Unclear God Concepts Need More Workshopping

[00:00:00]Juan.

[00:00:01]>> Yes, my name is Juan. Yes, I am I am Hispanic.

[00:00:05]>> Oh.

[00:00:06]Um and so you you [laughter] wanted to call in about the possibility of God existing and not caring about human morality.

[00:00:13]Okay, uh what are your thoughts?

[00:00:15]>> And also to discuss about your you guys certainty on on materialism, you know, on that work is >> I'm sorry, say that again.

[00:00:29]>> Which what you you want to start with?

[00:00:33]>> Uh say I'm sorry, say that again.

[00:00:37]>> Uh which topic uh would you like me to start with?

[00:00:42]>> Well, your is your God evil?

[00:00:46]Well, first off you said you want to talk about the possibility of God existing. I'm willing to grant you that the God exist uh for the purposes of getting to the actual topic. I I mean, I don't know if Godless wants to have the conversation with you about God existing or not, but I quite frankly would just grant for the purposes of an internal critique uh that your God exist for this conversation.

[00:01:10]>> Yeah, I'm you know, I I'm really um uh an agnostic in in respect of um like like any more specific definition of God, but I what I do have is that I don't think I am like a materialist or or like a purely uh naturalist anymore.

[00:01:38]>> Okay, so you're agnostic. You don't have a belief in a God.

[00:01:44]You like you don't necessarily subscribe to a a God.

[00:01:51]>> Uh could you repeat? I'm sorry.

[00:01:54]>> I'm I'm trying to make sure I understood what you said. You're agnostic and you don't necessarily subscribe to uh any specific deity. Like, are you a agnostic theist?

[00:02:08]>> Um and maybe more or less more more like um a panentheist, you know?

[00:02:16]Like may- maybe >> God um uh you you know the material world uh um is uh basically inside the God, but God is like something greater than the material world.

[00:02:37]>> [clears throat] >> And um the reason I I say this thing um about morality is because I do agree with you that in the strict um traditional like classical theist definition um there is the Euthyphro uh dilemma.

[00:02:59]That basically you know you cannot have the three tri-omni characteristics uh at the same time.

[00:03:08]And I'm sometimes like just tempted to um you know, the possibility that either it is the moral aspect, you know, omnibenevolence that uh act that uh to be consistent uh would not have it.

[00:03:29]Or uh it could also be lack of um uh omni- omnipotence in a traditional sense, you know?

[00:03:40]>> [clears throat] >> Um but that but but that wouldn't mean that um there wouldn't be a a God that is uh li- a non-materialistic basis for reality, you know?

[00:04:00]>> I I'm sorry. I'm having a little difficulty understanding you. So, um I don't quite You're saying that you believe that God and um God is omnibenevolent.

[00:04:14]Um >> No, that that God may not be omnibenevolent or may not be uh om- omnipotent in the traditional sense.

[00:04:26]>> But, what God Like, are you saying the universe is God, nature is God? Like, what is God to you, though?

[00:04:31]>> No, I'm not saying uh that uh nature nature is God, but um that I'm inclined to think that there must be a God in the sense of um a non-materialistic uh basis for reality.

[00:04:55]>> Non-materialistic basic basis for reality?

[00:05:01]>> Yeah.

[00:05:02]Yeah, uh because I >> So, hold on. Juan.

[00:05:09]Juan.

[00:05:10]>> I'm trying to reconcile uh you know, materialism with the problem of consciousness and my direct access to consciousness.

[00:05:20]>> Juan.

[00:05:21]Juan. So, uh uh I I get that you want to think that there's some kind of magical basis for reality, but that's kind of a bit of a logical leap there going from reality exists and it requires some kind of magical aspect to it in order for it to exist. So, you can you help build that bridge between reality and the God the like the the God that you think exists that that reality is dependent upon?

[00:05:53]>> Um, yeah.

[00:05:54]Um, the reason why I say that uh is my you know, and it's it's a classic uh problem for materialism. How do you reconcile um the problem of consciousness and you your direct uh access to first hand subjective uh experience um >> So, >> with the uh >> Well, hold on. Before you go on, what you mentioned one thing and that's the problem of consciousness. And um I for for me personally, I'm an emergentist. So, like consciousness is an emergent property of a complex central nervous system. Uh and so, that what that means is that you know, not only humans can have a consciousness.

[00:06:48]Obviously, other animals, other life forms can have can be conscious. There's also a difference in levels of consciousness. Like, there's very basic consciousness and then there's sentience and all this other stuff. So, like uh but I think that it all depends on how complex a central nervous system is and how the central nervous system uh inter- interacts with the environment around it and and reacts to stimulus. So, like all of that is an emergent property. And so, our consciousness, our experiences, all of those things can be interpreted through like our the chemical processes and the structures of of our brains and everything. So, like we don't need some magical aspect to consciousness in order to explain it.

