For Atheists - define what you don't believe in

[abaddon]

Copernicus,

The OP question in the other thread was about specific traits of God.

What is god? female, male, or otrher?
Where did god come from, did he, she, or it always exist?
When god created the universe, out of what did he, she, or it make it from?
When god creates something are there rules or laws similar to science?
Does god have thoughts? From the bible god can certainly be angry and feel love.
Is god a being with inner workings, is there an energy source?

So, if you're an atheist, can you detail for us what the traits are of the God that you do not believe in? Does the God you don't believe in have 2 eyes? Does the God you don't believe in have a penis? Give us a full description of the God you don't believe in, if you will. Thanks.

 

[skepticalbip]

The idea of gods doesn't enter my mind unless approached by religious zealots trying to convince me of their TRUTH. At this point I figure it is their burden to try to make sense in answering my questions about their claims. I have no desire to shut down religions that don't actively try to convert others or to force their beliefs on others - the Amish for example. I figure this makes me an atheist, not an antitheist.

https://www.thoughtco.com/atheism-and-anti-theism-248322

Atheism and anti-theism so often occur together at the same time and in the same person that it's understandable if many people fail to realize that they aren't the same. Making note of the difference is important, however, because not every atheist is anti-theistic and even those who are, aren't anti-theistic all the time. Atheism is simply the absence of belief in gods; anti-theism is a conscious and deliberate opposition to theism. Many atheists are also anti-theists, but not all and not always.

A common description of this is the sign on a college prof’s door

Theist: ................God Blesses you!
Anti-Theist: ........There is no god!
Atheist: ...............Office hours: 10:30am-noon

That is an excellent sign. Thanks

And this is what Lion does not get when he thinks Atheists should be going on about what they disbelieve

I could give Lion a long list of things I disbelieve but I don't think it would be what he wants. For instance, I disbelieve that Hillary will get the Democrat nomination for the 2020 race.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I could give Lion a long list of things I disbelieve but I don't think it would be what he wants. For instance, I disbelieve that Hillary will get the Democrat nomination for the 2020 race.

Obviously many believers are similarly stumped. It may be more a question of hope than belief. So called believers hope for a lot of things I find silly, and some that I find repugnant. I don't believe in a 2000 year old godman that flew away into the sky after he came back to life after being dead. I don't even hope it's real let alone believe it is.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I was thinking today after watching a Planet Earth program. Here, we have an amazing form of life of which acquires the energy it needs to exist solely from the big burning orb in the sky. A relatively non-complex reaction takes place and with enough water, life will survive, even in the hottest and most arid of regions.

I don't believe in a god that would scrap this rather ingenious energy production setup... for the most important creation that god is to make.

 

[Rhea]

There is an entire, excellent book about the tooth fairy. Just like there is a book (not excellent at all) about jebus.

Many xtians take the existence of a book as proof of the deity's existence. Therefore the Tooth Fairy exists.

Lion is rather pathetic in his years-long, shallow and risible attempts to justify his wretched clinging to laughable ideas, but I can't see him changing his dreary tune.

Equating the Tooth Fairy to God suggests you have no argument against God. Or worse.

Why? I can see that it upsets you, but on what grounds? They have the same "proof," so whatever you object to about the tooth fairy, surely you must also use the same measure when you decided to believe in a god?

Barely relevant aside: My children do not and have never believed in the tooth fairy. We did, however play a game wherein they would put their tooth in a box under their pillow and I would manage, without their witness, exchanging it for one gold dollar coin to spend and one foreign coin to keep by the next morning. This was an exciting and long-running game and it was not until my youngest child's penultimate tooth, the 19th one, that my daughter caught me. She was elated. We had a lot of fun with that.

But back to Yahweh vs. the tooth fairy: they use the same evidence. Why is it wrong to compare them?

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for your perspective, Rhea, but it seems that you have some frustrations of your own to work on also.

Nope, I'm chill.

 

[Random Person]

Why? I can see that it upsets you, but on what grounds? They have the same "proof," so whatever you object to about the tooth fairy, surely you must also use the same measure when you decided to believe in a god?

Barely relevant aside: My children do not and have never believed in the tooth fairy. We did, however play a game wherein they would put their tooth in a box under their pillow and I would manage, without their witness, exchanging it for one gold dollar coin to spend and one foreign coin to keep by the next morning. This was an exciting and long-running game and it was not until my youngest child's penultimate tooth, the 19th one, that my daughter caught me. She was elated. We had a lot of fun with that.

But back to Yahweh vs. the tooth fairy: they use the same evidence. Why is it wrong to compare them?

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for your perspective, Rhea, but it seems that you have some frustrations of your own to work on also.

Nope, I'm chill.

