Talk about Illusions

Why do so many religious bloggers and theologians have such difficulty with definitions and the application of definitions? Eitan Press' July 5th post, "Lose Your Illusions and Find Infinity: A Jewish Mystical Take on Atheism and God " is so absurd it is comical. It seems that he doesn't like any of the standard definitions for "God" but can't come up with a coherent one himself. So what does he do? Rather than consider that the concept is by it's nature bullshit he creates a series of fallacious dodges.

It starts at the end of the second paragraph paragraph and dribbles into the third with, "So what do I mean when I say 'God'? I can't tell you, because its not something I can put into words. The word 'water' doesn't make you wet, but you know what it's referring to. This is not the case with the word 'God.'"This bit of nonsense set the tone wonderfully. His example is about as inappropriate and misleading as you can get. Of course we know what water is. Water is all around us. We need it to live and we can quantify it quite easily. For the record, the substance designated by the term "water" does make us wet. God on the other hand doesn't seem to be anywhere or not in a way that matters to those who prefer reality over illusion. Had a cup of God recently? It gets even loopier.

Two paragraphs later he opens with this gem, "God is beyond any concept. God is beyond even the concept of beyond." What the fuck?I don't think he gets the concept of "concept." According to Chambers 21st Century Dictionary a concept is a, "a notion; an abstract or general idea." So if god is not an idea how do we think or talk about God? For that matter how can God have any connection to reality if it does not even count as an idea. Try thinking about anything you know to exist in reality that cannot also be thought of in terms of an idea(s).

Press never seems to consider that if what he is writing has any validity then his writing about it is futile and meaningless. It is a bit of a contradiction. It certainly never dawns on him that perhaps he can't come up with an adequate description or set of terms because there is literally nothing there to attach them to. This seems to be a fairly common approach among many contemporary theologians. Either you constantly introduce slightly altered and highly abstract definitions of God or you claim there can be no true definition for God. They do it without ever acknowledging that once something becomes too abstract it loses any and all practical meaning. Not only the word "God" but also the concept of God becomes worthless.

This piece goes on longer but never gets anymore coherent or insightful. The only illusion apparent is his own. As for "taking on atheism", I don't get any sense that he has ever actually paid attention to any atheists. He clearly has no idea what our objections to the God concept actually are let alone thought about them for ven a matter of a few minutes.