sanshaj

Thanks all for you replies.

At the end of the day I don't think it really matters, I was just getting cranky at being redefined as an agnostic but in a community of people who deny other posters are "real" christians I shouldn't be surprised.

At the end of the day, I believe that I can be an atheist even if God cannot be disproved.

Sansha.

IvanK

My rule of thumb is you can be whatever you want to be and call it what you want so long as you can defend it reasonably. "Omphaloskeptic iconoclast" is my favorite, next to "Grand Panjandrum."

James AD

Jobar is getting to the heart of the problem. The word "god" has multiple definitions.

Try to answer the question, "Does Bugs Bunny exist?" You cannot give a simple yes or no answer. You might say, "He is just a cartoon." Try marketing a Bugs Bunny doll and you'll soon get a letter from a law firm representing Warner Brothers. Bugs bunny is more than just a cartoon.

You have the same problem when answering the question, "Does god exist." Some people say, "God is love." Surely atheists are not claiming that love doesn't exist. That definition does not fit the common usage of the term. Some may define "god" as all that is, or the consistent forces of nature that can be described in elegant mathematical formulas. That kind of definition is indistinguishable from naturalism. Look at the complex designs living things are. They must have had a designer, and that designer is "god". Darwinism demonstrates that the formation and diversity of life was produced by natural processes. Again this definition is indistinguishable from naturalism. Final there is the claim that "god created the universe." Something cannot come from nothing. That something before everything is "god". Well the problem here is that theists want to attach other traits that we think of when we use the word "god". That is simply swapping definitions for an ambiguous word. In logic that is known as the fallacy of four terms.

Christian theists won't settle for any of these vague and generic definitions of "god". They claim that the character described in the Bible is alive and able to strike you dead at any moment. Atheists are simply claiming that this "god" character, and others like it, is contrived and fictional. Not unlike Bugs Bunny.

IvanK

But one claim that could be made is that love, hate, good, evil, right, wrong -- none of these would exist in the absence of human (or some other material and conscious) beings to experience them. In other words that there is no realm of ideals where "love," let alone "perfect love," exists independently of human beings.

James AD

IvanK,

That is precisely why love as a definition for "god", doesn't work. Look at this argument.

God is love.
Love exists.

Therefore: God exists.

I believe that love exists as an emotion and an observable set of behaviors. The problem is we are playing silly games with definitions. Don't get stumped when someone switches definitions on you while using the same word.