Theist challange: provide a rational definition of god

nigelTheBold
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Theist challange: provide a rational definition of god

In a recent topic, HisWillness floated the idea that, as there is no rational, coherent definition of god, any discussion of god is inherently ridiculous. I think it's rather like debating whether Batman could defeat Superman, myself.

In that thread, I asked a rhetorical question: what is the minimum requirements for a god? Before you can define god, you'll need some rubric by which to judge whether your definition is of god or not. For instance, is it necessary that god created the universe? Is it necessary that god intended to create humans? And so on.

Here's your challange, theists and atheists alike: provide the minimum requirements for god, and present a coherent, rational definition of god that covers the minimum requirements.

After, we'll discuss who would be better against a zombie dragon attack, Wonder Woman or Jar Jar Binks.

{{MOD EDIT:  Moved to AvT -HD}}

"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers


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spike.barnett wrote:Which is

spike.barnett wrote:

Which is exactly why I asked her about it.

I've noticed theism in general has a problem with being too vague. I guess it's so they can more easily equivocate things.

in my opinion, eloise is the only person in this whole forum, atheist and theist alike, who could lay claim to being a theorist (which to my knowledge she never has), and not just in the area of panentheism.  whether you agree with her conception of panentheism or not, nobody can accuse her of imprecision in her writing, in any subject she's chosen to post about, which is why i've often badgered her to turn her skills to political theory. 

anytime i read her posts, i'm always simultaneously aroused and extremely jealous of her abilities.   if she were a man rather than an adorable aussie chick, i would probably hate her guts...or turn queer...or both...

"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson


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nigelTheBold wrote:In a

nigelTheBold wrote:

In a recent topic, HisWillness floated the idea that, as there is no rational, coherent definition of god, any discussion of god is inherently ridiculous. I think it's rather like debating whether Batman could defeat Superman, myself.

 

I would like to point out that (technically speaking) in the Frank Miller masterpiece you referenced, "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns," Batman does, in fact, defeat Superman. In his opinion at least. Not to be swayed from the point.

Or maybe that is the point. Whoever can beat Superman is god. Logically that would make it either Batman or Bruce Wayne in a more general sense. However, both of these characters (as we all know) don't exist. 

"Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to heaven. Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads. And recks not his own rede."


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Kevin R Brown wrote:Okay; I

Kevin R Brown wrote:

Okay; I might try a more sincere effort here:

The Minimum Requirements for a Deity

 - Must have de facto influence over events that occur in the universe; that is, must have influence over events superceding that of the natural laws of the universe.

 - It's influence must be conditional on belief in it's existence. That is to say, it cannot participate in the universe in any way if such participation would be observed by an entity that does not believe it exists.

Wouldn't that put theists in an entirely different reality than atheists? If simply believing in something makes the universe changeable for one group of people and not another, and if that change ever happened, then theists would be in a different reality than atheists.

Kev wrote:
The Coherent, Rational Definition for a Deity

My deity is not a 'first cause' of any sort; it is simply a being that can influence events in ways that the natural laws of the universe would otherwise not allow for under any circumstances presusming that it's actions would only be observed by those who believe that the deity exists. It cannot excerise any action where an atheist is watching or a recording device (which does not have the capacity for belief) is monitoring.

 

Haha - I like how a recording device is a de facto atheist in this scenario. In this scenario, belief changes the entire universe. So how would someone believe that this deity exists? I mean, how do you form a belief of something that has no attributes? You have to believe in it to see it change things, but then those who don't believe in it are left behind in an unchanged reality. Weird.

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treat2 wrote:The Panthist

treat2 wrote:
The Panthist god is not a deity, a spirit, or a supernatural being. A Pantheist would say nature is my God.



Okay, so God = nature. Saying "nature exists" is fairly obvious. If you want to relabel nature "God", that's fine. But why would you bother, when we're just talking about nature?



treat2 wrote:
Erronous are the posts seeking an all encompassing unified definition of gods. Such a definition does not exist. There are multiple definitions for gods, as their are for many words.



Yeah, but for regular words, the definitions as applied to reality are coherent. When one defines "unicorn", at least it's coherent! It's fictional, but it's coherent. A horse with a single horn. Good. Do unicorns exist? Probably not. We can apply the weak atheist's slim probability to that creature because of its natural definition.



treat2 wrote:
The word is coherent when it's understood in the context it's being used. The context will lead towards an appropriate definition to those that know the variety of definitions.



What I'm looking for is a coherent definition. If you supply the context, then any one of the coherent definitions of a god can be taken into consideration.

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Quote:Wouldn't that put

Quote:
Wouldn't that put theists in an entirely different reality than atheists? If simply believing in something makes the universe changeable for one group of people and not another, and if that change ever happened, then theists would be in a different reality than atheists.

Indeed it would. In my hypothetical, the theist is essentially the cat within Schrodinger's box. Anything and everything may be possible with in the box - but the moment it's (metaphorically) opened to our reality, it must conform to our rules.

Quote:
Haha - I like how a recording device is a de facto atheist in this scenario. In this scenario, belief changes the entire universe. So how would someone believe that this deity exists? I mean, how do you form a belief of something that has no attributes? You have to believe in it to see it change things, but then those who don't believe in it are left behind in an unchanged reality. Weird.

Well, I wanted to come up with something that was, by definition, not falsifiable - without immediately reaching outside the universe. As for aqcuiring belief in the deity in the first place, I imagine it could be done by coming across some special artifact (like, say, the obelisk in space Odyssey) that the deity laid down in order to illicit belief at a later time before there was anyone around with a lack of belief to observe what it was doing.

Quote:
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
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HisWillness wrote:treat2

HisWillness wrote:

treat2 wrote:
The Panthist god is not a deity, a spirit, or a supernatural being. A Pantheist would say nature is my God.



Okay, so God = nature. Saying "nature exists" is fairly obvious. If you want to relabel nature "God", that's fine. But why would you bother, when we're just talking about nature?...

You now understand my point...
Pantheists redefine English!

Pantheists obfuscate the meaning of MANY OTHER commonly used words by doing the same thing!

That's ONE OF my problems with Pantheism. Although, I've other problems with it, as it's a religion, and it has an unecessaty "belief in"
"Mysticism."

Einstein became a Pantheist. But imagine what would have happened to his career if he had not said: "My God is the God of Spinoza."

(Sure, the guy had a legitimate reason to speak "in tongues", and constantly refer to God in his classrom lectures at Princton. As I said before, we all know Einstein was no dummy. From the Press to the Pope, all eyes were on him, and BTW the Pope called on him to delay the public release of the Big-Bang theory until Einstein had met with the Pope at the Vatican to discuss the implications of it, for Christianity.)

"Why?" you asked.

Well, it's a mute question / point. Pantheists do it. Accept it as a given. If you are asking my own view, one of the facts about Pantheists is their admitted need for a religion. (Einstein did say: "I am a very regious man", while he was a Pantheist.)

