burn the ships
God has no beginning therefore he did not come from anything.
Says who; says you, or rather, says a long string of people making the same assertion that ends up with someone who just decided god doesn't need a begining without having any proof of it.
Please don't tell me you consider this satisfactory proof of the assertion you're making or anything other than presupposition?
Caedes
If you wish to limit your god to a concept or an idea rather than an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent supernatural being that created the universe
An existing idea is far less limited than a non-existent piece of stone-age supersticion acting like it's not re-heated savagery.
I quite agree that ideas can be almost unlimited, but however you cut it your concept of god is not as 'large' as the concept of god as understood by most people.
Ah, but mine exists, be it through semantic trickery or valid argumentation. Tangible reality is larger than trumped up unreality.
Fair point, you are free to define theism as you wish, that doesn't change the fact that the accepted definition is a belief in a supernatural god.
Yes, and the previously accepted definiton of an acceptable sexual relationship was between married people of different genders. Doesn't mean the definiton is right.
I have an imagination, that I can conceive of something does not make it real.
But if your idea is PURELY an idea, does that mean it is not real?
It might not have external reality, but it still has power.
It is not unfounded as every church I drive past can testify to.
Testify to without proof. They all claim to have the franchise. You don't accept the Borgs BS as a real claim to represent god, why accept the others' claims?
Whilst I wouldn't deny that for some people their spirituality does not require a church or specific acts of worship does not change the fact that for the majority of theists the connection is very real indeed.
Doesn't make them right. They may be for them of course, but the minute they take it outside their head they get it wrong.
So you are saying it is all just in your mind? that was my original point wasn't it?
Yes, but the fact it IS all in my mind doesn't mean it isn't real, to me, or others, or have the power to effect others or inspire me.
It's a no-fat god.
I'm just having fun with ideas here, using a smart person to bounce stuff off. It is as much a technicality against atheism (god is a variable definition, ideas are real, therefore if god is an idea god is real, ha ha, ho ho, and indeed he he) as it is a way of swating at religious conceits over having any right to monopolise (or Cludoise, or Trivial Pursuitise) god.
I am having what is commonly termed 'a laugh', having come from cultist to hard-boiled atheist and then a little way back again.
Lastly, I would rather just call it communication rather than use loaded terminology that everyone uses for something else. I don't suppose Nickelodeon would want to change all their merchandising.
Communication of thoughts is one thing; what the thoughts do ONCE communicated is something different. See? My definitons get better (for me) the more I get to play with them. God is the capacity we have for belief in stuff.