What do we really mean by "God"?

[wynn]

Thank you for once more pointing out how exchanges on the topic of "GOD" are almost inevitably a matter of power games.
You so remind me of theists.

 

[Balerion]

There is an aspect to the FSM that atheists don't always point out and theists tend to refuse to acknowledge once pointed out: namely, issues of religious epistemology as they arise for a potential convert in the process of proselytizing.

Care to elaborate? A "for example," perhaps?

I feel hurt at how little empathy theists tend to have for those they preach to and desire to convert.
They talk to us on the topic of "GOD," they even ridicule us and threaten us, but they adamantly refuse to put themselves in our shoes.

It is this lack of empathy that makes me doubt whether those theists really have anything of value to convey.
Whether what they say on the topic of "GOD" is true or not, that I cannot judge.
But what I can judge is whether someone understands me or makes an effort to understand me, or whether they are in mostly for one-upmanship.
Of course, this one-upmanship and lack of empathy could be part of their theistic message to begin with.

Don't you think you're painting with a bit of a broad brush here? Is it really a fair statement to say that "theists have no empathy?" I think a more accurate statement would be that some theists lack empathy, certainly. And I'm curious to know what your relationship history is with these people. Who exactly are these people? Are they people you've known in life, or just some anonymous radicals on internet forums such as this one? You seem to find it pointless, but it really is important to substantiate your claims. Simply saying "Theists lack empathy" isn't enough to satisfy anyone. Maybe because of your history, it's good enough for you, but the rest of us reading your posts don't have access to your memories. Thus the need to flesh out the ideas you present in such abbreviated form.

But why am I wasting my time? There's a 90% chance you'll completely overlook this, or take one sentence out of context and respond to that while disregarding the rest--ie the actual point of my post.

 

[Balerion]

Thank you for once more pointing out how exchanges on the topic of "GOD" are almost inevitably a matter of power games.
You so remind me of theists.

I'm just another member of the forum. I have no power over you.

Don't blame me for your intellectual cowardice. Save that rage for the mirror.

 

[wynn]

There is an aspect to the FSM that atheists don't always point out and theists tend to refuse to acknowledge once pointed out: namely, issues of religious epistemology as they arise for a potential convert in the process of proselytizing.

Care to elaborate? A "for example," perhaps?

"How do I know that what the theist is telling me is true?"
"Even though I don't understand what the theist is telling me, nor know whether what he is talking about is true or not, how seriously should I take his words, given that he says that my not abiding by what he says will result in negative consequences for me?"

Don't you think you're painting with a bit of a broad brush here? Is it really a fair statement to say that "theists have no empathy?" I think a more accurate statement would be that some theists lack empathy, certainly. And I'm curious to know what your relationship history is with these people. Who exactly are these people? Are they people you've known in life, or just some anonymous radicals on internet forums such as this one? You seem to find it pointless, but it really is important to substantiate your claims. Simply saying "Theists lack empathy" isn't enough to satisfy anyone. Maybe because of your history, it's good enough for you, but the rest of us reading your posts don't have access to your memories. Thus the need to flesh out the ideas you present in such abbreviated form.

Why don't you read what I say?

Here is my post again:

It's a reductio-ad-absurdem of the fideistic idea that in the case of certain objects, the proper route to knowledge is through faith, instead of reason.

The FSM suggests that it's possible to have faith in just about anything, no matter how absurd it is.

There is an aspect to the FSM that atheists don't always point out and theists tend to refuse to acknowledge once pointed out: namely, issues of religious epistemology as they arise for a potential convert in the process of proselytizing.


Although I myself wouldn't use an analogy from Italian cuisine, when a theist asks me to believe in God, that idea of "believing in God" does strike me as outlandish to the extreme, pure fideism.

I feel hurt at how little empathy theists tend to have for those they preach to and desire to convert.
They talk to us on the topic of "GOD," they even ridicule us and threaten us, but they adamantly refuse to put themselves in our shoes.

It is this lack of empathy that makes me doubt whether those theists really have anything of value to convey.
Whether what they say on the topic of "GOD" is true or not, that I cannot judge.
But what I can judge is whether someone understands me or makes an effort to understand me, or whether they are in mostly for one-upmanship.
Of course, this one-upmanship and lack of empathy could be part of their theistic message to begin with.

 

[Balerion]

"How do I know that what the theist is telling me is true?"
"Even though I don't understand what the theist is telling me, nor know whether what he is talking about is true or not, how seriously should I take his words, given that he says that my not abiding by what he says will result in negative consequences for me?"

I was asking how this was addressed by the FSM.

Why don't you read what I say?