However, in the final analysis, we are completely agreed. "Why bother!"

Well, Pantheists do, so unless we exclude Pantheism as a region, there is no single unifying definition of gods. And I don't think you are saying we should exclude the Pantheists or Panentheists definions of god.

BTW. It might be more accurate to equate the Pantheist god to the known and unknown laws of nature (aka the universe).

True. The idea that a single def. of gods is possible is erronous.

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treat2 wrote:But imagine

treat2 wrote:

Einstein became a Pantheist.  But imagine what would have happened to his career if he had not said: "My God is the God of Spinoza." 

you're so full of shit, treat!  do you have ANY evidence beyond this quote taken ENTIRELY out of context that einstein was a pantheist?  have you even bothered to find out what he MEANT by this quote, what sort of query he was replying to?

einstein, apart from one somewhat irritated letter to eric gutkind, never elaborated on his spiritual views in any substantial way and certainly never publicly allied himself with ANY religious philosophy.

in fact, neither did spinoza, so in the area of religion it still wouldn't matter if einstein agreed with spinoza in EVERYTHING.  einstein clearly had a great respect for spinoza as a humanist and a man whose lifelong work, which kept him in physical poverty, was concerned with eradicating superstition and its pernicious effects on human social ethics. 

in my experience, almost all intelligent people, from hegel to marx to einstein to hannah arendt to hans kung, show a healthy respect for spinoza, and a lack of respect for spinoza, while it may not be conclusive proof of it, is at least a strong potential indicator of stupidity.

but why point out what everybody here already knows?

or, to bring all of the foregoing down to your level, you don't know jackshit about any of this shit so go suck the bleeding twat of a doberman pinscher bitch in heat.

"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson


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Kevin R Brown wrote:Will

Kevin R Brown wrote:

Will wrote:
Haha - I like how a recording device is a de facto atheist in this scenario. In this scenario, belief changes the entire universe. So how would someone believe that this deity exists? I mean, how do you form a belief of something that has no attributes? You have to believe in it to see it change things, but then those who don't believe in it are left behind in an unchanged reality. Weird.

Well, I wanted to come up with something that was, by definition, not falsifiable - without immediately reaching outside the universe.


That's exactly the problem presented by my argument. Theists are either saying they believe in nonsense (an unverifiable natural something-or-other) or that they believe in nonsense (an unverifiable unnatural something-or-other). The more specific they get, the sillier the entity, and if they lose enough specificity, they're back to nonsense.



I'm not seeing a good "out", here. The closest to damning my argument so far was Hamby's aliens that create universes, and who also participate in the physical world. That scenario is difficult because it acknowledges deism, but not really theism. I say "acknowledges" because it's one of an infinite number of possible unknown physical scenarios that the naturalist can concede as being possible. But to say "god" like you know what's out there is a bit silly.



If a god is a universe-creating alien, we can't even know that the creation was intentional. It's remotely possible that the creation was intentional, but it's equally possible (because it's so remote) that these aliens are a cosmic mariachi band.

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treat2 wrote: HisWillness

treat2 wrote:
HisWillness wrote:

treat2 wrote:
The Panthist god is not a deity, a spirit, or a supernatural being. A Pantheist would say nature is my God.

Okay, so God = nature. Saying "nature exists" is fairly obvious. If you want to relabel nature "God", that's fine. But why would you bother, when we're just talking about nature?...

You now understand my point... Pantheists redefine English! Pantheists obfuscate the meaning of MANY OTHER commonly used words by doing the same thing! 

So we agree: theists are either using one linguistic trick or another.

With pantheists, you have a god that nobody could say anthing about that would be true or false, and with any more specific definition, it gets silly.

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HisWillness wrote:That's

HisWillness wrote:

That's exactly the problem presented by my argument. Theists are either saying they believe in nonsense (an unverifiable natural something-or-other) or that they believe in nonsense (an unverifiable unnatural something-or-other). The more specific they get, the sillier the entity, and if they lose enough specificity, they're back to nonsense.

er... should I be taking this as a backhand, Will. Just asking...

HisWillness wrote:

I'm not seeing a good "out", here. The closest to damning my argument so far was Hamby's aliens that create universes, and who also participate in the physical world.

That scenario is difficult because it acknowledges deism, but not really theism. I say "acknowledges" because it's one of an infinite number of possible unknown physical scenarios that the naturalist can concede as being possible. But to say "god" like you know what's out there is a bit silly.

It doesn't have to be aliens, though, does it? I mean, an as yet unknown lifeform is an extra and unnecessary assumption to be making when we ourselves are a species of similar potential, right?  I say because my conception of God, as Hamby and I once discussed, is similar, with qualification, to the universe creating aliens.

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Eloise wrote:er... should I

Eloise wrote:
er... should I be taking this as a backhand, Will. Just asking...

 

Are you kidding? You're like a poet with this stuff. Half the time, I have no idea what you're saying, but it's great!

 

Ultimately, Eloise, we agree on so many concepts that I'm still looking for the specific thing we disagree on. It's a good parallel to this whole argument, I guess.

 

But I'm arguing against agnosticism as a position, so I have to take a hard line.

Eloise wrote:
HisWillness wrote:

I'm not seeing a good "out", here. The closest to damning my argument so far was Hamby's aliens that create universes, and who also participate in the physical world.

That scenario is difficult because it acknowledges deism, but not really theism. I say "acknowledges" because it's one of an infinite number of possible unknown physical scenarios that the naturalist can concede as being possible. But to say "god" like you know what's out there is a bit silly.

It doesn't have to be aliens, though, does it? I mean, an as yet unknown lifeform is an extra and unnecessary assumption to be making when we ourselves are a species of similar potential, right?  I say because my conception of God, as Hamby and I once discussed, is similar, with qualification, to the universe creating aliens.

 

"Aliens" is another unfortunately loaded word, and of course it doesn't have to be aliens. As I said before (somewhere), you could fill that conceptual gap with a cosmic mariachi band and you would have something equally probable, given our total ignorance of the situation.

PS:

Your definition might be unfalsifiable, but I'm not entirely sure. I still want to understand it before I make any argument against it.

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nigelTheBold wrote: If I

nigelTheBold wrote:

 If I understand Eloise properly, time (and therefore causality) is an artifact of psychology, and not a fundamental property of the universe.

Well I wouldn't say that causality is merely an artefact, exactly. Cause is what I would term a correlation operation and time is an extension over correlation operations, so then cause has a deeper root in a psychological entity than time does. I would say that a correlation operation is pretty much the incipient form of a psychological entity that is, and requires thus, an order or structure of experience* (*for want of a better word). 

Time, on the other hand, definitely an artefact.

NigelTheBold wrote:

The sentient universe then can choose whatever full-state universe (the universal states from the "beginning" to the "end" of time) it wants, just by nudging various instants in time until everything lines up like it wants, which I guess is more god-like.

