Wittgenstein

[arpad]

To believe in a God means to understand the question about the meaning of life.

To beleive in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter.

To beleive in God means to see that life has a meaning.

Comments

[gera.livejournal.com]

Again, unless you can show the connection between the two, this statement is meaningless. You can as well say: "To live is to understand that life has a meaning". Or "To chew a gum is to understand that life has a meaning".

[arpad.livejournal.com]

Well, if we understand "beleive in a God" on level of muttering prayers, sitting in a church and chewing gum, then you are definitely right.

[gera.livejournal.com]

This has nothing to do with what we equate "believing in God" to.
This is about the statement itself having some meaning.
Unless it is viewed as an axiom (see below), it is meaningless without an explanation.

[iz-kustov-ved.livejournal.com]

Why meaningless? As I can understand what he's saying - the meaning is: to believe in God=to believe in life having some sense. It's not a sillogysm, it's a statement. Axioma. He don't show or proof the connection - he simply states it. One of "casual" meanings of such a statement (or "translations" %)) is that if you see some meaning in life you require existence of some God to make the picture of such a world complete. As any statement it can be true or false - you can analyse the statement's corollaries to find if it is true or not.

[chip33.livejournal.com]

Метит территорию.

[gera.livejournal.com]

That's fine. All I am saying is that "Chewing a gum..." statement may be seen as an axiom by anyone willing to see it that way.
So there is nothing special about this particular axiom.

[arpad.livejournal.com]

Well - let me try a less abstract question.

When your child will ask you about "What will happen when the universe collapse or become infinitely wide and cold (as accepted in modern physics)" - what will you tell? Certainly not about "go, chew some gum, that's a better axiom". And probably not about "for that crap - go to sinagogue, my dear" either.

So I suppose there is something special about this particular axiom.

[gera.livejournal.com]

I am not sure what you are getting at. I don't see how this question is less abstract or more meaningless and I truly don't see my child asking it. I sure never asked my Dad anything of the kind.
Do you really expect your child to ask it?
And if you do, what will you answer?

[arpad.livejournal.com]

Well, what I am definitely not getting into - is religious propaganda :)

I din't asked many existential questions from my Dad. Certainly not this one. But in my times future was seen as shiny, bright and full of wonders. So I had only big ugly question of DEATH to cope with. That remind me that I didn't asked about death too.

But idea of "universe without end" certainly bothered some people I know in their childhood. So don't think that the probability of a child asking that question is zero. I also think that the probability of a child thinking about such matters is very high. Telling adults - is another matter...

But I don't think that explaining in lucky case of asking will be easy. "Your school teacher is just an idiot" problem is a lot simpler in comparison :)

[arpad.livejournal.com]

One of "casual" meanings of such a statement (or "translations" %)) is that if you see some meaning in life you require existence of some God to make the picture of such a world complete.

In a way - that's close to "intelligent design" concept. Which is a bad idea, IMO. What we do by believing - we mark something that lies outside of a field of humankind's knowldge. We mark it using our intellect and hope that the marking is correct.

But starting from old good family on Olymp - we can see that any attempt to "materialize", "explain" our marking - sooner or later goes hopelessly wrong. So we can't assume that "God" is "intelligent" because "intelligence" is already concept in our language, concept from inside of the field.

But it is already a different story.

[iz-kustov-ved.livejournal.com]

Every belief concerns some material things, it simply define way of life and "has a vote" when a human makes some decisions in his(her) material life. It causes a number of attempts to make God a little more human, a little more materialistic. "Intelligent design" is a bad idea - as any atempt to land down trancendeltal to this world things.