my "philosophy" as a humanist

[Rhythmcs]

...all because someone decided to mount a doomed objection, that they don't even believe in, to an ethical philosophy that they very likely do.

Reminds me of some moocher you've evicted wandering around the place claiming all the stuff before their 30days is up. "This is mine, that's mine, nope, you can't have that!" on and on. The sink isn't yours just because you used it.

[Cavebear]

...all because someone decided to mount a doomed objection, that they don't even believe in, to an ethical philosophy that they very likely do.

Reminds me of some moocher you've evicted wandering around the place claiming all the stuff before their 30days is up.  "This is mine, that's mine, nope, you can't have that!"  on and on.  The sink isn't yours just because you used it.

I don't really understand what you were getting at there. Could you elaborate please?

[Rhythmcs]

Sure.

The italian renaissance followed up on the work of medieval monks who had turned to pre-christian classical antiquity as an ad hoc justification of their beliefs. This same catholic church who had, by accidents of history and geography, come to lay claim to the cultural inheritance of the empire it now turned to for the imprimatur of intellectualism. The core of humanism as it was then conceived was the belief of the great value in classical works. You can see it all over the walls, so it's hard to miss. At the height of catholic christendom in western history christians - all the way up to saints and popes- were all about some humanism. Coincidentally, this produced characters like Erasmus - the origin of many protestant ideas and even the printed bible that Martin Luther used to translate to german. Erasmus, they say, laid the egg that Luther hatched. Christians were encouraged by those same humanist principles to think for themselves rather than accept the authority of tradition and they saw a period of furious ideological divergence up to and including contemporary protestantism in the us. Humanism has been flourishing within christianity and enriching christianity for centuries.

There is no contemporary christian alive whose beliefs have not been touched, and deeply, by humanist thinking - both historically, and in the post-christian present. In their own lives. Now, though...and just like the catholics before them, they're squatters laying sole claim to the validity of those principles. As if, without some ghost, all of that content which they themselves have expounded upon at length and premised their doctrinal faiths upon was just, like...opinions, man.

[SYZ]

Incorrect.  Skepticism is pretty well, but not totally defined, by those
two statements...

...Question: do you think that real knowledge is scientific (empirical) knowledge—that there is no rational, objective form of inquiry that is not a branch of science? If not, what constitutes real knowledge?

Any "real" knowledge can be defined as "justified true belief".
That is, a set of requirements which guarantee that the truth,
belief, and justification conditions are not accidentally conjoined.

Incidentally, one cannot know things that are not true even if the
corresponding belief is justified and well-reasoned.

To date, there is no justification in (allegedly) having knowledge
of God's existence, just as there is no rationale to believe so. In
fact any so-called belief in the paranormal is purely subjective,
and always will be—well, that is until and IF we find it does in fact exist.

Anyway... yes, I do believe that there are objective "forms" of
enquiry beyond the purview of science.  Makes perfect sense.

[Dānu]

...Question: do you think that real knowledge is scientific (empirical) knowledge—that there is no rational, objective form of inquiry that is not a branch of science? If not, what constitutes real knowledge?

Any "real" knowledge can be defined as "justified true belief".
That is, a set of requirements which guarantee that the truth,
belief, and justification conditions are not accidentally conjoined.

Incidentally, one cannot know things that are not true even if the
corresponding belief is justified and well-reasoned.

To date, there is no justification in (allegedly) having knowledge
of God's existence, just as there is no rationale to believe so. In
fact any so-called belief in the paranormal is purely subjective,
and always will be—well, that is until and IF we find it does in fact exist.

Anyway... yes, I do believe that there are objective "forms" of
enquiry beyond the purview of science.   Makes perfect sense.

It's not clear how and to what extent the condition that the conditions are not accidentally conjoined works. There's much room for debate on that point.

[Paleophyte]

Nope. God is ineffable, so when you say "Goddunnit" what you're really saying is "I have no fucking clue". Do we need to delve into why "I have no fucking clue" is not an explanation?

in·ef·fa·ble
/inˈefəb(ə)l/
adjective
too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words.

You comment is obviously wrong because the 66 books of the Bible seek to express and describe God, his nature, his plan, and our place in relation to him. Literally hundreds and hundreds of passages do exactly the opposite you claim.