Well more importantly it can find significance in any full state universe from any possible end of time that is present to it. So it's not necessary to "nudge various instants" to make them line up, but rather simply assume a position at some instant wherein what it wants is presupposed or implied, so to speak.

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nigelTheBold wrote:In a

nigelTheBold wrote:

In a recent topic, HisWillness floated the idea that, as there is no rational, coherent definition of god, any discussion of god is inherently ridiculous. I think it's rather like debating whether Batman could defeat Superman, myself.

In that thread, I asked a rhetorical question: what is the minimum requirements for a god? Before you can define god, you'll need some rubric by which to judge whether your definition is of god or not. For instance, is it necessary that god created the universe? Is it necessary that god intended to create humans? And so on.

Here's your challange, theists and atheists alike: provide the minimum requirements for god, and present a coherent, rational definition of god that covers the minimum requirements.

After, we'll discuss who would be better against a zombie dragon attack, Wonder Woman or Jar Jar Binks.

{{MOD EDIT:  Moved to AvT -HD}}

Give me some idea of what a "coherent, rational definition" is for you, and I may choose to take up your challenge.

Q: Why didn't you address (post x) that I made in response to you nine minutes ago???

A: Because I have (a) a job, (b) familial obligations, (c) social obligations, and (d) probably a lot of other atheists responded to the same post you did, since I am practically the token Christian on this site now. Be patient, please.


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Presuppositionalist

Presuppositionalist wrote:

nigelTheBold wrote:

In a recent topic, HisWillness floated the idea that, as there is no rational, coherent definition of god, any discussion of god is inherently ridiculous. I think it's rather like debating whether Batman could defeat Superman, myself.

In that thread, I asked a rhetorical question: what is the minimum requirements for a god? Before you can define god, you'll need some rubric by which to judge whether your definition is of god or not. For instance, is it necessary that god created the universe? Is it necessary that god intended to create humans? And so on.

Here's your challange, theists and atheists alike: provide the minimum requirements for god, and present a coherent, rational definition of god that covers the minimum requirements.

After, we'll discuss who would be better against a zombie dragon attack, Wonder Woman or Jar Jar Binks.

{{MOD EDIT:  Moved to AvT -HD}}

Give me some idea of what a "coherent, rational definition" is for you, and I may choose to take up your challenge.

Mostly its not using the words "spirit", "infinite", "omnibenevelant",...etc. It has to use "things" in the known universe or things that everyone doesnt have a different interpretation of that might actually exist in the universe so everyone knows what you mean. So not only does God have to have attributes that obviously we all throw around liberally but you have to actually say what God might be as a thing. Unfortunately, that rules out "eternal" since infinite attributes are only a concept but not a thing. So I don't think youre going to enjoy this endeavor.


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Presuppositionalist

Presuppositionalist wrote:

Give me some idea of what a "coherent, rational definition" is for you, and I may choose to take up your challenge.


A book is an object with pages and a cover; A smile is a behaviour of primates, involving the contraction of facial muscles; a unicorn is a fictional character imagined as a horse with a single horn.


Those are all coherent definitions. Incomplete, but coherent.

 

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JustAnotherBeliever

JustAnotherBeliever wrote:

Mostly its not using the words "spirit", "infinite", "omnibenevelant",...etc. It has to use "things" in the known universe or things that everyone doesnt have a different interpretation of that might actually exist in the universe so everyone knows what you mean. So not only does God have to have attributes that obviously we all throw around liberally but you have to actually say what God might be as a thing. Unfortunately, that rules out "eternal" since infinite attributes are only a concept but not a thing. So I don't think youre going to enjoy this endeavor.

 

I don't know about "eternal" ... that actually means something, but unless it's applied to something else, then it would be difficult.

 

That is, if you were to stop your definition at "the god is eternal", and that was the only attribute we had, then there's no reason to say "god" instead of "eternal". I've seen "god is eternal truth", which isn't coherent, because that would be someone guessing that there is, in fact, a truth that remains eternal, without actually showing that to be the case.

 

Obviously this is a kind of a philosophical mind-bender. I'm not presuming to have disproven an entity that I can neither confirm nor deny exists.

 

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JustAnotherBeliever

JustAnotherBeliever wrote:

Mostly its not using the words "spirit", "infinite", "omnibenevelant",...etc. It has to use "things" in the known universe or things that everyone doesnt have a different interpretation of that might actually exist in the universe so everyone knows what you mean. So not only does God have to have attributes that obviously we all throw around liberally but you have to actually say what God might be as a thing. Unfortunately, that rules out "eternal" since infinite attributes are only a concept but not a thing. So I don't think youre going to enjoy this endeavor.

Then I stipulate:

The Christian God is a being with knowledge of each true proposition, with love for each human being, and with the power to bring about any state of affairs that is not logically contradictory.

This definition is a reasonable, if broad, summary of the Christian view of God. It invokes no concept that is not universally understood.

Q: Why didn't you address (post x) that I made in response to you nine minutes ago???

A: Because I have (a) a job, (b) familial obligations, (c) social obligations, and (d) probably a lot of other atheists responded to the same post you did, since I am practically the token Christian on this site now. Be patient, please.


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Tapey wrote: as far as im

Tapey wrote:

 as far as im concerned this is the only quality a god must posses to be a god, a god must be undetectable directly or indirectly, and it must leave no traces or any evidence of its existence. It is the only thing that fits with all gods that I know of.

 

This is not quite the case for Pantheists. (Those pesky little buggers.)


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iwbiek wrote:treat2

iwbiek wrote:

treat2 wrote:

Einstein became a Pantheist.  But imagine what would have happened to his career if he had not said: "My God is the God of Spinoza." 

you're so full of shit, treat!  do you have ANY evidence beyond this quote taken ENTIRELY out of context that einstein was a pantheist?  have you even bothered to find out what he MEANT by this quote, what sort of query he was replying to?

einstein, apart from one somewhat irritated letter to eric gutkind, never elaborated on his spiritual views in any substantial way and certainly never publicly allied himself with ANY religious philosophy.

in fact, neither did spinoza, so in the area of religion it still wouldn't matter if einstein agreed with spinoza in EVERYTHING.  einstein clearly had a great respect for spinoza as a humanist and a man whose lifelong work, which kept him in physical poverty, was concerned with eradicating superstition and its pernicious effects on human social ethics. 

in my experience, almost all intelligent people, from hegel to marx to einstein to hannah arendt to hans kung, show a healthy respect for spinoza, and a lack of respect for spinoza, while it may not be conclusive proof of it, is at least a strong potential indicator of stupidity.

but why point out what everybody here already knows?

or, to bring all of the foregoing down to your level, you don't know jackshit about any of this shit so go suck the bleeding twat of a doberman pinscher bitch in heat.

You're ignorant.

I response to the question of whether Einstein believed in god (when asked by reporters), Einstein said:

"My God is the God of Spinoza."

Do yourself a favor and try to avoid displaying your ignorance to everyone.


