(May 17, 2012 at 5:06 pm)warrenmi Wrote: As an avowed atheist, it's abundantly obvious to me that there is no "ontological" (having an existence outside of our selves) basis for god. But...in the same manner that we declare/assume that beauty and love exist, even though they are purely human metaphors/concepts without any ontological basis, should we not allow the same to be true of god?
Holding & nurturing our concepts of love and beauty are universally acknowledged as life-enhancing, so could this not potentially be true for god as well? While I personally find no value added in the concept, I believe I must acknowledge that holding this "god concept" has been/is of great benefit to many individuals and societies. Of course it has been of great detriment as well, but this would seem to be more the particular nature of the concept than the existence of the concept itself.
The reality is that the vast majority of individuals have never been and probably never will be disposed to do much deep thinking about the great philosophical questions--existence, ethics, death, etc. So, even as atheists, might we not actually encourage the more benign (Taoist, Buddhist, Sufi, etc.) conceptions of god, recognizing that implanting such concepts can in fact be of great value even in a godless world?
A lot of people already do that. Though, primarily these are theists who cannot comprehend the difference between ontological existence and conceptual existence, but have you not heard people spouting saccharine generalities like "The beauty in the nature is god" or "God is in the trees and the rivers and birds and animals and you and me" or "The feeling you feel while holding your child is god".
Even atheists sometimes use this concept to denote the illusion of divine intervention. Like when I say "That god that went well", I'm not actually thankful to anything nor do I think that something was directing it, but that I'm simply glad that things worked out according to my desires.
SO, I guess we are already moving towards this god-as-a-concept thing. The main problem now is getting theists to actually define one concept of god and stick to it.