Try the search term "Ineffable God" to see just how epic your fail is. Even the Catholics and Protestants seem to agree on that one. The TL;DR is that you're just a mortal rambling incoherently about the infinite and incomprehensible. All of those books and passages are for naught.

[Cavebear]

Sure.  

The italian renaissance followed up on the work of medieval monks who had turned to pre-christian classical antiquity as an ad hoc justification of their beliefs.  This same catholic church who had, by accidents of history and geography, come to lay claim to the cultural inheritance of the empire it now turned to for the imprimatur of intellectualism.   The core of humanism as it was then conceived was the belief of the great value in classical works.  You can see it all over the walls, so it's hard to miss.  At the height of catholic christendom in western history christians - all the way up to saints and popes- were all about some humanism.  Coincidentally, this produced characters like Erasmus - the origin of many protestant ideas and even the printed bible that Martin Luther used to translate to german.  Erasmus, they say, laid the egg that Luther hatched.  Christians were encouraged by those same humanist principles to think for themselves rather than accept the authority of tradition and they saw a period of furious ideological divergence up to and including contemporary protestantism in the us.  Humanism has been flourishing within christianity and enriching christianity for centuries.

There is no contemporary christian alive whose beliefs have not been touched, and deeply, by humanist thinking - both historically, and in the post-christian present.  In their own lives.  Now, though...and just like the catholics before them, they're squatters laying sole claim to the validity of those principles.  As if, without some ghost, all of that content which they themselves have expounded upon at length and premised their doctrinal faiths upon was just, like...opinions, man.

Outstanding reply! I knew most of that (generally), of course, but I didn't quite make the connection from your post. You elaborated wonderfully. And even if that had been a stand-alone post, it was impressive.

[Deesse23]

Steve's imaginary God is effable.
I can conceive of an ineffable god. My ineffable god is more powerful than Steve's effable one. If it exists in one possible world, then.....well you know the exercise.

The funny part is: I am using Steve's "logic". So Steve's just proved Steve's God wrong, by Steve's logic. Unfortunately he is too ignorant to ever realize

[SteveII]

in·ef·fa·ble
/inˈefəb(ə)l/
adjective
too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words.

You comment is obviously wrong because the 66 books of the Bible seek to express and describe God, his nature, his plan, and our place in relation to him. Literally hundreds and hundreds of passages do exactly the opposite you claim.

Try the search term "Ineffable God" to see just how epic your fail is. Even the Catholics and Protestants seem to agree on that one. The TL;DR is that you're just a mortal rambling incoherently about the infinite and incomprehensible. All of those books and passages are for naught.

Did you read your link? Not one mention of 'ineffable' other than the title, nor any attempt to define it in a 150 year old Catholic document patting itself on the back about how important it was. Was there a specific passage you wanted to highlight perhaps or do you want to attempt to tie it back to the 66 books who's purpose seems to reveal God (the exact opposite of 'ineffable')?

I think you think the added bluster like "epic fail" and "rambling incoherently" somehow makes your argument go from being groundless and silly to being insightful and serious. That's not how this works.

[SteveII]

deleted duplicate post

[Paleophyte]

Try the search term "Ineffable God" to see just how epic your fail is. Even the Catholics and Protestants seem to agree on that one. The TL;DR is that you're just a mortal rambling incoherently about the infinite and incomprehensible. All of those books and passages are for naught.

Did you read your link? Not one mention of 'ineffable' other than the title, nor any attempt to define it in a 150 year old Catholic document patting itself on the back about how important it was. Was there a specific passage you wanted to highlight perhaps or do you want to attempt to tie it back to the 66 books who's purpose seems to reveal God (the exact opposite of 'ineffable')?

I think you think the added bluster like "epic fail" and "rambling incoherently" somehow makes your argument go from being groundless and silly to being insightful and serious. That's not how this works.

You'd think that the title would have been enough to prompt you to check into it, but let's go to the Authority itself.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV

Or are you suggesting that you can plumb the depths of The Creator's mind? If not then you're back to ineffability and a complete lack of explanatory power. If yes then you're stuck in epic fail and incoherent rambling and we're laughing at your claim.

[SYZ]

Try the search term "Ineffable God" to see just how epic your fail is. Even the Catholics and Protestants seem to agree on that one. The TL;DR is that you're just a mortal rambling incoherently about the infinite and incomprehensible. All of those books and passages are for naught.