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THisWillness

HisWillness wrote:

treat2 wrote:
HisWillness wrote:

treat2 wrote:
The Panthist god is not a deity, a spirit, or a supernatural being. A Pantheist would say nature is my God.

Okay, so God = nature. Saying "nature exists" is fairly obvious. If you want to relabel nature "God", that's fine. But why would you bother, when we're just talking about nature?...

You now understand my point... Pantheists redefine English! Pantheists obfuscate the meaning of MANY OTHER commonly used words by doing the same thing! 

So we agree: ...With pantheists, you have a god that nobody could say anthing about that would be true or false, and with any more specific definition, it gets silly.

Yup. Friggin silly. And if you try reading Pantheist-speak, without previously devoting an extensive amount of time to their own version of English,
it is a virtual certainty that what you think the clearly said, is not what they really said.

In doing so, Einstein was able to have a career, lest he be accused of being an Atheist, as Spinoza was, and paid for it by having been exiled for his Pantheism.esla Roadste picture


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negligible wrote:In that

negligible wrote:

In that thread, I asked a rhetorical question: what is the minimum requirements for a god? Before you can define god, you'll need some rubric by which to judge whether your definition is of god or not. For instance, is it necessary that god created the universe? Is it necessary that god intended to create humans? And so on.

Well, to form a minimum requirement for what God is, we would have to gauge the responses for why people believe in the first place, and if you've really reflected on these response you'd fine that a belief in God, and that God himself is a condition of possibility. If you don't understand what that means check out the wikipedia definition of it. 

If you believe that humanity has an inherent sense of purpose and meaning, that human existence has some sort of narrative at play, you believe in the force that can make this possible, that can grant such to life. If you believe in hope amongst hopelessness, you believe in the force that makes such hope possible, that assures it's expectation as to be met. 

If you believe that life seems to reveal a pattern of intelligent design, you believe in the force behind it.

And the name we use rather than a long winded "force behind these things" is God. 

Fundies and the like have a belief based on a pseudo scientism, a crafted order in the composition of the cosmos, an intelligent that painted the colors of clown fish. While for others, and for the bulk of theist  outside of the AiG folks, it's a sense of poetics not scientism, a supposed profound sense of aesthetic, a poetic ambition to life, that allows them to ground notions of sacridity to their own sense of morality, to the value of human life, and etc. It's a belief that life has a sort of spiritual dimension, that beyond the bells and whistles there's something more, something profoundly meaningful and universal. 

Both fundies and the later believers require for such a belief, a belief in a source that makes these notions possible, a belief in God, who characteristics are solely defined by what he grants.


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iwbiek wrote:treat2

iwbiek wrote:

treat2 wrote:

Einstein became a Pantheist.  But imagine what would have happened to his career if he had not said: "My God is the God of Spinoza." 

you're so full of shit, treat!  do you have ANY evidence beyond this quote taken ENTIRELY out of context that einstein was a pantheist?  have you even bothered to find out what he MEANT by this quote, what sort of query he was replying to?

einstein, apart from one somewhat irritated letter to eric gutkind, never elaborated on his spiritual views in any substantial way and certainly never publicly allied himself with ANY religious philosophy.

in fact, neither did spinoza, so in the area of religion it still wouldn't matter if einstein agreed with spinoza in EVERYTHING.  einstein clearly had a great respect for spinoza as a humanist and a man whose lifelong work, which kept him in physical poverty, was concerned with eradicating superstition and its pernicious effects on human social ethics. 

in my experience, almost all intelligent people, from hegel to marx to einstein to hannah arendt to hans kung, show a healthy respect for spinoza, and a lack of respect for spinoza, while it may not be conclusive proof of it, is at least a strong potential indicator of stupidity.

but why point out what everybody here already knows?

or, to bring all of the foregoing down to your level, you don't know jackshit about any of this shit so go suck the bleeding twat of a doberman pinscher bitch in heat.

BTW. You can find several papers and public speaches in which Einstein spoke of his religious beliefs on the Net.

Oh yeah, I forgot. You're too stupid to figure out how to google the information.


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manofmanynames wrote:Well,

manofmanynames wrote:
Well, to form a minimum requirement for what God is, we would have to gauge the responses for why people believe in the first place, ...

THIS is exactly what I've been thinking about with regard to this thread.

We are agreed. However, we are NOT agreed as to why people believe in what they refer to as god.In fact, Budhism is perhaps an ecellent example to make my point, as they have no belief in god(s) HOWEVER , they do maintain the beliefs of a RELIGION.

Perhaps, the STARTING POINT of the discussion would be more productive if a thread was created to define Religion. Moreover, I think it equally important to include what need some people
have to belong to a religious
group.


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iwbiek wrote: you're so

iwbiek wrote:

 

you're so full of shit, treat!  

Well, dude actually you're full of shit, as someone already pointed out Einstein explicitly claimed to believe in Spinoza's God, a god that our idiot atheist like dawkins assumes is some sort of sexed up atheism, which is quite far from the truth.

Spinoza disbelief in a God who supernaturally intervened in the world, was a bases on perceiving such intervention as being a weakness rather than a strength of God, that God made a world with natural laws, and if he had to break these laws to interact with the world it would be a sign of his weakness rather than strength. The God that Spinoza believed in embodied a sense of intelligence, not merely  in the scientific quality of life, but in the aesthetic qualities as well, that God conveys to us a sense of morality, ultimate meaning, and purpose. Spinoza claimed that Jesus spoke to God "mind to mind" an attribute he associates uniquely to him, a claim in support of Jesus as a sort of divine logos, claiming these sort of beliefs a sexed up atheism is pretty idiotic if you ask me. 

Though Spinoza and Einstein didn't believe in a personal God, that Christians and those of abrahamic faith believe in, they were the farthest thing from atheist. They both believed in God, and this God was far from a glorified belief in science.

Einstien explicitly claimed to believe in Spinoza's God, who I would claim is far more a deistic deity, than a pantheistic one. He did not attempt to distinguish any portion of his beliefs from Spinozas, but rather claimed that he himself shares Spinoza views. Einstien believed in a God, and defined the nature of this God to be as Spinoza defines it, and it takes a good degree of ignorance to assume otherwise. 

 


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treat2 wrote:In fact,

treat2 wrote:
In fact, Budhism is perhaps an ecellent example to make my point, as they have no belief in god(s) HOWEVER , they do maintain the beliefs of a RELIGION.

In fact... no, not true. Not about the 'no belief in gods' thing. Both Theravada and Tibetan Buddhism have gods; Theravada also has the deva, and Tibetan Buddhism has scores and scores of supernatural beings- not counting lamas.

 

However, what you meant to say was 'the belief in gods for Buddhism does not matter.' It's undeniably a religion, and depending on the sect, they do believe in gods- but it's much more a practical philosophy than anything else.

Quote:
Perhaps, the STARTING POINT of the discussion would be more productive if a thread was created to define Religion.

