A Question From Atheists

[The Grand Nudger]

What I can do, and have done, is negate an equivocation...because it's an equivocation.

I think I understand your position, but I hold a different position: words are not necessarily definite, they do not necessarily refer to something specific.

Then you don't actually hold a different position..you simply accept equivocation because you think that words are indefinite....but much more likely because it's convenient to your argument.  If I told you that a fork was a spoon...you wouldn't say "Yeah, legit, cuz I mean words are vague and stuff"..now would you? If a diabetic asked for his insulin, it would be important that you didn't grab a syringe full of coca-cola...huh?

It's completely ok for words to be ambiguous and indefinite, in fact this is the very nature of language.

It's not completely ok in a coherent thought, however.  It's simply a textbook no-no and that's what made it so easy to negate what you thought couldn't be negated.

The formal language like the one used in mathematics in definite and clear but it's certainly not the case with natural language. A word in natural language  can refer to things that are vastly different. This topic is very well investigated in the study of languages. A title that comes to my mind is Wittgenstein's Tractatus which advocates these points. There is even a part where Wittgenstein discusses the word God and shows the ambiguity of this word and concludes that attempts to argue about god are usually determined to be failures due to indefinite and ambiguous nature of the word.

Natural language does contain ambiguity, but it's our responsibility to make sure that, despite those ambiguities, we are communicating what we wih to express as accurately as possible.  Allowing a word to mean nothing or all things makes that impossible.  Let;s try an example. "What do you think about, like, the universe, man?" What, exactly, am I asking you there? Does it have anything to do with a god? How about this? "What is your opinion on fleezledrats?" What's that, you might ask? Oh, just a word that might mean nothing in particular.

In the case of pantheism, for example, it doesn't matter that they call the universe a god, because what they;re talking about when they say god and what I;m talking about when I say god simply aren't the same thing.  We could bog it down in semantics from now until eternity but there will never be a point at which that's not true.  No matter what a pantheist calls the universe, or god...we're just not having the same conversation.  

I'm not well-versed in the study of languages and I prefer not to discuss this point further. I think it's natural and inevitable to have ambiguity in language and you believe otherwise.

It's not a language issue, it's a logic issue...equivocation. Are you well versed in logic?  I ask, because now you're pitching straw about some fish - in defense of equivocation.

You quoted from a dictionary, it scratches the surface of the definitions of the word, if you want to make the definitions complete you must add this to it also:

[color=#222222]Pantheism holds that God is the universe and the universe is God

I picked this sentence up from the Wikipedia page on God. 

No, -I- mustn't..because that's not consistent with the other definition and that other definition is what -I- am referring to when I speak of gods.  I do not believe in gods, and further, I do not believe that the universe possesses the attributes assigned -to- those gods. I'm capable of making much more precise distinctions, and without precise distinctions we will invariably arrive at imprecise conclusions.

[nosferatu323]

OP, to make it easy, we just don't believe in any woo, irrespective of labels.

Is that such a bad thing?

No, I think that's great. I'm with you on this.

[The Grand Nudger]

Somehow I doubt that's true, but you'll probably inform us that you use the word "woo" in an indefinite, ambiguous way.... that doesn't include -your- woo.

[nosferatu323]

If I told you that a fork was a spoon...you wouldn't say "Yeah, legit, cuz I mean words are vague and stuff"..now would you? If a diabetic asked for his insulin, it would be important that you didn't grab a syringe full of coca-cola...huh? 

I think I understand your objection. I don't think there is any equivocation. Please consider this analogy:

1. We want to talk about the existence of X,

2. first we look into dictionaries and encyclopedias to learn what X is before we start talking about it. So we can avoid meaning different things by X and remove the possibility of equivocation. 

3. We find out that X has many different meanings, so we pick them one by one (not two of them at the same time) and investigate them separately. This way it's clear what we mean by X in each investigation.

4. First we pick up Zeus we investigate it, since there is no evidence to suggest Zeus exists, we conclude that Zeus does not exist. Great! This is resolved.

5. Next one, we pick up "The creator of universe" again using the same argument we conclude that "The creator" does not exist. we do this for many times and we are happy.

6. We come across "The universe itself", no matter how much we try we can never conclude that "The universe itself" does not exist.

7. We write a report of our investigation: "We discovered that 99 definitions of X lack the evidence for their existence, but 1 of them clearly exist" 

8. So we can say "I don't believe in these gods [comes the list of 99 definitions]" but since we found 1 definition of god which is existent, we cannot assert "We do not believe in any gods"

I Hope this clarifies that there is no equivocation in the argument.

Somehow I doubt that's true, but you'll probably inform us that you use the word "woo" in an indefinite, ambiguous way.... that doesn't include -your- woo.

Not really, this was just a casual conversation and unlike our discussion wasn't meant to be specific and definite. And I genuinely do not believe in anything magical, transcendental, etc.

[ignoramus]

Holy shit! Now you're just being sneeky! lol

eg: the universe is seen by some as "god", therefore god exists, check mate!

You know, as hard as you try, you cannot talk god into existence.
Nearly all of us here don't care at all about what beliefs people hold or need or want. We are very liberal.

If we actually lived in a world where god existed, there'd be no such thing as atheism, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
And no, please don't ever say we are denying god. It's no different to saying we are in denial of dragons. There is nothing to deny if there are no mental gymnastics going on in our heads.

stay cool!

