Does atheism discount all gods?

stevejazzx

oeb wrote: »

I think that if they try in anyway to personify this 'something', especially by claiming that the universe was created by an act of will in some way, then they are probably more of a deist than an athiest.

I don't think so, I think there's a distinction.
Steve Weinberg sums it up here:

Theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg suggests that in fact this is not much of a God at all. Weinberg notes that traditionally the word "God" has meant "an interested personality". But that is not what Hawking and Lederman mean. Their "god", he says, is really just "an abstract principle of order and harmony", a set of mathematical equations. Weinberg questions then why they use the word "god" at all. He makes the rather profound point that "if language is to be of any use to us, then we ought to try and preserve the meaning of words, and 'god' historically has not meant the laws of nature." The question of just what is "God" has taxed theologians for thousands of years; what Weinberg reminds us is to be wary of glib definitions.

I don't think that Weinburg is correct though about this 'preserving the meaning of words' thing because as we know from the world around us the definition of words does change from time to time just like scientific theories change as they come to mean something else or are better understood. So I don't find it altogether inappropriate when a physicist labels something 'god' as it approaches a conveyance of thought that no other 3 letter could.

Zillah

stevejazzx wrote: »

Ah you know it's fair enough - I know Zillah can be a bit abrasive but the trolling insinuation ("...or real-life trolling you") was a bit much TBH. He has a lot of anger that young man:).

No dude I wasn't accusing you of anything! I took your initial reference to a "someone" as a person you had actually encountered rather than purely hypothetical.

My turnip simile was just a way of expressing my opinion that the proposal is only a problem due to clumsy semantics. I can't grasp why someone would label an unknown something as God without intending it to mean God in the sense that it is usually used. Calling it God when you don't intend to imply most of the characteristics associated with God strikes me as rather bizarre. It's a bit like if I said that I believed an unknown something created the universe and wanted to call it a ghost...would this belief conflict with my stated position of not believing in ghosts? After all, I don't intend to attach the common attributes implied by the word ghost to this unknown...

In such a scenario I could only respond by saying "Why the hell are you even calling it a ghost?"

EDIT: Although pondering it a bit more I see your point in relation to the Einsteinian God. Frankly I find their use of the word God to be quite misleading and foolish. I suppose they mean it in the sense of the "search for God" or the wonder they feel pondering the glory of the universe, to peer into it's depths and "touch the face of God". I think there's far better ways to describe this sensation. One that won't lead to theists trying to claim them as their own.

stevejazzx

Zillah wrote: »

No dude I wasn't accusing you of anything! I took your initial reference to a "someone" as a person you had actually encountered rather than purely hypothetical.

Cool. I knew you weren't that harsh..I tihnk!

Zillah wrote:

My turnip simile was just a way of expressing my opinion that the proposal is only a problem due to clumsy semantics. I can't grasp why someone would label an unknown something as God without intending it to mean God in the sense that it is usually used. Calling it God when you don't intend to imply most of the characteristics associated with God strikes me as rather bizarre. It's a bit like if I said that I believed an unknown something created the universe and wanted to call it a ghost...would this belief conflict with my stated position of not believing in ghosts? After all, I don't intend to attach the common attributes implied by the word ghost to this unknown...

In such a scenario I could only respond by saying "Why the hell are you even calling it a ghost?"

Ah you see I didn't want to get it down entirely to smeantics. Of course you can take a linguistic higher ground here and just say god means god but
what I was attempting to say was something like what Naz St. describes here:

naz st wrote:

]
I think it is both linguistically reasonable (a-theism: rejecting a personal God + Deism the belief in a non-personal, 'creator' of some description) and not necessarily contradictory (reject monotheistic Gods, but believe in a first "cause"/"creator").

togster

Sam Vimes wrote: »

If that is the case then it is impossible to be an atheist because anything in the universe can be God. Is God the only word that can be applied to everything in existence or could I pick, say, cheese and call every person, place and thing cheese?