Or perhaps if someone could step up and prove Will wrong on the idea that the concept of 'god' doesn't have a coherent definition. I've been following this thread since it started, and quite frankly I'm surprised, yet not, that nobody's really been able to come up with a definition of A god that isn't murky to the point of uselessness or that just keeps slipping away (as with manyofname's 'god is X, Y, and Z' post a few posts back.)

Quote:
Moreover, I think it equally important to include what need some people have to belong to a religious group.

Group identification. Fin.

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treat2 wrote:THIS is exactly

treat2 wrote:
THIS is exactly what I've been thinking about with regard to this thread. We are agreed. However, we are NOT agreed as to why people believe in what they refer to as god.In fact, Buddhism is perhaps an ecellent example to make my point, as they have no belief in god(s)

And this is a mistake on your part, Buddhist don't disbelieve in God, they disbelieve in a certain characteristic of God, and that is God as absolute creator, it's the creator attribute of God that is rejected. In fact in the Lalitavistara Sutra the Buddha defines himself as God: "I am the god above the gods, superior to all the gods; no god is like me – how could there be a higher?"

And secondly the rejection of creator quality of God in Buddhism, is sort of perverted by some modern proponents of Buddhism, particularly those attempting to appeal to certain western sensibilities. The reason for why Gautama Buddha advocated disbelief in the creator status of God, is not to spread a literal belief, but rather to convey that a focus on the creator quality of God, is a distracted pursuit, one of ignorance, and not one of any worth. It's for the sake of rejection of the thinking engaged in by the likes of the discovery institute, that the Buddha rejected the creator characteristic of God, he found it to be an unworthy attribute, for men to focus on, regardless if God created the world or not. 

Imagine if someone had an important message of humanity that he wrote down, and instead of our attention of the message, we got bogged down in scoping for punctuation errors, or trivial grammatical mistakes. A devoted believer of this message, saddened by our diverted pursuit, claims that there is no such thing as grammatical mistakes. And if we accept this thought, we'd be left with solely engaging the message alone, rather that yielding to diversions. The basis for the the devoted believers claim is not to literally claim there are no grammatical errors, but rather to ends such pursuits all together.  


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crazymonkie wrote:Or perhaps

crazymonkie wrote:

Or perhaps if someone could step up and prove Will wrong on the idea that the concept of 'god' doesn't have a coherent definition. I've been following this thread since it started, and quite frankly I'm surprised, yet not, that nobodies really been able to come up with a definition of A god that isn't murky to the point of uselessness or that just keeps slipping away (as with manyofname's 'god is X, Y, and Z' post a few posts back.) 

Well, the reason for murkiness is this: If we were to ask people to define love, without explicitly outlining what sort of defining we're looking for, we'd all get all sorts of responses. One person would define it along the biological level, another would define it along the psychological and social level, some one  would define it solely in poetic terms. One person might define solely in terms of sexual lust, another would define it in solely sacrificial terms. There are so many ways we can define love, if the person requesting its definition doesn't specify along which lines he's looking for it to be defined. 

It's pretty dimwitted to assume with the question that OP asked, that you would somehow derive at a single definition of God, when their plethora of context in which God, like Love could be defined. 

I attempted to define God in a psychological context, in a broad stroke for which one could apply to most theistic deity beliefs. That the belief in God, is based on the dependencies of certain beliefs, in requiring a sort of God belief in accompany of them ( a condition of possibility). If you're having trouble understanding this, perhaps we can try and break it down into even simpler context. Go find a fundie, and ask him the reasons for why he believes in God, and we can break it down for you in the spectrum of how I defined it. 

 

 


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I would say that "god" is any force that the individual calling it that, does not understand. It is a label for unknown, so it cannot be defined any more for one than the next person. It cannot exist as a god without anyone to label it as a god, the same that morals cannot exist without being capable of reasoning an enlightened self interest.

 

This seems to be the case in history, if we look at the majority of early religions being sun worship, and naming of "gods" for every major component of people's lives that they did not understand...resolving fears of daily issues out of their known control, including fertility and death. It provided a coping mechanism for survival.

Theism is why we can't have nice things.


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manofmanynames wrote:Well,

manofmanynames wrote:
Well, the reason for murkiness is this: If we were to ask people to define love, without explicitly outlining what sort of defining we're looking for, we'd all get all sorts of responses. One person would define it along the biological level, another would define it along the psychological and social level, some one  would define it solely in poetic terms.

And the person who starts with the physiological answer would be correct. At least when it comes to the start of understanding what love is: A really complex collection of chemical reactions that mostly are a necessity for the continuation and safety of the human species as a whole. 

So there's not really any way to equivocate about this: Love IS a chemical reaction. That it gets APPLIED to other things: social levels, poetic terms, etc, is a side issue.

Quote:
It's pretty dimwitted to assume with the question that OP asked, that you would somehow derive at a single definition of God, when their plethora of context in which God, like Love could be defined.

You're pretty much proving Will's point here: That there is no coherent definition of 'god.' The 'mystery' angle is, to put it kindly, bullshit and a copout.

Define a dog: A four-legged mammal in the canine family, domesticated by humans for tens of thousands of years.

Define a chimera: An animal with the aspects and body parts of a lion, eagle, snake, and others. Mythical.

Define a god: It's a thing that we can't experience or measure that lives beyond this universe that interacts with it in a way that nobody's been able to describe or find, that is the author of love or *is* love, and is multi-omni (most of the time.)

And that's just one definition of 'god.' With other things that are, you know, THINGS, we have generally one or two definitions and coherent, agreed-upon properties. With god or gods, we have assumptions about it/their will(s) and no evidence by definition. Which makes essentially all definitions of a god (except perhaps Eloise's, which kinda reminds me of Kant's god, minus the Christian elements) essentially arbitrary and meaningless. If we can't even agree upon, say, whether god directly gave us knowledge (revelation) or whether god imbued us with knowledge so we may know the wonders of god's creation, then how are we to make sense of even broader questions of acceptable rubrics of truth for god's existence?

Quote:
I attempted to define God in a psychological context, in a broad stroke for which one could apply to most theistic deity beliefs. That the belief in God, is based on the dependencies of certain beliefs, in requiring a sort of God belief in accompany of them ( a condition of possibility). If you're having trouble understanding this, perhaps we can try and break it down into even simpler context. Go find a fundie, and ask him the reasons for why he believes in God, and we can break it down for you in the spectrum of how I defined it.

So basically god exists because we need god?

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crazymonkie wrote:And the

crazymonkie wrote:

And the person who starts with the physiological answer would be correct.

No, it would only be correct if it's clear that person asking for the definition is seeking the definition of love defined along these lines. 

If your wife or girlfriend asked you why you loved her and you define your love for her along the line of a "a really complex collection of chemical reactions that mostly are a necessity for the continuation and safety of the human species as a whole. " she's probably slap you. 

Quote:
Define a dog: A four-legged mammal in the canine family, domesticated by humans for tens of thousands of years.

