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Atheists Define "God," Once Again

 
 
 
Rhea

Rhea

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Lion has asked again

Lion IRC said:
Heck, many atheists around here have trouble explaining what they mean by God.
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He seems to have either a very short memory, or trouble understanding plain language. He decides to not reference the many detailed explanations people have given him, and simply repeat his question over and over again, as if it is clever or insightful or useful.

But at any rate, his longing, fevered attempts to understand how atheists "define god" seem so forlorn, so pitiable and wretched, that I can't help but try again to ease his aching, craving mind.


"God" is Lion's imaginary friend. That's how I define it.
"God" is the imaginary friend of everyone who believes in God(dess)(es)

"God" is the imaginary friend described in the Bible, the Quran, the Talmud, Bullfinch's Mythology, the flying monkeys in China, the Mahabharata; it is Legba and Itzamna and Maroni and Gaia and Zeus.

A god is something that requires "belief". It requires the imagination to accept something that has absolutely no substance or evidence.
God is the imaginary friend of god-believers. It is, to them, whatever they say it is. It is their imaginary friend.


And I, not being a mind-reader (because that is also imaginary) can only recite what they call it and no more. Because nothing called a "god" has ever once, in the history of ever, been shown to actually exist.
 
Well, as an atheist, i don't believe the existence of the world requires divine action to explain, so i do not believe the world creator gods.
I do not believe life on this planet requires divine sourcing, to include mankind, so i do not believe in those creator gods, either.
I do not believe storms, earthquakes, fallen cakes, blizzards, or mass shootings are the results of mans' sins, so i do not believe in any ofbthe judging gods.
I think there are quite satisfactory scientific investigations into rain, lightning, thunder, probability, coincidence, gender roles, 4-color map theory that i do not believe in the various gods to which these are attributed.
I know enough history that i do not think it being 2019 'in the year of our lord' requires the Lord be real, no more than it being March requires Mars, or it being Saturday requires Saturn.

So, when i say i don't believe in gods, i mean any of the ones mankind has drawn up and attempted to flog on the rest of us. And my only difficulty is compiling a sufficiently complete list of all the candidates on offer, or the various, and often varying, attributes assigned to them. Some seem to have as many traits as Superman, and by the exact same mechanism of 'as needed by the plot.'

Self-Mutation explained his faith in God to be based on a miracle God performed for him this one time.
When asked why God doesn't save starving children, he said God stopped doing miracles when Jesus left Earth.

So, in the face of such contradictions by a supposed believer, i can only say, i don't believe in either of those gods.
But those aee not the only two gods i do not believe in....
 
When I say I don't believe in God I think what I pretty much always mean is the God (or Gods) of the Gaps. That one size fits all explanation for difficult questions.
 
I don't believe in Spiffy the Space Monkey either. And I don't even need to know the name, let alone anything else about him, to not believe.

It shouldn't be difficult to understand. "How can you not know what you don't believe in?" is a silly question. How could I possibly know all the things and non-things that I don't believe in? I don't have to justify the lack of belief beyond this: No good reason to believe -> disbelief.
 
All I know is that my god can kick your god's ass.
 
'God' is a word rather like 'superhero' - it describes a set of individuals of widely varying descriptions, who share at least some of a list of characteristics not found in reality.

There's a significant overlap between the two definitions - just ask Thor - but ultimately a god must have at least some abilities that are 'supernatural', while a superhero by contrast can simply be a particularly good man with skills and/or equipment that give him an edge over the bad guys he fights (eg Batman).

'Supernatural' abilities are by definition abilities that do not exist in reality. If a god can be shown to exist, then either it must have capabilities that cannot be explained (even in principle) by any scientific analysis, even at some distant future date; Or it's just a very powerful natural individual - an alien like Superman, for example - and not a god at all.

The defining difference between a superhero and a god is that gods require to be petitioned in order to help people. Superman will help an innocent victim of crime or misadventure if he is aware of their plight; Gods by contrast usually require a plea, in the form of a prayer, which strokes the god's ego, and may even require that the supplicant has devoted a large part of his life to appeasing the god by various means.

