Scared of theism

Zombrex

John Wine wrote:

What if there is no particular God as described exclusively by any particular theology, but a more generic God, which is compatable with most theologies?

Then these religions and their followers are still wrong because that is not what they believe.

The Greeks did not believe in one very general and abstract definition of "god", being some kind of abstract force that might control things. They believed in a series of specific gods and goddesses that had particular roles to play and were responsible for particular aspects of nature.

If such a power as your abstract god (which by the way kinda dilutes the concept of a "god" to the point where it has little meaning) actually exists then the Greeks were still completely wrong in their religious concepts, as wrong as if your god simply did not exist.

The the question is what purpose did the Greek or Hindu or Viking polytheist religions serve in their culture and view of the universe. The answer is that these religious systems provided answers to the questions about life and nature, answers which as science increased were eventually replaced with natural explanations.

5uspect

Well said, its a case of not throwing the baby out with the bath water here. God or gods were conjured up to explain unknowns but as these unknowns were eventually solved the comfortable notion of god was then retained regardless of its original purpose, the religion and dogma that was built around the original notion became the scaffolding that now solely supports it.

Zombrex

5uspect wrote:

Well said, its a case of not throwing the baby out with the bath water here. God or gods were conjured up to explain unknowns but as these unknowns were eventually solved the comfortable notion of god was then retained regardless of its original purpose, the religion and dogma that was built around the original notion became the scaffolding that now solely supports it.

Exactly,

For some reason some people seem to believe that the concept of gods is some how still valid independent of the long abandoned explinations for natural events these gods used to provide.

We, as humans, really should have thrown out the concept of "gods" when we threw out the supernatural explinations for natural events that these gods originally provided. But we didn't, becaues the concept of a "god" still provides some with comfortable easy answers to difficult questions, just as it did thousands of years ago for the Greeks and Vikings. That is the common denominator

pH

Wicknight wrote:

If such a power as your abstract god (which by the way kinda dilutes the concept of a "god" to the point where it has little meaning) actually exists then the Greeks were still completely wrong in their religious concepts, as wrong as if your god simply did not exist.

Agreed - playing games with the definition of God is silly.

Say there is a 'God', who created the universe, but hasn't been heard from since. So God exists, but we have no soul, there is no afterlife, and he couldn't care less how we behave.

So technically, a 'God' could exist, and he'd be totally irrelevant to out lives.

The point here is that for God to be of interest to us, his existence or otherwise needs to have some consequences. A god who is *identical* (from our position) to 'A God that doesn't exist' is not at all interesting or worth spending any time considering.

Zillah

I think he went away. Did we beat him into submission?

Scofflaw

pH wrote:

Agreed - playing games with the definition of God is silly.

Say there is a 'God', who created the universe, but hasn't been heard from since. So God exists, but we have no soul, there is no afterlife, and he couldn't care less how we behave.

So technically, a 'God' could exist, and he'd be totally irrelevant to out lives.

The point here is that for God to be of interest to us, his existence or otherwise needs to have some consequences. A god who is *identical* (from our position) to 'A God that doesn't exist' is not at all interesting or worth spending any time considering.

Hence "alatrism" - not worshipping! We can disprove any god worth worshipping, but are forced to concede the possible existence of gods not worth worshipping. That makes atheism a statement of faith, but alatrism a mere recognition of reality.

cordially,
Scofflaw

John Wine

5uspect wrote:

Well said, its a case of not throwing the baby out with the bath water here. God or gods were conjured up to explain unknowns but as these unknowns were eventually solved the comfortable notion of god was then retained regardless of its original purpose, the religion and dogma that was built around the original notion became the scaffolding that now solely supports it.

No, that is the reason why you would like to believe Gods were conjured up.
You need to seperate reason from desire, otherwise your reason will be so biased, it will cease to be reason.
What cannot be avoided here is the millions and billions of sense data of God that the homosapien species experiences.
There is no doubt we (the majority) experience it, but the question is why?
Is it a vesitgious mindset or something deeper and more meaningfull?
You completly reject it is something more meaningfull, so how do you proof beyond reasonable doubt that it is not vestigious?

