thank you dolto - I'm afraid I have a vivid imagination
The Case for Theism
by FusionTheism 182 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Heaven
Ruby said: Heaven, yes Zeus was a God many of many roles, but mostly he was connected to power rather than to intellect very much like the Jehovah of old. And this olden days Jehovah is actually the Jehovah I recognize at the meetings.
The modern day God who is connected to mind reflects our own preoccupation with intelligence and seems to be a modern construct. This mind God is almost never discussed at the meetings and I suspect that Jehovahs witnesses take a counter cultural stance to this God by their depiction of God as Power, so I think that if xjws do discover a God of MIND then they can use this to fuel a position of dissent towards a power mad entity who is bent on destruction.
Yes, in short, OT God was angry, spiteful and vengeful. But as with all things, God evolved.
After he was able to rape the unmarried Jewish girl and get a son out of the deal, NT God mellowed somewhat. He is still going to judge you, though, and if you are found to be unfit or an unbeliever, you will be tortured for eternity once you die.
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OnTheWayOut
This thread is on the 17th page, so my answer is probably already covered but I will trudge on just in case I make a point to you, Fusion.
You take the single simplified statement that "the space-time-matter universe had a beginning at the Singularity/Big Bang." The lecture that Hawking gave, where you derive this statement from, was simplified. It doesn't show the algebra on several chalkboards (maybe they use dry-erase boards now or tablets) to arrive at such a conclusion. Anyway, you just take the conclusion and run wild with it.
Time itself did not exist, and then it came into existence. Things can only naturally happen by cause-and-effect within time. So the very event of time itself coming into existence, is a "supernatural" event (something beyond or outside of the natural course of cause-and-effect).
Everything we know in science requires time. There is cause-and-effect in nature and in the universe because things happen in time. Nothing we have ever seen has happened without time. Thus, in order to be a natural event, time must exist.
So, any event occurring without time would be a "miracle," and especially the event of time itself coming into existence, without time existing previously, would be miraculous by anyone's definition. Either time created itself from nothing, before it existed, or something else outside of time created time.I am sure you see it as an unavoidable set of logic to jump from that conclusion in a simplified lecture to "It's a miracle." But you cannot use the idea that it takes time to observe something happening to jump to "Time is supernatural." You cannot use that same idea compounded with your interjection to make such wild conclusions and then state that they are some kind of proof that some genius scientist demonstrated (unknowingly or knowingly).
And when someone objects, you cannot say that Hawking said the things you interject from what he actually did say.
You have to watch out for tricky ideas. You stated: "Either time created itself from nothing, before it existed, or something else outside of time created time."
You screwed up big time there and simplified further from simplified conclusions. Sure, you can say in a lecture, "before [time] existed" but we are not dealing with a simple concept, so to make grand conclusions beyond the simplified idea from a simplified conclusion is dangerous and leads to inaccuracy. There is no "before" time existed if time doesn't exist. Before you can jump to "It's a miracle," you would have to drag out those chalkboards (or tablets).
Time is not a "thing" like a baseball is a thing. You cannot simply arrive at conclusions by saying so. Put a baseball into what you say and it works: Before the big bang, baseballs did not exist. Baseballs would have had to create themselves from nothing or something outside of baseballs created baseballs.
That works great. Nobody would believe that baseballs were just "there" beyond the big bang. But time is completely different and you just cannot sum it all up in a couple of simplified statements made from simplified ideas given at a simplified lecture.
The rest of your ideas seem to build upon that, so I will not bother to comment on them.
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John_Mann
I don't like the atheist label because it was given by the very theists.
Being a negative it gives the self evident status to theism.
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Doltologist
Ruby
Thank you dolto - I'm afraid I have a vivid imagination
Why are you afraid?
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Doltologist
John-Mann
Being a negative it gives the self evident status to theism.
So it does. I never thought about it that way.
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Heaven
John_Mann an hour ago
I don't like the atheist label because it was given by the very theists.
Being a negative it gives the self evident status to theism.This is a good point, John.
I find believers get very weird when the atheist term is used as well. If I tell them I'm atheist, it's almost like I told them I'm Satan the Devil himself. I've also had believers recoil at the term humanist. One person said "Don't use that. That's what Madonna uses." Um, ok.
