Atheists don't invent their own gods and theologies. They simply express disbelief in those of the theists.
Only sometimes.
One cannot rightfully say one disbelieves in a particular conception of "God," when one cannot even repeat it without copy-pasting it or looking it up in a dictionary.
Perhaps what you are reacting to is the obvious dislike and hostility expressed by some (certainly not all) atheists towards 'religion' (a word that's just as vague and poorly defined as 'God').
What I'm reacting to is the proposed supremacy of atheism when there appears to be no evidence of said supremacy.
recent eruption of theist attacks on atheists here on Sciforums.
Aww. Whatever happened to "may the stronger one win"?
So what do they tell you? You've said that you think that theistic understanding of the meaning of the word 'God' is superior to atheist understanding. You've said that you think that if atheists only adopted the theists' understanding, then all the atheists' questions would evaporate as pseudo-problems.
I didn't say that
all the atheists' questions would evaporate as pseudo-problems. I said:
If atheists would use the word "God" the way the vast majority of theists use it, then the vast majority of atheist threads and posts on boards like these would not exist, for there would be no need to ask the questions they ask, nor try to solve the problems they try to solve, as those questions could not be meaningfully asked, and those problems would not exist.
So... what is that theistic understanding that you espouse?
I don't espouse any particular theistic understanding.
I'm interested in seeing what the vocal atheists have to offer - given that they tend to propose to know The Truth, the How Things Really Are. (Not to mention that not only a few deem themselves superior to me.)
How is it different from what you imagine atheists like myself understand the word 'God' to mean?
I don't need to imagine anything in this. I ask questions.
Your point might have some plausibility, if it is ever established that theists understand the word 'God' to mean something significantly different than atheists mean when they use the word. I don't believe that's the case.
Without cheating, list the first ten definitions from any of the three lists of names and titles of God that I have linked to.
At least it would be plausible if all that's in dispute between theists and atheists is merely the meaning of a word. It's the theists' word after all, and the object of their belief, so an argument can certainly be made that they are the ones who should be defining it.
Indeed, they are the ones who should be definining it.
But it quickly becomes more complicated than that. The dispute between theists and atheists isn't primarily about the meaning of a word. It's a dispute about the literal objective existence of the divine being that the word supposedly refers to and names.
No.
Your approach here reduces God to being the kind of thing chairs and tables are.
Your approach already excludes some of the basic definitions of "God," which is "Supreme Being, Creator and Controller of the Universe."
So you're not working with a theistic definition of "God" to begin with.
When we turn our attention to religious teachers and teachings, we are faced with similar difficulties. How does one distinguish between true religious facts and heathen superstition? How do we distinguish true religious teachers from pretenders? It's fairly clear how to go about answering those questions regarding physics. But things are a lot murkier when it comes to religious assertions.
Enter virtue epistemology - on the part of the one asking the questions and desiring to know.
That's where the epistemological 'how do you know that?' question arises and why it's crucial. It typically arises, in both physics and in religion, when disputes exist about the truth of some assertion. That's why atheists are often the ones asking these annoying questions of theists.
But they are misguided questions, because they tactily assume that God, if God exists, is the kind of thing like a table or a chair.
Well sure, if atheists all start believing that everything that theists say is true, then all of the questions that atheists ask about the truth of what theists say would evaporate. (Leaving aside all the remaining disputes among theists themselves.)
Begging questions isn't the same thing as answering them and it doesn't mean that the questions aren't crucial.
There you go again ...
You strike me as someone who wishes to learn German, but insists on creating his own dictionary of German ...