I did read what you wrote. At the very least you're saying that most or almost all theists are lacking empathy. That's quite a claim. Why don't you answer the question?

And why don't you answer the question I asked regarding where you get this idea? Do you have no integrity?

 

[wynn]

And why don't you answer the question I asked regarding where you get this idea? Do you have no integrity?

I certainly have none in your eyes.

Makes me wonder why you keep talking to me. Must be that you have no integrity in your eyes either!

:shrug:

 

[Balerion]

I certainly have none in your eyes.

Makes me wonder why you keep talking to me. Must be that you have no integrity in your eyes either!

:shrug:

Because unlike many posters here, you're smart and capable of saying some incredibly interesting things when you're not being evasive. That's what's frustrating about you. I've been enthralled by many of our conversations, only to have you throw it into Ludicrous Speed to get out of seeing the world from a different perspective.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Because unlike many posters here, you're smart and capable of saying some incredibly interesting things when you're not being evasive. That's what's frustrating about you. I've been enthralled by many of our conversations, only to have you throw it into Ludicrous Speed to get out of seeing the world from a different perspective.

You're wasting your time.
She will NOT explain what she means.

Chances are it's just a mental exercise that cycles round and round never reaching a conclusion.

I think there is comfort in never having to reach a conclusion, a kind of 'happy place' for alot of people.

If you persist in questioning her, she will eventually accuse you of things, like ''trying to control her'', being an aggressive dominent male, and other stuff
I can't remember. She will then shut down.

jan.

 

[Balerion]

You're wasting your time.
She will NOT explain what she means.

Chances are it's just a mental exercise that cycles round and round never reaching a conclusion.

I think there is comfort in never having to reach a conclusion, a kind of 'happy place' for alot of people.

If you persist in questioning her, she will eventually accuse you of things, like ''trying to control her'', being an aggressive dominent male, and other stuff
I can't remember. She will then shut down.

jan.

As opposed to your most common answer when pressed for clarification, which is "Go read a book," or something of the ilk? At least wynn is capable of having intellectually-honest conversations.

 

[Jan Ardena]

As opposed to your most common answer when pressed for clarification, which is "Go read a book," or something of the ilk? At least wynn is capable of having intellectually-honest conversations.

Why are you being offensive?

Are you so emotionally involved with our discussions to the point where you actually think ''I'' am my posts?

Wynn is very capable of having intellectual conversations, and does highlight some excellent points, that's obvious.
But there is another side to her, as in the one I mentioned. With regard to ''intellectual-honesty'', the answer is sometime she is and sometimes she isn't.

With regard to your accusation of me, I always bare in mind the actual questions you ask, and these questions are generally found to be lacking when speaking on issues of God and spirituality which is why I always ask you to review your questions, or to read a scripture in which you'll either find the answer to your questions, or realise that the question doesn't actually relate to the subject.

I have to assume that the reason for asking the questions you do, are genuine enquiry and not rhetorical.

jan.

 

[Balerion]

Why are you being offensive?

Wait, why were you all on-board with trashing Wynn a minute ago, but now that it's turned around, it's "offensive?"

Are you so emotionally involved with our discussions to the point where you actually think ''I'' am my posts?

Again, this is a 180 from your last post, in which you using wynn's posts to form a psychological profile. I point out the irony of you commenting on someone's evasiveness, and I'm the bad guy?

 

[Jan Ardena]

Wait, why were you all on-board with trashing Wynn a minute ago, but now that it's turned around, it's "offensive?"



Again, this is a 180 from your last post, in which you using wynn's posts to form a psychological profile. I point out the irony of you commenting on someone's evasiveness, and I'm the bad guy?

I didn't say you're a ''bad guy'', I only asked why you were being offensive to me, which you were.

jan.

 

[Balerion]

I didn't say you're a ''bad guy'', I only asked why you were being offensive to me, which you were.

jan.

I wasn't trying to be offensive. I was stating a fact.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Why am I not surprised at your frivolous use of the word ''fact''? (rhetoricol)

You didn't actually respond to the post.

jan.

 

[mugwande]

If you put your own science to God then you are lost

 

[wynn]

Lol - the two of you!

Because unlike many posters here, you're smart and capable of saying some incredibly interesting things when you're not being evasive. That's what's frustrating about you. I've been enthralled by many of our conversations, only to have you throw it into Ludicrous Speed to get out of seeing the world from a different perspective.

Granted, I bow out sometimes. I already noted that under pressure of name-calling and the like, I can't exactly think straight. That is a weakness of mine, and one that I am making an effort to overcome. To be clear: I want to overcome this weakness for my own sake, not because of you.