[00:07:34]>> But still, has he dis- has he stated what that magical aspect is?

[00:07:40]>> Other than an ambiguous God figure, no.

[00:07:42]He hasn't really been able to describe it. He just keeps jumping from claim to claim.

[00:07:48]>> It It would be um consciousness, you know, a god would >> So, consciousness is god?

[00:07:54]>> like that primordial uh consciousness >> I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Juan, are you saying Are you saying consciousness would be god?

[00:08:06]>> Uh not not uh all consciousness in um uh you know, in um uh a trivial sense, but all consciousness would be derived from the consciousness of of god.

[00:08:27]Uh because >> What is the god though?

[00:08:32]>> [clears throat] >> It would be the um you know, the vision that um the universe and what is potentially outside the universe um are part >> So, when I said you're saying the universe is god, you said no, but you are saying that.

[00:08:54]>> I'm saying that the universe would be a part a part of that.

[00:09:00]Yes.

[00:09:01]>> The The universe is a part of god.

[00:09:04]>> Yes.

[00:09:05]>> But, what is the god?

[00:09:07]Like, what's beyond the What else? What other part of him?

[00:09:12]It would be nature?

[00:09:14]You're saying everything, the universe, nature, um humans, everything is god is what you are saying?

[00:09:23]>> No.

[00:09:24]>> So, what's the other part of god? You got the universe and what else?

[00:09:29]>> Everything.

[00:09:31]Um but could you repeat that?

[00:09:34]>> What What What other parts of your God?

[00:09:36]The universe and what else?

[00:09:39]If not consciousness, the universe and what?

[00:09:42]Because the other the reason why I need to figure this out is cuz the other part of your reason for calling is to discuss whether or not your God could be evil and not care about morals. And we can't have that discussion until we know what you're calling God.

[00:10:01]>> [clears throat] >> All right.

[00:10:03]Uh what I'm calling God um would be the um the the um >> [clears throat] >> the How how how do I describe it? It's uh uh it would be the um the organicity of the universe, you know, and the and the uh of existence. I'm calling God the uh origin of um you know, in in in kind of a platonic sense, the origin of uh existence, basically.

[00:10:57]>> Well, so this just sounds like presuppositional apologetics.

[00:11:01]Like you're just presupposing that there is a God that exists and is is is the non-contingent thing that everything else is contingent upon. Is that what you're doing? Or are you doing a contingency argument?

[00:11:14]>> I I I I do think um the contingency argument you know, which I I do think uh going from the contingency argument to immediately like the Christian God would be uh a high uh reach, you know, a high saying exactly what the contingency argument would imply this kind of causation.

[00:11:49]You know, I'm presupposing like the Christian God or the God of a specific religion. I do from the ones that kind of have the tendency that there is some truth in in like most religions, but people often misunderstand what people like me say say when we say that.

[00:12:20]When I say that, I don't mean that every religion is consistent with each other, but that I see and if you study like comparative religion and mythology, you can see like patterns that that emerge that are kind of common to the different religions.

[00:12:46]For example, I think it's amazing and escapes from my my my possibility of of having you know kind of a natural explanation that for example, something that the mysticism of the you know medieval philosopher mystic Meister Eckhart has a very similar metaphysics to the the metaphysics of uh Zen Buddhism, for example.

[00:13:29]I They are very similar metaphysics when you analyze those um different uh systems that never uh came in contact with each other.

[00:13:42]You know?

[00:13:44]>> No.

[00:13:46]I I don't I don't >> It's very hard to follow.

[00:13:50]It's very hard to follow and and that like why argue something that you cannot >> But my point is that uh I don't in that in this very moment, I don't uh lend more credibility to the materialist uh hypothesis than to um a a non-materialistic or idealistic um option, you know?

[00:14:20]Uh >> What what seems to what seems to give you the indication that something more than the material world exists?

[00:14:28]>> Well, for example, and and I'm sorry uh I'm not trying to do like a gotcha with this or something, but you said that you are an emergentist, you know?

[00:14:39]I think >> Right.

[00:14:40]>> Emergentism [clears throat] is not uh like a strict uh materialism.

[00:14:47]Uh because when you say uh that something categorically different different uh emerges uh from uh from matter, but is not matter in itself, that is bringing another uh metaphysical realm to the to the conversation. That emergentism, yeah, would surely matter would perceive that, but it still is another categorically different uh thing that matter, you know? I think emergentism um most of the times is a kind of dualism, you know?

[00:15:35]>> No.

[00:15:36]No.

