It is so. AFAIK, St. Thomas Aquinas never tried to prove the existence of God as a an actual phyisical thing as opposed to a theoretical (argument-based) “proof” which might convince some but might not convince others. I assume that’s not the sort of “proof” we’re talking about. As a matter of rhetoric or argument, my “proof,” being neither verifiable or falsifiable, will almost certainly be “not good enough” for you. And, y’know, fine with me.
But there’s a difference IMO between trying to convince people of the truth of something and trying to literally prove its existence. So is the Pope (a) trying to convince people God exists, or (b) trying to prove it? I’m not a Catholic but I’m guessing “a”.
I don’t think there is any burden of proof on me, as a believer, when you are questioning my beliefs. If I come to you to convince you there is a God, then maybe it’s a different story, but if you come to me and question my beliefs, then I don’t have any burden to prove anything to you or anyone else. I can explain it as best I can from my point of view, and that’s all.
I guess my question to you is, what is your point in questioning beliefs in the first place? If you are trying to learn in a friendly way about why people think the way they do, then accusing them of being illogical or irrational is really not very polite or friendly.
If you are asking just so you can keep saying “but that’s ILLOGICAL,” then it seems like you are just looking to start a fight or convert the person.
If you want to convert the person, you may want to soften your approach…you catch more flies with honey and all that.
I’m an atheist. I’m used to having my religious beliefs disrespected. Ask away … anything’s fair game short of raising your voice or threatening violence.
I remember getting into a discussion on this a few months ago. For some reason the counter-argument “But your fantastical being is one you just made up, and we both know it” isn’t valid, apparently. I still don’t really understand why.
Not the same at all. You could have provided the evidence if you had thought about video-taping the event beforehand and had an independent observer count the biscotti both before and after your meal. Also, it wouldn’t be that hard to find evidence that biscotti exists and that people have been known to eat biscotti in the past.
I agree. It’s almost impossible to have a calm, productive debate on a message board which has more than two members. Makes me wonder what the point is, actually.
The thing is, the statement “God does not exist” is incoherent absent a definition for “God.” No one ever attempted to refute the existence of God until someone else had asserted it. Once you begin to speak of specific gods, refutation is a bit easier. At least, no Christians that I have ever known would say that there is as good a chance of Zeus existing as there is of Yahweh. Most would say flat out that Zeus does not exist.
All monotheists are atheists with respect to every god but their own. The just believe in, and accept evidence for, one more god than I do.
But all you need to make the statement “God does not exist” coherent is a definition of “god.” I don’t see why this makes the statement any more difficult than, say, “apples are not delicious” or “cruises are not fun” or “the sky is not blue,” all of which require a working definitinon of the sentences’ subjects. They do not require that someone else first assert the opposite; they only require that the subject (god, apples, cruises, sky) be generally understood so that the sentence makes even basic sense.
And it is also not true that all monotheists are atheists with respect to every god but their own. It is as easy to theorize a single God that encompasses all other iterations of “god,” as it is to theorize a single God that excludes all other iterations of “god.”
As a rule, outside of any questions I might have about certain traditions, I don’t discuss other people’s belief systems with them, even if I do feel that their beliefs are irrational or illogical (in the commonly accepted sense of these terms). I mean, really, why the hell should I care? Also, as **Beaucarnea ** alluded to, faith defies explanation, so, apart from the “I beleve what I believe because I was raised that way” adherents, I can’t be arsed to wrap my brain around it.
The only exception(s) to this is/are if your belief system threatens to intrude in places where I feel it ought not, or if it leads you to do things that I believe are unethical (note that I did not say “immoral”), i.e., “I’m against same-sex marriage because [my holy book] says that it’s a sin,” blah-blah-blah, etc., etc., etc. Then we have a problem.
Otherwise, as another Doper said in another thread, as long as your belief system’s not picking my pocket or breaking my leg, you go with whatever gets you through the night, baby. Hell, even if your belief system is breaking *your * leg or picking *your * pocket, while I might try to rationalize things with you (most likely to occur if you’re someone I really care about), ultimately, there’s nothing I can do about your willful submission thereto.