Imagine if I was never familiar with what the term dog meant, and I heard a friend of mine refer to her ex-boyfriend as a dog, and I came here and asked you to define a dog for me. If you defined it along the lines you did now, would it be correct to say that my friend was referring to her ex-boyfriend as a four-legged mammal who is a part of the canine family? Even a term seeking to be defined like "dog" needs a context presented into which it's to be defined. 

Quote:
Which makes essentially all definitions of a god (except perhaps Eloise's, which kinda reminds me of Kant's god, minus the Christian elements) essentially arbitrary and meaningless. If we can't even agree upon, say, whether god directly gave us knowledge (revelation) or whether god imbued us with knowledge so we may know the wonders of god's creation, then how are we to make sense of even broader questions of acceptable rubrics of truth for god's existence?

Ah, i see better now, which your supposed "correct"  definition of things, and the above, I'm led to believe you believe in a sort of scientism. That anything defined strictly outside of labatorial terms is too vague for your contemplation to be ever taken seriously. That the Gospels writers claim that Jesus is the "truth" is meaningless unless by him being the truth means he holds the secret of decoding the human genome. Any notion of truth in a poetic sense of the term, such as truths conveyed by the fables told in my youth, such as the one of the tortoise and hare, is beyond your simple minded comprehension unless the usage of truth here is to claim that rabbits talk. 

If your sense of what is true is plagued by this sort of retardation, that renders all outside of a science text book as too vague for you, that's your handicap not mine. 

Whats odd, if you assume the OP is looking for the "correct" definition of God, along the lines of your supposed "correct" definition of love, whats the purpose of seeking it here, when you should be seeking the scientific literature on the subject, that defines God beliefs strictly on the biological basis of them. 

Quote:
So basically god exists because we need god?

No, basically certain beliefs we hold such a belief in an inherent meaning and purpose to human existence, or a belief in hope in the face of hopelessness need God.  Such as a belief in a cube (a three dimensional object/ an extended object) requires a belief in what makes extension a possibility, i.e. a belief in space.

 

 


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Well, crazymonkie, I think

Well, crazymonkie, I think it goes something like this.

P1 - People have to believe in God to believe in hope.

P2 - People believe in hope.

P3 - Ergo, people believe in God.

Conclusion - God exists.   

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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butterbattle wrote: Well,

butterbattle wrote:

Well, crazymonkie, I think it goes something like this.

P1 - People have to believe in God to believe in hope.

P2 - People believe in hope.

P3 - Ergo, people believe in God.

Conclusion - God exists.   

 

Or the idiot thinking goes something like this:

"when someone says hope in the midst of hopelessness, in a reality that has nothing to offer to hope in, he is speaking of all senses of hope and not a particular sense of it. And those who say that individuals who believe in such hope, are God believers, that the belief itself is a god belief, is a claim that God exists, like if Richard Dawkins were to say that individuals who believe prayers get answered, and that jesus was resurrected are believers, reveals that he's endorsing the Christian faith."

I understand the shallowness of sapient class, can barely grasp concepts like hope at all, it's to abstract for them, too beyond their pea brains that it's a fucken blur. Get a clue dude, it might save you some embarrassment. 

 

 

 

 


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Presuppositionalist

Presuppositionalist wrote:

Then I stipulate:

The Christian God is a being with knowledge of each true proposition, with love for each human being, and with the power to bring about any state of affairs that is not logically contradictory.

This definition is a reasonable, if broad, summary of the Christian view of God. It invokes no concept that is not universally understood.


But there could be five or six of those. I mean, from your definition, any being with knowledge of each true proposition, etc. would qualify. Under your conditions, it could be a divine women's hockey team.



The definition would be reasonable if you didn't mind being non-specific about the number of gods that it might define.



Now, I'm presuming the Christian God is just one god (or three -- whatever), so you'd have to say that it's the only being with knowledge of each true proposition. Unfortunately, you'd have no way to assert whether or not that was true. You can't know that there's only one of them. The Christian God could have god friends. That would at least explain why he was jealous of other gods.

 

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manofmanynames wrote:Well,

manofmanynames wrote:

Well, to form a minimum requirement for what God is, we would have to gauge the responses for why people believe in the first place, and if you've really reflected on these response you'd fine that a belief in God, and that God himself is a condition of possibility.

Well yes, if we asked people who already believe in God if God is a condition of possibility, they'd say yes. I have no doubt of that. But what exactly is God? We're still nowhere near a definition that would allow us to say "God is a condition of possibility". The problem is that "God" still makes no sense. Saying "God is a condition of possibility" is fine, but it's the same as saying "God is the first cause".

manofmanynames wrote:
If you believe that humanity has an inherent sense of purpose and meaning, that human existence has some sort of narrative at play, you believe in the force that can make this possible, that can grant such to life. If you believe in hope amongst hopelessness, you believe in the force that makes such hope possible, that assures it's expectation as to be met. 

If you believe that life seems to reveal a pattern of intelligent design, you believe in the force behind it.

And the name we use rather than a long winded "force behind these things" is God.

Small problem, here: how (in order that we might define our god) would we distinguish between the human being's tendency to identify patterns from what you described above?

manofmanynames wrote:
Fundies and the like have a belief based on a pseudo scientism, a crafted order in the composition of the cosmos, an intelligent that painted the colors of clown fish. While for others, and for the bulk of theist  outside of the AiG folks, it's a sense of poetics not scientism, a supposed profound sense of aesthetic, a poetic ambition to life, that allows them to ground notions of sacridity to their own sense of morality, to the value of human life, and etc. It's a belief that life has a sort of spiritual dimension, that beyond the bells and whistles there's something more, something profoundly meaningful and universal. 

Both fundies and the later believers require for such a belief, a belief in a source that makes these notions possible, a belief in God, who characteristics are solely defined by what he grants.


So still no definition, is what you're saying.


I'm demonstrating that the "something more" is basically smoke-and-mirrors, and it looks like you're giving me smoke-and-mirrors. A "profound sense of aesthetic" isn't much to go on. Believing that life has a "sort of spiritual dimension" doesn't really mean anything, either. But that's the problem.


I, also, believe that God is defined by what he grants. I just happen to think he grants exactly nothing. Or at least, if he does grant something, there's no way to tell if it came from him.


 

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manofmanynames wrote:Well,

manofmanynames wrote:

Well, the reason for murkiness is this: If we were to ask people to define love, without explicitly outlining what sort of defining we're looking for, we'd all get all sorts of responses. One person would define it along the biological level, another would define it along the psychological and social level, some one  would define it solely in poetic terms. One person might define solely in terms of sexual lust, another would define it in solely sacrificial terms. There are so many ways we can define love, if the person requesting its definition doesn't specify along which lines he's looking for it to be defined.

But I'd accept any of those definitions for love. Love is a behaviour, love is a chemical reaction, all of that. That's a coherent, but incomplete definition.

manofmanynames wrote:
It's pretty dimwitted to assume with the question that OP asked, that you would somehow derive at a single definition of God, when their plethora of context in which God, like Love could be defined.