[The Grand Nudger]

If I told you that a fork was a spoon...you wouldn't say "Yeah, legit, cuz I mean words are vague and stuff"..now would you? If a diabetic asked for his insulin, it would be important that you didn't grab a syringe full of coca-cola...huh? 

I think I understand your objection. I don't think there is any equivocation.

I'm afraid that no amount of you saying that you don't think there was an equivocation will change the fact that it's an equivocation.  

Please consider this analogy:

1. We want to talk about the existence of X,

2. first we look into dictionaries and encyclopedias to learn what X is before we start talking about it. So we can avoid meaning different things by X and remove the possibility of equivocation. 

3. We find out that X has many different meanings, so we pick them one by one (not two of them at the same time) and investigate them separately. This way it's clear what we mean by X in each investigation.

4. First we pick up Zeus we investigate it, since there is no evidence to suggest Zeus exists, we conclude that Zeus does not exist. Great! This is resolved.

5. Next one, we pick up "The creator of universe" again using the same argument we conclude that "The creator" does not exist. we do this for many times and we are happy.

6. We come across "The universe itself", no matter how much we try we can never conclude that "The universe itself" does not exist.

7. We write a report of our investigation: "We discovered that 99 definitions of X lack the evidence for their existence, but 1 of them clearly exist" 

8. So we can say "I don't believe in these gods [comes the list of 99 definitions]" but since we found 1 definition of god which is existent, we cannot assert "We do not believe in any gods"

3- We find out that people think that the term means many different things, but that those things share some commonalities which justify their inclusion in the set of x.  We also find, that some people, include things in the set of x that are not like the others.  Things like...the universe.

6- We can never conclude that the universe does not exist..but that;s irrelevant, since the set of x we're discussing is gods...not universes.  We are concluding that gods do not exist..mostly because they don't, even if universes do. 

8- We have found no definition of a god which is existent.  We have found an equivocation of god with an existent universe.

I Hope this clarifies that there is no equivocation in the argument.

It doesn't, because nothing can.  It was and remains an explicit equivocation.  If you ask me if I believe in gods, but by gods you really mean "the universe"..and I say no...and then you ask me why I don't believe in the universe....but by the universe you really mean "gods", there's just no way to rescue it.  It doesn't matter whether you or anyone else believes that the universe is a god, because it's still an equivocation.

[Jesster]

The word "god" is not thrown around. We must look thoroughly into the human history and observe that various definitions have been used by people through out the history (including the ones I provided). These definitions and conceptions can vary very significantly. Therefore, a rational mind brings all those definitions into her/his mind when (s)he wants to say "god exists" or "god does not exist".

Bold mine. This is why it is meaningless. Instead of just calling something "god" and expecting that to make it more special somehow, it's far more meaningful to tell me what it is (not just what you call it) and why you believe it. Even if it is something that I believe exists (like the universe), I might just have a more accurate word for it that actually gives it individual value (like universe). We already have a word for these things.

But what I observe here is that you guys know god only through your own culture and background and you refuse when I bring up some well-known definitions of god which are not common in your land and culture.

There's that strawman argument again. Stop that. I am not just pulling god from one culture. I am not pulling any definition of any god from anywhere. You tell me what you believe and I will give you my feedback on it no matter what it is.

[nosferatu323]

Holy shit! Now you're just being sneaky! lol

Not really, I was being honest. The god that I believe in is not magical, transcendental, etc. and I find not believing in any woo, as you put it, a good trait. My personal faith requires seeing the world and my self in a different way which differs from many people. But it does not require me to believe in things that are beyond, transcendental, magical, etc. Just like how a scientist might start seeing himself and the world as bags of particles and atoms which might be different to how people usually see themselves and their world.

[Jesster]

Holy shit! Now you're just being sneaky! lol

Not really, I was being honest. The god that I believe in is not magical, transcendental, etc. and I find not believing in any woo, as you put it, a good trait. My personal faith requires seeing the world and my self in a different way which differs from many people. But it does not require me to believe in things that are beyond, transcendental, magical, etc. Just like how a scientist might start seeing himself and the world as bags of particles and atoms which might be different to how people usually see themselves and their world.

I may have missed this because I'm not going to bother reading through every page here, but please describe the god that you do believe in. I don't care about the god(s) that you don't believe in.

[ignoramus]

Holy shit! Now you're just being sneaky! lol

Not really, I was being honest. The god that I believe in is not magical, transcendental, etc. and I find not believing in any woo, as you put it, a good trait. My personal faith requires seeing the world and my self in a different way which differs from many people. But it does not require me to believe in things that are beyond, transcendental, magical, etc. Just like how a scientist might start seeing himself and the world as bags of particles and atoms which might be different to how people usually see themselves and their world.

That's fantastic! I trust there is no mantra to hate gays or need to have slaves in your customised version of god? hehe
But why then the preoccupation with needing to call it a god? Why the need to technically be religious? Is grandma giving you trouble!

catch..

In all honesty, even the off the shelf religions have got so much filler in them to make them palatable with the modern world, that every person who tries it also describes a different unique taste as you do... As we are emotional (we don't like using "spiritual" here, (more meaningless woo)) creatures, A belief in god should always be a customised god for those that need one.

All the prepackaged ones make corporate promises which they cannot keep anyway!

Also, you wanting your god seems honest and genuine. As with my Margaret Court thread example yesterday, many theists use the religion to hide their predudices behind.