Did you read your link? Not one mention of 'ineffable' other than the title, nor any attempt to define it in a 150 year old Catholic document patting itself on the back about how important it was. Was there a specific passage you wanted to highlight perhaps or do you want to attempt to tie it back to the 66 books who's purpose seems to reveal God (the exact opposite of 'ineffable')?

I think you think the added bluster like "epic fail" and "rambling incoherently" somehow makes your argument go from being groundless and silly to being insightful and serious. That's not how this works.

The linked 170-year-old (!) Papal document is not worth the parchment
it was written on.  Apart from the fact it blindly (or deliberately?) relies on
an increasing succession of non sequiturs in order to substantiate itself
in the eyes of the fearful, superstitious, and ill-educated church congregation,
it has no merit in an enlightened, scientifically sophisticated first-world society.

At any rate, God or gods are in actuality ineffable.  And we've challenged
Steve numerous times in this very thread to define his god in plain English.

Which has created a major dilemma for him:  He, by the force of logic, has to
claim that his god is effable [being able to be described in words]
but at the same time also apparently claiming to be unable to do so.

   The classic rock and a hard place.     

[SteveII]

Did you read your link? Not one mention of 'ineffable' other than the title, nor any attempt to define it in a 150 year old Catholic document patting itself on the back about how important it was. Was there a specific passage you wanted to highlight perhaps or do you want to attempt to tie it back to the 66 books who's purpose seems to reveal God (the exact opposite of 'ineffable')?

I think you think the added bluster like "epic fail" and "rambling incoherently" somehow makes your argument go from being groundless and silly to being insightful and serious. That's not how this works.

You'd think that the title would have been enough to prompt you to check into it, but let's go to the Authority itself.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV

Or are you suggesting that you can plumb the depths of The Creator's mind? If not then you're back to ineffability and a complete lack of explanatory power. If yes then you're stuck in epic fail and incoherent rambling and we're laughing at your claim.

in·ef·fa·ble
/inˈefəb(ə)l/
adjective
too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words.

There is rich irony in that you quote a verse from a passage where God's interaction with Israel is being 'expressed and described in words'. Here's the context the passage you quoted from:

Isaiah 55:3 Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. 4Behold, I have given him for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people. 5Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the LORD thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee.

6Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: 7let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. 9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

I would remind you that in your response to my claim that God could be an explanation and is not necessarily inexplicable, you said "Nope. God is ineffable, so when you say "Goddunnit" what you're really saying is "I have no fucking clue". Do we need to delve into why "I have no fucking clue" is not an explanation?"

In Orthodox Christian doctrine, while there is an acknowledgment of the mystery and transcendence of God, the term "ineffable" is not commonly used to describe Him. Instead, Orthodox theology emphasizes the incomprehensibility of God, meaning that while we can know Him truly, we can never fully understand or articulate the totality of His being.

A more appropriate word to describe the understanding of God might be "incomprehensible" or "transcendent." These terms convey the idea that God surpasses human understanding and cannot be fully grasped by finite minds. They emphasize the reverence and awe that accompanies the recognition of God's greatness and otherness, while also acknowledging the limitations of human language and intellect in describing Him.

In case you prefer the 'Authority' to my arguments:

Genesis 1:1: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."
This verse highlights God's creative power and action, suggesting that He is not ineffable but actively involved in the world.

Psalm 19:1: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands."
The universe itself testifies to God's existence and nature, implying that He is knowable rather than ineffable.

John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
God is revealed through Jesus Christ, who is described as the Word. This implies that God is not ineffable but can be understood through His revelation.

Romans 1:20: "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."
Similar to Psalm 19:1, this verse suggests that God's nature is evident through His creation, indicating that He is not ineffable.

Matthew 11:27: "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
Jesus claims to reveal the Father, indicating that God is not ineffable but can be known through Christ.

1 Corinthians 2:10-11: "These are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God."
God's thoughts and nature are accessible through His Spirit, suggesting that He is not ineffable but reveals Himself to us.

Colossians 1:15: "The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation."
Jesus Christ is described as the image of God, indicating that God is not completely hidden but can be seen through Christ.

Hebrews 1:1-2: "In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe."
God has spoken to humanity through various means, culminating in His revelation through Jesus Christ, indicating that He is not ineffable but communicative.

