On 12 Jan 2015, at 17:46, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
2015-01-12 17:32 GMT+01:00 Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>:
On 12 Jan 2015, at 08:27, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List
wrote:
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com
] On Behalf Of meekerdb
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2015 10:52 PM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Why is there something rather than nothing? From
quantum theory to dialectics?
On 1/11/2015 8:05 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
From: everything-list@googlegroups.com [mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com
] On Behalf Of meekerdb
On 1/11/2015 6:39 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
Once Bruno explained to me how he intends the term god when he uses
it I understood his intent. Clearly he is not connoting some
biblical deity when he uses the term. While it may be a continuous
source of confusion for him as others who are unfamiliar with his
meaning of god, encounter his usage of it; it is his prerogative to
decide to use that term.
That's how O'Brien explains it to Winston Smith.
Come on now... how does an allusion to George Orwell’s 1984 enter
into this?
O'Brien knew that who controls language controls thought. So peace
is war. Atheism is Christianity. And "God" is whatever you want
it to mean.
Okay at least I know you are not comparing Bruno or myself to
O’Brien… whew J
I don’t think Bruno (or me for sure) is trying to say that God is
whatever “you” says it means. He uses it in a fairly precise and
defined manner, that has a historic tail to it as well, which is
distinct and different from “whatever you want it to mean”.
Thanks Chris. Jason also did send a nice post summing all the uses
of the term God, but atheists seem to disagree on this. Atheists
seems to insist that God means only what the christians mean by it,
and nothing else.
But with your way of defining it, it means anything... you can't and
never be able to say "I do not believe in god"... because you could
always find a meaning that suits you... the problem with that
approach is that you're simply misunderstood... because if you say
so to a christian/muslim/... believer, he will understand the one
god you say is a fairy tale... and so you cannot communicate... So
if everytime when you say "I believe in god" you have to describe
exactly what you mean by it... what's the point of saying "god" ?
The point is mainly to avoid the boring God/Non-God debate, which
usually assumes the Aristotelian theology.
A more general definition of God is needed for not imposing
theological or metaphysical assumptions at the start. We can define
God by the the big thing from which all the rest follows, and then
inquire of what that God can be. A person? A physical Universe, a
mathematical reality, etc.
It is simpler to consider that we all believe in some God, but
disagree on its nature. We can discuss the nature of God. It might be
the creation (a primitively material universe), like for many
materialist atheists, or a personal creator like with the abrahamanic
religions. Or it can be a universal dreamer, or arithmetical truth, or
a more complex mathematical reality, etc.
As we don't know the answer in advance, this way of proceeding works
for a larger public.
All believers (including atheists believing in a physical universe)
agrees with such large definition. Then, proceeding from some
hypothesis, like computationalism, we can better circumscribe the
possibilities, and compare with different theologies. I use the same
meaning of "god" as the one used by philosophers, comparative
theologians, the ancient greeks, etc.
Note that usually, I don't use the word "god" at all, and have use it
in this list because others have use it.
If I use a more specific word, like Allah, or Tao, or One, ... people
are more easily inclined to believe that I defend a special religion
(muslim, taoism, plotinism, etc.).
Then with computationalism, we recover quickly many propositions
already accepted by numerous religion, like God has no description,
God is not finite, using God in an argument is not valid, etc.
Bruno
Regards,
Quentin
I guess they need that notion, for atheism making sense. That would
explain why they slip from "no fairy tales" to "no theology at
all". Of course, this forces a status quo in theology, preventing
any progress in the field.
Bruno
-Chris
Brent
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