The gods (or any god or a specific god) seem to really enjoy playing hide and seek and refuse to reveal themselves, to such an extent that he/she/it/they are indistiguishable from being non-existent. And the more we learn about nature and its workings, the explanatory power of divine beings is shrinking asymptotically towards zero. Evidence for their existence is therefore at most limited typically to subjective statements of opinion (e.g. “I believe there is a god”), personal incredulity (e.g. “I cannot believe god does not exist”), and the inane (e.g. “because this book says so”) and a number of other fallacious modes of reasoning. Which is not much to go by. And which today pretty much explains at least my personal disbelief.
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At the risk of stating the obvious, there are those who make the opposite assumption, i.e., that god is the only “thing” that exists and that our maker’s reality is merely synonymous with that which can be experienced.
But of course neither position-that there are no gods or that the universe is simply a self-replicating phenomenon-can be confirmed by tangible evidence.
So what would god be like if he/she/it did exist? We may never know or this may be the only thing that any of us thinks he knows.
That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without further discussion.
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Okay.
So there is no evidence for something that doesn’t exist and thus no reason to discuss atheism?
It seems one can no more provide tangible evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that he is an atheist anymore than a so-called Christian can provide conclusive evidence to prove that he is a true follower of Jesus.
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
I’ve never been religious and I’ve only had to “discuss atheism” when religious people were telling me I’m going to Hell. They are offended by my lack of interest in their imaginary friends. Good red flag for insecurity of their beliefs. One told me I’d go to Hell for not believing. I said “All the interesting people would be there, so why not?”
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I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.
Billy Joel.
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Help me understand, then, why you are posting in an a/theist debate forum about subjects other than those that say you’re going to hell.
That the deity described is often indistinguishable form a a non-existent idea, is not an assumption, not if the concept of deity being imagined is unfalsifiable.
What people assume about unevidenced things they have imagined can no doubt be entertaining, but does not of course reflect object reality, which is the definition of existence.
So epistemologically we must withhold belief from both claims until or if that changes. Though of course we can at least point out that the universe exists as an objective fact, and that natural phenomena exist as an objective fact, whereas we have no objective evidence deities, or anything supernatural are even possible. This quite obviously means that though both claims carry a “burden of proof” as do all claim, those are not equal in this instance.
You might as well be asking if mermaids are slippery to the touch, or what unicorns smell like.
I have seen no knowledge shared about any deity, nor am I aware of any? Only claims…
Indeed, “Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.” was the original form of this epistemological razor, popularised by the late Christopher Hitchens, what is freely offerred can be freely dismissed.
No, this is a false equivalence, since theistic beliefs have doctrine and dogma that can be pernicious, and the idea we owe our loyalty first and foremost to a deity, rather than to humanity, is in my opinion itself a pernicious idea. Bad ideas should be challenged, and no ideas should be ringfenced from critical scrutiny, in fact that idea is itself a pernicious one IMHO.
And when all theists and deists obey that simple maxim, it will negate the need to challenge their claims for proper evidence, but atheism of course makes no claims, though atheists do. This is an important distinction all to often lost on theists and religious apologists.
If this god exists, he/she/it must have an actual impact on the physical world, i.e. interact with it in some way. Which means that this god must interact with matter and radiation to make things happen. And things that interact with matter and radiation are measurable. Thus, we should be able to measure in some way the impact this claimed god has on the real world, if not the interaction itself. If we see no such impact, and everything is according to the laws and interactions we know from the sciences, this god behaves strictly according to natural laws, and his/her/its existence is indistinguishable from non-existence. And thus my original claim stands.
She would be something that could measurably interact with physical reality.
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Have you ever made anything?
Then I consider you of god, of sorts.
Not eternal, divine, omnipotent, supernatural, transcendent, or anything special and mysterious.
Just a maker like myself.
Similarly, I define god as those “things”-gravity, energy, consciousness, reason, etc.-which, even though they may never be thoroughly understood or quantified, make the universe possible.
If the fact that I have faith in these natural attributes makes me a theist, deist, panpsychist, etc., so be it.
But for the record, i have no faith in any of the manmade and unresponsive deities described in any of the so-called “holy” books.
