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RE: The meaninglessness of the Christian god concept
November 11, 2011 at 5:45 pm (This post was last modified: November 11, 2011 at 5:46 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Yes, Frodo, but your defense is to simply state that it is 100% correct. That's not exactly compelling. For example, you've attempted to sidestep genesis by claiming that it is the description of god establishing a temple, with himself at the middle. Have you established that any god did any such thing? No, you have not. It's trading one brand of bullshit for another.
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RE: The meaninglessness of the Christian god concept
November 12, 2011 at 1:43 am (This post was last modified: November 12, 2011 at 1:47 am by Mystic.)
The word god is not meaningless. There is a difference between respect, honor, and Worship. But if you understand one, you understand the other. Worship is a high degree of respect and honor, it's very a high level of reverence. To state there is a god, it's to state there is a being that is worthy of this ultra reverence. Gods are themselves worthy of that reverence. The word Worship is not ambiguous, therefore for something to be a true god, it would have to be worthy of worship.
What makes something worthy of Worship? Well that is the level of greatness it has, what level exactly, that's a bit ambiguous and it's a ball park understanding.
However there is a difference between honoring and worshiping, even if we can't define that exact line between them.
When people state there is only one God and refer to the Creator, they are stating that nothing else is worthy of worship but that being.
Therefore this very high level of honoring and revering is owed to the Creator alone.
Now what is said about this being, is it ambiguous?
Let's see. God is loving. I understand loving. So this is not ambiguous. God created things. I understand this concept, again not meaningless.
God is Powerful. I understand what this means. God is Ultimately Powerful. I understand that. God is Ultimately Moral. I understand what moral means. God is Compassionate. I understand that. God is Merciful. I understand that. God is holy. I understand that. God is Wise. I understand that. God is Intelligent. I understand that.
This seems like a really weak argument. We understand properties of this being, but yes we don't full comprehend it, just as I don't fully comprehend the human body, yet sill have a general idea of it.
This seems rather a weak argument. If all the properties given about it are meaningful, I don't see how it's a meaningless thing.
RE: The meaninglessness of the Christian god concept
November 12, 2011 at 3:02 am (This post was last modified: November 12, 2011 at 3:16 am by Captain Scarlet.)
(November 11, 2011 at 5:31 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: Oh so now, at this late stage, you are asking ME for a definition of the Xtian God....
The prosecution rests...
(November 12, 2011 at 1:43 am)MysticKnight Wrote: The word god is not meaningless. God is Powerful. I understand what this means. God is Ultimately Powerful. I understand that. God is Ultimately Moral. I understand what moral means. God is Compassionate. I understand that. God is Merciful. I understand that. God is holy. I understand that. God is Wise. I understand that. God is Intelligent. I understand that.
Your rejoinder has no merit if it is your bare assertion that the term god has meaning becuase you say it does. You then describe the supposed secondary and relational attributes of said term. But again they are left floating in thin air as if we are to gasp in awe and it suddenly click what the 'nature' of a god is. I have detailed the argument and presented examples you need to read them carefully, not blindly assert things you cannot know.
(November 12, 2011 at 1:43 am)MysticKnight Wrote: This seems like a really weak argument. We understand properties of this being, but yes we don't full comprehend it, just as I don't fully comprehend the human body, yet sill have a general idea of it.
It maybe is a weak argument, so just defeat it then. It will fail if you can identify the positive primary attribute of a god. But you haven't and you are admitting that you do not know. If you do not know what a god is, how can you then claim he/they are creator/s, all powerful the colour puple or anything; simply you cannot. A thing has to be a thing. So however weak the argument from gods meaninglessness is (non-cognitivism of god if you prefer), the argument that god is meaningful is necessarily weaker. You are left in a position where your only recourse (as you have amply demonstrated) is to self justify it and effectively say "it is true, it is true and it doesn't matter what you say atheist". Thats ok but it isn't an argument, it doesn't defeat the argument and it isn't rational. It is also the trick pulled by the conmen in the "Emporers New Clothes", and they were holding onto nothing too.