It's an embarrassingly dim witted argument for anyone past middle school.

 

[bilby]

Why? I can see that it upsets you, but on what grounds? They have the same "proof," so whatever you object to about the tooth fairy, surely you must also use the same measure when you decided to believe in a god?

Barely relevant aside: My children do not and have never believed in the tooth fairy. We did, however play a game wherein they would put their tooth in a box under their pillow and I would manage, without their witness, exchanging it for one gold dollar coin to spend and one foreign coin to keep by the next morning. This was an exciting and long-running game and it was not until my youngest child's penultimate tooth, the 19th one, that my daughter caught me. She was elated. We had a lot of fun with that.

But back to Yahweh vs. the tooth fairy: they use the same evidence. Why is it wrong to compare them?

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for your perspective, Rhea, but it seems that you have some frustrations of your own to work on also.

Nope, I'm chill.

It's an embarrassingly dim witted argument for anyone past middle school.

That's true; But then, so is the idea of the Tooth Fairy.

 

[Copernicus]

Copernicus,

The OP question in the other thread was about specific traits of God.

What is god? female, male, or otrher?
Where did god come from, did he, she, or it always exist?
When god created the universe, out of what did he, she, or it make it from?
When god creates something are there rules or laws similar to science?
Does god have thoughts? From the bible god can certainly be angry and feel love.
Is god a being with inner workings, is there an energy source?

So, if you're an atheist, can you detail for us what the traits are of the God that you do not believe in? Does the God you don't believe in have 2 eyes? Does the God you don't believe in have a penis? Give us a full description of the God you don't believe in, if you will. Thanks.

I don't think that Steve intended that list to be exhaustive, and he seemed more interested in trying to understand the "god" concept rather than to just compile a list of traits. In any case, I think that he, like others, somewhat conflated that concept of a deity--what atheists deny belief in--with the specific deity called "God" by Christians and other monotheists. If you ask a specific theist to define that person's concept of "God", you'll get a very different answer that depends on beliefs peculiar to that particular theist. Just because someone professes not to believe in the Christian "God", that does not make that person an atheist, a non-theist, or a theist. All of that depends on what the person actually does believe about gods.

I've already listed some of the properties that I think gods have, so I could repeat them here. Again, it is rather difficult to come up with an exhaustive list. To be concise, however, I would define a god as an agent that can control some aspect of reality by willpower alone. So Poseidon has absolute, willful control of the seas. He does not have to rely on magic incantations or other intermediary instrumental means to control the seas. More importantly, though, a god is a "personal being" (i.e. a being with humanlike traits) that people can interact with through worship and prayer. Gods generally want to be loved and worshiped, and they can be influenced by human devotion and prayer. Typically, gods are spiritual beings that do not depend on physical bodies to exist, and they experience roughly the same kinds of things that human beings do with their physical senses.

Again, I could go on, but I'll stop here for lack of time. I think that you probably understand the gist of how I conceive of gods, which I believe to be imaginary beings. The Christian "God" is just one particular god among many such possible beings that could exist but are (to me) highly implausible.

 

[abaddon]

Copernicus,

I think what you said there, and in previous posts, is trivial because there's almost no one who doesn't know this already.

If God existed then shouldn't he be explainable beyond a definition that merely assigns him this and that characteristic? Getting past the words to something more definite... Because the vagaries of the standard definition contributes to why atheists find God extremely improbable.

"By definition God's an immaterial being who makes things happen with willpower". There's a partial definition. Now, can it be more complete? How much more? Even if we made an exhaustive compilation of what's been said about God already, so many times, is it enough to get a good grasp on what the being is? Looks to me like the request of a definition was for more explicit delineations of what the divinity is. Less vagueness, more clarity.

So I don't see a need to agree, more than everyone does already, on the vague common usage. It's old news. The new news would be if Christian monotheists could stop reciting old news and explain their God better.

 

[Juma]

There is an entire, excellent book about the tooth fairy. Just like there is a book (not excellent at all) about jebus.

Many xtians take the existence of a book as proof of the deity's existence. Therefore the Tooth Fairy exists.

Lion is rather pathetic in his years-long, shallow and risible attempts to justify his wretched clinging to laughable ideas, but I can't see him changing his dreary tune.

Equating the Tooth Fairy to God suggests you have no argument against God. Or worse.

No it doesnt. You do need to work on your one-liners.
What do refer to when writing ”God”? Why using uppercase? And, assuming for example that you refer to the god of Abone of the world religions, why is ridiculous to compare it to another fantasy being?

 

[bilby]

Copernicus,

The OP question in the other thread was about specific traits of God.

