No of course not. But that's not what I was saying. I wrote "if you can't detect something, you can't acknowledge its existence.” Thus if you can't detect hunger you won't know you are hungry. End stage syphilis patients lose their peripheral sensation and feel no pain in the limbs. Consequently they keep injuring themselves without realizing it.
[“In order to know who he is one would have to know what he is first, what is divinity.”] Why? The family dog knows who I am.
LOL. Your dog can see you. Can you see God? This is way too concrete. I was talking about essence or nature. We recognize humanity in an infant as much as we do in an elderly person, in a fetus, in men and women, etc. It is that which makes them human, not an object itself. We recognize a dog in a wolf, in toy breeds as well as in Great Danes and all the rest because we have a concept of what makes a dog dog and we can apply it to various shapes and forms. It's a "signature."
Similarly, we must know what makes God divine before we recognize that something is God or from God. Essence before form. Otherwise there is no way to differentiate between divine and profane.
["We can, and did, however, make one up in our minds, usually in heavily anthropomorphic terms.”] How else would we conceive of something except with the mental pictures available to us?
That works for Disney characters. In other words, it's a God made in our image.
I should assume the whistle doesn't work or even exists because I can't hear it?
Unless you knew what kind of a whistle it was, assuming it doesn't work would be most likely because it doesn't work for you.
But perhaps it's the definition of detect that we differ on.
Too concrete? O.k. We recognize humanity in an infant not by a single characteristic but by a whole collection of characteristics that taken as a whole makes humans human, that are peculiar to humans as group. We recognize “self”.
“That works for Disney characters. In other words, it's a God made in our image”
The Disney characters didn't make their craftsmen. Disney characters cannot reflect upon a creator and what he might be like. And we can only describe the position of electrons and the nature of God with the mental concepts, pictures available to us. It doesn't mean we made either.
There are aspects of God's nature that our intellects and hearts will never be able to completely grasp, what Godness truly and fully is, so we work with what we have.
And what we have is how He describes Himself. Creator, spirit, superlative wisdom, ayer asher ayer, etc. and the influence He exerts.
“LOL. Your dog can see you. Can you see God?”
My behavior means more to him than simply seeing me.
“Unless you knew what kind of a whistle it was, assuming it doesn't work would be most likely because it doesn't work for you.”
But I do know what sort of whistle it is and why I can't hear.