Reminds me of this:
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/south-park-south-park-marvin-on-marklar/1999091525

It just makes it easier to explain what it is or at least to have a starting point with points of refereance that you can start to explain with. Or you could call it a turnip or simply the unknown. Whatever.

Zillah

stevejazzx wrote: »

Naz St. describes here:

Well, for one there's nothing stopping a Deist God from being personal, albeit an entirely disinterested one.

I think the word 'God' is far too weighted with certain connotations to be usefully applied to anything other than a mighty, personal entity. I wouldn't go so far as to include omnipotence/omniscience in the usage, as while Thor and Zeus were extremely potent entities, they were never described as having total power.

So whatever thing we are discussing here, unless it's a personal entity, using the word "God" is a very poor choice, simply begging for confusion and misinterpretation. Whether we're referring to "unknown creative force behind existence", "general sense of awe and wonder at the complexity and grandeur of the universe" or simply a sense there's "something more", we need different ways of describing these.

Whether we like it or not, the religious and their sky-daddy have claimed the word God for millennia, and I think trying to take it back is a doomed and unnecessary battle.

In conclusion, I feel Einstein and Hawking are being lazy linguistically. Probably because their mighty brains are filled with more important thoughts that the finer points of communicating their immense ideas with lesser minds.

Dades

Zillah, I'm intrigued that you've referred to Einstein in this thread as being both foolish and lazy!

</OT>

Zillah

I've also called revered scientists irrational for believing in God. I don't idolise. Einstein was one of the greatest minds humanity has ever seen, a theoretical physicist beyond compare, but that doesn't mean he's infallible. If he tries to communicate his feelings on the grandeur of the universe, and fails to accurately communicate those feelings via a foolish choice of words, leading to theists declaring him a believer, then yes, he was foolish in that instance.

Don't take my observations out of context, I by no means intend to imply that I think Einstein was generally a fool.

Sam Vimes

togster wrote: »

It just makes it easier to explain what it is or at least to have a starting point with points of refereance that you can start to explain with. Or you could call it a turnip or simply the unknown. Whatever.

But surely if God can be whatever you want there is no point of reference? Does the word God have any definition to you or criteria by which something can be called a God?

Skrynesaver

I would reason that the force which created the universe, if sentient, eternal and omnipotent comes fairly close to what people generally consider god to be

Then if you add a prurient interest in the mating habits of one species on one planet to the mix you have what most religious people consider to be god.

While I have difficulty giving credence to any of the first set of conditions I could envisage your hypothetical friend holding the first set true and the second false.

In my opinion that would make them an agnostic atheist rather than an atheist deist, whatever that might be.

Húrin

Zillah wrote: »

I've also called revered scientists irrational for believing in God.

from this we learn
1. Your sense of reason is imperfect.
2. You don't need to be perfectly rational to be a good scientist.

The Mad Hatter

Húrin wrote: »

from this we learn
1. Your sense of reason is imperfect.
2. You don't need to be perfectly rational to be a good scientist.

...

mark renton

The Ego is God to an Atheist

Stercus Accidit

john47832 wrote: »

The Ego is God to an Atheist

Care to expand on that?

mark renton

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

Care to expand on that?

In most cases it will be agreed that god cannot be proved or disproved - on the christian side their belief is that outside of themselves, standing by their god, wheras atheists stand by themselves and their belief is their knowledge

kiffer

john47832 wrote: »

In most cases it will be agreed that god cannot be proved or disproved - on the christian side their belief is that outside of themselves, standing by their god, wheras atheists stand by themselves and their belief is their knowledge

So in other words it's a pointless sound bite?

mark renton

kiffer wrote: »

So in other words it's a pointless sound bite?

