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/lit/ - Literature

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6535608 No.6535608 [Reply] [Original]

What would the consequences of philosophy be if a giant man appeared in the Sky above us all, lit up the night sky in all the places it was dark and announced: 'I am God, I exist' and all those who heard it, heard those words in their own language and then he disappeared.

Would you become a believer?

>> No.6535619

>>6535608

I dunno. It could have been an alien or a wizard.

>> No.6535659

>>6535619
God is basically a wizard.

>> No.6535680

Obviously, who wouldn't

It would be bad news tho, imagine the eternal damnation following it. Nothing like a chilly calm warm bed on non existance

>> No.6535691

>>6535680
>imagine the eternal damnation following it

Well how do we know if we're damned or not? Maybe this is a happy God who lets us all go to heaven in the end? He didn't say which religion is the right one. Maybe he should've elected a prophet or something instead of just saying, I exist, because that doesn't bring too much guidance in life now that I think about it.

>> No.6535694

>>6535680
it doesn't prove that it's the God of any religion, it doesn't disprove solipsism and all that shit, it isn't necessarily even a God if it were 'true'

>> No.6535759

it would be interesting to see if several generations after such a revelation how many people would believe the witnesses, wouldn't it?

someone mentioning that God is basically a wizard or giant sky man has me thinking about the ways we understand God

we use terms like King, lamb, shepherd, Son, etc to gain an insight into what has been revealed to us by God

God isn't a lamb, God isn't a King, and God isn't a son or a father, or even a man or a woman for that matter, these are simply terms we use to better understand God.

words like infinite, eternal, aseity, phrases like "ground of Being", these are nearly as impossible to wrap our minds around as God is

you have to decide for yourself whether God was among us as a man or further, is still among us in whatever form we believe God is in, whether that's unconditional love, a sacrament, etc.

i'm always surprised how many people, Christians or otherwise, don't understand even the basic concept of things like the trinity, or have even ever asked themselves "what do we mean by calling Jesus the Son of God?" people assume it's meant literally that Jesus is the offspring of God, when the Sonship is historically a play on Roman assertion that Caesar was the Son of God, or that men of power and ruling were the Sons of God, ordained by God or the gods to power and glory. when the first century christians declared Jesus the Son of God, what they meant by it was that Christ perfectly manifested obedience and fulfillment of the law of God, and that he, a peasant tekton, rather than the roman emperor or any other man of power, was the true Son of God, and more than that, God himself. this denial of the authority of men of power made them a dangerous and easy scapegoat.

i also see sometimes that some christians or otherwise in never attempt to consider the nature of the trinity, and so believe in three gods.

there's a dialectical nature between Being, which is what God is, Wisdom, which is what God has, and Geist or Spirit, which is what God eternally becomes. it's like water in the three states of ice, fluid, and vapor. all are water. however the water example is faulty because God never changes.

>> No.6535899

>>6535608
God isn't a giant man though. No religions claim he is.

>> No.6535919

>>6535899
Mormons or scientologists, I can't remember which, believe god is a ten foot tall blue alien who lives on a planet on the other side of the galaxy and is able to be contacted only from a secret room in Salt Lake City.

>> No.6535922

>>6535899
I didn't say it was a God presumptuous friend

>> No.6535925

>>6535608
wouldn't make any difference, the lives of religious people are still stupid to me and don't interest me in the slightest

>> No.6535930

>>6535608
>Would you become a believer?
Believer of what? He didn't tell me what religion

>> No.6536041

>>6535930
in God you mong

>> No.6536049

>>6536041
what good is just believing in God? I gotta get on this guy's good-side and that means believing in his religion.

>> No.6536060

>>6536049
as you seemed to recognise, he didn't give any info or reason you have to get on his good books, he isn't necessarily even God, could be a bullshitter

>> No.6537052
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6537052

That fantasy you bring into discussion talks from a point of divergence between the metaphysical, spiritual, abstract, internal world and a external and rigid material world, that is above all, public, accessible and exerting power over our weak minds. The assumption that this is a way to legitimize God's existence is charged with the weight of a given kind of faith, the faith that an ultimate truth comes from the sky and speaks our language and that we, as the whole humanity, will look at each other afterwards and understand that every other person has seen and understood the same. A faith that can be found in certain astrologers, astronomers and priests alike.

"In our own language" you say we'd hear God's words. But isn't our language solely ours to some extent? How would it be different if God spoke in only one of the many languages? So that a single person or a certain people or a family or a nation would understand him, but everyone else would hear strange words coming from God's mouth. And if it did speak in every language, would I still accept the way in which the other expressed the sight of the giant man in the sky? Wouldn't we talk about it in different ways? So there can't be a way for it to be in all languages. To say that God spoke in all languages is the same as to say that humanity understands itself completely, absolutely. Redemption of Babel. For what you really want to say when you say that he would appear in the sky, is that there would be no distinction between my experience and yours. Language is not solely in ourselves, but it is not something external to us, it is this very link of communication, guided by conventional rule that show us we are together.

Consider instead, what would happen if on a certain night, every person, instead of looking to the skies, looked within and fell into themselves for a moment. Consider that deep inside, underneath the several layers of all the ordinary thoughts and sensations, this overwhelming knowledge emerged, in absolute clarity, moving all the other relationships that guided you so far in its path and that, as it came up, you knew there was God. If that happened, wouldn't that make everyone a believer by definition of the event itself? How would that scenario work?

