Why Something Rather Than Nothing?

[datc]

Suppose a certain Smith approaches you and tells you that by "God" he means "dog." Would you still disbelieve in the existence of Smith's god?

And if not, then you are no longer an atheist, because you now believe in the existence of at least one god.

Yes, congratulations: if you strip all the pertinent words in a definition of any meaning, and then add on whatever meaning is convenient to your petty little games, then you can make anything mean anything, and thus apply any label to anyone.

You must be very proud of your cheap rhetorical trick.

This is not a trick. It's a reductio ad absurdum of Mister Agenda who wrote:

YOU propose your particular God out of the potential infinity of imaginable Gods, and then we evaluate your claim.

I did just that, and look at the results. Unpleasant, wasn't it?

There is in philosophy a distinction of vast importance: between meaning and reference. At the very least, meaning is ideal, in the mind; reference is real, out there. Consider a word "dog." It has a meaning, "a highly variable domestic mammal closely related to the gray wolf." And a reference, in fact, numerous references, as there are many dogs existing.

Now think of "unicorn." It also has a meaning: "a mythical animal generally depicted with the body and head of a horse, the hind legs of a stag, the tail of a lion, and a single horn in the middle of the forehead." But it has no reference! There are no unicorns out there, despite the fact that the term "unicorn" is perfectly well-defined.

Thus, the term "Morning Star" differs in meaning from the term "Evening Star," yet they pick out the same reference or object in the real world: planet Venus.

In order to call yourself an atheist meaningfully, you need a small number of definite and well-developed concepts of God or meanings of the term "God" for which you deny there is a reference, i.e., which you deny exist.

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DATC if you read this post, consider the following argument.

Premise 1. Intelligence is the ability to navigate a reality.
Premise 2. In order to navigate a reality, that reality must exist.
Premise 3. God is and always has been intelligent.
Conclusion: Therefore God has always existed in a reality.

What does it say about the nature of God?

That's one of the things I'm taking about. Intelligence is part of the concept of God under consideration here; part of what the term "God" means.

But it is possible that this concept has no reference, i.e., that this God does not exist.

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There is even a specific fallacy associated with conflating the two ideas: the "Fido"-Fido fallacy.

You commit it, as I understand it, if you think that any term that has a meaning must ipso facto also have a reference. "Unicorn" has a clear meaning; therefore, there must be unicorns!

Obviously, this is one of the more ludicrous philosophical fallacies.