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
RE: The meaninglessness of the Christian god concept
November 12, 2011 at 8:45 am
(November 12, 2011 at 6:41 am)fr0d0 Wrote:
(November 12, 2011 at 3:02 am)Captain Scarlet Wrote: blindly assert things you cannot know.
How can we not know captain? Are you saying you cannot know: therefore this argument is true to you and any other non cognitivist??
OP dissmissed as a non point.
Straw man again Fr0d0 I am not arguing this at all as you will see from my very first post, although it suits you to erect it to snipe/avoid this issue/erect pointless d herrings. You cannot know any of gods secondary and relational attributes without knowing his primary attribute and it's relationship to reality. That is the point of the argument which you have failed to dismantle even though you protest you have. But if you do know for sure then i'm all ears, tell me how you know. Or have I got to tell you that as well?
"I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence"...Doug McLeod.
RE: The meaninglessness of the Christian god concept
November 12, 2011 at 3:41 pm
(November 12, 2011 at 3:02 am)Captain Scarlet Wrote: But again they are left floating in thin air as if we are to gasp in awe and it suddenly click what the 'nature' of a god is.
Well a god is a living being that has the greatness that makes it worthy of worship. What a god is not universal, Greeks had their more human like gods. When it comes to the "capital G', God, God is a Spirit, he is immaterial, and he is Ultimate in his attributes like being wise, merciful, compassionate, and good. It's very clear, and his nature has descriptions. Sure we don't grasp everything about his nature, we can't see it, but still we know some meaningful things about his nature and we have meaningful concept.
Quote:It maybe is a weak argument, so just defeat it then.
I think I already have.
Quote: It will fail if you can identify the positive primary attribute of a god.
A god is a living being worthy of Worship. It has greatness that is worthy of Worship. That is universal definition of what a god is. Then we have specific identity of God. He is living, Spirit, all Powerful, Mighty, Good, loving, all this is describing his nature and therefore his nature is meaningful to us. As God is Ultimate Greatness, he naturally has all the attributes that are a given for being Ultimate Greatness.
Quote:Thats ok but it isn't an argument, it doesn't defeat the argument and it isn't rational.
Honestly I don't see how you have an argument at all. The word a god means a being worthy of worship. That means it has to have greatness to the extent it deserves a reverence level of worship. God is referred to the only being that deserves that worship. And what people believe about God is that he is Ultimate Greatness, and hence his attributes are such that are given to him being ultimately Great.
Everything said about God is meaningful, so I don't see how it can at all be a meaningless concept.
RE: The meaninglessness of the Christian god concept
November 12, 2011 at 5:27 pm (This post was last modified: November 12, 2011 at 5:33 pm by fr0d0.)
(November 12, 2011 at 8:45 am)Captain Scarlet Wrote: But if you do know for sure then i'm all ears, tell me how you know. Or have I got to tell you that as well?
I've just told you captain but you ignored it. I'm sorry I don't understand your points at all. If you don't want to try and explain it that's fine. I've tried several ways too eek it out of you but you seem intent on calling fallacy without explaining in any way at all that means a thing to me.
Those points again, made easy for you:
5 equivellent (A=B) statements about Gods nature:
God is one. (Deut. 6:4, Romans 3:30, Galatians 3:20, James 2:19)
God is holy. (Psalm 99:9)
God is spirit. (John 4:24)
God is light. (1 John 1:5)
God is love. (1 John 4:8, 1 John 4:16)
God is One
Of the four, the first is clearly the most important. I say this not only because it is repeated the most times, but because Deut 6:4 is known to Jews as the Shema. The Shema is the most frequently spoken verse in the Torah. In fact, repeating it is an obligation.
In light of the Christian doctrine of the trinity, this may seem like an easy target of opportunity for the atheist. However, that would be a case of reading the scripture too literally. As Aquinas put it:
“[O]ne” the principle of number belongs to the “genus” of mathematics, which are material in being, and abstracted from matter only in idea.
