Being. That is, this believer would feel that she 'demotes' God to say that he is not "as real as" your textbook or your french fries. I have a certain degree of sympathy for this. Many of us are taught never to associate any sort of negativity with God...that is, many of us are taught to respond defensively to any idea involving the syntactical structures "God canNOT" or "God is NOT". So in order to avoid making God someone who CAN'T do something or who ISN'T something (regardless of what that "something" is), people will take the easy out of saying, "Nuh uh. He's as real as anything in the world, including my Converse All-Stars. With hearts drawn on them in ballpoint pen."
I prefer the poetry and dignity of the 'sideways' concession, by which I mean to name the process of analyzing without hierarchizing. In short, separating without ranking. In terms of God and Its being 'real', for example, a believer in God could say "sure, It's real. God is real. But he's not real in the same way that your trendy bracelet is, or you are, or your love for dating shows is." This is an elegant step--maybe a bit of an evasion, too, since it spuriously expands the definition of 'real'--but it WORKS. It gives the materialists the satisfaction that God isn't in the MATERIAL realm of 'reality', and it gives the believers the right to say "GOD IS REAL!! (but you have to grant It a parallel reality of Its own)."
The only people who are screwed are the English professors (who insist that we must use language carefully). And I can live with that.
If anything, I think believers concede a valuable element of their faith (if and) when they insist that God IS as real as material objects. To me, one strength of faith is precisely its root in that which is ontologically unsupported. Now THAT's a cool God, something that can be real without being measurable or tactile in ANY way.
We would be irresponsible to assign all elements of the cosmos to merely two states of 'realness' (material v. not). I suggest a spectrum, for starters. Surely you wouldn't claim that blue jeans are every bit as real as your future white hairs. Surely my idea about distributing rubber bands with "Ze Deficit" written on them (for people to wear in mockery of wristband activism) isn't as real as my mama's love for me. They're different types of things. Why would they be equally real? Perhaps I treat them as equally real, but that is a maneuver I use because I haven't any other tactics.
Of course, this whole brain exercise rests upon simple dualities of 'real' vs. 'not real', 'worldly' vs. 'heavenly', and other intellectual Duplo blocks. Cut me some slack. I'm 22 and I haven't finished "Macbeth" yet.
And I didn't even consider the 'quotidian God' hypothesis that pleases me most. And you thought you knew me well.
Hope you're well--Saqib
"For some people, it's a fact that God exists. For others, it's a fact that God doesn't. Athiests might say that to bring your kids up without religion should be the status quo, because there is no God and we're merely telling them the truth. Deeply religious folks would probably say that they're merely instilling the truth in their kids. It's as true for them that God exists as it is for me and most people that women and men are equal, or that concrete is hard."
Personally, I do not think it is a supportable way of thinking about God, that It might be "as real as" the hardness of concrete.
Certainly the believers must make some ontological concessions when explaining their faith.
It's just a question of whether these concessions need to be 'sideways' or 'downwards'. A 'downwards' concession would mean that a believer is operating, more or less, on an assumption of hierarchy in the cosmos--like the Great Chain of Being. That is, this believer would feel that she 'demotes' God to say that he is not "as real as" your textbook or your french fries. I have a certain degree of sympathy for this. Many of us are taught never to associate any sort of negativity with God...that is, many of us are taught to respond defensively to any idea involving the syntactical structures "God canNOT" or "God is NOT". So in order to avoid making God someone who CAN'T do something or who ISN'T something (regardless of what that "something" is), people will take the easy out of saying, "Nuh uh. He's as real as anything in the world, including my Converse All-Stars. With hearts drawn on them in ballpoint pen."
I prefer the poetry and dignity of the 'sideways' concession, by which I mean to name the process of analyzing without hierarchizing. In short, separating without ranking. In terms of God and Its being 'real', for example, a believer in God could say "sure, It's real. God is real. But he's not real in the same way that your trendy bracelet is, or you are, or your love for dating shows is." This is an elegant step--maybe a bit of an evasion, too, since it spuriously expands the definition of 'real'--but it WORKS. It gives the materialists the satisfaction that God isn't in the MATERIAL realm of 'reality', and it gives the believers the right to say "GOD IS REAL!! (but you have to grant It a parallel reality of Its own)."
The only people who are screwed are the English professors (who insist that we must use language carefully). And I can live with that.
If anything, I think believers concede a valuable element of their faith (if and) when they insist that God IS as real as material objects. To me, one strength of faith is precisely its root in that which is ontologically unsupported. Now THAT's a cool God, something that can be real without being measurable or tactile in ANY way.
We would be irresponsible to assign all elements of the cosmos to merely two states of 'realness' (material v. not). I suggest a spectrum, for starters. Surely you wouldn't claim that blue jeans are every bit as real as your future white hairs. Surely my idea about distributing rubber bands with "Ze Deficit" written on them (for people to wear in mockery of wristband activism) isn't as real as my mama's love for me. They're different types of things. Why would they be equally real? Perhaps I treat them as equally real, but that is a maneuver I use because I haven't any other tactics.
Of course, this whole brain exercise rests upon simple dualities of 'real' vs. 'not real', 'worldly' vs. 'heavenly', and other intellectual Duplo blocks. Cut me some slack. I'm 22 and I haven't finished "Macbeth" yet.
And I didn't even consider the 'quotidian God' hypothesis that pleases me most. And you thought you knew me well.
Hope you're well--Saqib