While taking into consideration that the God that descends from the sky and speaks our very language is synonymous with the unification of all the unique people and their languages, couldn't we rearrange that in saying that where we understand each other, there is God? The point of agreement itself, the coincident, simultaneous dot that makes you believe you can speak with me and hear my words and that we are understanding each other.

cont

>> No.6537060
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6537060

>>6537052 cont

If you take that scenario of God's descent and alter to an ordinary situation, what does it change? What are the consequences in philosophy of the blue sky, two plus two, night and day, people breathing, talking, walking...? Aren't we talking about these wonderful and terrifying ordinary things in the same way that we would if talking about God's descent? In constant rearrangement, never satisfied, with always something else to say, some new way to talk about it, with shifting signifiers and meanings, disagreement, followed by agreement and a new disagreement later on. Isn't it the same with everything else?

To some, a God spoken through language is distorted, because a conceptualization of the human mind cannot match God. This is the external God in the skies and the God that is an essence that produces the world (to which we have access and thus, language). But the essence that constitutes the world cannot be a product itself, so it cannot be in the same level of understanding of the physical material world, it is not a world before a world, but a simulatenous all prevailing stimulus that ignites the world in meaning like a lightbulb. This light would be the light of language itself, not the raw matter of the world, but the one that blows life in the nostrils of nothingness to create the world. A relationship of meaning and all the game of authority that comes with it.

TL;DR God is language itself.

>> No.6537776

>>6535608
I would take as a working hypothesis the idea that there was a being with enough power to create such an illusion, and wait for further events. I wouldn't assume he was some already-worshipped deity, or fall down and worship him. What do you mean by "believer"? Why should I worship someone, or obey them, simply because they made a display of power or technology? Out of fear? From some equating of inhuman abilities with moral superiority? I really don't understand theists at all. Good grief.

>> No.6537915

I believe god does not exist

if that happened, and it has basically happen while I was on drugs, but if it happened sober I would probably think god existed and read a lot more theolgy

>> No.6538245

>>6535899
>And God created man in his own image

>> No.6538260

>>6538245
>what is metaphor

>> No.6538269

>>>/x/
>>>/x/
>>>/x/

>> No.6538673

>fuck off god you aint the boss of me
>gets smited
still got muh principles though, fuck authority

>> No.6538968

>>6535608
I would believe I was schizophrenic.

>> No.6539057

There's a good reason why God hasn't done this.

A lot of people would just deny that it happened. A thousand d sects would arise to try and explain it. Every religion would try to make it fit their own. It wouldn't do any good. Even if He said specifically, "I am God, become a A Catholic to be saved, it is the one true Church", people would say that the devil had spoken who didn't want to convert.

>> No.6539061

as kierkegaard said "God turns water into wine, but the true miracle is that he turns sinners into saints"

>> No.6539080

Just hearing that wouldn't be sufficient epistemic grounds for accepting the existence of [insert preferred deity here]. If it came down doing amazing shit and answering the questions of the smartest scientists, philosophers (and maybe theologians) for a considerable amount of time then it wouldn't be belief anymore.

Belief is by its very definition and nature ungrounded and irrational.

>> No.6539082

>>6539057
I think a Catholic thinker once said that no one should ever heed visions, because if it isn't God you fucked up and if it is God you'll fuck up the message.

>> No.6539091

>>6535919
That's Mormons. I'm pretty sure that Scientologists don't have a God figure.

>> No.6539170

>>6535608
Believer of what ?
>Damn there are a thousand religions i could believe in.
>SHIT this fucker did not mention that

>> No.6539179

>>6535608
>I am god, I exist
With the second half of the sentence being redundant, I strongly doubt the veracity of the first half. God disconfirmed.

>> No.6539191

>>6535608

The fact that he was a giant man would suggest to me that he was not an infinite, totally simple being of pure actuality, meaning he isn't God as far as I'm concerned. Could be some crazy warlock, I would play D&D with him I guess.

>> No.6539379

>>6537776
i mean 'believer' when i say 'believer' i.e. you believe in God. I didn't say anything about worshipping him

>> No.6539382

>>6539170
in God you fucking idiot

>> No.6539383

>>6535608
>2015 these questions

>> No.6539384

>>6539179
Remember his audience, sometimes you gotta spell shit out.

>> No.6539389

>>6539179
not really, he's just saying it in order to hint at the idea that he's aware that people are unsure and that perhaps he's watching over us all. Could be bullshitting though

>> No.6539391

>>6539191
If he is all that, then he's been so all along without everyone noticing. Why would everyone suddenly notice if all he did was continue in his earlier guise?

>> No.6539424

What would the consequences for philosophy be if giant Snoop Dogg appeared in the skies?

>> No.6539430

>>6539424
increase in rastafarianism

>> No.6539452

>>6535608
>giant man
Well for one feminist theology would be btfo.

>> No.6539456
File: 15 KB, 280x210, 1430966217868.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6539456

>>6539452
>implying it was anything but blasphemous to begin with

>> No.6539470

>>6539379
Usually the phrase "a believer" implies worship, but a giant man saying "I am God" hardly tells us much. It would certainly be entertaining, at least. I would believe something had happened, if the reports were global.

>> No.6539755

>>6537060
>>6537052
Good posts.

>> No.6541128

>>6539383
so how does it feel to be living in the future

>> No.6541153

>>6539456
>bu-bu-but, muh Tiamat

>> No.6542362
File: 71 KB, 500x400, dnd-comic35.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6542362

>>6539191
I like the cut of your jib, sir. Seconded.

>> No.6542381

>>6538245
>God can't run as fast, or see as well, or swim as well, or hear as well, or smell as well, as some of his own creations

ffs god why are you so shitty

>> No.6542398

>>6535608
>Would you become a believer?
No. Clarke's Third Law, it could just be some ridiculously advanced alien asshole fucking with people.