Oh, and since I’m not so insecure as to be concerned with what other people think about the way I live my life, especially with regard to spirituality/religion, *anyone * is welcome to question my belief system. If, however, they attempt to convert or otherwise browbeat me despite my assurances that I’m quite happy where I am, they’ll get told to fuck off. But yeah, they can question.
Well, if you are going to define “god” in such a way that “existence” is not one of his qualities, then yes, asserting he does not exist refutes nothing. But “delicious” is not part of the definition of “apple.” “Apples do not exist” would be a problematic assertion. Are you aware of any believers in a god who also believe he is non-existent?
Are you in fact doing so? Because I would be interested on your definition of such a god. It certainly would not be the one who commands his followers “Thou shalt have no other god before me.” It also would, by necessity, exclude all of the gods who contradict each other. In fact, to claim to believe that only one god exists, and to further claim that a bunch of other gods exist, is nonsense, at least on the surface.
I’m not sure what the disconnect is, because this doesn’t seem to me to be that hard. Surely you can grok the concept of Santa or Frodo, complete with existence within their respective frameworks, without having to embrace the question of whether Santa or Frodo actually really and truly exists in reality. “Delicious” is a quality of apples (arguably), just as “existence” is a quality of God. You don’t have to actually believe God really exists to grasp what is meant by “god,” the term, as commonly used. So, no, I am not aware of any “believers in a god who also believe he is non-existent,” the term “believer” obviously meaning “belief in his existence,” but I am aware of many people who understand what the concept “god” means (complete with a theoretical existence), without granting the validity of the premise that god actually exists.
My beliefs are not relevant to your not-necessarily correct assertion that “all monotheists are atheists with respect to every god but their god,” although we may just be arguing semantics. My beliefs are especially not relevant when you take it upon yourself to inform me what is or is not consistent with the Christian God. But it is perfectly possible to conclude that if there is one God, that God may be called different names by different people. Though, yes, this argument obviously excludes all gods whose existences are contradictory.
Santa and Frodo are imaginary characters. There is no need to refute the existence of an imaginary god. Having said that, generally “Creator of the Universe” is used to describe God. I would think existence would be a necessary characteristic of such a God. If the god you are describing is imaginary, how could one be offended by an assertion that belief in him is irrational?
This is just flat out wrong. “Delicious” is a description of how a person responds to one aspect of an apple. If I find apples nauseating and you find them delicious, and there is one apple before us, how can we both be taliking about the same apple, if ‘delicious’ is (by definition) a quality of apples?
If your theoretical god created the universe, or interacts in the physical world in any way, then existence is a necessary quality of that god. Else he becomes that thing must not say – a fairy tale.
If it seems that I was quizzing you or lecturing you on your beliefs, please accept my sincere apologies. I thought I was asking you what you were suggesting.
I would be interested in a theosophical explication that allows for the existence of other Gods within the Christian sphere. I have never heard of such a thing. Really.
But would he not be the same being? Teaching the same thing? With the same characteristics? Are Odin and Jesus really that much alike?
Since there are gods whose existences are contradictory, how is it possible to make the conclusion that you did above? That in fact all gods are just one god with different names?
Give us a definition of “god” then, and we can proceed.
I find that when some people say “we all worship the same God in different ways” these same people either have little or no knowledge of other religions, or really mean “These people are trying to worship my god, but aren’t doing it the right way.”
Exactly. I’m perfectly fine with having a thread in which we debate whether or not “God” as you use the word refers to a nonreal phenomenon. The outcome of that discussion may not have much bearing on the existence of “God” as I use the term, but it’s not like I’ve got a copyright on the term or anything. You can use it to mean whatever you please and then we can begin the discussion. But explain what you mean when you fling the term first, please.
For starts, you may want to look at how you phrased your OP.
