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“It is in the nature of gods to be obvious”

Stephen said

Oh there I was having a little fun with David and now you want me to actually think again.  
Ok but see the work of Andreas Wagner  and James Kugel, who argue that far from being "primitive", anthropomorphic depictions of deity are actually quite sophisticated. 

Not really all that sophisticated. Sure, moreso than many might presume, but also still Swiss cheese full of obvious flaws that you could fly a starship through at Warp 10.

Of course these are literary depictions.   I'm not all the way yet to the view that nothing exists outside of language* but I'm halfway. 

When you think of the great variety of languages and near infinite levels and differences of nuance, how could we ever limit all reality to any particular language game, especially if we consider potential consciousness that may have already been evolving for eons before and after us?

I'm interested in the idea of a "supra-consciousness that is evolving with the universe" just as I'm interested in concepts of an impersonal divine.  I think the idea could be roughly stated as " If we can describe a thing it may or may not exist but if we cannot describe a thing it cannot be said to exist."  It follows from this that the ideas can be said to exist.  I'm not sure how we can claim more than that. 

I'm not making any claims.

* Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος
 
ps Just to clarify, when you say "evolving" do you mean naturally/spontaneously or do you mean that it is self-consciously evolving? Teleonomy vs teleology? 

How could we possibly know this? When I was a believer, I merely sought out the most intellectually honest or intelligent ways of thinking and speaking of God.

On the one hand, there was the supreme apophatic transcendence of an Interpersonal entity that our own perception of interpersonal being is but a mere analogy, a metaphor for something we feel we can intuitively touch but not hold, a glimpse, a whisper, a smile that haunts the recesses of our subconscious.

But on the other hand, I also wanted to speak of the immanence of God in all creation. Here process thought, process theology, and liberation theology served us well. We can imagine how our primitive theologies and beliefs have become much more nuanced and humane over time. This is where theology can follow a quasi-scientific anthropological methodology of ever striving for a greater capacity of insight on this side of absolute transcendence.

Now that I'm no longer a believer, I still do not want to give up the thought experiment, searching the heavens and counting the stars. Belief has hollowed out a hole in my soul, deep calling on deep that seems to encompass and affirm what is most human within me and in communion with others.

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, and apparently in the middle of the thread there is also ὁ λόγος. I am enjoying this far too much to interrupt. Carry on, I'll be here, grinning into my coffee.

Robert said
All of this seems a great way of rejecting primitive depictions of unworthy deities, Stephen. Do you ever think of there being some kind of more sophisticated supra-consciousness that is evolving with the unverse and already evolved much beyond our ability to perceive it  concretely? No, there's no concrete evidence, maybe just wishful thinking or an intuition fed by our own thirst for meaning. Just curious. 
  

Oh there I was having a little fun with David and now you want me to actually think again.  

Ok but see the work of ** you do not have permission to see this link **, who argue that far from being "primitive", anthropomorphic depictions of deity are actually quite sophisticated.  Of course these are literary depictions.   I'm not all the way yet to the view that nothing exists outside of language* but I'm halfway.   I'm interested in the idea of a "supra-consciousness that is evolving with the universe" just as I'm interested in concepts of an impersonal divine.  I think the idea could be roughly stated as " If we can describe a thing it may or may not exist but if we cannot describe a thing it cannot be said to exist."  It follows from this that the ideas can be said to exist.  I'm not sure how we can claim more than that. 

* Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος

ps Just to clarify, when you say "evolving" do you mean naturally/spontaneously or do you mean that it is self-consciously evolving? Teleonomy vs teleology?   

DavidFord said
“It is in the nature of gods to be obvious”
Are any of the 3 gods you mentioned obvious to you?
  

Well they would be if they existed.  Which is, of course, my point.  

What's not so obvious is why I misspelled 'folk' as 'fold' when the 'd' and the 'k' are so far apart on the keyboard.   

DavidFord said
"It is in the nature of gods to be obvious"
Such as "in the nature of" what gods?-- 3 examples?
  

Only three?

Let's start with everyone's favorite divine bada$$, Yahweh.

Plagues, showing his hind quarters, giving out laws, strolling through the garden, supping with Abraham,  wresslin', drowning babies; Yahweh is up everybody's butt.  He's bad.  He's nationwide. 

But let's not be ethnocentric.

There's the divine horndog Zeus, busy spreading his seed far and wide, filling the world with demigods and heroes.

Even further westwards the cloaked, one-eyed Odin, Allfather (Alföðr), Greybeard (Hárbarðr), The Hooded One (Grímnir), who shows up unannounced at people's door to test their hospitality.  Who offers divine riddles and drives his devotees into mystical ecstasy.  Who wanders the battlefield exhorting his warriors to triumph in battle.  

No faith is required.  In fact the usual attitude amongst regular fold in the ancient world was hope that the gods would not appear.   

Only now amongst our own modern used god salesmen do you find resistance to requests to kick the tires a bit and take them out for a spin.   Now we hear a lot about trust. 

Very interesting. Listening.

You mean, aside from my naturally gifted intuitive insight into the deep matters of the spirit?

It is in the nature of gods to be obvious.  Even their inscrutability would be plain for all to see.  