[00:15:38]No, I mean so emergent properties are not the same thing as dualism. Emergent properties are when, you know, the there's an interaction between different individual things and then this other property then manifests. So, I mean it's based in a materialistic sort of framework just because it the emergent properties aren't like like one-to-one directly represented in the material world like consciousness or, you know, anything like that. Just cuz there's not like a one-to-one thing and it's more of a complex situation doesn't mean that it's like dualism. Like I don't know what you're talking about here. I I don't know. I kind of feel like we're really not we're not getting too many like really anywhere with you, Juan. I I you've got a very confusing sort of theology here as well as um not really it seems like you really don't know how to describe it. What I'm getting out of it is you seem to be like a presuppositionalist.

[00:16:37]You're presupposing that this God is necessary for reality given uh some various reasons that you think that emergent properties are properties of this reality that aren't uh directly represented by materialism like thoughts consciousness that kind of thing um somehow that proves that there's a magical aspect to this reality and I just don't see that. Um I don't I don't I don't see that as being uh you know, all that indicative of it.

[00:17:09]It It kind of reminds me of um >> No.

[00:17:12]>> like if you were to mix two different colors together and you get a different color.

[00:17:17]Like that different color is still represented by reality, right? It's still part of the natural world even if that color is made by mixing two different colors.

[00:17:27]Um I don't know.

[00:17:30]I'm thoroughly confused, Juan, and but more importantly, we we are kind of at time for our show.

[00:17:37]>> Okay, okay. Just like one last thing I need to clarify. Uh I I It's not just one reason. Like I I have talked about them You know, I do take seriously the the contingency argument, but I I do not do the stupid thing of you know, presupposing just on a specific religion uh because of that.

[00:18:06]But it's not only that. It's um uh arguments against um Yeah, you know, not arguments, but reasons why I specifically would think that materialism uh uh can cannot be um true uh because >> Okay.

[00:18:33]>> And I see and I do think emergentism you know, it's not the the traditional dualism, but I do think it is a form of of dualism.

[00:18:45]That is a >> Okay, that's that's fine if you want to think that, but the the dualism thing is not the same thing as emergentism.

[00:18:53]How about this? Maybe we can Maybe we can come to an agreement that you can go back and workshop this idea, right?

[00:19:02]Get it written down either in a syllogistic form or in any other kind of way where you've got a clear, you know, description of what you're trying to put down here and and maybe you can come back and we can run through that for any kind of logical consistency.

[00:19:20]Do you think that that might be something that you can do is to to workshop this idea into some kind of like description of what you're trying to say?

[00:19:31]>> Um yeah, okay, man.

[00:19:33]>> I think this would be better for Truth Wanted as well or or Talk Heathen.

[00:19:37]Like it's not it's not what we're discussing.

[00:19:40]>> Yeah.

[00:19:43]>> Yeah, okay, okay.

[00:19:46]That's a good idea.

[00:19:47]But um So yeah.

[00:19:53]>> I was trying to I was I was I was trying to get you to the topic. Like you said that you want to talk about, you know, how the God could be evil and not care about human morality, right? And that part seemed pretty interesting to me, but I don't see how we can discuss that with you when you're having difficulty even describing what your idea of the God is.

[00:20:17]And so I unfortunately I I'm [snorts] not interested in, you know, the philosophical conversation about, you know, men going back and forth about explaining something that they no one can definitively prove, you know? Like so I'm I'm willing to give you that the God exists, but you can't explain what it is. Like you you can't explain what it is. And like I don't want to start the conversation back up cuz we do have to in get to reading the the super chats and stuff and and to into our announcement. But like Godless said, if you you know, workshop it a little bit, come back and be able to you know, very clearly and concisely what it is that you believe a God is to you.

[00:21:04]Um and then maybe call into Truth Wanted or Talk Heathen and and and talk that through with the host there.

[00:21:12]>> Mhm.

[00:21:13]>> [clears throat] >> Okay.

[00:21:14]I also Yeah, that's a good idea, but you mentioned something that reminded me that I have problems with the um uh Popperian uh definition of of like what you could consider true true and false and you know because something >> You You got to You got to call back. You got to call during Truth Wanted or Talk Heathen, okay?

[00:21:44]We have to We have to move on.

[00:21:46]>> Yeah, we're we're we're we're not going to be able to interact with you on on any kind of good level with you right now. So, let's let's save that for Truth Wanted or or Talk Heathen. Talk Heathen I believe starts around 1:00 p.m. Central on Sundays and then Truth Wanted is at 2:45 p.m. Central on Sundays. So, just earmark those for next week, okay, Juan?

[00:22:12]And just spend this next week work shopping this idea, all right?

[00:22:18]>> Sure, sure. That's a good homework, okay. I will have my my ideas written down next week, okay.

[00:22:26]Mhm.

[00:22:26]>> All [clears throat] right.

[00:22:26]>> Have a good one, Juan. Thank you so much for calling.

[00:22:30]>> All right.

[00:22:31]>> All right.

[00:22:32]>> Yeah, have a good day. I hope you have a good life.

[00:22:34]>> Okay.

[00:22:36]>> You too, Juan.