That said, talking about spiritual/religious topics is, apparently, a gladiator sport.



*

**

 

[wynn]

Don't you think you're painting with a bit of a broad brush here? Is it really a fair statement to say that "theists have no empathy?" I think a more accurate statement would be that some theists lack empathy, certainly. And I'm curious to know what your relationship history is with these people. Who exactly are these people? Are they people you've known in life, or just some anonymous radicals on internet forums such as this one? You seem to find it pointless, but it really is important to substantiate your claims. Simply saying "Theists lack empathy" isn't enough to satisfy anyone. Maybe because of your history, it's good enough for you, but the rest of us reading your posts don't have access to your memories. Thus the need to flesh out the ideas you present in such abbreviated form.

Apart from your false generalization that I was speaking of all theists -

If you read my post you're replying to, I am speaking for myself:

It is this lack of empathy that makes me doubt whether those theists really have anything of value to convey.
Whether what they say on the topic of "GOD" is true or not, that I cannot judge.
But what I can judge is whether someone understands me or makes an effort to understand me, or whether they are in mostly for one-upmanship.

I imagine it is an experience that you, too, have had with theists: Have you ever felt that any theist who was preaching to you, actually put themselves in your shoes and tried to see things from your perspective? Was there ever such a theist?

Perhaps there are such theists - I have not met any, and, more importantly, a good case can be made that it would be against their very effort to proselytize to actually place themselves in the shoes of the skeptic person they are preaching to. Because if those preaching theists would actually place themselves in the shoes of skeptics, that would be the end of preaching.


One important difference between you and me is that you seem to have a largely depersonalized approach to the topic of belief in God - as if belief in God would be the same kind of thing as believing there is, say, a chair in the next room. It's basically, a unilateral effort, a one-way relationship.
Whereas I point out also the personal, subjectifying nature of belief in God - I take issues of belief in God similarly as when two people getting to know eachother and having a relationship: both need to make an effort, both need to get involved - it's a bilateral effort.

Note that some theists also take the unilateralist approach to belief in God, and I tend to clash with them too.

 

[Yazata]

Yes, it [the word 'God'] has all sorts of uses, to the point of being useless.

If somebody intends to say something thoughtful and intelligent about God, about belief in God, or whatever, it would help a lot if they included some indication of what they intend the word 'God' to mean. Are they talking about the deity of some monotheistic religious tradition? (If so, which one?) Are they talking about some set of hypothetical philosophical functions? (If so, which ones? And why the use of the connotation-loaded word 'God' to refer to them?) Sometimes there are implicit assumptions slipping in that should be made explicit, such as the idea that all of the world's monotheist religions ultimately worship the same deity. (That requires argument.)

A case can be made that the word "GOD" (note the difficulty in figuring out how to write it, whether to capitalize it or not)

That's another problem that I have with the word 'God'. When it's capitalized, it typically refers to a/the monotheist deity. When we are talking about a deity from a polytheistic religion, the word is left lower case - 'god'. I perceive an implicit value judgement there, one that values monotheism over polytheism. It's an implicit expression of Judeo-Christian assumptions and once again it needs argument.

should be done away with altogether, or reserved specifically for Christianity, given that in individual theistic religions, it is usually not used and instead, they talk about "Allah," "Yahweh," "Vishnu" etc.

It's too entrenched in the English language to simply eliminate. And it's too embedded in a huge body of literature. The best that we can hope for is some recognition that the word's meaning is often fuzzy and ambiguous.

Some atheists, like Balerion here, do believe that a human, despite the human limitations, is in the position to discover whether there exists a being that fits the usual descriptions of "GOD" (ie. a being that is omniscient etc.).
It's not clear how they have come to this conclusion - although the claim it's perfectly clear ...

I don't know how a human being could possibly recognize whether or not another being is omniscient. Perhaps all we could determine is that the other being knows more than we do, and knows the kind of things that we don't understand how it possibly could know.

Of course, if any tribes still exist out there that have had no contact with the outside world, their intellectual authorities (shamans or whatever) might conclude the same thing if a crew of anthropologists suddenly landed a helicopter outside their village. The villagers couldn't be certain whether they were confronted with men or gods.

The thing is, beings like ourselves are going to encounter the (certain, if vaguely delineated) boundary of the unknown, long before we encounter the (much more hypothetical) boundary of God. (Especially if we decide to define our understanding of what 'God' means in that instance by use of philosophical theology's omni-predicates.) The contents and even the extent of the unknown are unknown, simply by their nature. We can say that whatever the unknown contents of that unbounded epistemological category might be, they exceed our current understanding. It's hard to see how we could say much more than that.

