RE: Do you ever doubt your atheism?
September 3, 2014 at 8:44 am
(This post was last modified: September 3, 2014 at 8:48 am by Mudhammam.)
(September 3, 2014 at 8:28 am)Ben Davis Wrote: Isn't one of the main defining attributes of a god that it's a 'being' of some kind? A prime mover? An uncaused causer? A conscious entity? The way that you seem to be defining god could include a non-conscious mechanism in which case, the term ceases to have any discrete meaning and could be replaced by the name/function of the mechanism.
I take being as in "to be," i.e. to exist, not as in a composition of sorts with definable boundaries. Primal mover and uncaused causer seem safe enough, but if I were to ever believe in God, I'd have to base it in the hope the belief implies rather than any specific metaphysical characteristics, other than perhaps negations of material attributes and the mere ineffability that at times swells my insides and confounds my intellect. I'd also be reluctant to call it "conscious," as that to me implies almost a physical brain.
I use God in the broad, traditional sense as utilized in natural theology, but whatever particular name we give this mechanism is of marginal importance.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza