(November 7, 2011 at 4:49 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Again you are failing by trying to dismiss something on grounds of attributes it cannot by definition posess Cpn.

Of course God refers to something in particular, or we couldn't call God God. Any Christian will have a very firm understanding of who God is and can corroborate that with every other Christian, and even the discerning non Christian who cares to confront the theology thoroughly.

So as usual I find your root objection to lack substance.

IMHO..I am thinking my dearest H0bit that you are the one who is childishly trying to define something equivalent to Santa Claus because you just can't give-up the fantasy for one who knows the fantasy of Santa Claus thoroughly.

(November 7, 2011 at 4:49 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Again you are failing by trying to dismiss something on grounds of attributes it cannot by definition posess Cpn.

Of course God refers to something in particular, or we couldn't call God God. Any Christian will have a very firm understanding of who God is and can corroborate that with every other Christian, and even the discerning non Christian who cares to confront the theology thoroughly.

So as usual I find your root objection to lack substance.

I have made a very clear argument which you haven't dismantled. You seem to be trying to project the weakness of your own position back onto me.

If god is something in particular you will be able to describe gods primary attribute positively. You have failed to do that. Your responses have so far just begged the question (which you haven't denied) and so stand on that same shaky ground I described.

It is you who are dismissing an argument and ignoring the points made.
As ususal there is wolly thinking which you like to dress up as crystalline and inviable. You then accuse people of not understanding the points you are making and of ignoring them. You are merely adopting the tactic of the Emporers New Clothes. I am not going to stand back in awe at gasp at the wonder of your invisible rejoinder. I need you to answer for theism, in the terms I have outlined, if you cannot do that, then fine just admit it.

(November 7, 2011 at 3:19 am)fr0d0 Wrote: So only words that refer to actual phisical objects are real words. The rest don't count. I see

Whether a word refers to phisical (sic) objects or not, until some workable definition is presented and agreed upon there can be no meaningful dialogue. Actually, I would argue that it's much more important to define a word that doesn't have a real-world reference than one which does. The word "car" acts as a shorthand for all aspects of engine-driven wheeled passenger transport road vehicles with seating for up to eight people; no other context is required to convey that basic information - though we may argue about the relative performance of different makes and models, the environmental impact of the internal combustion engine, or whether electric motors are the way forward etc. The word "god" is shorthand for nothing and imparts zero information. Swapping one empty word for another similarly empty word is a pointless exercise. We could ask fifty people what the word god means to them, and I guarantee there will be many more differences than similarities. I might picture a god as a big beardy bloke in the sky, but do you? If you want to play Twenty Questions just say so.

Well I vote we remove the word God from the dictionary then as there clearly is no defininition. </sarcasm>

If there is a definition of God anywhere, we can dissmiss point 1.

The premise of Ms Scarletts argument seems to be based upon a first proven physical existence, which when considering the subject in hand is contradictory nonsense. He bleats on about there not being a primary attribute when he is clearly presented with one. He dissmisses the point without reason. He calls a fallacy and then thoroughly doen't state why. Saying it is so is no reason to accept that it is so I'm afraid, so with a distinct lack of argument we can conclude that the OP argument is what it appears to be: baseless.

(November 9, 2011 at 2:39 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Well I vote we remove the word God from the dictionary then as there clearly is no defininition. </sarcasm>

And brilliant wit, well done! We are not talking about definitions, but a primary attribute. Shall we add straw man or would I be ‘bleating’.

(November 9, 2011 at 2:39 am)fr0d0 Wrote: If there is a definition of God anywhere, we can dissmiss point 1.

Wrong

(November 9, 2011 at 2:39 am)fr0d0 Wrote: The premise of Ms Scarletts

‘Mr’ unless that was more excellent sarcasm

(November 9, 2011 at 2:39 am)fr0d0 Wrote: argument seems to be based upon a first proven physical existence

Wrong again, I don’t mention materialism its another straw man.

(November 9, 2011 at 2:39 am)fr0d0 Wrote: which when considering the subject in hand is contradictory nonsense.

Go ahead knock your straw man down

(November 9, 2011 at 2:39 am)fr0d0 Wrote: He bleats

The lady (or gentleman) protests too much me thinks.

As if using the word 'bleats' to replace the word 'presents', has any bearing on the truth value of said proposition.

(November 9, 2011 at 2:39 am)fr0d0 Wrote: on about there not being a primary attribute when he is clearly presented with one.

You mean when you presented that gods primary attribute was that of being a god (diety). Yep that was a winner and cleared up all the mystery. We all now know what a god is and his positively identified status in reality.

(November 9, 2011 at 2:39 am)fr0d0 Wrote: He dissmisses the point without reason.

I said in posts #3, #8 and #12 that wyou were begging the question. Because you were using God (the diety in xtianity) to provide a primary attribute of God.

(November 9, 2011 at 2:39 am)fr0d0 Wrote: He calls a fallacy and then thoroughly doen't state why.

See post #3. I didn’t expect to have to repeat myself once I called out why the first time and you didn’t challenge it, but if you are going to have selective amnesia perhaps I should.

(November 9, 2011 at 2:39 am)fr0d0 Wrote: Saying it is so is no reason to accept that it is so I'm afraid,

You have had it

(November 9, 2011 at 2:39 am)fr0d0 Wrote: so with a distinct lack of argument we can conclude that the OP argument is what it appears to be: baseless.

As previously stated it is you who have no basis for your rejoinder yet you continue this silly line of no case to answer because “god=god, so there” and projecting your wearisome and poorly constructed arguments back onto me does not add force to your case.

If you want to argue FOR Theism, just identify the primary attribute of the Christian god, ie positively describe his nature. His primary attribute should be consistent with his secondary and relational attributes. I have already explained the argument to you and informed you why I don’t think your rejoinders hit the mark.