John Wine

pH wrote:

Agreed - playing games with the definition of God is silly.

Say there is a 'God', who created the universe, but hasn't been heard from since. So God exists, but we have no soul, there is no afterlife, and he couldn't care less how we behave.

So technically, a 'God' could exist, and he'd be totally irrelevant to out lives.

The point here is that for God to be of interest to us, his existence or otherwise needs to have some consequences. A god who is *identical* (from our position) to 'A God that doesn't exist' is not at all interesting or worth spending any time considering.

Disagree, we must be flexible in our interpretation of God, otherwise we are limiting him to the limits of human understanding. I would say most of God is beyond human understanding, similar to me being beyond the understanding of my Dog.
We have a ´sense´of God but this is different to the actual ´óbject´ of God.

Dades

John Wine wrote:

No, that is the reason why you would like to believe Gods were conjured up.
You need to seperate reason from desire, otherwise your reason will be so biased, it will cease to be reason.

I wish there was a god that would answer my prayers, and send me to heaven to be with my loved ones for eternity. However it is exactly because I have separated "reason from desire" that I hold the beliefs I do. If I didn't, I - like the 'the majority' - would believe what I desire to believe.

Disagree, we must be flexible in our interpretation of God, otherwise we are limiting him to the limits of human understanding.

How can you even discuss the existence/non-existence of something that has zero agreed characteristics? It's all just philosophical or theological conjecture that bears no weight whatsoever. Lets all sit around asking why a tree is made of wood while we're at it.

aidan24326

John Wine wrote:

Disagree, we must be flexible in our interpretation of God, otherwise we are limiting him to the limits of human understanding. I would say most of God is beyond human understanding, similar to me being beyond the understanding of my Dog.
We have a ´sense´of God but this is different to the actual ´óbject´ of God.

Since the very notion of there being a 'god' is undeniably a human construct, then it seems obvious to me that any 'interpretation' of god would necessarily be limited by the limiting constraints of the human minds that conceived of such an idea in the first place. If there really is/was a god creator of the universe or some kind of overlord, that entity would likely be something far more complex and sophisticated than any of the naieve 'gods' that we've thus far invented, with their big egos and short tempers. As for your last line about 'sense' and 'object', sounds good but unfortunately doesn't mean anything.

5uspect

John Wine wrote:

No, that is the reason why you would like to believe Gods were conjured up.
You need to seperate reason from desire, otherwise your reason will be so biased, it will cease to be reason.

But what rational way can you justify god? Especially the god you seem to believe in? It seems that for you god is everything and anything you want or desire it to be.

John Wine wrote:

What cannot be avoided here is the millions and billions of sense data of God that the homosapien species experiences.

But it doesn't make the existence of a god any more true than the feeling that millions of people thinking that the world is flat, or the sun revolves around the sun or that they will win the lotto this weekend. Feelings don't really cut it. If you just wallow in your feelings you loose all objectivity as to why we experience emotions and gut feelings. I've alreand mentioned that there is no need for our brains to be honest with us for us to be successful organisms. An interesting example of what faith without proof can result in when the faith is essentially destroyed can be found here. You will attempt to rationalise based on your assumptions which are assumed infallible.
Other such examples of cognitive dissonance can be found all over the googleweb but especially over on the creationism thread.

John Wine wrote:

There is no doubt we (the majority) experience it, but the question is why?
Is it a vesitgious mindset or something deeper and more meaningful?
You completly reject it is something more meaningful, so how do you proof beyond reasonable doubt that it is not vestigious?

I cannot really prove anything beyond reasonable doubt. Science must always be open to new ideas and interpretations of the world. I fully accept that I cannot prove that god cannot exist and I accept that there is a chance that he does exist but unlike the more charitable alatrism of Scofflaw I reject any idea, be it god or pink unicorns, equally until there is evidence. Just because the notion of god is more popular is not evidence. And here is my problem with your interpretation of god. It is so meaningless and so vague that it could be anything. Why not say that maybe there is something here worth investigating with an open, unbiased mind and go and do so. Why do you need to attach the god label to it before you have a shred of real evidence other than a feeling you get from your brain which, lets face it, is a piece of equipment not calibrated for this kind of lab.