The phrase "sound bite" is a perfect example of a superior ego - to a humble person it would be a point of view

Stercus Accidit

john47832 wrote: »

In most cases it will be agreed that god cannot be proved or disproved

Agreed, god conveniently cannot be proven or dis proven, this combined with pascals wager is a nice manipulative argument for the pro belief crowd, and is a useful way to argue for religion when confronted with people who don't fully grasp logical deduction.
In reality, 'god' is wholly immeasurable, there is no known variable, no fact or evidence of any kind, and by most definitions 'god' exists outside the realms of our universe and its laws of physics. This means that there are infinite possibilities for something that cannot be measured, there are no known variables or rules, so the possible answers to what exists outside our universe are also infinite, right up from vengeful christian god, to flying spaghetti monster, to matrix style computer to nothing at all.

In light of the infinite possibilities, it is logical to not believe in any one of the infinite possibilities, including a god.

- on the christian side their belief is that outside of themselves, standing by their god,

That is belief, yes, faith, yes, logical conclusion based on evidence? no.

wheras atheists stand by themselves and their belief is their knowledge

The 'ego' as mentioned in your above post, going by the Freudian definition as the logical self conscious and cognitive intellectual part of the psyche, would be more important a thing to an atheist than a faith based belief in something without any evidence or measurable trait whatsoever.
Belief implies in these discussions often something which you live by, and is faith based, what is your god, your belief, I don't think the ego is the belief of the atheist. Atheism is purely a lack of belief in a deity, most atheists also don't believe in anything outside of logical conclusion through measurable evidence, including a 'matrix' style universe, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

I don't think there are any required beliefs for an atheist, other than by definition, that there isn't a god. A good atheist will arrive at this conclusion through logic, which will also exclude belief in other superstitious entities or immeasurable 'beliefs'.

Of course, the Freudian 'ego' outweighs any illogical faith or beliefs system, but as a system of beliefs, there is far more to it to your average atheist, social responsibility, the desire to do the right thing etc. can be explained to be elements of the ego, as an evolutionary trait but as a 'belief' system purely on a par with religious 'belief', no, not in my opinion, its totally different to have an illogical faith based set of ideals over logically based ones.

Stercus Accidit

john47832 wrote: »

The phrase "sound bite" is a perfect example of a superior ego - to a humble person it would be a point of view

Ah so 'ego' to you is arrogance, well in that case what a waste of my time.

Faith is unsubstantiated blind belief in something, to not believe without evidence is logical and intelligent.

Faith is for the stupid, whether you accept blindly what others say humbly or not is irrelevant, to insult those who have thought things through for themselves by accusing them of arrogance is the most arrogant and stupid thing you could do.

Dades

Lads, don't me start throwing out infractions.

Play nicer, and everybody stop making provocative generalisations.

mark renton

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

Ah so 'ego' to you is arrogance, well in that case what a waste of my time.

Faith is unsubstantiated blind belief in something, to not believe without evidence is logical and intelligent.

Faith is for the stupid, whether you accept blindly what others say humbly or not is irrelevant, to insult those who have thought things through for themselves by accusing them of arrogance is the most arrogant and stupid thing you could do.

Yes arrogance to me is a sign of a superior ego - to refer to a post as a "sound bite" to me is an attempt extract all meaning from a point of view, an ideal way to massage the ego

Faith is not a blind belief and not for the stupid - its for the needy, which all people become at one point in life - lack of belief indicates to me a lack of need, lack of need to me shows self sufficiency - an ideal playground for a superior ego

kiffer

john47832 wrote: »

Yes arrogance to me is a sign of a superior ego - to refer to a post as a "sound bite" to me is an attempt extract all meaning from a point of view, an ideal way to massage the ego

But it is a sound bite... it is a short quip which is meant to sound good!
The 'arrogance' you infer from my post came from calling it pointless.
You're opinion was "on the christian side their belief is that outside of themselves, standing by their god, wheras atheists stand by themselves and their belief is their knowledge" ... which doesn't really link all that well with the oft repeated sound bite "The Ego is God to an Atheist".
Yes I'm trying to extract meaning form your point of view... I'm not trying to eliminate that meaning though... I actually don't see the link here.

