luvluv

I think anything, finite or infinite, can be described in an infinite number of ways.

tk

But it does follow that what they are describing does not and cannot exactly follow their descriptions.

99Percent

Of course, I can start counting and never stop. Do you? That is practically the equivalent of praying isn't it? I dare you

Philosoft

It doesn't matter. If Jobar's blackness/whiteness is a matter of great import and if Diana doesn't believe either of us, we can point to Jobar and say, "That's Jobar. Ask him yourself."

lpetrich

However, it would be difficult to come to any conclusions regarding Jobar in such a case. And if Jobar is omnipotent and omniscient, then I'm sure that he would have no trouble setting the record straight by directly revealing the truth to these people.

Jayhawker Soule

Damned if I know. But I suspect, should it turn out that he is real, you and I should be able to agree on tests capable of falsifying one or both claims. So:

1. Why God instead of God(s)?
2. Why good rather than malicious?
3. Why honest rather than dishonest?
4. Why interested rather than disinterested?
5. Why personal rather than impersonal?
6. Why ... ?

Once you accept God(s), your sole selection criteria is reducible to:

• According to my revelation, my revelation is better than your revelation.

... obviously not the most robust of methodologies.

Scottyman

Luvluv,
Do you believe in "god" the mass murdurer or "god" the savior? According to the Bible it's the one and only "god".

rainbow walking

Hi the-cave,
Welcome to the forum.

You asked: Is it possible to meaningfully discuss theism, outside of a polemically Christian context?

I respond: With man, anything is possible. Was there any particular aspect of theism you wished to discuss?

the_cave

Sure, Jobar, I'll try and be more specific (I had a feeling I wasn't being specific.)

In fact, I'll try and work in what's been discussed so far...is there something (a property, an object, a form, a concept, an idea, a field, or any collection of any of these things) that a group of non-dogmatic thinkers could point to and say "'God' is a reasonable term for this thing (even if it might not be the term I myself would use.)"?

I'm asking this question because it seems many atheistic arguments are directed at dogmatically-inclined Christians (usually of a conservative persuasion). Presumably atheists feel that their arguments are valid against _any_ conception of God. So, I'm wondering whether anyone can provide examples of something that someone could call "God", that isn't of a dogmatically Christian nature. Then, they could tell me whether they think even those ideas are refuted by atheistic arguments, or not.

I'll even give an example. I claim that "person-hood" appears to be a quality of the universe (this I think is in fact discussed in some form on some other thread) because, well, here we all are, aren't we? Somehow or other we become individual beings from whatever cause. As these beings, we have an experience of present-ness, an experience of the quality of sentience. I don't know how this happens (and neither does anyone else yet), but it obviously happens. But however it happens, it's a part of reality; somehow, the fabric of the universe itself is capable of producing this quality, in the same way it's capable of producing space, or elementary particles. (There are other threads in the philosophy forum dealing with possible mechanisms behind this, mostly focusing on the ideas of Roger Penrose. I'm not really here to discuss these.) Heidegger called it Dasein; Steven Pinker calls it sentience; William James called it a "bloomin' buzzin' confusion." You can call it what you like.

So, given the existence of a) individual persons, and therefore b) the quality of person-ness apparently inherent in the fabric of spacetime, could we meaningfully discuss this quality using the term "God"?

Going further, it would appear that this quality, like everything else in the universe, has as its logical cause whatever the cause of the universe itself is (and note I do not speak in terms of temporal cause, since such is obviously invalid when discussing the origin of time itself). Whatever the cause of the universe is (the initial, or boundary, conditions, that is, of the Big Bang, if you want to call it that), presumably there must be some feature of it that produces being-laden spacetime.

There are other examples of this kind of pointing that we could discuss, but this is a good place to start.

Tercel

Why God singular instead of God(s)? Because if God is to be associated with the basis of existence aka ultimate reality aka that in which everything else has it's being (or whatever else you want to call it) then it would appear to make more sense for God to be singular. Plus, Occam's Razor would suggest we don't multiply the entities beyond necessity.

Why interested rather than disinterested? Well if God wasn't interested it seems unlikely he'd have created the universe.

Why personal rather than impersonal? I cannot say I understand this: An "impersonal God" makes no sense to me, by my understanding of God he must be personal otherwise he is not God but just a mechanicalistic Force.

Why good and honest rather than malicious and dishonest? That's a harder one. Pragmatism maybe? Hmm, I'll have to think about that...