Is God a solipsist and an existentialist?

Question

Solipsism is the belief that all of reality is just a creation of your own mind.
Existentialism is the belief that there is no meaning or purpose other than whatever meaning or purpose you create in your own life.

Charlie Tuna: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s points. You are bad. An evil demon will visit you tonight and discipline you severely.

Justinprim: Existentialism is not self-contradictory. In fact, it is the ONLY logical option for God. If God’s existence is to have any meaning, God herself must create this meaning in the process of her existence, since there is no higher power upon which God can base deeper meaning.

MusicLuver: I would ask, but I think She’s kinda busy giving birth to the universe every nanosecond or so, thus I hate to bother her. Besides, I already know the answer. I’m just curious to see what other people think, assuming that they think at all…

melissa13182: You are a special sort of stupid, but I mean that in a nice way because I love you. I will happily marry you and give you your prized cubic zirconia. I am already married, but since monogamy is just a conspiracy to limit love as a resource in a misguided effort at mind-control, let’s just set the date and do it. (And yes, I’ve had a few beers.) And by the way, you got the special word wrong. The special word is: “PleaseLetMeBeYourSexSlaveForever”.

Sauwelios: Nietzsche’s insanity was caused by syphilis. And yes, each of us is absolutely alone. Deal with it. buddy

Googolullage: I’m glad you brought this up because it gets at one of the things I find troublesome about certain approaches in eastern and new age philosophy. I think there is something deeply wrong with a theory that eliminates the possibility of genuine tragedy. (In fact, I turned this into a question of its own. See: “Do you think there is a possibility of genuine tragedy in the world?”) To me, this trivializes suffering in a way that seems unacceptable. Case in point: I happen to know a 13 year old girl who is suffering severe pain in final stages of an inoperable brain tumor. If it is already decided that she will go to heaven, etc., then there is no genuine tragedy in her suffering and death. Her suffering and our sense of tragedy is all just a cosmic game. I think this way of thinking is wrong, both factually and morally. To be continued…

I am not convinced that this child’s death HAS to be purely a tragedy in some ultimate sense because that seems wrong too (just as wrong as the certainty of heaven, but in the opposite way – hopelessly pessimistic.) I think that unbridled optimism (“God will certainly make everything come out for the best in the end”) and hopeless pessimism (“there is no possibility of transmuting tragedy into joy”) are both fundamentally wrong. I have an inexplicable faith that the future is genuinely indeterminate, which basically means that ANYTHING that is logically possible can still happen. Thus, at this point there is NO fixed answer to the tragic vs. comic nature of the universe (and most likely there never will be an ultimately fixed answer). It is truly up to us, in some sense, to create the future, for better or worse. Our lives really do matter because the future depends, at least partially, on us, and my guess is that this is the fundamental and thus eternal nature of existence.

Sauwelios: I suspect that your sense of “relatively alone” must eventually find ground in a root sort of absolute aloneness. We can find meaning in our community of others, or perhaps in a God who created us, but if ultimately the community/God can find no higher source of meaning, then this ultimate absurdity eventually comes back to us, albeit it somewhat less directly than in the more standard view of solipsism. It’s like building your house on solid rock, only to discover that the solid rock is, itself, slowly sinking into a giant sea of quicksand. But even if God is forced to be an existentialist, this does not mean that there is absolutely no meaning (or that we must go insane). It only means that whatever meaning there is, must be created in the process of living. You make an interesting point about objects can consciousness. I will have to think about that.
And thanks for the interesting Nietzsche links!

Answer 1

NO NO NO!

Please give the points to me! I'm polite and I used the "special word"


PLEEEEEZE!!!!

...with a cherry on top!

Answer 2

God must be a solipsist. If you believe the biblical account then you'd have to believe that we were "willed" into existence by the mind of God. Since the bible also states that God has a plan we would then have to believe that what we perceive to be reality is simply the creation and expression on God's mind. You would have to believe that you do NOT possess free will as there is nothing that you can do outside of God's Plan. Since God has set out the path, and God KNOWS everything about the path, and God is NEVER wrong, then this would imply that we do not possess free will. We are simply acting out God's conjured reality. So here's the kicker...this would also imply existentialism for us. For us reality truely would have no meaning. We are merely performers in God's play. For us reality would have no more meaning that the cartoon world would for Homer Simpson. Think about it...

Answer 3

"Solipsism is the belief that all of reality is just a creation of your own mind."

If someone really believes that, i.e., is *convinced* of that, he must go insane: for this means he is *absolutely alone* (as opposed to distance, to relative solitude: he is literally all-one). I believe this has happened to Nietzsche, who indeed believed he was God. God, however, is supposed to have always existed. Therefore, He must always have been insane.

EDIT:

In response to your personal remark to me, there are two things I wish to say. One, Nietzsche probably did not have syphilis: see http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/05/05/1051987652842.html and http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:8_-pUNSNLRwJ:home.cfl.rr.com/mpresley1/fn.pdf+nietzsche+breakdown&hl=nl&gl=nl&ct=clnk&cd=33

Also, if there is more than one of us (i.e., if all of reality is not a creation of my own mind), then we are only relatively alone (though of course, there is no one exactly like us). When I say "absolutely alone", I mean "absolutely" in the literal sense, not as in "absolutely fabulous". If there is only the subject, if there are no objects it can refer to (and other individuals are also objects), then there cannot be consciousness.

Answer 4

From God's viewpoint, God is alone. but God has the unique power to create us, little "points of light", which are small, individual creatures. Sso god can pretend to have friends and tragedies, comedies and farces.

God is the Solipsist, by imagining what we call reality
We, are like unto characters in our own dreams.

[e-mail]

Answer 5

The scollar spend all day long on his complex equations about the nature of the universe, and then when the sun set, he went home to relax and forget all about what he had been doing.

Answer 6

Read Rome 11 : 34

Answer 7

If you think so ..... then he is either or both of those. End of story.

Please award the Best Answer points to me right now because you cannot argue the logic of this response and you stand in awe of the tremendous empathy and intelligence of this responder. Do not wait to give the points because I am not patient and I do not want to wait long for your tithe.

Answer 8

yes. and he has gas when he eats dairy. he l;aughs at all of us for being so hateful. and he hates uniforms. he also contemplated suicide, but didnt go thru with it.. he likes chocolates in the day, but not at night. he gets acne at night if he eats it. ghe also has a homosexual experience at 13 at summer camp, and think about it from time to time. hey im a Solipsist. how do you pronounce that? and to the guy above me, many people have that belief and its partly true. you make you bed to lay inm. sure unexpected things happen, but your reactions and beliefs are controlled by you, der!

Answer 9

God is at best a philosophical concept and as such human rules do not apply. He does not really exist. We made him up along with all the other gods.

Answer 10

no to existentialism since it is self-contradictory. god is perfect so he would not make that logical fallacy.
yes to solipsism since if god is real then we ARE a creation of his own mind and i am sure he would be aware of that.

Answer 11

You can ask Her the next time you see Her.