What is god? female, male, or otrher?
Where did god come from, did he, she, or it always exist?
When god created the universe, out of what did he, she, or it make it from?
When god creates something are there rules or laws similar to science?
Does god have thoughts? From the bible god can certainly be angry and feel love.
Is god a being with inner workings, is there an energy source?

So, if you're an atheist, can you detail for us what the traits are of the God that you do not believe in? Does the God you don't believe in have 2 eyes? Does the God you don't believe in have a penis? Give us a full description of the God you don't believe in, if you will. Thanks.

I don't think that Steve intended that list to be exhaustive, and he seemed more interested in trying to understand the "god" concept rather than to just compile a list of traits. In any case, I think that he, like others, somewhat conflated that concept of a deity--what atheists deny belief in--with the specific deity called "God" by Christians and other monotheists. If you ask a specific theist to define that person's concept of "God", you'll get a very different answer that depends on beliefs peculiar to that particular theist. Just because someone professes not to believe in the Christian "God", that does not make that person an atheist, a non-theist, or a theist. All of that depends on what the person actually does believe about gods.

I've already listed some of the properties that I think gods have, so I could repeat them here. Again, it is rather difficult to come up with an exhaustive list. To be concise, however, I would define a god as an agent that can control some aspect of reality by willpower alone. So Poseidon has absolute, willful control of the seas. He does not have to rely on magic incantations or other intermediary instrumental means to control the seas. More importantly, though, a god is a "personal being" (i.e. a being with humanlike traits) that people can interact with through worship and prayer. Gods generally want to be loved and worshiped, and they can be influenced by human devotion and prayer. Typically, gods are spiritual beings that do not depend on physical bodies to exist, and they experience roughly the same kinds of things that human beings do with their physical senses.

Again, I could go on, but I'll stop here for lack of time. I think that you probably understand the gist of how I conceive of gods, which I believe to be imaginary beings. The Christian "God" is just one particular god among many such possible beings that could exist but are (to me) highly implausible.

The god of Genesis uses incantations - he doesn't just will there to be light, he says the magic words.

 

[Copernicus]

Copernicus,

I think what you said there, and in previous posts, is trivial because there's almost no one who doesn't know this already.

If God existed then shouldn't he be explainable beyond a definition that merely assigns him this and that characteristic? Getting past the words to something more definite... Because the vagaries of the standard definition contributes to why atheists find God extremely improbable.

"By definition God's an immaterial being who makes things happen with willpower". There's a partial definition. Now, can it be more complete? How much more? Even if we made an exhaustive compilation of what's been said about God already, so many times, is it enough to get a good grasp on what the being is? Looks to me like the request of a definition was for more explicit delineations of what the divinity is. Less vagueness, more clarity.

So I don't see a need to agree, more than everyone does already, on the vague common usage. It's old news. The new news would be if Christian monotheists could stop reciting old news and explain their God better.

Abaddon, I think that you may be overthinking this. Theism has been around since prehistoric times, so there is no reason to expect the concept to be all that difficult to define. The specific Abrahamic "God" that we are most familiar with is just one particular instance of a category of beings that atheists reject belief in. If the concept is fuzzy and ambiguous, that is because all words are more or less fuzzy and ambiguous in actual usage. There is nothing at all special about the word "god", and there are plenty of other mythical beings to reject belief in. Gods are just one class of mythical beings. Why make such a big deal about the details of the different types of gods that theists believe in? The real debate lies at a much more general level of how atheists and theists model reality. If you happen to convince a theist that his or her specific god can't really be exactly as imagined, then you will be very lucky. That is rare. More than likely, the theist will simply adjust the "god" concept to be slightly different and then continue to be a theist. Atheism is not about the small details of how a god is defined. Nor is theism.

Your idea that Christian monotheists should "explain their god better" (and please note the lack of capitalization on the common noun) strikes me as an unrealistic expectation. Christians have a wide variety of ideas on that score. The atheist, Maxim Gorky, wrote in his quasi-autobiographical novels that his father and mother went to the same church but worshiped totally different gods. His father worshiped a powerful angry god that was always seeking vengeance against sinners, whereas his mother worshiped a kind, benevolent god who was always compassionate and forgiving. There is nothing really odd about that. We all carry around different ideas about the nature of the same real objects. Astronomers and laypersons both know what stars are, but they will have very different concepts of what those words represent. That Christians would have different ideas of the nature of God strikes me as not all that unreasonable. They spend a lot of time arguing with each other over just what their "God" concept really ought to mean. Why would atheists even want to bother with such sophistry?

 

[Learner]

Why? I can see that it upsets you, but on what grounds? They have the same "proof," so whatever you object to about the tooth fairy, surely you must also use the same measure when you decided to believe in a god?

A slight off topic to the OP, I doubt the "proof" is actually the same, and the measures as used for biblical scrutiny will definitely help distinguish between the two notions...in my POV.

