this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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I had a weird revelatory experience when I was 14 or so about the nature of God, and how in order to define something you must include certain characteristics and exclude certain characteristics. From that I drew the conclusion that any definition of God must be woefully incomplete, as how can one exclude characteristics from the definition of a thing that is all things and entirely beyond comprehension. From there I decided that any way of acknowledging something greater than ourselves is as valid as any other way, and that's guided my spirituality since then.
Interesting, about half a year ago I asked to myself why echo chambers could possibly happen. After this I've been discovering multiple unrelated books and have been reading them, each with different relatively unconnected topics, but eventually their knowledge all fitted together perfectly, even supported by examples in my own life, and eventually I reached the same conclusion.
Knowledge has a dark side, what we know and say about something (definition) decides the very way we look at it. Everything we define can never encompass every case, and every system we build can never encompass all of reality. Just look at the system of language, just saying the sentence "This sentence is a lie" leads to a paradox, and paradoxes are just the signs of an incomplete system. Therefore, if God is everything, God escapes our definitions.
I suppose reaching for God is then seeking out the great undefinable, in love, in experience, in knowledge, or whatever else, and broadening your own limits.
I couldn’t agree more with both of you.
Ive always enjoyed Godel's ontological "proof" (although I disagree with it's conclusion "proving" catholic God)
"God, by definition, is that for which no greater good can be conceived. Therefore, God exists in the understanding.
If God exists in the understanding, and is that for which no greater can be conceived, than he can be imagined greater by existing in reality. Therefore, God exists"
Im an atheist, but I really like this quote in the context of Eastern Philosophy (like the Tao) over western philosophy