In other words, the numerical reading does not apply. And in any case, neither the New Testament nor the Old can support a numerical reading. The meaning here bespeaks primacy, singularity and unity. As Aquinas said (sounding a bit like Yoda in this translation):
Therefore, in the very same way God is God, and He is this God. Impossible is it therefore that many Gods should exist…Hence also the ancient philosophers, constrained as it were by truth, when they asserted an infinite principle, asserted likewise that there was only one such principle.
Finally, we must note that in the Greek, the words actually are arranged to say “God (is) one Lord.” One is used as an adjective. In other words, it is a descriptor and not a true equivalence as it first appears in English. Take out the adjective and you are right back to “God is God” above.
God is Holy
Looking into the Greek we again find that the word holy in Psalm 99:9 is an adjective, meaning sacred or set apart. So saying God is holy is similar to saying God is merciful. It is a quality, not an equivalence.
God is Spirit
Finally, we come to what appears to be a true equivalence statement. God is not “spritual” he is spirit. Spirit is a noun (pneuma in Greek from which we get pneumatic). One definition of pneuma is wind.
If this is a definition of God (as I believe it is) what does it tell us? Like wind, God is invisible and yet sensual. One can not see or grasp God, but one can see His effects and experience Him directly, “in the garden” as it were.
God is Light
The Greek word for light is phos. Like pneuma, phos is a noun so this would appear to be a genuine equivalence statement. In the context of 1 John 1:5, the meaning is clearly that God is pure. We might even say that this is just a different way of saying that God is holy, only here it is made emphatic.
The nature of light of course is that it banishes darkness, darkness being merely the absence of light. This defines God as having an absolute nature. God is all light and thus can not help but dispel darkness. This is consistent with statements throughout the Bible, such as when God tells Moses no man can see Him and live.
God is Love
The Greek word here is agape. Agape is a noun, so once again we have a real equivalence which constitutes a kind of definition: God is agape.
RE: The meaninglessness of the Christian god concept
November 13, 2011 at 12:34 am
MysticKnight Wrote:Well a god is a living being that has the greatness that makes it worthy of worship. What a god is not universal, Greeks had their more human like gods.
The problem is you are defining deities as "greatness" without defining what you mean by "greatness". This term has multiple definitions, many of which are contradictory.
MysticKnight Wrote:When it comes to the "capital G', God, God is a Spirit, he is immaterial, and he is Ultimate in his attributes like being wise, merciful, compassionate, and good. It's very clear, and his nature has descriptions. Sure we don't grasp everything about his nature, we can't see it, but still we know some meaningful things about his nature and we have meaningful concept.
It is not very clear, and this is why. I assume by ultimate, you mean "better than all others". Then God is more wise*, merciful*, compassionate*, and good* than everyone else.
*this indicates adjectives which are defined subjective and require comparison to put into context. Some people are considered wise by some and not wise by others. This means wisdom is subjective, not objective. As are the other attributes.
Hence if God is possibly wise from point of view, POV1, that means he is possibly not wise from some point of view, POV2. Hence, he cannot be "ultimately wise" without being logically contradictory to the common definition of the term "wise". If it is a new definition of "wise", one now needs to define the new word "wise".
Simply saying "objectively wise" is meaningless as wisdom is dependent on reference. This is what causes the concept of an objective, perfect being to be nonsensical.
If one then says "POV1 is the correct evaluation of wisdom value" then the definition is as arbitrary as saying "God is God", as is the proof:
Quote:1. God's POV1 is the correct POV. (Premise)
2. God is defined as the being that is wiser than everyone else in POV1. (Premise)
3. God is wiser than everyone else in his POV1. (Premise)
5. Therefore, God is God. (From 1,2,3)
Furthermore, this definition has other issues. Does this mean God becomes more wise when another person becomes wiser than God? Does this mean there is objective value to characteristics of wisdom and people are not able to reach a certain level of wisdom? If so, why are we limited in how wise we can become? What is this objective value, and where can we find it? Why are the values of wisdom in the holy books which supposedly contain this truth self-contradictory? If this is the case, what is wisdom?