Faith is not a blind belief and not for the stupid - its for the needy, which all people become at one point in life - lack of belief indicates to me a lack of need, lack of need to me shows self sufficiency - an ideal playground for a superior ego

Faith is a tricky word... I trust that the seat belts in the car will work as they are designed to ... I trust that the designers knew what they were doing when they designed them... that the factory was not negligent when it made them and so on... Do I have faith in them? every interaction with another human being or machine made by human hands take a certain amount of trust, but we have constant real feed back from the people around us... and it would be foolish to instantly and completely trust every single person we meet and interact with...

1, There is nothing wrong with a bit of self-sufficiency.
2, No one is totally self-sufficient, we all rely on people around us to get by... when times are hard we lean on friends, family and other people... and when they need us we are there in turn to give our support to them...

If we're really stuck maybe we crack, and like Tom Hanks' character in Castaway and create an imaginary friend, one that is all ways there and never ever gets sick of our whinging... some one who can take the load and will never talk back... because frankly it's invisible, inaudible and intangible because it is not a real friend... it is the "feeling" of a friend. If that stops you going even more crazy then so be it ... maybe it's a good thing.

Zillah

Dades wrote: »

everybody stop making provocative generalisations.

Heh.

dvpower

Zillah wrote: »

Heh.

Well, you would say that.

Stercus Accidit

john47832 wrote: »

Yes arrogance to me is a sign of a superior ego - to refer to a post as a "sound bite" to me is an attempt extract all meaning from a point of view, an ideal way to massage the ego

Faith is not a blind belief and not for the stupid - its for the needy, which all people become at one point in life - lack of belief indicates to me a lack of need, lack of need to me shows self sufficiency - an ideal playground for a superior ego

I went to great effort to address your post assuming the freudian definition of the ego, your subsequent post to kiffer implied it was a simple accusation of arrogance.

If you could clarify your position, it would be easier for people to engage with it.

Stercus Accidit

Zillah wrote: »

Heh.

I had a response to the above posts which was no more than 3 words myself before the whole thought out reply. Was I wrong to second guess myself?

I think I may well have been.

mark renton

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

I went to great effort to address your post assuming the freudian definition of the ego, your subsequent post to kiffer implied it was a simple accusation of arrogance.

If you could clarify your position, it would be easier for people to engage with it.

But it was egotistical and arrogant, an attempt to extract all meaning and leave nothing - in freudian terms the attempt to perfect ones own belief by dismissing anothers

My position is that I believe we all believe in something - in religious terms this is defined as a God - so I must ask the question: What is an Atheist left with?

Sam Vimes

john47832 wrote: »

My position is that I believe we all believe in something - in religious terms this is defined as a God - so I must ask the question: What is an Atheist left with?

Well our position wouldn't be that we all believe in something. I believe in something when there is evidence to support it. Not everyone believes things just because they want them to be true. We do not define our lives by which particular bronze age stories we choose to believe.

If an atheist believes in anything it would be the people around him, society. I don't know that I'm not going to be robbed every time I leave the house but I believe that most people are good so my chances of being robbed are very small.

Of course that position is supported by a lifetime of not being robbed so it's not really in the same league as believing something for which there is no evidence. I know my chances of being robbed are very small.

drkpower

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I know my chances of being robbed are very small.

But even so, you lock the house, stick on the alarm and get contents insurance.....

Perhaps believing in God is like the insurance policy; 'tis very unlikely he exists but just to be sure to be sure.....:eek:

CerebralCortex

drkpower wrote: »

But even so, you lock the house, stick on the alarm and get contents insurance.....

Perhaps believing in God is like the insurance policy; 'tis very unlikely he exists but just to be sure to be sure.....:eek:

Thats not the same thing becuase people do actually have their homes broken into and there is evidence for that.

pts

drkpower wrote: »

Perhaps believing in God is like the insurance policy; 'tis very unlikely he exists but just to be sure to be sure.....:eek:

Pascal, is that you?