As long as we're hinting that I'm dimwitted, it looks like we still don't have a single definition of a single god that stands up to any degree of scrutiny. So what was it you believed in again? Hope or something?

manofmanynames wrote:
I attempted to define God in a psychological context, in a broad stroke for which one could apply to most theistic deity beliefs. That the belief in God, is based on the dependencies of certain beliefs, in requiring a sort of God belief in accompany of them ( a condition of possibility). If you're having trouble understanding this, perhaps we can try and break it down into even simpler context.

Yes, a simpler context would be helpful. Although you've just said (again) that God comes from the psychological. I have no problem, naturally, saying that God is a figment of our imaginations, but I doubt that's what you mean. It just happens to be the psychological context.

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manofmanynames wrote:If your

manofmanynames wrote:
If your wife or girlfriend asked you why you loved her and you define your love for her along the line of a "a

 really complex collection of chemical reactions that mostly are a necessity for the continuation and safety of the human species as a whole. " she's probably slap you.

I'm not looking for the conditions under which your girlfriend would slap you, I'm looking for a definition of a god. Yours is fine. If my girlfriend happened to be a biologist, she'd agree, and then we'd have sex.

manofmanynames wrote:
Imagine if I was never familiar with what the term dog meant, and I heard a friend of mine refer to her ex-boyfriend as a dog, and I came here and asked you to define a dog for me. If you defined it along the lines you did now, would it be correct to say that my friend was referring to her ex-boyfriend as a four-legged mammal who is a part of the canine family? Even a term seeking to be defined like "dog" needs a context presented into which it's to be defined.

But in that example, you eventually find a definition that you can compare to an ex-boyfriend.

Quote:
Ah, i see better now, which your supposed "correct"  definition of things, and the above, I'm led to believe you believe in a sort of scientism. That anything defined strictly outside of labatorial terms is too vague for your contemplation to be ever taken seriously. That the Gospels writers claim that Jesus is the "truth" is meaningless unless by him being the truth means he holds the secret of decoding the human genome. Any notion of truth in a poetic sense of the term, such as truths conveyed by the fables told in my youth, such as the one of the tortoise and hare, is beyond your simple minded comprehension unless the usage of truth here is to claim that rabbits talk.

No, that's not it. We're looking for a definition that is both accurate and coherent. Philosophically. Doesn't even have to enter into "scientism", just logic. Logic is used by theologians the world over, so I'm presuming you don't have a problem with logic.

Quote:
Whats odd, if you assume the OP is looking for the "correct" definition of God, along the lines of your supposed "correct" definition of love, whats the purpose of seeking it here, when you should be seeking the scientific literature on the subject, that defines God beliefs strictly on the biological basis of them.

I don't think there's a "correct" definition of love, but there are many coherent and poetic definitions. We don't take the poetic ones to be "true", even if they accurately describe the feelings involved.


Quote:
No, basically certain beliefs we hold such a belief in an inherent meaning and purpose to human existence, or a belief in hope in the face of hopelessness need God.  Such as a belief in a cube (a three dimensional object/ an extended object) requires a belief in what makes extension a possibility, i.e. a belief in space.

But the latter example makes sense, and the former isn't demonstrated at all. Cube needs space, we get that. Why does hope need God? Because God is the source of hope? That's pretty circular. It's practically like saying "just because".

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manofmanynames wrote:God

manofmanynames wrote:
God himself is a condition of possibility. If you don't understand what that means check out the wikipedia definition of it.


It occurs to me just now: have you read the Wikipedia article? It includes Deleuze's clarification that noumena are unknowable and can be ignored.


People's conception of gods would count as such noumena.

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treat2 wrote:You're

treat2 wrote:

You're ignorant.

ouch.  that really stings coming from a guy who made light of someone's attempted suicide.

treat2 wrote:

I response to the question of whether Einstein believed in god (when asked by reporters), Einstein said: "My God is the God of Spinoza." Do yourself a favor and try to avoid displaying your ignorance to everyone.

i don't deny the quote.  i deny that it's conclusive evidence that einstein "became a pantheist."  see my post in response to manofmanynames below.  it applies to you too. 

"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson


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manofmanynames wrote:Well,

manofmanynames wrote:

Well, dude actually you're full of shit, as someone already pointed out Einstein explicitly claimed to believe in Spinoza's God

"my god is the god of spinoza"

that is the quote you provide.

once again: "my god is the god of spinoza."  just so we're clear.

this could mean MANY things.

it could be a hypothetical, as in "IF there were a god, etc."

it could be a poetic metaphor for "i believe in a universe ruled by laws."

it could be a statement made on a whim (remember it was made to a repoter).

it could also very well mean:

manofmanynames wrote:

Einstien believed in a God, and defined the nature of this God to be as Spinoza defines it, and it takes a good degree of ignorance to assume otherwise.

BUT WE CANNOT SAY CONCLUSIVELY.  THE STATEMENT IS TOO VAGUE.  there is no "defining" god in there.  for all we know, it has little more importance than someone spying a double whopper and saying "that's my kind of burger!" 

in fact, how the hell do you know einstein interpreted spinoza the same way as you?  how do you know he didn't interpret him the same way as "idiot atheists like dawkins"?  do you have any notes he made about spinoza?  seriously, share them if you have. 

do you have any SUBSTANTIAL, POSITIVE definition of god drafted by einstein?  once again, if so, share them.  you could end decades of debate right here. 

I AM NOT SAYING EINSTEIN WAS AN ATHEIST.  I AM NOT SAYING HE WAS A THEIST.

ALL i'm saying is that the above quote is NOT CONCLUSIVE ENOUGH to put einstein in so specific a category as PANTHEIST.

manofmanynames wrote:

it takes a good degree of ignorance to assume otherwise.

riiight.  you know what, stalin was also known to make sly statements about leaving things "up to god" in the presence of foreign press.  i suppose that's an "explicit" claim that stalin believed in an interventionist god and that "it takes a good degree of ignorance to assume otherwise."

 

 

"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson


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treat2 wrote:BTW. You can

treat2 wrote:

BTW. You can find several papers and public speaches in which Einstein spoke of his religious beliefs on the Net. Oh yeah, I forgot. You're too stupid to figure out how to google the information.

well, it has more to do with the fact that you're the one making a positive assertion here, i.e., "einstein became a pantheist."  i'm saying the spinoza quote is insufficient evidence.  i've given several reasons why.  if you believe so much in your assertion, you furnish the evidence.  i'm not gonna do the leg-work to prove your point.

"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson


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you know what, fuck it, i

you know what, fuck it, i have no grass to cut tonight and the house is clean for once, so i did a little googling, just for kicks.  here's one of the first things i found, from this article:

http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications/reflections_volume_1/torrance.htm wrote:

Einstein certainly held, as his constant appeal to God showed, that without God nothing can be known, but what did he really mean by his appeal to Spinoza? Once in answer to the question "Do you believe in the God of Spinoza?" Einstein replied as follows:

I can't answer with a simple yes or no. I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but admire even more his contributions to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and the body as one, not two separate things.

according to the notes, einstein's quote is take from einstein, a life by denis brian.  of course, i added the emphasis.

so, treat, it seems that if "einstein became a pantheist," he wasn't aware of it.  too bad he didn't have you around to tell him.