As you see, this definition now creates a wide variety of additional problems.
fr0d0 Wrote:Those points again, made easy for you:
5 equivellent (A=B) statements about Gods nature:
God is one. (Deut. 6:4, Romans 3:30, Galatians 3:20, James 2:19)
God is holy. (Psalm 99:9)
God is spirit. (John 4:24)
God is light. (1 John 1:5)
God is love. (1 John 4:8, 1 John 4:16)
RE: The meaninglessness of the Christian god concept
November 13, 2011 at 2:19 am (This post was last modified: November 13, 2011 at 2:20 am by Mystic.)
(November 13, 2011 at 12:34 am)toro Wrote: The problem is you are defining deities as "greatness" without defining what you mean by "greatness". This term has multiple definitions, many of which are contradictory.
You would never get a definition of anything, if you had to define what defines it, because then you would have to define what defines that and so on.
I don't have to define greatness, we may differ on some aspects of greatness, while agree on other aspects, but most humans believe there is such things as greatness, in most, I would say almost all. Even if you don't, greatness is obviously meaningful, so the word is not meaningless. It stating something deserves Worship. If you can understand something deserving honor, you can understand something deserving worship.
Quote:It is not very clear, and this is why. I assume by ultimate, you mean "better than all others".
Better then all others is implied, but what I mean is it excells to the extent you can't excel more then that.
Quote:Then God is more wise*, merciful*, compassionate*, and good* than everyone else.
*this indicates adjectives which are defined subjective and require comparison to put into context. Some people are considered wise by some and not wise by others. This means wisdom is subjective, not objective. As are the other attributes.
Hence if God is possibly wise from point of view, POV1, that means he is possibly not wise from some point of view, POV2. Hence, he cannot be "ultimately wise" without being logically contradictory to the common definition of the term "wise". If it is a new definition of "wise", one now needs to define the new word "wise".
Your basically stating you can't call anyone wise, which makes no sense, that's at the end saying there is no such thing as wisdom. If you believe in wisdom, then you can believe in ultimate wisdom, which is what God has.
Quote:If one then says "POV1 is the correct evaluation of wisdom value" then the definition is as arbitrary as saying "God is God", as is the proof:
1. God's POV1 is the correct POV. (Premise)
2. God is defined as the being that is wiser than everyone else in POV1. (Premise)
3. God is wiser than everyone else in his POV1. (Premise)
5. Therefore, God is God. (From 1,2,3)
[/quote]
This all getting to complicated. Even if you think no one can be called wisdom in a universal way, it doesn't make meaningless. Because you can understand the point of view people have of seeing wisdom in a universal way.
Quote:Furthermore, this definition has other issues. Does this mean God becomes more wise when another person becomes wiser than God? Does this mean there is objective value to characteristics of wisdom and people are not able to reach a certain level of wisdom? If so, why are we limited in how wise we can become? What is this objective value, and where can we find it? Why are the values of wisdom in the holy books which supposedly contain this truth self-contradictory? If this is the case, what is wisdom?
This is getting all too complicated. Most people know what is meant by wisdom, and I would say there is a universal understanding of wisdom.
It's like morality, we all understand morality, but might differ on the details. We all understand what wisdom is, but we can differ on the details.
However we can state for sure God is wise, from what we all agree upon what wisdom is.
RE: The meaninglessness of the Christian god concept
November 13, 2011 at 5:21 am
(November 13, 2011 at 12:34 am)toro Wrote:
fr0d0 Wrote:Those points again, made easy for you:
5 equivellent (A=B) statements about Gods nature:
God is one. (Deut. 6:4, Romans 3:30, Galatians 3:20, James 2:19)
God is holy. (Psalm 99:9)
God is spirit. (John 4:24)
God is light. (1 John 1:5)
God is love. (1 John 4:8, 1 John 4:16)
