God: as in the one true God I would define as a uncreated being, who was,is and will be and supersedes time. Creator and designer and absolute owner of life, the universe and all unseen places (i.e. heaven, possible other universes) and forces. The only one with absolute authority over everything.
‘gods’ : created beings, usually with some supernatural characteristics, inferior to God.
No, it isn’t. I’m not after agreement with me; I’m after how you define God.
I don’t think anyone has said that God IS a personal relationship. It’s one thing to have a personal relationship, and another to be a personal relationship. I assume — correct me if I’m wrong — that you have personal relationships with people. Do they exist only inside your mind? Perhaps the relationship itself does, and I would agree with that. But the object of the relationship does not.
My personal relationships exist both inside and outside my mind. There is no reason to believe a religious relationship exists anywhere but inside one’s mind.
Okay, so if I define “everything physical” in a categorical monist energy-equal-matter way, and then claim there is nothing else (as is my physicalist wont) then we are in agreement: The universe is everything physical. Obviously, this ontology coheres nicely with atheism. Can you see why defining god is an absurd request of such a position?
(Now I am sure your claim is that there exists more than the physicalist’s universe. Is there a meaningful term for your complete set of that which exists?)
Alright, apologies for using the wrong term. I have a question; your definition of your own God means that he must exist. Does “must exist” form part of your definition for only your particular God, or would any being need to fulfil it before you would consider it a god?
If your definition does say your God must necessarily exist, where is the room for you to be mistaken (if there is any)? I would suggest that some particular gods cannot necessarily exist, but my understanding of that may be tempered by my brain and understandings of the situation at a human level, for example. Is there such a caveat to your belief?
My definition of “god” is a creation of the human mind so that humans may have faith and hope in something when there isn’t always much else to have hope or faith in. Something to give us more of a purpose and meaning for existing at all. I hope i’m wrong, and that’s just my definition…“god” is whatever any individual wants it to be for them I guess is what I mean.
I agree that there is no reason for you to believe it. I guess what I don’t understand is why you hold yourself to be the objective standard.
The latter.
I don’t look at definitions that way. I think anyone may define anything any way he pleases. The only problem comes in when he’s trying to communicate to other people, and they don’t know what he’s talking about or they’re thinking about something else altogether. My hope for this thread is that something will emerge such that when I say I believe in God and someone else says he believes in gods and yet another person says he doesn’t belive in any god, there is an understand among all of us as to what the others mean.
Put another way, this isn’t a thread about proving or disproving the existence of God or gods. It’s a thread about defining those things. Definitions don’t prove anything one way or the other. Inferences are required for that.
My belief is the only one I can hold; otherwise, I’d believe something else. But this really isn’t about my beliefs or anyone’s beliefs. It’s about exactly WHAT they do or don’t believe in.
I don’t hold myself as the objective standard. But I find it difficult to take the existence of “god” seriously when believers can neither agree on what god is nor can they produce verifiable evidence that it exists. Warm fuzzy feelings are not evidence. Wishes are not evidence. The standard we, as modern students of science, hold for understanding the rest of our experience, should not change because we’re talking about our wish for a supernatural (or superhuman) overseer. Yet believers set aside their reasoning when it comes to this one issue.
I think the biggest problem I have with believers who claim to have “had an experience” (and they are few) is that they somehow feel that they’ve been chosen to be let in on the secret, and that the rest of us are either not good enough or too stupid to realize we’re seeing god. Now, if god were to take the mystery out of it and simply make its presence known to all of us, that would be a different story.
There is no more evidence for the existence of god than there is for a tooth fairy. Our current understanding of our world doesn’t accept uncorroborated events as evidence. This doesn’t mean god’s existence is impossible; it’s just highly improbable. We’re waiting…
In addition, it’s obvious that people will never agree on what god is without something tangible to base that description on. If it means something different to you than it does to the next guy, then your god cannot possibly be his god, thus making “god” irrelevant to anyone but you. And that’s fine, but a “personal to Lib only” god is of no concern to me. It’s nonexistent to the rest of the world.
I never said it was describable. It’s nonsense, all right. It’s an amorphous space filler. What I was describing was not God, but the space that he fills.
I may have phrased that badly. Let me try again. Take Zeus (and I mean no disrespect by using him in an example, am not comparing him to anyone’s gods, etc) - under your definitions of “a god” is Zeus a god? Or is he a *fictional * god? Or, since he does not hold the property of “must exist”, is he not a god at all, fictional or otherwise?
But you can’t define something any way you want. I could define an orange as a large water-dwelling mammal - and if the person i’m talking to for some reason thinks of that object as having those characteristics, then i’ve successfully communicated. But it’s still an incorrect definition.
I guess I just find it surprising that you don’t seem to have a definition of “a god”. Especially considering that you’ve suggested that all atheists should have such a definition (as is my understanding) - surely all theists should also have such a definition?
Put another way, this isn’t a thread about proving or disproving the existence of God or gods. It’s a thread about defining those things. Definitions don’t prove anything one way or the other. Inferences are required for that.
But these are two different things. A theist may believe in a particular god, and that gods may exist in general. An atheist may disbelieve in a particular god, or that gods can’t exist in general. I think it would be interesting to hear from theists both these definitions - not just “how do you define your god(s)?” but also “how do you define god?”. That’s really all i’m getting at. I hope you come to some conclusion as to what you’d consider “a god” in general.
Actually, you did. After saying it was nonsense, you went on to describe what it was at best and what it was at worst. I don’t understand the mindset of saying that I do or don’t believe in something nonsensical. If someone asked me whether I believe in jixkavenughy, I’d have to say “I don’t know”. To answer the question, I’d need the word defined.
I described the gaps that people fill with it. That’s not the same as describing what “it” actually is. Describing a function for a thing does not define it.
Apparently, Liberal is going to not only ignore me, but ignore the points I made as well.
Actually, I haven’t defined “a god”. On the contrary, I’ve asked for those who believe in a god or gods to please explain what they mean. By using the proper name “God” (capitalized only for grammatical reasons), I intend to convey that I am identifying a single entity, unique by the manner I have defined Him (using a traditional pronoun of convenience … I would not object to Her or It). After all, there can be one and only one necessary being.
I wouldn’t call that a successful communication. You intended to convey something about whales, but the person in all likelihood understood you to mean something about fruit. And therein lies the problem with all this talk about god, gods, and God among atheists, theists, and agnostics. People talk past each other.
I recall once a discussion with His4Ever in which I declared that I do not believe in her God, despite that we both call ourselves Christian. It was clear to me that what she was describing bore no resemblance to What I worship.
I’ve only said that if a person declares a belief or disbelief in X, they ought to know what X is. I include myself among them.
Well, the only gods I’ve had any exposure to in that regard — remember that I have a very limited formal education — are the Greek and Roman gods, which I took to be superhuman figures patterned on ordinary (but higher class) people. For anyone who might believe in these gods, that’s probably a pretty lousy definition.
I’m sorry, Apos, I didn’t mean to ignore you. I believe you made it quite plain that you essentially define God as anything metaphysical and that you don’t believe in any of it. Did I misunderstand you?
Sure it does. A function in one dimension, for example, describes a point. In two, a line. Three, a plane. Suppose you were asked this: “Do you believe God does not exist?”, how would you answer it?
However, in the present case there not just one X but many. You have your X. The next person has their X[sub]1[/sub] and the next has their X[sub]2[/sub], etc. Some of these X-es may be similar and compatible, others are contradictory. Atheists do not believe in any of them. How would an atheist pick which X to define for you? And how’s that list of X definitions you don’t believe in coming?