Religion
In reply to the discussion: Am I being immoral by believing in a transcendent creator? [View all]Brettongarcia
(2,262 posts)SOME RANDOM NOTES:
To be sure, it DOES have some good qualities. It is for example, rather more intellectual than raw, unreasoning, blind belief in obvious irrationalities; it DOES try to explore things rationally.
In fact, for many years I was attracted to transcendental Christianity myself. I liked its attempts to reason Christianity out, logically. But finally there are logical problems. Modern Analytic Philosophy for example. It finds problems with the whole notation of an "Uncaused Cause." In general, 1) the problem is "question-begging"; it does not answer what made the universe, but just says that causal thinking is wrong.
Another problem Analytic Philosophy finds in the notion of God as uncaused cause, is 2) "incoherence," or failure to locate an answer in logical space. That is: is the notion of an "uncaused cause" really ... CLEAR and logical? Does it really tell us anything clearly?
Can you really form a clear mental picture from it?
Then too? 3) To say that things "always existed", is rather the same as saying "they just are." (Relating to begging the question).
I was once attracted to the attempt to reason about metaphysics, and cosmogony. But around the time of Russell and Wittgenstein and then Rorty, many philosophers began to give up on metaphysics. As simply too remote; and therefore unknowable.
In addition to other known logical problems: 4) it seems to me that the notion of a God being outside of Time, to have created Time, still leaves begging the question where God came from, in turn. Which Russell noted partially.
What I like about your (and Plato's?) approach though, is that it at least attempts to use reason and logic. And if it ends with an unimaginable God? Then that helps agnostics after all.