In response to the Tue26Apr16 post by Stephen Theron:
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> It is surely significant...that Hegel speaks of
> "God" and "religion" as "representational images"
> (does this include "terms", do you think?) here.

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Stephen, IMHO, "terms" is a technique that belongs to Logic and Speculative Philosophy. Religion uses picture-thinking, and we don't find much of "defining terms" in Religion. When Religion says, "God," there is an expectation that all people (including small children) will soon enough get the sense of it.
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> Hegel does not wish to get people forced on to
> some finite "side".

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I agree there, Stephen, but Hegel is clearly unwilling to stop with Kant's Finite Side. So, Hegel, IMHO, is *most clearly* taking sides AGAINST KANT. I see no other logical course of interpretation.
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> This, anyhow, is our situation today, if we
> accept that spirit is at work in modern atheism,
> cf. your fairly positive presentation of Sartre
> here, as much as it is anywhere else.

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Oh, I'm not taking Sartre's side, Stephen, if that's what you mean. Sartre took Hegel's terms and, like Marx, turned Hegel upside down.
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Hegel is clearly speaking of God in his LPEG and his LPR, and any other reading is IMHO some bizarre, tendentious nonsense. To imagine that Hegel taught the postmodern Death of God is ridiculous, IMHO.
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Everybody knows that Hegel's PhG (para. 752) cites the traditional Lutheran Hymn, "God is Dead! God Himself is Dead!" This was the Lutheran way of identifying Jesus with God through the Trinity, and the Cross as the Death of God the Son (but not God the Father). We must interpret that paragraph in the PhG through Hegel's plain statement, "I am a Lutheran, and will remain one."
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Sartre took Hegel's language, viz, being-in-itself-for-itself, and twisted it to fit his Atheist agenda. That should be obvious. Sartre's claim that "Life is a Useless Passion" is utterly the reverse of Hegel's idealism which reaches toward Infinity and a Future of Freedom for Everyone, and a partisan political attack on Global Slavery.
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So, Stephen, I accept the fact that Sartre correctly defines God -- that is, Sartre defines God as Hegel defines God. That part is brilliant. Then Sartre joins the Atheist side, and shows that we Humans always want to *be* God, but will always fail to *be* God, and so "Life is a Useless Passion." What pitiful result. But then, Sartre was watching World War Two at the time, watching more devastation than anybody had ever seen in the history of the world.
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Well, what did people expect? They had the anti-Christian Stalin on one side, and the anti-Christian Hitler on the other side -- did they not expect a Holocaust of unprecedented proportions?
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Anyway, you get my point. Sartre was brilliant only when he borrowed from Hegel.
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> Iconoclasm has always been a feature of
> spirit's involvement (even granted that
> literal iconoclasm is a "condemned" position,
> though this is not strictly relevant to philosophy).

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You can say that easily, Stephen, as a Christian who has been raised free from the superstition of idol-worship. Judeo-Christian-Islam remains iconoclastic to this very day -- yet I still chafe when I hear preachers tell me that "everything" is an idol if it isn't God, including movie stars, music stars, new cars, new houses, careers and so on.
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That's just stupid -- I wish there was another word for it. Idol worship means worshipping stone or wood IDOLS as though they were indeed God. There is nothing in being a movie star fan that begins to compare to that. So, iconoclasm doesn't mean everything that literati try to force it to mean.
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Now -- the contradiction in your claim, Stephen, IMHO, is that you seem to regard it as innocuous that Atheists claim that Spirit itself is Unreal. It is rational in any degree to imagine that Spirit would regard Spirit itself as an IDOL, and call for iconoclasm? Not IMHO.
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> Obviously the icon is something we need and
> use throughout, being the very essence of
> language just for starters. Being comfortable
> with the word "God" say can be very much a
> sociological matter, so we need to transcend it,
> in some respects at least.

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If you're talking about being polite, Stephen, then I agree with you. At work or in social gatherings, it is surely bad form to speak about God. It's divisive socially, because most people in any large group represent many, many different Religions.
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But if you're talking about Hegel studies, dear friend, then I disagree strongly. Hegel speaks of God hundreds of times -- easily -- and to pursue the study of Hegel without admitting this basic fact of Hegel's own texts is, IMHO, simply ridiculous.
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> But then we must ask, what remains of philosophy
> without some fixed terms? It will have no grain,
> lose all it had. Here Hegel makes his bow (no mere
> nod) to "mysticism", in the right one of the two
> senses he indicates.

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On this point, Stephen, I agree with you entirely.
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> The speculative proposition is itself the first > move of language in this direction (of beyond
> language).

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Well, Stephen, I argue that Hegel never, ever proposes any Concept "beyond language." That is Kant's department, and those who follow him, like Wittgenstein, for example.
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> This, I surmise, is why Eckhart seemed to regret
> having to "speak" of God (and prayed to be delivered
> from it), something very prominent in Jewish thought.
> But you will say I have changed the subject.
>
> Stephen.

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No, dear friend, you haven't change the subject. You have simply fallen for the Kantian argument, IMHO.
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You mention the Jewish taboo against saying God's name -- but that is out of *reverence* for God's name, Stephen, and not out of Iconoclasm, as if God's name were an IDOL.
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It seems to me, dear friend, that you may be accepting the Atheist arguments. Either they have convinced you, or you are trying some judo move to switch them. Maybe you'll be successful -- but I've found that Atheists are like any other Religious bigot -- and have more in common with Fundamentalists than with reasonable theologians.
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I am here to study Hegel -- not to expound my personal theology. This means I must be aware of Hegel's Lutheran, Trinitarian orientation. Otherwise, it's not studying Hegel.
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These remarks are hasty, of course, as I'm extra busy this week. Yet I trust you'll read past the rough edges, dear Stephen.
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Best regards,
--Paul Trejo
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On Tue, 4/26/16, stephen theron stephentheron@... [hegel] <hegel@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Subject: RE: [hegel] ...LPR. p. 222 cont.
To: "hegel hegel" <hegel@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, April 26, 2016, 6:35 AM

Thanks for this Paul. It's very complicated, involving a lot of yes/noes. It seems that where two people agree is where disagreement most sprouts up, as I have often thought. I will let this simmer and hope I will be moved, motivated to return positively to it quite soon. I am not sure if you have always quite understood my intent or, secondly, if I have quite understood it myself. I don't know if one should be tied by that historical point you make about LPR re PEGs in the way you seem to insist on. I am just taking the text as what I read, and can no other. It is surely significant, too, that Hegel speaks of "God" and "religion" as "representational images" (does this include "terms", do you think?) here. He does not wish to get people forced on to some finite "side".

This, anyhow, is our situation today, if we accept that spirit is at work in modern atheism, cf. your fairly positive presentation of Sartre here, as much as it is anywhere else. Iconoclasm has always been a feature of spirit's involvement (even granted that literal iconoclasm is a "condemned" position, though this is not strictly relevant to philosophy). Obviously the icon is something we need and use throughout, being the very essence of language just for starters. Being comfortable with the word "God" say can be very much a sociological matter, so we need to transcend it, in some respects at least.

But then we must ask, what remains of philosophy without some fixed terms? It will have no grain, lose all it had. Here Hegel makes his bow (no mere nod) to "mysticism", in the right one of the two senses he indicates. The speculative proposition is itself the first move of language in this direction (of beyond language). This, I surmise, is why Eckhart seemed to regret having to "speak" of God (and prayed to be delivered from it), something very prominent in Jewish thought. But you will say I have changed the subject.

Stephen.