Tabula_rasa

Here is the best definition of god that I can think of and I found it in Webster's Ninth Collegiate Dictionary:

god: something that does not exist.

I found it under the definition of nothing. Apparently, they made a misprint.

Tabula_rasa

happyboy

eric h, your God is a psychotic serial killer with an explosive temper. read the old testament before you start making claims about God's "love."

a very angry happyboy

Hawkingfan

Well, that automatically excludes the Judeo-Christian God.
But that definition will be subjective, because the word "greatest" is subjective.
God does not create children. Humans do. But since we are presupposing god's existence, and that god somehow created humans, and actually cares about any of them, and are saying he did it for "love"-- I would say that he did it out of love for himself. No one asked to be born, especially into an imperfect world where it is demanded to worship god. So he was not doing anyone a favor by creating them. It is obvious to me that god would only create humans because he wants and craves to be worshipped. Why? Because he is so "great"? How can you call it love when he does not consider us as equals?
Since you mentioned reason before, I would reason that it goes against human nature to love everyone. I cannot, and will not, love my enemies. Loving those who would do me harm is unnatural. It also lessens the feelings I have for those that truly deserve my love. I think it is unhealthy to force yourself to love someone you naturally hate, and not give some kind of emotional, mental, or physical vent to your hatred.
So now we're talking about Christ. What about Allah? What about Odin?
Why would god arbitrarily kill so many of them?
We were not created in the image of god. God was created in the image of man.
Why must there be a purpose? I know the REASON it exists is because of Quantum Mechanics, not god.
I'm afraid you've made the wrong conclusion. If an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God has the ability to keep sin and evil from man, yet evil exists, then either God does NOT exist, or he is not omnipotent or omnibenevolent. And it is this conclusion that shreds your whole post.

Cipher Girl

Wow, a lot of replies in the short time that I posted this. I guess I'm not the only one frustrated by this.

Hi Eric. I'll start with your post, as on this forum my post is sort of preaching to the choir so to speak. In one long post you have generally stuck to #2 with a sprinkling of #3.

1..What greatest purpose can God have to create children in his own image?
Why do you assume that we are created by god in his image? What evidence do you have for this belief? You said that god created his children out of love. Does a parent kill their children because they turned out different from expectations (the flood). Does a parent torture thier children if they commit anything from minor misbehavior to murder (hell)? Does a parent show favortism towards one child and refuse to show themselves to others?

2.. To find a greatest purpose for all God’s children.
You are assuming there is a god. Again, what evidence?

3.. What greatest thing can God create?
You follow this with a lot of could of, could of, should of. Just because something may be logically possible, does not make it physically possible. Where's your evidence? If god exists and interacts with this universe, then we should be able to observe this and predict this with natural laws.

In fact, we can explain quite a lot today with science. A couple of hundred years ago, people thought lightning came from god. Then the principals of electricity were discovered. No we know that this is just a natural occurance. Eric, if one day the creation of the universe is explained with natural laws, are you willing to adjust your beliefs to accomodate this? If not, why not? And why do you assume that if something can't currently be explained today, that "god did it"? I'm perfectly happy with the explanation of "Well I don't know, but I'm not going to just start assuming things simply because it reassures me."

Eric, I know you probably mean well, but you are presenting a lot of assertions as conclusions. You are assuming your conclusion. This is a logical fallacy.

Eric, In your post you list the following as attributes of your deity:
1) Loves us.
Why then does so much misery befall so many people, especially the young and innocent? Why do bad people prosper, and the good, many times get taken advantage of? Seems to me there is more evidence god does not love us than he does.

2) Creates us.
Don't our parents have any part of this? What about the fossil evidence?

3) Creates the universe.
Are you willing to change your beliefs if physical laws are developed to explain and model this? If there is a god that created the universe, then shouldn't we be able to discover that our phyical laws need to posit a god? But currently we can explain thing with either "We don't know" or "Physical law x." I have not yet seen a physical occurance that needs a law involving god.

4) Has some unknown purpose for us.
Again, what proof?

5) Created evil.
But I though you said he was all good? And if he was good, wouldn't he direct this at bad people rather that the young and innocent?

It seems that to be a theist, you have to assume that god exists even though there doesn't seem to be any evidence. You also seem to need to assume god exists, before you can believe in him/her. At least this is what I gather from your post. I need more than "I want to believe, so I'm going to assume its true."

Cipher Girl

Hi Aquila ka Hecate

Yes, it seems that every time a theist starts talking about their deity, they retreat into vague and convoluted language. How would they feel if their auto mechanic started saying "Well it's a mystery why this problem is occuring, but if you give me enough money I'm sure I can fix it for you.?" And everytime you ask for a description of the problem the answer also seems to change. Would you trust that auto mechanic? I know I wouldn't.

Pyrrho

You may be interested in reading Kai Neilsen’s essay “Does God Exist? Reflections on Disbelief”. It was printed in Free Inquiry 1 (Spring 1981), pages 21-26. It has also been reprinted in at least one philosophy anthology, the 5th edition (but not earlier or later editions) of Philosophy and Contemporary Issues, edited by Burr & Goldinger.

In this essay, Neilsen examines, among other things, the types of statements that are typically made about “God” in an apparent attempt at explicating the concept, but which fail horribly due to them being at least as obscure and unintelligible as the term they are attempting to elucidate.