Zombrex

John Wine wrote:

No, that is the reason why you would like to believe Gods were conjured up.
...
There is no doubt we (the majority) experience it, but the question is why?

You answered your own question, because they want to

It is a natural by product of the way our brains work to invent a concept like "gods" We do it because it provides an outlook of the world around us that we find easier to conprehend.

John Wine wrote:

Is it a vesitgious mindset or something deeper and more meaningfull?

It is a mindset. The evidence for this is the history of humanity. Thousands of different religious concepts, from monotheists invisible God, to complex ideas of gods godessess and spirits. The common theme? They all provide answers in a simple to understand framework, for questions we cannot presently answer.

John Wine wrote:

You completly reject it is something more meaningfull, so how do you proof beyond reasonable doubt that it is not vestigious?

I think I already have.

John Wine wrote:

Disagree, we must be flexible in our interpretation of God, otherwise we are limiting him to the limits of human understanding.

Actually w are flexible in our interpretation of what a "god" is, our interpretation is that it is a concept created by the human mind to help explain aspects of nature that we have yet to find a natural explination for. The evidence for this is history. I know of no god concept that was not used to explain something found in nature, be it lightning or death.

You want it to be something else, something more "meaningful." But as you said yourself -

"You need to seperate reason from desire, otherwise your reason will be so biased, it will cease to be reason."

John Wine

Wicknight wrote:

It is a natural by product of the way our brains work to invent a concept like "gods" We do it because it provides an outlook of the world around us that we find easier to conprehend.


It is a mindset. The evidence for this is the history of humanity. Thousands of different religious concepts, from monotheists invisible God, to complex ideas of gods godessess and spirits. The common theme? They all provide answers in a simple to understand framework, for questions we cannot presently answer.

That is evidence of sense data but it is not evidence of a complete delusion.
The way we perceive the sense data may be different amongst cultures and people but that this does not invalidate all the sense data as complete nonsense. There is a jump in your logic.
You exclude the case where the core or the origins of the sense data is valid and due to God, even though they interpretation may lack totality and exactness.

Zillah

I know "sense data" sounds nice and intelligent but you're essentially talking about your imagination. There's billions of incidents providing "sense data" for monsters being under children's beds, does that mean we should all believe in such monsters?

No.
Obviously.
That would be stupid.
Like children, they're stupid.

aidan24326

Zillah wrote:

I know "sense data" sounds nice and intelligent but you're essentially talking about your imagination. There's billions of incidents providing "sense data" for monsters being under children's beds, does that mean we should all believe in such monsters?

No.
Obviously.
That would be stupid.
Like children, they're stupid.

I think John Wine is overestimating the type of information that one's 'sense data' can provide. Our 'sense data' (ususally) serves us well in everyday life, allowing the brain to create a simulation of what is happening around us, at our own level of time,space,distance etc. But science (especially physics) has shown us that the scope of our senses is limited, and once we move outside the parameters of our everyday experiences our 5 senses are ill-equipped for the job.

To suggest that they could tell us anything meaningful about a god (short of actually seeing one) is nonsense. In fact there is much evidence that our 'sense data' is very good at tricking and fooling us where god matters are concerned, with people claiming to have spoken with the virgin mary and seen statues moving, seen god appear to them etc. Just as our brain is very good at constructing faces where there aren't any, it seems it is also good (for some people) at constructing a 'reality' which best fits with what that person wants to believe in the first place.

Zombrex

John Wine wrote:

There is a jump in your logic.

No, actually the jump in logic is assuming that there must be some external force triggering the brain into inventing the cultural phenomena that is religion. I see no reason to believe that, and lots of reasons not to.

As aidan24326 points out our minds are quite good at tricking ourselves. The fact that there are so many different religions, all with different characteristists would imply that they are not being stimulated by one consistent outside force.

John Wine wrote:

You exclude the case where the core or the origins of the sense data is valid and due to God, even though they interpretation may lack totality and exactness.

John you haven't defined what the "sense data" is to begin with, so how can you tell a common origin between different people? What sense is triggered by God?