But back to Yahweh vs. the tooth fairy: they use the same evidence. Why is it wrong to compare them?

... no problem comparing, which could be a good thing. With less effort and without the need of scholars (to state the obvious): we have an actual "explanation" as to why a tooth under a pillow turns into sixpences etc. Not quite a good comparison imo but worth comparing.

 

[Lion IRC]

When I was a kid I experienced a tooth go missing from under my pillow replaced by a 50c coin.
Nobody is going to tell me that event didn't really happen.
So even if my definition of 'fairy' is a bit off, that fairy is or was quite real.
He/she did or does exist - wings or not.

Now, anybody here still think definitions aren't relevant?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Of course, this would be a lot easier if we were TV characters.

Then we'd define God by the one thing he did that made us angry. Let Mom die of cancer, or Dad's slow descent into Alzheimer's, or sister dying in a back-alley abortion because of the efforts of The God's Followers to stamp out access to safe medical care for such things, or perhaps we spend quite a bit of time trying to prevent deaths in a war zone during a police action.
And at some point in the episode, we'd hit our thumb with a hammer and request that the hammer suffer the torments of eternal punishment handed out by the god we claim not to believe in, hilariously kneecapping all credibility. Or, maybe, if it's an hour-long drama, we'd be caught praying informally, maybe if the car won't start after the other lead goes into labor, but right after we say 'please!' in an unspecified appeal to a typically give-a-shit universe, thus giving the show's moral lead the chance to drop a one-liner right before the end credits roll.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Why? I can see that it upsets you, but on what grounds? They have the same "proof," so whatever you object to about the tooth fairy, surely you must also use the same measure when you decided to believe in a god?

Barely relevant aside: My children do not and have never believed in the tooth fairy. We did, however play a game wherein they would put their tooth in a box under their pillow and I would manage, without their witness, exchanging it for one gold dollar coin to spend and one foreign coin to keep by the next morning. This was an exciting and long-running game and it was not until my youngest child's penultimate tooth, the 19th one, that my daughter caught me. She was elated. We had a lot of fun with that.

But back to Yahweh vs. the tooth fairy: they use the same evidence. Why is it wrong to compare them?

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks for your perspective, Rhea, but it seems that you have some frustrations of your own to work on also.

Nope, I'm chill.

It's an embarrassingly dim witted argument for anyone past middle school.

And an invisible spaceman that tells people to build big boats and collect animals because it is going to make it rain 725 feet of rain every day for 40 days is not?

But you bring up a good point, seriously. This conversation we are having should be occurring in middle schools everywhere. Kids should be developing their critical thinking skills, learning that there are no sacred cows.

Honestly, a simple Tooth Fairy tale is far more believable.

 

[Keith&Co.]

And an invisible spaceman that tells people to build big boats and collect animals because it is going to make it rain 725 feet of rain every day for 40 days is not?

you should remember, though, that Random thinks cheerleaders stop cheering when the team is losing.
His standards for reality vs. dimwitted may be based on a rather special grip on reality...

 

[Juma]

When I was a kid I experienced a tooth go missing from under my pillow replaced by a 50c coin.
Nobody is going to tell me that event didn't really happen.
So even if my definition of 'fairy' is a bit off, that fairy is or was quite real.
He/she did or does exist - wings or not.

Now, anybody here still think definitions aren't relevant?

Nobody has said that definitions arent relevant.
What is relevant is that is the one making the statement that provides the definition.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

When I was a kid I experienced a tooth go missing from under my pillow replaced by a 50c coin.
Nobody is going to tell me that event didn't really happen.
So even if my definition of 'fairy' is a bit off, that fairy is or was quite real.
He/she did or does exist - wings or not.

Now, anybody here still think definitions aren't relevant?

Something can be defined as existing as a thought only, like your tooth fairy. Thoughts are real enough. Some have argued that we are thoughts living in the mind of a greater being which I find interesting. All observations to date however indicate that the alleged being exists as a thought, not the other way around. And even if it did exist the other way around, what makes it a "god," unless we're all gods, even other sensory animals with thoughts as well.

 

[Keith&Co.]

So even if my definition of 'fairy' is a bit off, that fairy is or was quite real.
He/she did or does exist - wings or not.

Something can be defined as existing as a thought only, like your tooth fairy.

I don't think he's claiming that the Tooth Fairy exists as a thought.
I think he's saying that when he says 'tooth fairy' he's referring to his father (or other individual), who exists, and for a certain number of nights in Lion's childhood, fulfilled the role of tooth fairy.


Ultimately, though, saying that one believes in the tooth fairy because Daddy used to lie about the tooth fairy kinda defeats the purpose of claiming that belief is supported. Especially in a discussion about gods.