The Million Dollar Question

[Statler Waldorf]

No I understand the dictionary terms supreme and being, but when someone asks what is a god, calling a supreme being is really a non answer because your not defining what it is. It is not like your calling god a toaster, which is something that is tangible and well defined. The reason I ask what is a god is because the term is so poorly defined that, and calling it a supreme being doesn't help

If you know what the words “supreme” and “being” mean then it certainly does help. We have lots of important definitions for intangible things.

A: “What is an integer?”
B: “One of the positive or negative numbers 1, 2, 3, etc., or zero.”
A: “That doesn’t answer my question.”
B: “Sure it does.”
A: “No, what is a number then?”
B: “A numeral or group of numerals.”
A: “That does not help!”
B: “Sure it does!”
A: “What’s a numeral?”
B: “A word, letter, symbol, or figure, etc., expressing a number.”
A: “Aha! You used the word number in your definition!”
B: “Yup, all definitions have a tautological nature to them.”
A: “Well I cannot see integers or touch them…”
B: “So?”
A: “Well then they cannot have a definition!”
B: “Why not?”
A: “I don’t know! I am just making this up as I go!”

This is just a game atheists like to try and play but it ends up shooting them in the foot because it can be played with any word and they too need a coherent definition for “god” in order to be called an atheist.

You can repeat that as much as you want but do you have any independent proof?

This is the fallacy of moving the goalposts. You asked for a definition for the term “god” not proof that any god exists.

C. 'God' is a term which has no meaningful descriptive value.

Then you are not an atheist since you cannot define what you lack a belief in.

Oh buggerations.

I had a reply all written out, went to edit it, then lost it...

I'll reply later when I can think about it all again.

I hate that!!! I was looking forward to reading it. Feel free to PM me if this thread gets off topic, I am always interested in your thoughts.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: whenever somebody says "it's obvious" in lieu of an explanation, what they really mean is "I have accepted this claim as true." I already know you believe this, but it's clear that I don't, and hence just burbling that it's obvious misses so many marks it's comedic. Clearly it's not obvious to me, or I would agree with you; there's a flaw in either my logic or yours, and the way to find out which is to defend your position, and not just lazily assert that it's self evident.

I get this all the time when people try defending Darwinism.

You inserted the assertion "everything else is created". You have also assumed that the universe has a beginning. So, already, your conclusion is unwarranted.

No beginning to the Universe? Are you championing Steady State Theory from the 1920s now?

Why can only one thing be eternal? Why can't the whole of existence, and all of the stuff within, be eternal? That seems far likelier, to me, then all of it being magicked out of nothing, because if there was just God, he's a special exception that can't be justified.

More likely? How are you determining such probabilities?

Some analogies are better than others, and this one stinks. We know from experience that houses and furniture are designed, manufactured objects. What evidence -- aside from your baseless insistence that it is so -- do we have that the universe is a designed thing? We intuit design by contrasting designed objects with naturally occurring objects. On what basis do you decide that nature itself is designed? What are you contrasting it with?

I think this is a bit of a stretch. I have never seen someone build a pyramid but that does not stop me from inferring that the Egyptian Pyramids are the product of an intelligence. We make such inferences all of the time in archeology, anthropology, and engineering. I see no reason as to why such inferences cannot be made in cosmology and biology as well.

Welcome back, Stat! I hope you're fully recovered; this forum has been lacking in heavy YEC arguments since you went on hiatus, not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

It’s ok to admit you missed me…. Thanks buddy.

Impressive in retrospect, especially since you've claimed that there had to be a creator for something that very well may have been natural. It's a shame nothing on so grand a scale occurs much as of late. All your god sees fit to do nowadays is bestow us with his esteemed visage from time to time.

I do not believe I said anything like that in this thread, I was trying to keep it on topic but it’s drifted way off now. When you say the cause could have been natural what do you mean? I am not sure what you mean by natural causes or occurrences.

Anything? Do you really think that we believe nothing exists?

If Fidel’s point that god could be defined as anything is sound, and atheists claim to not believe in god then atheists must not believe in anything. It’s a simple logical substitution.

Why do you make these straw men? You're better than this. Our pal here "lordofgemini" actually thinks that everything, a.k.a., our universe, is god. Discarding his definition of god, does not mean we discard everything with it.

I was addressing Fidel’s point that god is defined as whatever the believer says it is. I am simply arguing against that. I believe you and I are on the same page here.

Straw man again. The real answer is that we are not theists because a person believes cats are gods (e.g. the ancient Egyptians did worship cats). Most people have their own views of cats as simply animals with no supernatural abilities.

It’s not a straw man at all; I believe that is an accurate representation of Fidel’s argument. The definition of the term “god” is completely determined by those who believe in god(s). Therefore if someone wants to define god as “a cat” you’d then become a theist because you also believe in cats. This is why I disagree with Fide’s position, I believe you are an atheist because you do not believe in the existence of a supreme being regardless of what other people think the word “god” means. I take the position that words have correct and incorrect meanings.

By this same token, we understand that you believe there was a man named Jesus. The fact that you worship this man does not also make us theists if we also acknowledge a belief that there was a man named Jesus.

Exactly!!!! You’re agreeing with me. I am arguing that the term god has a specific meaning; it is not defined by those who claim to believe in gods. A god is any supreme being, it is really that simple.

So stop sitting there equating our belief in a thing with someone else's belief in the deistic nature of said thing. You don't have to create straw man arguments just so that you can have a debate with a group of people for which it appears you hold some disdain.

Stop arguing against someone you actually agree with. Fidel is the one claiming that the term god can legitimately mean anything; not me. I was merely reducing that argument to absurdity.

Also, please stop trying to convince us that we don't know the actual definition of "atheist". How hard is it to acknowledge that we have this term applied to us because we simply lack a belief in just one more deity than you?

I am using the philosophically accepted definition for the term; perhaps you’re not actually an atheist?