On 12/8/2016 3:52 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 12:38 AM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
On 12/8/2016 3:31 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 6:47 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]> wrote:
On 12/8/2016 3:29 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 7:26 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 12/5/2016 1:31 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 3:38 AM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 12/4/2016 10:45 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote:
On Sat, Dec 3, 2016 at 6:03 PM, Brent Meeker <[email protected]>
wrote:
and by doing so you drag in a lot of baggage. There was a group of
atheists in the Dallas area which for a time formed a church and
claimed
to
be a religion for tax purposes. They defined "God" to be whatever
was
good
in the world. The IRS disallowed their claim.
I assume that evoking the American IRS as a a scholarly authority on
such a matter is a joke, right?
But they are as good an authority as any. Unlike theologians they have
to
make decisions that have real consequences - not just mix word salad.
But this is not a discussion about theology, it's a discussion about
the historical and cultural variations of concepts of god -- it falls
under anthropology and history.
OK, tell me about a historical or cultural variation in which "god"
doesn't
not refer to a person/agent.
Anything pantheistic. Taoism, several gnostic cults, certain native
Americans I think, sufi mysticism, certain denominations of modern
judaism... Ah and the force in Star Wars.
But they don't use the word "god". It's an abuse of language it say that
"god" means "whatever one's religion worships". Paul Tillich tried that
maneuver in the '60s. He said "god" meant whatever one valued most: money,
fame, power,... If you cut a word lose from common usage then, as the
Caterpillar said to Alice, you can make it mean anything you want.
So you are saying that "god" is reserved for judaic-christian style
deities.
It's not "reserved"; it, like any word, is defined by usage, and the
usage overwhelmingly denotes a being who is immortal, has supernatural
powers and knowledge and should be obeyed and worshipped or placated.
It includes the gods and godesses of Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia, India,
Scandnavia, Mayan, Aztec,...
Noun 1. God - the supernatural being conceived as the perfect and
omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe; the
object of worship in monotheistic religions
2. god - any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some
part of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification
of a force
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/God
Brent
"If atheists repudiate traditional faith it is not only because this
faith is in contrast with the affirmations of believers themselves, with
reason that denies the idea of God, but because they have understood
that false dogmas go against true morality, against the social demands
of the world we live in. The belief in God is not only a simple
illusion, a purely theoretical error. It misrepresents the practical
direction of life by orienting it in a chimerical direction. It goes
against the social realty, against the essential needs of mankind which
are the primary motor and the ultimate goal of every morality".
--- Prosper Alfaric, former professor of theology at the Sorbonne
Given that those were invented in the Middle East, and that
they didn't speak English there at the time, how did the anglo-saxon
term merge with the judaic-christian tradition?
Telmo.
Brent
“People are more unwilling to give up the word ‘God’ than to give up the
idea for which the word has hitherto stood”
--- Bertrand Russell
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