As Good as God

Many thanks to Harry and Paul for their comments on the previous post. (See them here.) I'll just pick up on Harry's quote from Eric Maisel's "The Van Gogh Blues":

"That something exists which is 'as good as God' is not at all the same state of affairs as something existing that is God."

But why isn't it - at least for practical purposes - especially when you consider that most of us didn't have any fixed idea of what god was in the first place? It strikes me that this would be a "win-win" scenario, with all the benefits of having a god but without the ardent believers being able to say "I told you so".

Comments

[Harry Bell]

I think what troubles Maisel is that, having identified a doubt about his beliefs, Vincent didn't go on to a full consideration of hs position, but spent the rest of his life simply vilifying religion. Maisel proposes that for Vincent to take stock of what his life might mean, he needed to work out where he stood on the question of God v. Something as Good as God. "If you believe in gods, that must mean something. If you do not believe in gods, that must mean something. ......... To deny that you have something to work out is a path to depression."

[Harry Bell]

Sorry, I'm in danger of hobby-horseing.

[Secret Simon]

There's no need to apologise for leaving comments here, Harry - I'm always happy to receive them. This blog is like a new toy for me, and when people leave comments it's like they've come round to play Scalextric with me.
I just find myself wondering, though, what Van Gogh found that was like God and was "very much alive and very real", yet apparently brought him so little comfort.

[Harry]

It's been kinda fun playing with your Scalextric. So much so that I've dragged out my old railway set to see if the trains can be made to run on time.

[Secret Simon]

Does this mean you're blogging yourself now - or am I reading too much into the metaphor?

[Harry]

Not sure how your system does this, but if you click on my name .......