Peter Kirby

There are many disputes over the definition of God. I think that this is a common theist method of defining God.

1. Imagine a disembodied mind.
2. Make it the cause of the universe.
3. Attribute all good traits to the maximum degree to this being.

Comments?

best,
Peter Kirby

AmericanHeretic

Ok, I can't resist comment

And we are made in his image? Why then am I not disembodied? If god has no body, how can I possibly be made in his image?

"Imagine" is so appropriate here! Theists must merely imagine their god, for they have no evidence. None. Meanwhile, all the evidence we do have, which is a bulky multitude of scientific data, indicates a natural universe with only natural events and processes within it.

Well stated. First imagine, then attribute First Cause to what is imagined. If we are using a religion, that is, a god who's nature is stated in a sacred text (bible, koran, tora, etc), then it's abundantly clear that the Big Bang contradicts all holy myths about creation. We've proven the universe was created by natural means and thereby disproven all supernatural causation scenarios.

Simply put, the Big Bang ain't in Genesis. Therefore, the bible is flatly wrong (and in a most primitive fashion in this regard).


It's equally important in this instance to ignore all the bad, evil, painful, and apathetic within reality, for these things, when combined with the good, yield the universe and reality as an atheist or scientist would expect it to be: natural, chance-infested, random within clearcut processes.....exactly what exists.

Theists arbitrarily cleave reality and claim good is from their imagined deity and bad is from us or another bad evil deity, or both. They have no evidence concerning the existence of their deity, nor concerning his alleged creation of good. The evidence we do have is clear in this regard. Good, bad, and apathy exist within the universe, or reality. These are reasonably expected outcomes to the Big Bang and evolution and the existence of human beings.

Supernaturalism, on the other hand, is merely myth. No evidence of any supernaturalism exists. There is only the natural real universe. It is obviously unguided.

These arguments destroy intelligent design and correctly place that within the scope of myth, where it belongs.

(I'll check back next week to read responses)

stretch

Hi Peter,

hmmmmm .... probably not far off from some common approaches to 'defining' God. A theist, of course, wouldn't use the same wordings that imply that it's all just being made up

1. Most theists of a Judeo-Christian-Islamic bent would include a will/intellect without a body as part of the definition of God.

2. Some would define God according to actions, and since theists of this bent believe in creation ex nihilo ...

3. Yep, many theists would buy into the scholastic arguments about perfections ....

But then again, some would simply define God as the only being whose nature is simply to exist ....


denise

stretch

I can't resist comment either

You got a mind, don't ya?


Many theists view creation myths as .... well, creation myths. Heck, sometimes you have more than one creation myth ... for example in the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. I would bet that the majority of Christians do not take creation myths literally.

Dang, you noticed that, eh? Me, too. Of course, theists often consider 'bad'/evil to be a privation/absence of good.

denise

Shadowy Man

Yeah, and the mind is a function of the brain. And the brain is part of the body.

No body, no brain. No brain, no mind.

stretch

Your claim was that man couldn't be made in God's image IF God's characteristics were as proposed above.

Well, IF the characteristics are as proposed above (i.e., will and intellect), then man does have these same characteristics.

2human

Peter, the traditionalists refer to their scriptures.
this is God revealing himself they say.

We have no faith in these claims. We could look at
it from our point of view instead of theirs.

How did this notion of God emerge in history anyaway.
The actual motivation or set up or rigging of the notion.
what social role does it fill? and so on.

that is the real God to define. Not the Revealed, cause
that is a kind of formula for the beleivers. That God is
hidden behind the rhetoric.

Now behind all this bragging could be a biological propensity
to be a part of a group. God is higher than the highest in
their hierarchy. That is why God gets such attributes as
we see in differing traditions. Its a seeing as, an attributing,
an ascribing to fill the role as the highest valued leader.
The Lord.

Now we as non-believers find it horrofying or rediculous or
plain dum or stupid but to the beleiver this is their facts or
at least what they give in to as true for them.

So the real God is more like an emergent social focus of
attention in a group needing to be nit or tied together
with a script that they see as revealed and not made up.

The source need to be from that which they see as their
highest authority so the text need to hide that we made God
and not god made us.

Now that is the gist of it. God has to be constructed in a way
that doesn't reveal that we are the makers of God.

But to us its very obvious that human makes their Gods!

so why doesn't the believers get awere of it?
that is where this biological propensity comes in.
We seems to be made that way. some 30% of us
trust the judgement of the others. So even if all 75%
of us having the capacity to disagree with the groups
judgement oppose there still is a big minority who
want to get the dream instead of the reality as it is.

Now why don't the 75% unify against the 25% of beleivers in supernatural things? Cause we are individualists, that is why we have the capacity to go our own way but its also why we lack the ability to unify against the fundies. They have an advantage in that they are loyal to their group while we are only loyal to ourselves. As individualists we shun any kind of organisation being our joint voice. We want to be our own bosses and dont join groups like secular humanists. There are at least 30 million
amercans aware of their non-theism. Very few of them activistic though.

The Brights Movement try to reach them by being provocative
to get media coverage, challenging them by using an arrogant label. Are you a Bright, then get it known. I am a Bright!

Will they succeed or fail. We don't know yet. Its obvious that the
very individualistic minded says. Whoa, don't tell me who I am.
I am an Atheist I find it arrogant to pic such a name or another says I stick to Humanist. But none of these unite us under one umbrella. See how individualistic we are. But the Supernatualists give in to their groups definitions of God. God is supernatural.

We don't have to. God is made by us so God exists only in moments of ritual transformation by a believer emerging as
a social force interpreted to be a present personality seen
as the Lord. A truly naturalistic phenomena, nothing supernatural about it. The beleivers ascribe supernaturality to their God to
give it power over death and all the other needds they have.

Its a seeing as that is hidden to the believer. The very set up
hide it to them but its plain to see for the non-believer.
The function is to keep loyal sheeps within the flock while Goats like us to be difined outside of it and that are we happy to be.

Bernt

Peter Kirby

That's meaningless to me.

The definition that I formulated above was intended to provide some real semantic content to the word God, unlike such things as "the ground of all being" or "one whose essence is existence," which are not what we intuitively think of as God and are arguably nonsensical utterances. I would like to hear from those atheists who think that "God" is necessarily as devoid of meaning as "garblesnoof," given the definition offered above.

best,
Peter Kirby

Jayhawker Soule

It seems to me that defining God(s) as "good" is unfounded.

My definition would be something like: intentional deity unconstrained by some set of natural laws.

stretch

I have a couple of questions for you ... and I don't mean to be antagonistic (and I'm not assuming you will take it that way ... but just in case .... )

Why does what an atheist intuitively thinks of as God have any content at all?

I'm not a philosopher by training, so excuse the terminology. Why does talking about a combination of actions (#2), 'physical makeup' (#1), and possible attributes (#3) have more semantic content than using a simpler definition that is based on a perception of the 'essence' or 'nature' of God?