Nevertheless, having said that, I do agree with the atheists that some concepts of God just seem unlikely on their face. Just looking at the night's sky, and thinking about the scale and scope of the universe, it's hard for me to take seriously the idea that it is all the work of a blustering super-powered Semitic tribal chieftain. I feel quite confident in believing that the likelihood of the Bible or the Quran containing the cosmic answers is so remote as to be negligible. What's more, I'm very doubtful that the cosmic answers have any resemblance to a human person. That image has clear and obvious emotional resonance for human beings like ourselves, but it looks like anthropomorphism to me, our creation of our deity in our own human image.

As to what the ultimate cosmic answers might be, assuming that there are any, I have no way of knowing and haven't a clue.

 

[wynn]

You're wasting your time.
She will NOT explain what she means.

Chances are it's just a mental exercise that cycles round and round never reaching a conclusion.

I think there is comfort in never having to reach a conclusion, a kind of 'happy place' for alot of people.

If you persist in questioning her, she will eventually accuse you of things, like ''trying to control her'', being an aggressive dominent male, and other stuff
I can't remember. She will then shut down.

Why are you being offensive?

Are you so emotionally involved with our discussions to the point where you actually think ''I'' am my posts?

Wynn is very capable of having intellectual conversations, and does highlight some excellent points, that's obvious.
But there is another side to her, as in the one I mentioned. With regard to ''intellectual-honesty'', the answer is sometime she is and sometimes she isn't.

You are, of course, perfect in every way. I am full of faults. You do not make mistakes. You are beyond illusion. Any glitches in our communication are completely and solely due to my faults. You are perfectly kind and generous. I am a greedy little bitch. You always understand everything. I am the moron. You have fully renounced the desire to control other people and to have followers. You are somebody. You matter. I'm a nobody. Your command of the English language is impeccable. You have supreme skills for interacting with other people. You are a pure devotee. You shit daisies.

 

[wynn]

It's too entrenched in the English language to simply eliminate. And it's too embedded in a huge body of literature. The best that we can hope for is some recognition that the word's meaning is often fuzzy and ambiguous.

Actually, I'm thinking about eliminating the word "GOD" from my own vocabulary.
Imagine how much easier life would be if I would only refer to Allah, or Krishna etc.!

I don't know how a human being could possibly recognize whether or not another being is omniscient. Perhaps all we could determine is that the other being knows more than we do, and knows the kind of things that we don't understand how it possibly could know.

One line of reasoning that is sometimes suggested for how a human could make valid claims about an omni- entity is by looking into notions of omniscience, omnipotence etc. and see if they are internally consistent.

Although, in the end, what is relevant is that God even needn't be omni- -- it suffices that God is just more powerful, more knowledgeable etc. than anyone else.

Nevertheless, having said that, I do agree with the atheists that some concepts of God just seem unlikely on their face.

I think that some ways of looking at the traditional concepts of God that go nowhere.

For example, one such way is to think of concepts of God as something that has been arrived at by what is on principle (pre-)scientific research, and that thus people's claims about God are to be taken no differently than people's claims about, say, chairs, apples or electrons - ie. a matter of human research.
In contrast, the main theistic traditions point out how they are revealed religions - that they are not the result of human research, but divine knowledge that God Himself revealed to mankind. Sure, taking these traditions at their word may seem naive and indicate an implicit belief that God exists. Personally, I wouldn't simply dismiss them, though, and instead allow them, already for the sake of argument.

Just looking at the night's sky, and thinking about the scale and scope of the universe, it's hard for me to take seriously the idea that it is all the work of a blustering super-powered Semitic tribal chieftain. I feel quite confident in believing that the likelihood of the Bible or the Quran containing the cosmic answers is so remote as to be negligible. What's more, I'm very doubtful that the cosmic answers have any resemblance to a human person. That image has clear and obvious emotional resonance for human beings like ourselves, but it looks like anthropomorphism to me, our creation of our deity in our own human image.

If we go with the idea that religions are revealed, these things look different then.
For the sake of discussion, we can posit that God reveals Himself to people, according to these people's needs, interests and concerns, according to their abilities. So God reveals Himself to different people differently.
I think it quite likely that the image of God as presented by the Old Testament, for example, is something that would be appealing and understandable to a particular group of people, living in dire conditions on the verge of deserts and in constant struggle with other tribes.
Someone living in opulent, peaceful circumstances has different needs, interests and concerns, so the image of God that would be meaningful for such a person will differ from the one that is meaningful for those living in dire circumstances.

As to what the ultimate cosmic answers might be, assuming that there are any, I have no way of knowing and haven't a clue.

It all comes down to whether these things are keeping you awake at night, or not.