Depends on your definition of “make”. If you mean making stuff from other stuff or altering the logical states of a computer by pressing keys on a keyboard or by providing input to sensors that feed a computer, then yes, I have made something. But note that I have merely rearranged pre-existing matter according to well-known physical law. Couple this with the fact that my physical body and the impact I have on my surroundings (i.e. my existence) can easily be measured. However, since I make no claims of being any sort of divine being (nor do anyone else unless jesting) and the context here is divine beings and how they are claimed to not be ordinary beings made of ordinary matter that are not doing ordinary things, your statement is absurd.
According to this, the term god is meaningless. You can just replace “god” with “nature”.
Edit: There is no evidence consciousness is anything other than an emergent property of a neural network that is advanced enough. Reason follows from consciousness. Thus, these two terms do not belong in your list.
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Fair enough.
Then we obviously have nothing to discuss.
I didn’t know we had hall monitors here.
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My personal “Rule of So” is "When a statement begins with ‘So…’ it should be carefully checked for a strawman argument.
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I asked for help understanding what you posted. This didn’t provide it. What was the purpose of your reply then?
Sigh…Any duties / responsibilities I have as hall monitor have nothing to do with asking a poster a question. Those duties / responsibilities don’t impact my curiosity. They do not diminish my urge to challenge posters (any posters) to explain the things they write here. Hall monitoring duties / responsibilities don’t get in the way of inviting posters to expound on mere quips they’ve written in order that they provide more substantial conversation. These duties / responsibilities don’t block me from wanting a better opportunity for understanding.
My preference is to have a conversation with you. That’s why I asked for more information in the first place.
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Because I wanted to say something, Herr Monitor.
Have you ever swam in the sea? The I consider you a mermaid of sorts.
An appeal to mystery, well I am going to call those things a unicorn…
However the fact you’re attributing those natural attributes to a deity, is a false equivalence fallacy, so this make you (in this instance at least) irrational.
Groovy, you are too independent a thinker to pretend your imagined deity, is in any way a derivation of the deities that others have imagined. I do hope the irony is not lost on anyone…
Now that is some damn fine darts right there sir…
We could discuss you making a meaningless claim?
We could.
Or we could admit that there is no objective evidence to demonstrate that there is a purpose to that conversation, or the cosmos for that matter, and that our existence is meaningless.
Wouldn’t that be fun?
But then again, wouldn’t having fun, no matter how unreasonable, tend to show that there had been a purpose after all?
BTW, for the past few years, I’ve been telling Christians that the term “Christian” is meaningless because the term can mean so many things to so many people that it means nothing.
So maybe the poorly, or even undefined term “god” is similarly meaningless unless one does the work, defines the term at least for himself, and comes up with a definition that makes sense and is meaningful to him.
As long as one doesn’t insist that his definition is a “one size fits all” explication, and avoids the trap of dogmatism, I know that this approach has made a world of difference for me, personally, since I gave up on religion at the age of about 25. (I just turned 70 last month.)
For me, life is much more interesting if I know I have at least some ability to be my own maker rather than being a rudderless ship on the sea with shredded sails.
I was being ironic.
Well I actually do enjoy examining the limits of epistemology, and the nature of claims, for example you’re claim there is correct, which is why I would I never make a contrary claim to that one. However, since there is no objective that any of that has any over arching purpose, or that there is any intent behind it, I can’t believe claims that there is.
False equivalence I think, since you’re now talking about a subjective purpose that we individually might attach to our existence, and no one I believe is disputing that is possible.
Well there are approx. 45k different sects and denominations under that umbrella term, so whilst I wouldn’t claim the name was meaningless, it certainly requires clarification. The Salvation Army is a Christian organisation, but then so if the Ku Klux Klan. So yes simply describing oneself as a Christian doesn’t tell us a great deal.
I agree, but it is for those who claim a deity exists, or that a deity is possible, to properly define and evidence it, if they can of course.
That’s an interesting false dichotomy, since there certainly other ways to subjectively imagine our existence with purpose. I am not that far behind you, and have learned to try and take pleasure in mundane things, as much as in the things we all crave. Luckily I need no deity for this…