"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson


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nigelTheBold wrote:Here's

nigelTheBold wrote:
Here's your challange, theists and atheists alike: provide the minimum requirements for god, and present a coherent, rational definition of god that covers the minimum requirements.

This is easy. The minimum requirement for any God-concept is consciousness. That's the starting point.

"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead


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Paisley wrote:nigelTheBold

Paisley wrote:

nigelTheBold wrote:
Here's your challange, theists and atheists alike: provide the minimum requirements for god, and present a coherent, rational definition of god that covers the minimum requirements.

This is easy. The minimum requirement for any God-concept is consciousness. That's the starting point.


Okay so ... consciousness = God, or do you have more for us?

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iwbiek wrote:you know what,

iwbiek wrote:

you know what, fuck it, i have no grass to cut tonight and the house is clean for once, so i did a little googling, just for kicks.  here's one of the first things i found, from this article:

http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications/reflections_volume_1/torrance.htm wrote:

Einstein certainly held, as his constant appeal to God showed, that without God nothing can be known, but what did he really mean by his appeal to Spinoza? Once in answer to the question "Do you believe in the God of Spinoza?" Einstein replied as follows:

I can't answer with a simple yes or no. I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but admire even more his contributions to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and the body as one, not two separate things.

according to the notes, einstein's quote is take from einstein, a life by denis brian.  of course, i added the emphasis.

so, treat, it seems that if "einstein became a pantheist," he wasn't aware of it.  too bad he didn't have you around to tell him.

1 year before his death Einstein privately rejected god and religion, as well.

Seems Einstein was not the dummy I said he was not, for the most obvious reasons.

Written 1 year before his death, a
private Einstein "God letter" recently sold for 400K, and reveals previously
witheld private views on God and Religion. See:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24668015/

However, with regard to his publicly stated relidious views he would naturally have been considered a Scientific Pantheist, rather than a Pantheist. "Scientific Pantheism" is a formal modern day branch of modern day Pantheism.

In short, as I proposed, Einstein privately was an Atheist!

BTW iwbiek, see a gynocologist for your menopausal hotflash problems.


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HisWillness wrote: But

HisWillness wrote:

 

But there could be five or six of those. I mean, from your definition, any being with knowledge of each true proposition, etc. would qualify. Under your conditions, it could be a divine women's hockey team.



 

The definition would be reasonable if you didn't mind being non-specific about the number of gods that it might define.



 

Now, I'm presuming the Christian God is just one god (or three -- whatever), so you'd have to say that it's the only being with knowledge of each true proposition. Unfortunately, you'd have no way to assert whether or not that was true. You can't know that there's only one of them. The Christian God could have god friends. That would at least explain why he was jealous of other gods.

 

I wasn't aware that you people thought that a definition had to exclude all other conceivable beings. If so, I decline, because you could obviously always think of multiple beings that fit any definition. However, this may be a reason to think your criterion silly. It makes it impossible to provide a definition for a being, and we do think it possible to define beings.

Q: Why didn't you address (post x) that I made in response to you nine minutes ago???

A: Because I have (a) a job, (b) familial obligations, (c) social obligations, and (d) probably a lot of other atheists responded to the same post you did, since I am practically the token Christian on this site now. Be patient, please.


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HisWillness wrote:Paisley

HisWillness wrote:

Paisley wrote:

nigelTheBold wrote:
Here's your challange, theists and atheists alike: provide the minimum requirements for god, and present a coherent, rational definition of god that covers the minimum requirements.

This is easy. The minimum requirement for any God-concept is consciousness. That's the starting point.


 

Okay so ... consciousness = God, or do you have more for us?

That's the minimum requirement.

"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead


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Presuppositionalist

Presuppositionalist wrote:

HisWillness wrote:

 

But there could be five or six of those. I mean, from your definition, any being with knowledge of each true proposition, etc. would qualify. Under your conditions, it could be a divine women's hockey team.

The definition would be reasonable if you didn't mind being non-specific about the number of gods that it might define.

Now, I'm presuming the Christian God is just one god (or three -- whatever), so you'd have to say that it's the only being with knowledge of each true proposition. Unfortunately, you'd have no way to assert whether or not that was true. You can't know that there's only one of them. The Christian God could have god friends. That would at least explain why he was jealous of other gods.

I wasn't aware that you people thought that a definition had to exclude all other conceivable beings. If so, I decline, because you could obviously always think of multiple beings that fit any definition. However, this may be a reason to think your criterion silly. It makes it impossible to provide a definition for a being, and we do think it possible to define beings.


No. I'd accept, for instance, that horses are four-legged and happy, even though they overlap in those characteristics with, say, happy dogs. Both potentially beings, both with characteristics, and one of those characteristics is even vague and (almost) unknowable. You could guess that a horse is happy from the position of its ears and demeanour.



If your contention is that we can't define unique beings, I'm not sure what to do about that. You could have said the only being with knowledge of every true proposition. Would that work better for you? Of course, how would we know that this being is the only one that has this knowledge?

 

Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence


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Paisley wrote:HisWillness

Paisley wrote:

HisWillness wrote:

Okay so ... consciousness = God, or do you have more for us?

That's the minimum requirement.


That would make me a god, as I have consciousness. Nigel means what are the minimum requirements before something can be defined as a god.

 

Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence


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Oh dear. Now the real crazy

Oh dear. Paisley's arrived.

Now the real crazy begins.

 

PS: iwbiek, just ignore treat2 as best you can. The plan is to watch him die the agonizing death of attention starvation and drift off to elsewhere on the internets.

Quote:
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."

- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940


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iwbiek wrote:you know what,

iwbiek wrote:

you know what, fuck it, i have no grass to cut tonight and the house is clean for once, so i did a little googling, just for kicks.  here's one of the first things i found, from this article:

http://www.ctinquiry.org/publications/reflections_volume_1/torrance.htm wrote:

Einstein certainly held, as his constant appeal to God showed, that without God nothing can be known, but what did he really mean by his appeal to Spinoza? Once in answer to the question "Do you believe in the God of Spinoza?" Einstein replied as follows:

I can't answer with a simple yes or no. I'm not an atheist and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's pantheism, but admire even more his contributions to modern thought because he is the first philosopher to deal with the soul and the body as one, not two separate things.

Einstein said "and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist" (emphasis mine). It appears to me that Einstein is wavering or backpedaling here. If you say that "I believe in the God of Spinoza" while also extolling the virtues of Buddhism, then I would say that you are dangerously flirting with pantheism. Also, it does appear to me that Einstein rejected quantum theory, not on sceintific grounds but on religious ones (the God of Spinoza is completely deterministic).

"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead