I do think I will go visit old posts and pick them apart some time in the future. Could be interesting/fun. But I also think I should get things organised in cool new ways that there will be easier access to thet good stuff.

@Kenneth, there is much in my old posts that I also don’t like. But we are in particular talking here about differing world-views, obviously people are not all going to agree, by virtue of them differing.

old posts are your thoughts evolving, be proud of them. they show where you have been. they serve you as a platform to learn form. i think thats why people love browsing archives so much.

The way I see Christ is not as the incarnation of a theistic deity, but as so completely human that he becomes a channel through which the way I define God can live completely and perfectly. So I still have here Christ as “fully divine” and “fully human”, but I get at it in a very different way because I define God as the Source of Life, the Source of Love, the Ground of Being – all my Tillichian stuff comes out here. When I look at Jesus I see a human being that is so fully alive that the Source of Life is visible in him, so loving that the Source of Love is visible in him, so whole, so capable of being himself that the Ground of Being is visible in him. And then I watch him live out a new kind of humanity.

From an interview with John Shelby Spong. Maybe more worth a read for an interesting perspective than my blog…

It basically reduces God…

Now there is the whole problem: reductionistic thinking. The reductionist’s approach to trying to define God is what kills God. That’s one way of approaching life, but it isn’t the only. I’m talking about another way of approaching life, a non-reductionistic one, where the concept of God is very much alive. And such things deal exactly with that “search”, that “journey”, with the God concept. That way of life would be absolutely empty if it were possible to succinctly reduce God to a cute little definition.

I really struggle to see the god of my youth, or the god of most Christians, in what Hugo tries to argue. Hence my original question.

Amen to that… And thanks for your last comment, noted. (And understood.)

Bridge-building aint easy… and I aint the best at it either, but I’m giving it my best shot.

Not a dig at you, Hugo Just a point I thought needed to be made…

I thought you might think that. I don’t think I translated the thought I was having to words as completely as I intended.

I think what I meant was more along the lines of it being somewhat irrelevant trying to label a concept / entity / whatever that has vastly different meanings to different people.

Even sticking one label, let’s say “God is Love” to it, will mean many different things to many different people.

Or perhaps I’m chasing my tail here.

Honestly, I’m not even sure where my tail is right now so I’m just going to bow out of this discussion because it’s getting metaphorically to deep for me to doggy-paddle in…

@Hugo:
Urgh, I read your Dawkins fanboys entry…at the risk of sounding like a “Dawkins fanboy”, I disagree wholeheartedly. In lieu of what is said in the comments, though, I’ll refrain from explaining why, though…we can discuss this tonight.

At the risk of strawmanning your definition, I find the “God is love” and “God is something inside you” arguments unconvincing. It basically reduces God to serotonin.

@Marthèlize

Aren’t you (all of you…maybe I should say “we”…) trying to put a label on a concept / entity / [insert relevant decription here] that isnt quite susceptible to labeling?

If you ascribe any particular aspect to an entity, you are in a sense “putting a label” on it, I would say. You have defined part of it. So to say that “God is love”, or whatever, leaves this statement open to critical analysis.

Merely because everyone does indeed have a different and very personal definition of God / god / higher power (however you want to put it).

True, if you are aware of someone’s ‘definition’ of God, then you have an idea where they’re coming from, and perhaps a greater understanding of their beliefs or convictions.

Errrr…. how did we get to defining God anyway?

Where is this post going?

(And “why am I on a traffic island?!?”)

Hugo, what do you mean when you use the word god? Just a quick and dirty, soundbyte definition.

Wrong question. ;-P Quick and dirty, sound-byte, modernistic… the very question seems incompatible with the idea, so I must apologetically refrain from attempting to do so. I have tried to word some of my thoughts in this regard quite verbosely in the past.

Two somewhat-recent posts do spring to mind:

What is God?: The Personal God
What is God?: The Tribal God

They are not in direct answer to your question though. I am busy writing another post that touches on this topic a little, and there’s probably another couple coming up. There’s the Terry Eagleton review that gives some sense of the nuances/intricacies as well, which I touched on in:

Dawkins Fanboys, Please Read This

That post contains three links that are all somewhat indicative of what it is about.

But, you want quick and dirty… “God is love”? How’s that? Or another quick and dirty: John Shelby Spong suggests “God is something inside you”, if I recall correctly.

The main point is that the concept doesn’t gel well with an excessively modernistic approach to labels and concepts. I’ll try to do a good job of my next post, to give some indication of how the theist views things. Or maybe we can chat tonight, actually. That’s often easier…

1)the supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe; the object of worship in …
2)deity: any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some part of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification of a force

These are, as far as I know, the generally accepted definitions of god for the majority of believers. When you use the word god, that is the definition that comes to my mind. As you mention, that is also the definition that Dawkins is using.

Hugo, what do you mean when you use the word god? Just a quick and dirty, soundbyte definition. That way in future I can try and interpret your statements in light of what you are trying to say, instead of being caught up in my definitions. I get really confused when trying to parse what you mean when you use this word.

Marthelize, it is basically his standard tirade against supernaturalism. At around the 8 minute mark, he explains nicely what kind of god he is talking about:

I need to make it clear the god I’m talking about is a personal, intelligent, creative being, like Yahweh, Allah, Bael, Wotan, Zeus, or Lord Krishna. But if, by “God”, you mean something else, if by God you mean nature, goodness, the universe, the laws of physics, the spirit of humanity, Planck’s constant, then we’re going to be talking at cross purposes.

An American student asked her professor whether he had a view about me. “Sure,” he replied. “He’s positive science is incompatible with religion, but he waxes ecstatic about nature and the universe. To me, that IS religion.” To him, that is. If that’s what you choose to mean by religion, fine. That would make ME, a religious man. But if your god is a being who designs universes, listens to prayers, forgives sins, wreaks miracles, reads thoughts, cares about your wellfare, raises you from the dead, cares about your sex life, then you are unlikely to be satisfied. [Ed: by the book?]

It is a response to fundamentalism, and I’m sure it works for some. Brian McLaren suggested that the step to “no faith” is an improvement on “bad faith” — but that maybe “good faith” is better than “no faith”. On this blog I’m mostly contemplating what “good faith” would be, discussing a God that does exist rather than one that does not, and I’m trying to build some bridges between different world-views to aid understanding and cooperation.

I wondered if I should download the video clip. (I always wonder that when I watch something big.) Then I could have given it to you, if you were that interested. I may still have a copy of his Lynchburg talk lying on some hard-drive somewhere.

Or would that just be opening a bulk sized can of worms?