On Aug 10, 7:38 am, "John Mikes" <jami....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
> Tom, please see after your quoted text.
> John M
>
> On Sat, Aug 9, 2008 at 3:44 AM, Tom Caylor <daddycay....domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
> > I believe that nature is not primarily functional. It is primarily
> > beautiful.
> > And this from a theist? Yes! This is actually to the core point of
> > why I am a theist. I don't blame people for not believing in God if
> > they think God is about functionality.
>
> > Tom
> > -------------------------------------
>
> JM:
> And how, pray, would you sense (acknowledge?) beauty without
> function(ality)?
> *
This question is asking, in terms of functionality, using the
functionality word "how", "how" would I sense/acknowledge
(functionally) a hypothetically fundamental/primary thing (like
beauty). I agree that any answer to this would be nonsensical. (I
think this is why quantum mechanics is nonsensical.) But this does
not imply that beauty is not primary. (And by the way I am not saying
that there is no relationship between beauty and functionality.)
> You have all the right to be a theist and formulate your 'theos' anyway you
> wish for yourself. IMO people 'not believeing in God' do not "think" that
> this nonexisting concept is about anything. It "IS" not.
> Just trying to read you within my logic. (Common sense that is).
> Greetings
> John M
Let me rephrase my statement for two different hypothetical cases:
1. If God does not exist, this does not imply that concepts of God do
not exist, but that they are just incorrect (all of them in this
case). So when I say, "I don't blame people for not believing in God
if they think God is about functionality," the words "they think" in
this case would refer to a concept of God that they have, and what I
meant in this case was that I don't blame them for not giving a mental
assent to those concepts of God.
2. If God does exist, but someone's concept of God is different from
the actual God, then similarly I don't blame them for not giving a
mental assent to those wrong concepts of God. If God does exist, then
God is more than a concept. So in that case, in fact believing in God
would amount to something far more and far different from a mental
assent to a concept of God.
You can substitute for the word "God", in all of the above, the words
"the knowable fundamental Truth/Essence of Everything" and it will
also apply.
So what I was getting at is this. I think that a concept of God (or
the knowable fundamental Truth/Essence of Everything) that is based
fundamentally on functionality is indeed a very unappealing (should I
dare say un-beautiful?) concept of God (or the knowable fundamental
Truth/Essence of Everything). In fact, it seems to fly in the face of
Occam's Razor. Functionality is a very complex thing. Occam's Razor
is about the fact that beauty/elegance/simplicity seems to be at the
core of the truth about things.
Tom
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Received on Mon Aug 11 2008 - 02:51:38 PDT