Religion as a body of propositions

[nerdfiles]

Since I accept the (non-)thesis(?) that meaning is use in language, I'd like to ask: What is the justification for treating utterances or expressions such as "I believe in God" or "God is love" as merely truth-apt (or truth-functional) propositions? Is it simply because Aquinas et al did, and we today are merely following a tradition? Or is there really no justification at all for treating such expressions as truth-apt?

When I say "truth-apt" what I am focusing on is the activity of strong-arming (perhaps I speak to presumptuously?) such phrases into logical argument proper. Of course, logical argument demands that a sentence be in the declarative form. The natural question is: Is all meaning we are concerned with (as philosophers, first, and as religious folk, scientists, politicians, laypersons, etc) only declarative propositional meaning?

And if we cannot find adequate justification for treating religion merely as a body of lifeless propositions, do we at the same time lose our justification for entertaining "Premise, Premise, ..., Conclusion" as even incisive and relevant to actual practice of religion?

Are we simply playing logical games, under which the validity or invalidity of our argument is nothing more than an object for hopeless pedants, idle philosophizing, myopic intellectualizing and mental gymnastics? Are we really concerned with truth or following the rules of our disparate social practices?

Today we ridicule the ontological proof for the existence of god, but today, I laugh at the problem of evil and juggling effort made by atheists to give god an adequate definition.

For a more precise question: Are we still doing "formal philosophy" as laypersons and self-described atheists? And does the methodology (logical proof, validity, consistency, etc) of formal philosophy adequately show the flaw of religious discourse?

[boagie]

YO!

God is a metaphor for that which trancends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that.
Joseph Campbell

Those that cannot stand mystery close the door of wonder, with personifications of that mystery as a concrete entity.

[nerdfiles]

Which is part of my point.

A metaphor for who exactly? The cultural anthropologist? The social scientist? The philosopher?

Would the religious person indeed say, "Yes, it's a metaphor, and that's all there is to it"? Are we simply to say "God is love" doesn't really mean love? If that is the case, what is the religious person actually meaning by the things she says?

It's easy to say "it's a metaphor" but what does that actually mean? And what does it afford us in our analysis? Have we actually gained a better understanding by calling a large region of religious language "metaphor"?

[boagie]

nerdfiles,

It is all metaphor, meaning it is connotation, connotation of the mystery, the wonder and the awe, it really cannot be concrete understanding, is not being itself a metaphor for that mystery? Can you indeed think of something which is not a metaphor?

[nerdfiles]

Well, the "Quarks are theoretical posits" is not a metaphor.

But this is really all beside the point. I understand that it can be interpreted as metaphor, but my question is: Are we in a position to say religious persons take it to be metaphor? Are we in a position to respond, when the religious person says "God is a loving father", by saying "That is not to be taken literally." Does the religious person intend to not be taken literally?

Is it that taking the religious literally or figurative distracts us from the actual meaning of the utterance? In philosophy, we might use that proposition as a premise in an argument.

We might say, "ah yes, the problem of evil shows that to be false." And what we do is "prove" the "proposition" (as if it were just some premise in an argument) is false by logical argument. But is that all "God is a loving father" used for by the religious person? As an "assumption" in an tentative argument?

Really, these questions are not directed at religious language. They're directed at what we do in philosophy and how we operate as philosophers and analysts. My questions are directed at the method's of philosophy. Perhaps this is a question that best fits into the "philosophy of philosophy" forum.

[boagie]

Nerdfiles,

To be sure the religious do take these terms literally, but that is their problem, what can one do with a mystery, the mystery as Campbell put it is beyond the human intellect and when you try and make it into something concrete, you close the door of wonder, the rest is semantics.

[nerdfiles]

So, the question is: Why are, presumably, atheist's or atheistic philosophers satisfied with disproving God's existence by logical deduction? Why do they do it? And what is it that they think they are doing? Are they practicing a religion themselves?

[boagie]

nerdfiles,

I do not think most atheists even want to try to disprove the existence of god, it is an absurdity. One is called an atheist if you do not buy into their fantasy, I believe in the mystery, perhaps on that basis it is they who are the atheists, they chose to not believe in the mystery. There will always be someone out there that will jump into a fools folly and argue about concrete terms, they are just a foolish as those who take their metaphors literally. A connotation is meant to go beyond the word, the metaphor and open to mystery. If god is not transparent to the mystery he is in your way.

[nerdfiles]

What do you mean by "absurdity"? Here we get right into the gist of what I'm talking about. God's existence is not self-evidently an "absurdity." Argumentative atheism is the thesis that God does not exist, or that theism is false. And there are argumentative atheists.

But what I'm getting at is a bit more narrow. It's the method of taking religious propositions as using them as bits of a logical argument. It's not so much that one is taking "metaphorical terms" and treating them as "concrete." It's that argumentative atheists treat religious expressions as bits of an logical argument at all.

[nerdfiles]

I don't take "connotation" to be about something beyond the world. A connotation is simply a definition that serves the purpose of defining an extension or object.

So the extension of "cat" is all cats, where the connotation of "cat" might be what a biology or zoology textbook describes as a cat.