"Let us make man/gods in our own image."--Anthromorphism and...

[Finder]

Theomorphism.

This is sort of related to another thread discussing monotheism.

Anthromorphism is attributing human characteristics to the concept of deity.

Theomorphism is attributing divine qualities to a human.

Many a greek philosopher rejected both and held a rational deist position.

If you consider yourself a theist, which "ism" do you employ in your understanding of deity and why?

[Goblinmonger]

1. Isn't it "anthroPOmorphism"?

I think Christianity is involved in both athropomorphism and theomorphism.

[FDRLincoln]

2. hmm

Hmm....I would consider myself a panentheist....note that is not the same thing as a pantheist. A pantheist believes that the Universe is God. A pan-ENtheist believes that the Universe is PART of God, but that God ultimately transcends what we know about the universe.

My personal philosphy owes much to the Sufis and the various mystics of the major (and minor) religions, plus my own experiences with what I can only describe as Spiritual Love-Energy, a sort of Force (for you Star Wars fans) that pervades the Universe. I have felt it in my own life, and have seen enough outside conformation of its effects (including physical manifestations that affected people who were not aware of what I was going through) that I no longer doubt it intellectually despite my tendency towards being a skeptic. I don't believe in God because of the Bible or the Koran or any other Scripture. I believe in a Divine SOMETHING that includes but transcends the Universe because of my own experiences. Your mileage may vary, of course, and I realize that my experiences are difficult to put into words, and very difficult to understand if you have not had a similar experiences.

I've been trying to codify what I believe, and I suppose one way to put it is that I am a Pan-entheistic Ethical Hedonist.

[Az]

3. Identity and projection

We know noone. We barely even experience reality. Everything we know and experience happens in our brains. Literally. THere is a measurable time delay between when external stimuli occurs and when we experience it in our brains. It takes time for light to move, eyes to convert light to signals, time for those signals to travel to the brain, and time for the brain to shift it through its various filters and translations before we experience even the words we are reading here and now.

The people we think we know and experience are just the result of our mind building internal models of them and attributing personalities and qualities as we can best understand them compared to our own sense of identity. We build these models based on teh behaviours we observe them partaking in.

We do this to everything that has qualities or behaviour. Its just some things we learn don't actually have personalities or minds behind them. Fire doesn't want to burn things. This is just part of its nature.

See its the why of things that intrigues us. Evolution came up with emotive responses to learned constructs as a means of allowing us to adapt rather than respond to everything via instinct. A species is much more able to survive and adapt to its changing environment if it can learn rather than have to be prewired for every instance. Thus evolution struck upon the idea of learning and emotional relevance to learned things.

But to take best advantage of learned behaviours it is best to learn from others that have already accumulated knowledge. Thus higher order learning species tend to have strong social ties to keep families together.

It is because of our social nature that we are made to percieve self and recognise others. But an further aspect of this is that we can apply a sense of identity to nearly anything. But as we learn what is and is not sentient we cap off this sense of identity for certain things.

But the universe is a bit of a tough nut to crack. Even if we come up with a theory of everything the bulk of it remains locked in intellectual specifics that few if any can understand. So even if those few have unraveled the universe enough to dismiss a notion of identity the bulk of people are not so informed.

Because emotions are our primary motivator we think of the why of behaviours. Why does someone do something? Why as a question contains an inherant implication of intent and identity. This is only natural coming from our mind which attempts to apply its own mask to everything. It understands its own why (to a certain extent) and comes to know better another's intent by asking itself the whys.

So when the mind turns to the universe a natural question is why. Its how we view things. But there isn't always a why. Sometimes things simply are. Fire burns because that is its nature. It doesn't want to burn. It just does.