You're illiterate Cpn.

Yes you said 3 times that I was "begging the question" but not once have you shown how.

Your only argument from above:
God in not to Deity as Man is to homosapien

WTF??

Of course he fucking is, UNLESS you dismiss the classifications, as you conveniently do, on the grounds of materialism.

Your continued asertion is based on what exactly Frodo? Wishful thinking? God must be able to be defined because he must exist because I must have a purpose...etc etc etc. The thing defined here is you, not a "deity". Anyone can define a word for you, that doesn't mean that the definition is correct. In fact many people have defined the word god, and their definitions are often contradictory. Until one can define a god, and provide acceptable reasons for that definition, the word is actually meaningless. A placeholder for something else. Whats difficult to understand about this?

While I can't speak for anyone else, I'm fine with dictionary definitions if you are, Fr0d0. The reason I at least was trying to wring some kind of definition out of you is that I wasn't going to be rude and impose one, which you would reasonably be justified in refusing as not being what you actually believe. That would be similar to behaving like those posters who point out that they don't accept evolution based on a laundry list of crap that has nothing to do with evolution.

(November 9, 2011 at 6:39 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: You're illiterate Cpn.

Me or my argument Frods?

(November 9, 2011 at 6:39 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Yes you said 3 times that I was "begging the question" but not once have you shown how.

And in the first post (#3) i said why and repeated this in my last response in an informal manner. I'll express it more formally if its helps:

1. Fr0d0 identifies Gods primary attribute as diety
2. Given xtian theism is a montheism the proposition that god = diety is identical to god = god, as xtianity also identifies god as "The Diety" ie the only diety.
3. Therefore Fr0d0 identifies god primary attribute as god.
4. Given my argument identifies god as a menaingless term without a positively identified primary attribute
5. We are left to conclude that Fr0d0 begs the question by assuming gods prmary attribute is god., ie he is assuming what he attempting to demonstrate
PS. Even identifying the xtian god as "A diety" also lacks meaning, becuase diety lacks positively identified primary attribute

(November 9, 2011 at 6:39 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Your only argument from above:
God in not to Deity as Man is to homosapien

Sigh

(November 9, 2011 at 6:39 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: WTF??

Yes indeed

(November 9, 2011 at 6:39 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Of course he fucking is, UNLESS you dismiss the classifications, as you conveniently do, on the grounds of materialism.

I do not have to dismiss any of your classifications. They are dead on arrival and you have dismissed them yourself by begging the question. Again I have not mentioned materialism in my argument nor have I sought to utilise it to defend my propositions. Of course I can invoke it to provide evidnece of my position. You seem to be angling on my views on materialism. As a strong atheist I am happy with the claims of naturalism. But that does not necessarily entail that I must affirm materialism at least in its narrowest of interpretations. I am attracted to materialism but only insofar as it broadest defintions would include all known natural phenomona and those we are yet to uncover, mainly through naturalisms own methodology. None of this is relevant to the argument re the meaninglessness of god, and is a straw man of your own making. Please continue to knock it down if you wish, but it fails to address the problem as stated.

To restate again the problem you face is that god is not identifed in any positive sense on his primary attribute. We are led to believe that he is not material, not corporeal, not visible etc etc. But we can name evetything else in reality with positive primary attributes. Humans for example are homo sapiens with a discoered human genome which expresses a form, unique to the individual mechanistcially programmed in through their DNA. All variety of secondary attributes necessarily follow from this including finitude, bilateral symmetry, skin colour, the higher brain (with very few exceptions becuase of some known genetic reasons) etc. Homo sapiens are also builders of cities, civilisations, great works of art, terrible acts of violence. All these are relational attributes to reality and each other. We therefore have excellent reasons to conclude that the term human is not meaningless.

How do we conclude similarly for a god? We are told they are all powerful (secondary attribute), and the creator of the universe (relational attribute). But the term god is meaningless and therefore there is nothing to pin those other attributes on and it still mean anything at all. If I were to say god is red (secondary attribute) and he is a great artist (relational attribute) that make as much sense.

(November 10, 2011 at 1:00 am)Captain Scarlet Wrote:

(November 9, 2011 at 6:39 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: You're illiterate Cpn.

Me or my argument Frods?

You. It was an insult and I wanted to get it removed. Apologies.

(November 10, 2011 at 1:00 am)Captain Scarlet Wrote:

(November 9, 2011 at 6:39 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Yes you said 3 times that I was "begging the question" but not once have you shown how.

And in the first post (#3) i said why and repeated this in my last response in an informal manner. I'll express it more formally if its helps:

Thank you

(November 10, 2011 at 1:00 am)Captain Scarlet Wrote: 1. Fr0d0 identifies Gods primary attribute as diety
2. Given xtian theism is a montheism the proposition that god = diety is identical to god = god, as xtianity also identifies god as "The Diety" ie the only diety.

In Christianity 'God' is not the only deity. He's the only way. The only correct one to be worshipped; but by no means the only one.

(November 10, 2011 at 1:00 am)Captain Scarlet Wrote: 3. Therefore Fr0d0 identifies god primary attribute as god.

False

You also try to limit words by trying to limit it to Xtianity. So that's a double failure.

What besides man is homosapien? Only man. So therefore man = man?

Again a fail.

(November 10, 2011 at 1:00 am)Captain Scarlet Wrote: We are led to believe that he is not material, not corporeal, not visible etc etc. But we can name evetything else in reality with positive primary attributes.

So you are assessing God on his material properties?

And then dissmissing him on his lack of material properties?

I see a gross violation of logic going on there. Nothing complicated needed to dismiss it, it's very plainly obvious.