The essay is very readable, and anyone with a moderate intelligence and who can read at a high school level in English should have no great difficulties with it.

BioBeing

I am on a personal mission to make anyone claiming to be a Christian to stick to the Bible as absolute truth. If they claim that even one word of it is not absolute truth, then I shall label them an atheist, and let them argue from there. Of course I have yet to try this approach in person...

EDIT TO ADD: The Christian Atheists p!ss me off the most!

Cipher Girl

Eric's reply is a good example of why it sometimes so frustrating to talk to a theist about the existance of god. They themselves cannot define god in any concrete details, so they retreat into convoluted and almost incomprensible language (godspeak?). Or else they retreat into assuming god exists for emotional reasons. It makes them feel good that some powerful force notices them, even if there is not a shred of evidence to back this up.

I don't mind this, except that they seem to have this need for me to be exactly like them. Why, I don't know. Here's an example. I once worked at a company, programming computers. It was a job I needed to pay the bills until something in my field came up. I'm an applied mathematician, but am also a very good computer programmer.

One of the managers was very "Hey everybody, notice me, I'm a christian." I worked with two other women, one a mathematics intern, and one a computer programmer. We were all fairly liberal, and I made no secret of my disbelief, though I tend to respect other people and try not to be deliberately offensive unless someone is offensive to me first. In fact another coworker who was very evangelistic and myself always had a lot of fun debating religion in a very friendly way.

Well one day a couple of weeks before Christmas, I came in to work and found a religious tract stuck in my keyboards. Everyone else had a religous christmas card (not the tract), even one person who was jewish. Talk about obnoxious. We knew who did it, as someone saw him placing the cards. It was the manager, lucky for me was not my manager, who did this. He also seemed to be very disturbed everytime me and the other coworker debated religion while we worked.

From previous comments made by this manager, I knew that he felt very threatened by questioning religous conversations in the office. He wanted everybody to believe the same as him, but could not give any valid reasons, other than hell, to do so. Anyway, I was fairly pissed by the tract and threw it into the trash without reading it. I did this right in front of him, with the comment "Well that was really offensive, talk about not respecting others rights to believe as they choose." He turned rather red and you could see his jaw clench. But he couldn't really do anything about it as we were a govenment contractor, and one of our customers was a good friend of mine. Luckily, I found a position more to my liking a couple of months later.

Why is it those theists who seem to be the most dogmatic about their beliefs also the ones who seem to be the most inept at explaining them?

I just cannot believe in something just because I can conceptualize it in my mind. I wonder if this is why come religous groups discourage their members from reading fiction. But, I need physical evidence.

beastmaster

Cipher Girl, good post -- bear with me if I take a slightly different tack on this issue.

I am not convinced that the inability to rigorously define god poses an insoluble problem in determining the plausibility of god's existence. We can infer the existence of plenty of concepts that are quite vague, like "love" or "intelligence." I think it is sufficient that we know certain attributes of god (or love or intelligence) in order to ascertain its probable existence/non-existence.

We often draw inferences based on incomplete information. I believe such inferences may be valid.

HOWEVER, what makes god unique among concepts is that all believers will admit that, at some level, god is beyond human comprehension. It is not merely that god is indefinable -- it is that god is unknowable.

The implication of this admission is devastating. If god is beyond human comprehension, then we can say nothing about him. We cannot know that he is good, that he is wise, that he is not a liar. Sure, we can have faith, but faith does not influence the nature of god.

To me, the vagueness of god does not impact the plausibility of his existence.

Rather, it makes god *unworthy of worship*.

Cipher Girl

Hi hawkingfan
God does not create children. Humans do. But since we are presupposing god's existence, and that god somehow created humans, and actually cares about any of them, and are saying he did it for "love"-- I would say that he did it out of love for himself. No one asked to be born, especially into an imperfect world where it is demanded to worship god. So he was not doing anyone a favor by creating them. It is obvious to me that god would only create humans because he wants and craves to be worshipped. Why? Because he is so "great"? How can you call it love when he does not consider us as equals?
Couldn't agree with you more. I create computer programs and mathematical models and don't demand that they worship me. If I had a child, I wouldn't demand that it worship me. Why this obsession with worship by the christian deity?

psychic, I couldn't agree more. The fact that bad things happens is proof that either god does not exist or that he/she is not all powerful, all knowing, and all loving at the same time.

god: something that does not exist.

Hi Pyrrho, is the essay online somewhere? I would be very interested in reading it. I feel that if I cannot explain something to someone in a simple enough manner so that they can understand the basics, then it is my fault not theirs. That is, if they are willing to understand. I think a lot of people make the mistake of trying to obscure an flawed argument with vague and convoluted language. I have had no trouble having people with no technical background understand the principals and algorithms of some of my mathematical models.

Hi Biobeing. That site is positively bizarre. If a person does not believe in god, why do they need religious language to understand the universe? I think a lot of people simply lack or are unwilling to aquire the educational background to approach this from a scientific backgound.

I went to a Siggraph graphics conference a couple of years ago. At lunchtime I found myself at a table of teachers. Everyone wears a badge to get in the conference and the badge states your profession. Mine said Operations Researcher. One of the teachers asked me what that was. No sooner than I started with "Operations Research is a branch of mathematics that deals with ..." than she cut me off with rolled eyes and said "Oh math that's not an important job, you should try a real job." WTF? With an attitude like that, no wonder kids aren't interested in math and science.