But the difference between this line of thinking and mainstream religious thinking is that the former understands that God, by your definition, did not exist before life did. The latter believes life was created by Him. This is a vitally important distinction.
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Replying to @AuralLoom @jordanbpeterson
Yes, but the interpretation of God as creator of life instead of source of meaning cannot be asserted because there can in principle be no evidence for such claims. The universe does not have a secret gnostic interface that could reveal propositional knowlegde without evidence.
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Replying to @Plinz @jordanbpeterson
And this is where the issue lives. Most believers perceive God as the creator of life, and because He is the creator His laws written in scripture are considered the only true source of fundamental ways of behaving morally. Your perception of God is deeply personal and malleable.
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Replying to @AuralLoom @jordanbpeterson
If God were the creator of life (not of meaning), it would not logically follow that you would have a moral imperative do anything he says. That is a sleigh of hand. My own perceptions of things are deeply unpersonal and mathematical.
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Replying to @Plinz @jordanbpeterson
I agree, but from the average Christian's perspective theirs is the biblical God, and they will not agree with you.
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Replying to @AuralLoom @jordanbpeterson
Why is that important? I am not used or aspire to be in agreement with people that have no agency over their beliefs.
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Replying to @Plinz @jordanbpeterson
I bring it up because it's the same criticism that Peterson is receiving: we should not gerrymander the definition of God in a way that makes every motivated person a believer in Him because it is counterproductive when discussing the effects of the belief in authoritarian God.
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Replying to @AuralLoom @jordanbpeterson
I am more interested in acquiring understanding, and perhaps in my own deprogramming. If that is occasionally useful to others, it makes me happy, but I don't presume to know what stances to faith are best for others.
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Btw, of course God is authoritarian. The goal of devotion to the sacred is obedience to what one recognizes to be the right thing to do.
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Replying to @Plinz @jordanbpeterson
Your God will only punish you via the superorganism if you fail to do what is right. The mainstream God will punish during a lifetime and thereafter. Your God is at least functionally benevolent, the other is absurdly vengeful and selfish.
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Don't mix up the Catholic state God with the Old Testament God. That was a manual for running a desert tribe under conditions of scarcity and war. Many of its rules were about optimizing the gene pool by culling people and their offspring for unwanted behavioral tendencies.
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