I would say, yes, if there’s a god who cares what happens on earth he has a responsibility to show himself. And not just in a way where it sounds a lot like standard human myths and fantasies…something definitive that we can arrive at logically and empirically.
Like I say, we can conceive of an infinite number of types of supernatural entities. I could easily spend my life looking for god with no reason to think the quest has any utility, or chance of success, whatsoever.
How many gods/goddesses/godthings am I obligated to seek out in the short lifespan I have? Which ones do I give priority to? How much time should I spend on each one? How many gods/goddesses/godthings did you give equal time to?
By the way-How far up on that list would you put the “He” you referred to in your previous post, I wonder?
What do you mean?
How about a division based on capabilities? God, as defined by Christian dogma, is infinitely more capable than I am. But infinity is a tough number to work with. Let’s round it off and say God is a billion times more capable than I am. To me, this means in the attempt to establish communications between us, God should be putting forth 99.9999999% of the effort.
Whereas to the rest of the world, who like words to have useful meanings, belief and subjective conclusion in this context doesn’t mean “every single thought in my head about the history and properties of the world, since you can’t prove that it wasn’t created yesterday including your memory of last Christmas, or that you’re not a brain in a jar”. It specifically means that end of the spectrum where one disregards or abuses logical reasoning and observation within the pragmatic framework of assuming the physical, observable world is as it appears.
You can get people with experience dealing with conflicting definitions of words and concepts to agree with you that “But everything is a subjective conclusion” within the framework you set forth, but it’s a useless framework for anything other than comforting those uncomfortable with the lack of substantial evidence for the supernatural in the “real” world.
Czarcasm, if it is any consolation, the statement of mine quoted by** raindog** was pretty much what I expected you (and most other self-identified atheists on this board) would agree to. It is a common enough point of view. I don’t think your postings in this thread would leave me to think any different.
Trinopus, you raise a good point and it is illuminating to ponder why it is such a good point. I don’t claim the non-existance of the most of the gods because they are never defined clearly enough to allow me to do that. There is always enough theological wiggle room introduced so that the religions never present an easy target.
Science proves you wrong on a previous theological certainty?..“it was not meant to be taken literally” Logic and philosophy suggests that your god is not consistent? “god moves in mysterious ways and exists outside of our knowing”…yadda, yadda, yadda.
In fact, one could define theology as the process of introducing enough plausible deniability and confusion. They will go to extroardinary lengths to avoid being pinned down, the whole thing is an unwinnable shell game and the only winning move is not to play. (TM WOPR)
Not you. Saying “I know that no gods exist” is very different from saying “I know no gods with self contradictory characteristics” exist. It can’t be just one because I say that also.
The person I’m referring to got more pushback from atheists on the newsgroup than theists.
The Western variety of God could easily make himself known. But I don’t care about that, really. I’m more interested in the definition of God used by someone claiming that God exists. I don’t think it is right to define an absurd god, disprove that god, and then claim I’ve proven that no God exists. I can only argue against the gods put on the table.
We have many deist Dopers, and I never argue against their god since they define them to be unknowable.
But they also tend not to claim that their God is interested in my sex life. The reason this is important is that we get someone like Ted Cruz who believes so strongly that his god exists that he says that no one without the same faith is qualified to be president - but then, if challenged, would no doubt claim that he believes because of faith, not evidence.
I’ll admit to believing that no God exists - but my belief, like all scientific beliefs, is provisional.