> On 14-Jan-2015, at 1:38 pm, "'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List" > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > From: [email protected] > [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of meekerdb > > On 1/13/2015 11:08 PM, Jason Resch wrote: > > > On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 3:39 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 1/12/2015 8:32 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: > Atheism is a variant of christiniaty, because for non atheist non christian, > "God", like any term in a theory, is defined by axioms or semi-axioms indeed. > > I suppose by "semi-axioms" you mean definitions by description, like "ground > of all being" or "creator of the universe" or "that of which we cannot speak" > - which are used to define "God" by Christian theologians too. But I'll bet > you $100 that if we pick a person at random who is neither a Christian nor an > atheist and ask him if "God" refers to a superpowerful, immortal person who > judges human behavior he'll say "Yes". > > That stars weren't holes in the celestial sphere didn't mean stars didn't > exist, it meant we had to update our conception of what stars are. > > That Earth wasn't flat didn't lead to people denying the existence of Earth > or throwing out the word altogether, it meant we had to update our conception > of the Earth to something more like a ball. > > Two people might both say they believe in Quantum Mechanics, but yet they > might have very different ideas about what that means. Person A might mean > they believe in the Everettian view, while Person B might believe in the > Copenhagen view. > > Such it is with the concept of God. > > No it's not. As Bruno says "God" is defined by description. Stars are > defined ostensively. > > > That some, or even most people's conception is faulty is not justification to > throw out the term. It means only that there is room for progress to better > approximate reality with our conception. Furthermore, the possibility for the > same word to mean different things to different people make a word useless. > As we see with the various interpretations of QM, there is common-root > meaning, and minimum set of ideas commonly held ideas, even if they aren't > exactly the same. > > You may find some particular tribe's conception of God to be ridiculous and > unworthy of acceptance, but to reject the notion of God altogether on this > account alone would be like rejecting the ground you walk on because > flat-Earthers are mistaken about that ground's geometry. > > I only reject the concept of God that I understand to be designated by the > word "God", and I've specifically explained that I understand the term to > refer to a supernatural, powerful person who created the world and judges > human behavior. Some people say "God is love", Bruno says "God is unprovable > truths.", Paul Tillich said "God is whatever you value most." But just > because somebody says "Unicorns are rhinocereses" doesn't mean I have to > start believing unicorns exist, or that that when I say unicorns don't exist > I'm denying the existence of rhinocereses. > > In a certain sense, I feel the discussion over and about god, can become a > distraction. > God, is after all, also, just a word… and an impossibly difficult to pin down > word at that, meaning many different things to many people over time. To > those people (and times) and to each of us, it connotes some meaning (or > other), but in between us… in neutral semantic/ontological space… it’s just a > word; a symbol of something else it points to perhaps. > Unless somebody can define god (the concept, and not the word) in some manner > that makes clear no-wiggle-room falsifiable predictions my sense is that it > tends to lead discussions of some things off into discussions about other > things entirely – discussions that can become self-fueling. > > How does god – meaning this or meaning that – help or impede a search for > meaning, for an elegant model of everything? > Personally I think god (the word) is a distraction from the search for the > origin of all that emerged (which is a distinction, with which I believe > ?god? would agree) I am open minded to the abstraction of god (the concept) > if it could be expressed in a rigorous & unambiguous manner – where is the > formula for god(the concept)? > Now that could be interesting; discussing the meaning of the word and what it > should/should not mean ends up becoming circular IMO > -Chris > Why not define God as the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe and Everything Else that is or may exist? The raison d'être of everything? The unanswerable and unexplainable first reason? Who chooses to remain hidden but Whose presence cannot be denied? The question that nobody can begin to answer?! Samiya
> Brent > > > > Jason > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