John 14:9: "Jesus answered: 'Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?'"
Jesus equates seeing Him with seeing the Father, implying that God is not ineffable but revealed through Christ.

1 John 4:9: "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him."
God's love is demonstrated through the sending of His Son, indicating that He is not ineffable but reveals Himself through His actions.

Ephesians 1:9: "He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ."
God's will is made known to us through Christ, suggesting that He is not ineffable but reveals His plans to humanity.

2 Timothy 1:9: "He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time."
God's grace and purpose are revealed through Jesus Christ, indicating that He is not ineffable but actively involved in human affairs.

John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
God's love for humanity is demonstrated through the sacrifice of His Son, suggesting that He is not ineffable but intimately involved with His creation.

1 John 4:8: "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."
God's essence is described as love, indicating that He is not ineffable but characterized by His loving nature.

Psalm 145:9: "The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made."
God's goodness and compassion are evident in His dealings with humanity, suggesting that He is not ineffable but knowable through His actions.

James 1:17: "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."
God's consistency and generosity in giving good gifts suggest that He is not ineffable but actively involved in blessing His creation.

Jeremiah 29:11: "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"
God's plans for humanity are known and communicated, indicating that He is not ineffable but actively engaged in guiding His people.

Matthew 28:20: "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
Jesus promises His continual presence with His followers, suggesting that God is not ineffable but actively involved in the lives of believers.

Hebrews 13:5: "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'"
God's faithfulness to His promises assures believers of His continual presence and care, indicating that He is not ineffable but actively involved in their lives.

Psalm 34:8: "Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him."
This verse encourages personal experience of God's goodness, suggesting that He is not ineffable but can be known through direct encounter and relationship.

[SteveII]

Did you read your link? Not one mention of 'ineffable' other than the title, nor any attempt to define it in a 150 year old Catholic document patting itself on the back about how important it was. Was there a specific passage you wanted to highlight perhaps or do you want to attempt to tie it back to the 66 books who's purpose seems to reveal God (the exact opposite of 'ineffable')?

I think you think the added bluster like "epic fail" and "rambling incoherently" somehow makes your argument go from being groundless and silly to being insightful and serious. That's not how this works.

At any rate, God or gods are in actuality ineffable.  And we've challenged
Steve numerous times in this very thread to define his god in plain English.

Which has created a major dilemma for him:  He, by the force of logic, has to
claim that his god is effable [being able to be described in words]
but at the same time also apparently claiming to be unable to do so.

   The classic rock and a hard place.     

Not at all. See my response just above.

[Rhythmcs]

The classic rock and a hard place.     

Humanism strikes again.  

In old magic book god is effable and contractual - as steve so helpfully demonstrates with his snippet.  Orthodoxy and orthopraxy are combined to effect a sort of divine legalism.  Those medieval monks I'd mentioned before, having decided to hitch their wagon to classical antiquity, were deeply moved by the late pagan understanding of divinity and had come, like them, to lump such beliefs about gods into two basic categories.  Base superstition, and some incomplete attribute of The All....depending..ofc...on whether or not said belief accorded with their own.   Thomism becomes scholasticism, but ends up being abandoned by christianity around the 17th century as orthodoxy and orthopraxy are decoupled.  The project to create a natural theology had failed.  For about two centuries christianity turned to idealism, but beginning in the 19th it came to be believed by christian academia that the faith could be defended by returning to the realism of aristotle and saint tom.  Particularly in that the new aim of the intellectuals was a moral theology, as opposed to a natural one - having accepted and included moral critiques of natural order as more or less true, and social critiques of christianity as practiced as more or less true - depending on whether or not they were catholics or protestants.  Bringing us up to the present day, third thomism and christian realism, respectively.  

Thus it comes to pass that rationalists and realists are saddled with ineffability and subjectivism as a consequence of a social disagreement between long dead people and nothing else and...in turn, have re-returned to a natural theology, abandoning the moral field. Try try again, I guess.

[Paleophyte]

There is rich irony in that you quote a verse from a passage where God's interaction with Israel is being 'expressed and described in words'.

I did mention that it was a collection of incoherent scribblings of iron age primitives trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.

But let's keep this really simple. Answer me one question.

What colour are god's eyes?