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A possible Interpretation

Kelby
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Posted 08/04/09 - 04:13 AM: Subject: A possible Interpretation	#1
I'm going out on a limb here... Joseph Campbell said God is a thought, an idea, a metaphor, whose reference is to that which transcends all human categories of thought. This may be a plausible interpretation due to the following: (1) Metaphor is created with the help of our sensory-motor systems. The way we experience the world gives rise to metaphors. (2) We naturally contain the things we perceive. What I mean by this is that when we visualize a space with or without definite boundaries, we mentally contain that space. In other words, we put a mental boundary around any given space as a means to conceptualize it. A basketball court is a good example. There may be no definite boundary but we nonetheless visualize the space with an “inside” and an “outside.” (3) According to Johnson, during the conflation period of an infant’s life there is no experiential differentiation between our subjective systems and our sensory-motor systems. And during this stage a child experiences affection with warmth, as in when a child is being held affectionately by a loved one. Joe Grady mapped a representative list of what he called primary metaphors, one of them being the metaphor “Important is Big.” The primary experience this metaphor originates is of course from when, “as a child, finding that big things, e.g., parents, are important and can exert major forces on you and dominate your visual experience.” In this instance, what is important is big. (4) Robert Nozick points out that the meaning of something can diminish when one looks at it in greater context. The flea for example can be given meaning but once one realizes it is on a dog the fleas meaning seems some how diminished. The dog’s meaning too is diminished once one realizes the dog is in a house amongst other buildings. The world as well seems insignificant when viewed as a solitary planet in the galaxy. What Nozick points out is, what would happen if we imagined the best we could something that is unlimited? That is, an unlimited “thing” that no greater context could be imagined! Would it have intrinsic meaning? The meaning of this “unlimited” would never diminish; it could not diminish because there is nothing beyond it. The synthesis of these four examples gives us a far from complete explanation of God, but it acts for the time being, as a basic, possible form. “Importance” and “meaning” are inextricably tied and other words that are implied by “big” are vast, huge, cosmic, immense, infinite. It is Nozick’s “unlimited” that is the biggest and the most immense and all encompassing thing because it imaginatively requires of us to contain all containers until we can contain no more. It is this all containing, uncontainable thing, if we could call it a thing*, unbounded and intrinsically meaningful, which is Campbell’s God. God is a metaphor created as a reference to that which is intrinsically meaningful, and by focusing our thoughts on such a metaphor we are presented, no matter how indistinctly, with meaning which informs many peoples’ lives. thoughts? Edited by Kelby on 08/04/09 - 04:20 AM

Jurist
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Posted 08/04/09 - 05:54 AM:	#2
I think this breaks down in a few areas, but particularly in one that irreconcilably destroys the synthesis. Campbell's God, you state, is a thought (metaphor, &c.) 'whose reference is to that which transcends all human categories of thought.' Nozick, by way of your fourth point, asks us to think of a limitless thing with undiminished intrinsic meaning. Both thingness and meaningfulness subsist within rather than transcend the human categories of thought. Even if you eliminate thingness, as you contemplate in your last paragraph, the unlimited whatever (now a 'thing' that is not a thing) is still said to have meaning. To transcend human thought would require the unlimited whatever to go beyond the limits of meaningfulness. If a whatever transcends the limits of meaningfulness to human thought, then it becomes meaningless. If you want my other ideas on what needs work, let me know and I'll offer those also.
Just because I'm a lawyer doesn't mean I'm always wrong. -- Me

nelvan
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Posted 08/04/09 - 11:11 PM:	#3
1) God can not be a metaphor for anything, in my opinion. God is existence and there is no metaphor to describe existence. 2) We do indeed naturally contain the things we perceive and yet to perceive God, we must unnaturally not contain things we perceive. 3) Johnson is correct but perception is sometimes wrong. For example, when a child is given a short fat glass and a thin tall glass and asked which container holds more liquid, the child naturally answers the thin tall glass when in fact it is the short fat glass which contains more liquid. Perception is not reality and that is what religion teaches one, simple example: David and Goliath. 4) Nozich's claim is a psychological one but has no basis in reality. Atheists use the trick of discrediting God by saying that there are billions of solar systems in our galaxy and billions of galaxies in the universe and our planet is just a tiny speck of nothingness implying that the individual must be less than nothing. Not only that but a few claim that there may be more than one universe and not only that but that there may be parallel universes in different dimensions and so on. By making the individual feel insignificant, his or her beliefs are made insignificant. But what is great vastness of space and time compared to eternity? Eternity is beyond space and time. For example, imagine a marble. It is round, made of glass, smooth, etc. Now place 99 other marbles next to it. The marble isn't so unique anymore but the reality is nothing has changed it. It is still the same marble. It is still the same size and it remains round, smooth, and made of glass as before. That is faith. It is not so much that God can not be contained or that God contains all things. God is not in the containing business. God is not a clerk. God is in the existing business. Only dead things are contained as in graves or in museums.

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