Ernst Mayr (1904-2005), _The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution, and Inheritance_ (1982)

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Page 489 — Eiseley (1959) vigorously promoted the thesis that Edward Blyth had established the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1835 and that Darwin surely had read his paper and quite likely had derived a major inspiration from it without ever mentioning this in his writings.
The subsequent discovery of Darwin's notebooks has permitted the refutation of Eiseley's claims.
More importantly, Blyth's theory was clearly one of elimination rather than of selection.
His principal concern is the maintenance of the perfection of the type.
Blyth's thinking is decidedly that of a natural theologian, for whom all occurrences of variation "are among those striking incidences of design which clearly and forcibly attest the existence of an omniscient great first cause."
Everything attests design and the perfect balance of nature (Schwartz, 1974).
Darwin quite likely had read Blyth's paper but paid no further attention to it since it was anti-evolutionary in spirit and not different from the writings of other natural theologians in its general thesis.
In later years, Blyth became one of Darwin's valued correspondents.

Do you believe that Darwin read Blyth's 1835 article?

[1835 Blyth]"known by the name of _ancons_ or _otter_ sheep... A ewe produced a male lamb of peculiar form, with a long body, and short and crooked limbs... tailless cats... rumpless fowls, together with many sorts of dogs"
[1844 Darwin]"where all the limbs are stunted (as in the ancon sheep), or where a part is wanting as in rumpless fowls & tailess dogs or cats"

Loren Eiseley, _Darwin and the Mysterious Mr. X:  New Light on the Evolutionists_ (1979)
amazon.com/Darwin-Mysterious-Mr-Loren-Eiseley/dp/052508875X/
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Page 60 — In Blyth's paper of 1835 occurs a statement concerning Ancon sheep.
A little later in the same paragraph occurs a list of odd mutations, including "donkey-footed swine, tailless cats, back-feathered, five-toed, and rumpless fowls, together with many sorts of dogs. . . ."^40
This odd little concentration of mutative types is duplicated in almost the same order in Darwin's essay of 1844.
Like Blyth, Darwin is discussing "sports" or hereditary monsters.
Like him, Darwin mentions Ancon sheep, rumpless fowls, and tailless cats.^41

RECORD:  Darwin, C. R.  1844.  Sketch of species theory (fair copy).
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[page] 4
(4
...the proverbial expression that no live animals or plants are born absolutely alike, is much truer when applied to those under domestication, than to those in a state of nature.
Besides these slight differences, single individuals are occasionally born, considerably unlike in certain parts or in their whole structure, to their parents:
these are called by horticulturists & breeders "sports";
and are not uncommon, except when very strongly marked.
Such sports are known in some cases, to have been parents of some of our domestic races;
& such probably have been the parents of many other races, especially of those, which in some senses maybe called hereditary monsters;
for instance, where there is an additional limb, or where all the limbs are stunted (as in the ancon sheep), or where a part is wanting as in rumpless fowls & tailess dogs or cats.

Edward Blyth, "An Attempt to classify the 'Varieties' of Animals, with Observations on the marked Seasonal and other Changes which naturally take place in various British Species, and which do not constitute Varieties" _The Magazine of Natural History, and Journal of Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology, and Meteorology_ Vol 8 (1835)
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cited in
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Page 103 — In like manner, among animals which procure their food by means of their agility, strength, or delicacy of sense, the one best organized must always obtain the greatest quantity; and must, therefore, become physically the strongest, and be thus enabled, by routing its opponents, to transmit its superior qualities to a greater number of offspring.
The same law, therefore, which was intended by Providence to keep up the typical qualities of a species, can be easily converted by man into a means of raising different varieties;
but it is also clear that, if man did not keep up these breeds by regulating the sexual intercourse, they would all naturally soon revert to the original type.
Farther, it is only on this principle that we can satisfactorily account for the degenerating effects said to be produced by the much-censured practice of "breeding in and in."^8
There would almost seem, in some species, to be a tendency, in every separate family, to some particular kind of deviation;
which is only counteracted by the various crossings which, in a state of nature, must take place, and by the above-mentioned law, which causes each race to be chiefly propagated by the most typical and perfect individuals.

_IV. True Varieties_.
The last of these divisions to which I more peculiarly restrict the term _variety_, consists of what are, in fact a kind of deformities, or monstrous births, the peculiarities of which, from reasons already mentioned, would very rarely, if ever, be perpetuated in a state of nature;
but which, by man's agency, often become the origin of a new race.
Such, for example, is the breed of sheep, now common in North America, and known by the name of _ancons_ or _otter_ sheep.^9
A ewe produced a male lamb of peculiar form, with a long body, and short and crooked limbs:
the offspring of this animal, with ordinary females, was found sometimes to resemble the one parent, and sometimes the other;
but did not usually blend the characters of each; and, in the cases of twins, the two lambs were often equally diverse with their parents.
This variety was extensively propagated, in consequence of being less able to jump over fences than the ordinary breeds of sheep.
The solidungular ["donkey-footed"] variety of swine, tailless cats, back-feathered, five-toed, and rumpless fowls, together with many sorts of dogs, and probably, also the race of fan-tailed pigeons, are other striking examples of _true varieties_.
The deviations of this kind do not appear to have any tendency to revert to the original form:
this, most probably, could only be restored, in a direct manner, by the way in which the variety was first produced.

Different people at different times have considered different things to be or to _not_ be "obvious."