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Originally Posted by EtHnic Cleansing
I think you're just combining definitions into the group "existence" there. It sounds smart and all, but if you break up that word to have more definitions. We are talking about God here, not the concept of God. God's existence isn't concrete and proven to be real. To have a definition isn't to exist. The concept of God absolutely exists, but that's not what the question was.
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To us, everything that exists comes with a concept, no matter our notion of objectivity and how objective we try to be. We never perceive objects directly. We only see concepts or our mind's visualization or attempted reconstructions of them. Therefore, it is hard to argue the existence of something independent of our perception or conceptualization, when in order to know of such an existence itself takes conceptualizing. If you believe that "existence" should be reserved for only things with concrete or material reality, you'll run into problems quickly. You wouldn't be able to say things like love or the number 2 exists. After all, you can't pick up the number 2 or weight it or put it in a bag. There are only instances of and symbolizations of it, but you can't find what we call "two" in material reality. You wouldn't even be able to say that movies exist. If I ask you to go bring me a movie and you brought me a blu-Ray disk copy of Pirates of the Caribbean, like numbers, that wouldn't actually be a "movie" but rather an instance or symbolization of one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Esso
What? So that means the boogeyman exists...and leprechauns?  |
Everything exists in some form. If someone were to ask me if I believe Bugs Bunny is real, I would say I believe he is a real cartoon character. Do I believe there's an actual bunny out there who eats carrots and greets people with "what's up doc?" Negative. But cartoons do exist, and there are real cartoon characters.