A casual conversation with "Stoics" about "God".
(Me, again):
Note, first:
Some of this is regarding the apologetics that you briefly listed;
not specifically about your own thoughts on the matter.
----
As I reflect on these matters,
my thoughts run as follows:
Countless individual organisms in nature have intelligence.
Everyone agrees about that, at least.
Is there a primary intelligence inherent to the cosmos?
I don't really know.
No one knows.
But if there is,
then it is:
1. A natural intelligence;
even more natural than us, if we are a byproduct.
- Rather than incoherently magical person(s);
as Abrahamic fundamentalists claim.
2. A type of
sentient structure;
which consists and subsists of energy/mater/material/substance;
which may have formed through unknown physics.
3. Nothing can have 'always existed' if time doesn't reach infinitely backwards.
4. We don't know if the A-Theory of time is correct
or, perhaps,
if B-Theory might be the correct understanding of time.
Either is possible.
B-theory seems to be favored by most physicists.
And it seems more likely to me.
And yet,
Kalam (for example) assumes A-theory.
-And then pretends to "know".
Such arguments also tend to misrepresent A-theory,
relative to their theological narratives.
5. Theoretically-prime-structure-of-intelligence
(no matter if that really existed/exists or not)
is only a "g/God" if it's worshipped as such.
"God" is a relationship paradigm;
not a type of entity.
If a Sun-Worshipper tells me their "God" exists,
I agree.
Their God absolutely does exist.
I say that because:
* The Sun exists.
and
* They worship it.
But it's not my "God".
I don't feel that way about it.
It's not how I relate to the Sun.
Now, if the Sun were intelligent, ...
It could, in that case, think of itself as a "g/God" to me.
But that's a rather sad notion.
"God"-vs-subject is not a healthy relationship paradigm.
- Although, I grant the wisdom of the Eurythmics, on that matter.
"Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This".
Who am I to disagree?
But that "God"-narrative would be entirely one-sided.
No matter who is stalking me from a distance, ...
Their sense of relationship to me
would not be
and should not be
my problem.
6. Stoics "felt that way"/related-to theoretical-yet-vague "intelligence"
with that sort of ... romanticized and reverent regard.
And I'm fine with that.
It doesn't have anything to do with me.
Their minds forms to perceive/feel/relate ... however they did.
I may not find value in all of it,
relative to my journey.
But some of it has been.
And that's fine too.
It would also be fine,
if someone found none of it useful.
The Early Stoics were fallible.
They were also each their own unique person.
They are not I.
I am not they.
They didn't speak for me.
Their words are not objective truths.
Although, ...
7. It could be argued that they didn't mean "intelligence" in the same way we say a human or dolphin is intelligent.
The early Stoics ascribed to "cyclical" cosmology.
Everything (yes; everything) eventually gets recycled into its base elements
and then re-manifests in a series of natural progressions;
again and again;
since always,
and forever forward.
That really does prevent the "intelligence" from being conscious; at least during the death and reset of each cycle.
They might have only meant it in a nebulous sort of instinct;
as an emergent property of physics.
Something born of physical order,
which then propagates ever-increasing forms of order,
as the cosmos sorts itself out
and takes shape(s)
via self-stabilizing automatic processes,
which results in ever-increasing forms of intelligence;
eventually resulting in degrees of sentience which manifest creatures that possess various levels of awareness.
--
It's hard to be sure of their intended nuance, since they went to such great lengths to give their philosophical utterances ... universal appeal.
That might have been intentional; like how a poet or painter cleverly markets their art ...
by encouraging viewers to project their own ideas into it.
- So that everyone finds it relatable, and thus moving, and thus valuable.
Or, perhaps the Stoics had not yet finished bringing their partially-nebulous fog of ideas into fully defined/coherent form.
Perhaps they would have; if they'd lived long enough.
Or, perhaps someone else could have finished that project for them ...
if people weren't so busy over-honoring the 1st Generation of Stoic's work;
- as-if it were pure and/or complete.
- And then adopting it as a sort of Emperor's New Clothes set of concepts that everyone pretends they can "clearly see", fully understand, and personally possess.
?
I see people doing that same thing
with bibles and Qurans.
Every sect of believers
and even secular skeptics
all have their own take on what the words really mean.
"No Two People Have Ever Read The Same Book";
- nor any body of philosophical musings.
Realizing this,
along with a will to own my own journey,
...
I have resigned myself to care less about what someone else maybe-meant.
I focus, instead,
on how various words and concepts (as I perceive them)
might prove useful (or sabotaging)
in my own journey of discovery, growth, and change.
--
I am an atheist;
not because I say "no gods exist".
Many people certainly DO have that relationship;
to someone or something.
Rather,
I am an atheist because:
I don't have any gods.
I do not have those feelings
nor
that relationship paradigm;
- not to anything which is
experientially known,
empirically verified,
logically deducible,
plausibly real,
speculated,
hoped,
feared,
or rumored.
We can say the Stoics engaged in a sort of nebulous deism.
We can also question if that's what they really meant.
But that doesn't mean anyone should care.
Nor does it mean they were objectively correct.
People being impressively wrong
about pretty much everything
was honestly ~just the norm~ for humans;
prior to the Scientific Revolution and the (secular) Enlightenment.
Granted,
some of the ways they were wrong
ironically helped us evolve.
But the more people stay rooted to prior errors,
the more it will seriously impede further progress.
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