Theli

ansarthemystic...

Glad to see you responding so quickly.

Ok, I buy that. To claim anything about the word "god", you must know what that word mean.

I don't think atheists goes out on their own trying to disprove god. They merely respond to theist's claims.
That's how it usually works. The theist makes a positive claim for the existence of his god, and the atheists attempt to refute it. The atheist cannot on his own disprove god's existence. There's no need to either.

Not if you can present your position. Nut if you stamp your feet to the ground and barks "I know I'm right!", then I would call you dogmatic.

In what sense do you mean "is no god"?
Do you mean as a logical possibility, a posibility or factual known existence?
If we say there is no god, we simply does it based on the knowledge (or lack of knowledge) presented to us.
Things that are unproven should be considered nonexistent by default. There is no reason to slap on a "maybe"
You can reffer to god as a logical possible cause of the universe, but not directly existent. For that he needs either to established as the most probable cause of the universe or a required cause of the universe. In wich we should dissassemble him, to check if all supposed attributes are required or most probable.
As in the original topic, omniscience is neither most probable or required.

That would be the correct way to approach the subject, yes.

Are you speaking of 100% certainty?
There is very little we can know with 100% certainty.
All we have to go in is what we have observed, and what we have judged to be most probable cause for what we observed. We have no reason to assume that any evidence for X will discovered in the future. So X remain a fictional/imagined being.
If the attributes of X was not acquired (or could not be acquired) through observation, the being having those attributes is fictional from it's creation.

You mean, there is no evidence for one side. As the other side can't have evidence.

Yes, since no evidence has been discovered, god remains simply a logical possibility. (or impossibility )

God does exist as an imaginary being. It was given imaginary attributes, and so it is an imaginary being.
If we were to find something with those attributes it would not be the being we imagined when creating the definition of the word "god" if those attributes were not acquired at that time.
Most believers would probably call it "god", to justify their beliefs. But that's another story.

Once again, it is impossible to comfirm something's nonexisitence within an unknown space.

Yes, and we cannot obtain new fresh attributes of god, we can only recycle old ones. And the problem is that if you add up all definitions from the bible you end up with an imcomprehensible, nonprobable and selfcontradictory being that can only be reffered to as a "thing".
And if you take just a few of them you end up with an imaginary being, or at best a logical possibility.

Possibly exist and possibly not exist is the same thing. The way of thinking that I've adapt/reached is that something that is only a possibility should be considered nonexistent until some proof or argument is presented that would elevate it.
If not, we end up with irrelavent, and stupid questions such as "does santa really exist?". It has happened several times before on this forum, and as it is no good trategy/logic to increase our knowledge we should not use it.

Same here.

Philsoft...

It is my impression that people's personal definition of god is simply an embodyment of their own ideals, wich has the same will/opinion as the person himself.
You will find that alot of people disagree on what god wants, but they never disagree with god.

Philosoft

True, a person can tell me that he is mentally picturing an old man with a long, white beard if
asked to describe his conception of God. However, I maintain both that this conception cannot actually be God were God to exist, and, more importantly, the person in question knows his mental picture is not what God actually looks like.

<strong> Quite alright. Dictionaries describe rather that proscribe usages. It is often important to understand first-hand how others use words.

Philosoft

<strong>Quoth Theli:

It is my impression that people's personal definition of god is simply an embodyment of their own ideals, wich has the same will/opinion as the person himself.
You will find that alot of people disagree on what god wants, but they never disagree with god.</strong>

Well spoken, sir. I cannot disagree.

ansarthemystic

Philosoft.....

YOU WROTE:"True, a person can tell me that he is mentally picturing an old man with a long, white beard if asked to describe his conception of God. However, I maintain both that this conception cannot actually be God were God to exist, and, more importantly, the person in question knows his mental picture is not what God actually looks like."

this is very true! since no one but you, Theli, and I seem interested in this thread for now I am off to harass, I mean, talk to some christians, hahaha! see you on another thread.