Both are unavoidably fictional. Both gods and superheroes form part of the rather childish narrative that there exists good and evil, and that people choose one or the other as their way of life.

This is a very popular trope, and is extremely convenient for leaders who wish to control their people. Few want to fight a war to get the king a bit of extra territory. But many will join the fight against evil. And as everyone real actually does both good things and bad, it's pretty easy to paint yourself as good, and your enemies as evil, with some selective reporting.

Gods are fictional characters created to support the people who run religions. Religions are control systems designed to make people do the things the leaders of those religions want.
 
I have no idea what the Abrahamic god is.

The Hebrews conceded any physical representation of god such as statues and paintings to be blasphemy and idolatry.

Other traditions have human representations. God is not an outside agent, god is in everyone.
 
If the godly worship god then the ungodly must worship ungod. Can one of the godly please define the ungod?
 
I've spoken to many on this and it's not really hard.

The idea of God to a worshiper is the idea of everything
The idea of God to an Atheist is the idea of nothingness
 
I don't know who originally made up the expression, but we once had a poster here many years ago who frequently said, "God is Santa Claus for adults". I think that pretty much sums it up.

No lengthy explanations are needed.
 
just_me said:
I've spoken to many on this and it's not really hard.

The idea of God to a worshiper is the idea of everything
The idea of God to an Atheist is the idea of nothingness
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????

No.

Nothingness - the void, a vacuum in space, the people in my house who will admit they left the toilet seat up... none of those are "god".
God is an imaginary friend that some people have. They define it. It's not a believable thing to atheists.
But nothingness? That's a thing. We like to study it. It's not a god.
 
Lion IRC said:
You gotta work out what it is you don't believe doesn't not exist.
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We have. We're telling you. Are you listening yet?

The god that is your imaginary friend, the thing you have described. We don't believe you are describing something that exists.
That thing, your thing - we don't believe in that.

Some other religionist also believes in a god. (It's not the same as your god; no two gods are the same, it's a slippery slippery definition) But their god is also an imaginary friend, and we don't believe in that one, either.

Nothing that has ever been described and applied the label "god" has ever made a lick of sense. I have enough data now to determine that "gods" describe a thing that is imaginary and requires "belief" to accept.
 
Rhea said:
But nothingness? That's a thing. We like to study it. It's not a god.
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Nothingness and god are actually only expressions we use in communication. Neither has objective reality like does a tree or a potato.

The bible god is very close to nothing. Only when it allegedly becomes something like a bush or a person is it anything other than a thought. Neither concept is quantifiable.

A lack of scientific literacy correlates highly with belief in mysticism. Joe and Jane Religion don't consider themselves revelers in mysticism but they are. If I think an invisible space ghost got nailed to a cross for me so I can get to live with it one day, that's mystical, that's standard woo. Dressing it up with words like soteriology and redemption and resurrection and grace and trinity changes it from Woo 101 to Woo 401, but it doesn't change the woo.
 
Lion IRC said:
just_me said:
...The idea of God to an Atheist is the idea of nothingness
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There's no such thing as nothing.
https://bigthink.com/robby-berman/theres-no-such-thing-as-nothing-according-to-quantum-physics

You gotta work out what it is you don't believe doesn't not exist.
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I do not believe in the numerous Gods being peddled by theists. Not the God of the fundamentalist (King James Version only!) Christians, nor Moslems. Not the hypothetical God of the philosophers. Not the "God is the ground of our being" bafflegab theists. Not the God of metaphysical theorists who define their God based on unlikely claims all with no supporting evidence. None of it. The great and grand Gods of theology simply are not coherent or rational. And thus true in the least.

The big problem is, if we start demanding the theists clearly state their concept of God to us, we get the problem that many of them cannot really define God except in terms of disprovable theories that demonstrate God is not a reasonable proposition.
 
I believe that is it. For a theist like lion to give credence to anything we say would mean questioning his beliefs.
 
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