Perhaps the more apt term is unbeliever or non-believer. I think a lot of public non-believers use the term 'agnostic' because they are pretty sure god doesn't exist. Any scientist is willing to leave the door slightly ajar on this because it is the nature of science to do so. So far, any 'evidence' (read religious or Biblical claims) that has/have been presented has not held up to scrutiny. The application of integrity, morals, logic, and reason must be abandoned when dealing with belief and faith.
In my many discussions with various people on the subject of god over the course of my life so far, I can tell you this. Everyone has a different idea of what god is. And many have very little knowledge of the Bible, its origins, and the belief systems that existed prior to the Bible.
This alone says to me that god is just a figment of the human imagination. If god really did exist, especially as this omnipotent being most believers claim 'him' (?) to be, then everyone would have the exact same knowledge and understanding of god.
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Jonathan Drake
don't like the atheist label because it was given by the very theists.
Being a negative it gives the self evident status to theism.I think that might be why we are now seeing the rise of "Secularism"
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OneGenTwoGroups
Doltologist6 hours ago
A lack of belief = belief? I agree that is illogical.
Please help me see the connection to our discussion.
Why are you asking me? You are the one who wrote Atheism is about belief, not me. I merely pointed out that Atheism isn't about belief. It is a response to a belief and then we got into this circular discussion.
We're close to seeing eye to eye here, very close.
Atheism isn't about holding ANY beliefs at its most basic definition. What I am trying to help people to see is the most basic and accurate definition of atheism. Please think about why I say it is ABOUT belief, without saying it is about HOLDING any belief.
You're saying that it is a "a response to a belief". That is true in most contexts, but not in all contexts. What if I teach a child that god(s) exist, but yet I don't believe they do? [Side note: because I'm a fader, this is probably what I do unintentionally by my presence at meetings and I feel like shit about it.] So you need to realize that, at its basic level, it is a response to a CLAIM not a belief. That's why the following people are all atheists: you, me, the piraha people, and babies. So, just to be clear:
Atheism = lack of belief in god(s); no belief in god(s); not believing in god(s)
Kinda hard to describe without using the word belief, because it is about belief (accepting a claim).
What if we define it like this: atheism = the belief that no god(s) exist
This is how many Christian apologists for example wish to define atheism. This becomes a strawman for them to battle in most cases. Using this definition for debate purposes is the frozen abstraction fallacy. This definition of atheism is more accurately labeled as strong atheism or gnostic atheism. It is still atheism, because it still fits under the atheist umbrella, but it is not atheism at its purest or most basic level. A person that believes no god(s) exist, still lacks a belief in god(s). But, they are something more than just an atheist, pedantically speaking.
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Jonathan Drake
So you need to realize that, at its basic level, it is a response to a CLAIM not a belief.
Im sorry if I'm jumping in unwelcome but I can't make sense out of this statement.
- atheist (n.)
- 1570s, from French athéiste (16c.), from Greek atheos "without god, denying the gods; abandoned of the gods; godless, ungodly," from a- "without" + theos"a god" (see theo-).
This was how it was understood originally. It originates from Greece, a culture which when dealing with God was talking about the gods of their pantheon. When a person was "atheos" in Greece it meant they were without the gods (of the Greek pantheon).
Now since then, our culture and language have evolved. To be, "a - theist," means to be, "without theism." You have likely never heard the words 'adeist' or 'adeism' which would mean, "without deism," and this is because (at least in my opinion) adeism is unnecessary.
Anyway, my point is this, atheism is position lacking theism. Theism is,
Atheism is all about this belief, not claims. It's a non-theistic position, while a theistic position (as defined here by my handy dictionary app) is a belief in a personal God.
It is important though to separate theism and deism. Atheism is not a position against a deistic view, only a theistic view. I keep saying that to make the point that atheism is not about beliefs, it is a response and position taken against theism - one specific belief.
(this argument based strictly on etymology. To most people atheism is a position against either a theistic or deistic God, but linguistically I think this incorrect.)
- atheist (n.)