If you want to question me about what I believe, how I came to that belief and why I continue to believe, then pull up chair and I’ll get us a couple of beers.
If you want polite forms of “arguments” you can use to point out that I am irrational, gullible, incapable of critical thought or just plain intellectually lazy, then life is too short.
Interesting. My experience from within the church and as a “wanderer” has been that mainline churches are making a point of teaching about other religions. I ordered my first book on comparative religion forty-six years ago and I still have it and still refer to it because I’m still learning.
There’s no need to refute the existence of any god at all – especially not under the circumstances of the OP, which was that you hypothetically ask me about my beliefs. I’m not the one who thinks He’s imaginary, you are. And since you believe God is imaginary, and “there is no need to refute the existence of an imaginary God,” what’s the problem? ISTM that you want to import the assertion that God exists into the conversation only to pick an argument. My point is that the idea of God as a concept includes a (to you, purely hypothetical) existence, just like Santa and Frodo have their own fictional existences. The idea that you must read into every conversation including the concept of any god a weighty argument over whether that god does or does not exist strikes me as ponderous and unnecessarily aggressive.
See, this is just semantics. I call it a “quality,” you call it an “aspect.” Whatever. The point is, the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven. It therefore is akin to a matter of subjective opinion, just as are “qualties” such as “delicious” or “fun.” You can no more prove God does not exist than you can prove apples taste bad – less, actually, since you’d probably be able to show a relatively broad consensus that apples are good to eat, and therefore based on consensus may be termed “delicious,” far before you’d be able to show that God doesn’t exist.
The reason you “must not say” it is not that it is objectivley untrue, but that, after you’ve asked a believer what he or she believes, it is hugely rude to say, in effect, “that’s bullshit.” You surely are aware that believers believe in the existence of God even if you do not. You surely are aware that analogizing something they believe deeply in to a acknowledged fictional story or character is insulting. Whether you choose to do it or not is up to you. But just because I believe in God – an existing God – does not mean I am unable to discuss the idea of god independent from the argument that God exists. You want to make my statement of belief, without more, into an argument carrying with it a burden of proof. It isn’t.
I think this is a matter of semantics, but a confusion of semantics introduced by me, not you. In my belief system, there is only one God, though He may have many names. Any god that is said to act in a way inconsistent with big-G God is not big-G God and therefore is not a god, because there’s only one.
In this thread, I have never made that assertion. You are the one who compared god to imaginary characters, as an appeal to understanding the nature of god. Any god who does not possess existence, even as a theoretical quality, is imaginary. Or are you arguing that Santa and Frodo could potentially be real?
It is by no means the same existence. “Hypothetical” and “fictional” convey completely different concepts. This may be where you have gone astray.
Disabuse yourself of it then, for it has no cognate in reality. For more reasons than one, but the only one you need to understand is that a weighty argument is not required, just a statement of whether the god in question has, as one of his characteristics, actual existence.
Actually, it isn’t semantics at all. You called it part of “the working definition” of “apples.” (Emphasis mine.) “Delicious” is a value judgment. An apple is an apple whether or not anyone in particular finds it to be delicious.
I’m afraid you are wrong again. Whether or not the existence of God can be proven, it can certainly be *asserted *as a necessary element of the definition of “god.” And if he exists, it most certainly is not a matter of opinion. Whatever manifestation of god anyone wants to describe, it either is real, or it is not. It either exists, or it does not. Neither my opinion, nor yours, nor anyone else’s has any bearing on the truth of whether god exists. What kind of god could be invoked by one human, only to be destroyed by the next?
My only point was that any god who, for the sake of the discussion, is imaginary, has no more substance than a fairy tale.
This from the one who compared God to Santa, and Frodo?
Again, I have not required anyone to prove anything. You are arguing with someone else here.
Which means Odin is not a god. And therefore does not exist. Because to his worshippers “godhood” and “existence” are essential elements of Odin.
It also means that, in fact, you are an atheist with respect to other gods. You just said so.
