Drone Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 I believe they is a god in a sense just not how we are led to believe he is Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaliRichard Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 I agree.....you are Graheme:P I never met Graheme and I've heard so much about him too. If he is I'm looking forward to debating with him from what I've heard. Not on this though, I'll save myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drone Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 If you stay an atheist, remember this you will never know the truth.. Athesist in denial makes perfect sense, but atheists could argue against this of course as that is the wrong definition as atheist is set as default Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
llamatron Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 I never met Graheme and I've heard so much about him too. If he is I'm looking forward to debating with him from what I've heard. Not on this though, I'll save myself. theres no debating, just theological rants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barleycorn Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 You've lost me. I merely said that ignosticism was irrelevant because people do define God, therefore we can make judgements, based on their definitions (and evidence) as to whether that God exists or not. If you say 'God' in general, with no definition, then ignosticism is relevant, but as most beleivers do have at least some definition of God then you can make a judgement based on that case. I'm not sure re reading this how we went so off track, I apologise for my part in that I now can no longer remember what my point was or why my soap box was so high... Moving on... you say most believers do have a definition of their God yet to date I have only come across ones which fall into one of several categories, these being: 1) Secondary characteristics such as "God is good", "God is all powerful" or "God is all knowing". None of which actually tell me anything about the existant which gives rise to these properties. As an analogy* if I were to say to you "This computer is annoying" and you were to respond "What is a computer" it would be absolutely no use to you if I were to reply "It's slow and too heavy" as I haven't answered the question, I have simply provided further secondary characteristics rather than state what a computer is such that it has the capacity to be annoying, slow and heavy. So, when I ask for a definition of God I am not looking for a list of secondly characteristic but rather a fundamental expression of it's character that can give rise to these secondary characteristics. So, what properties of God allow it to be "All knowing" or "All powerful" etc. 2) God created the universe and everything in it, or God controls the universe. Again this tells us nothing about the nature of God such that it has the capacity to do these things. Without a description of it's primary character we can make no judgement on whether it is even capable of doing the things it's meant to be able to do. This has the effect of rendering such statements as meaningless. In other words we must know what a thing is before we can apply the secondary characteristics to it of what it can do. 3) God is the universe. OK, the universe exists, I'm sat in it for a start, so yeah by this definition God exists as we can provide primary characteristics of what the universe is. Now, somewhere around here I had a point... hmmmm... Oh yes, so what I would like is for a theist to provide me with some fundamental primary attributes which describe God such that it may do the particular things or affect things in the world in a particular way. * and assuming you don't know what a computer is... Now I'm intrigued, how can aliens (which we have no concept of or evidence for) be described objectively when God (which we have no concept of or evidence for) can't be? By aliens we typically mean a lifeform on another planet. We can define life... jb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaliRichard Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 theres no debating, just theological rants. Oh bumsquiff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
llamatron Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 Oh bumsquiff a religious version of chem 1st is a good description I think. I'm off to hide in a cupboard or some affordable social housing maybe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drone Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 Loving your work here, G. I particularly like the way you prefaced it with the energy drink nonsense to throw us off the scent for a while. Class. What you mean Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaliRichard Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 I now can no longer remember what my point was or why my soap box was so high... Moving on... you say most believers do have a definition of their God yet to date I have only come across ones which fall into one of several categories, these being: 1) Secondary characteristics such as "God is good", "God is all powerful" or "God is all knowing". None of which actually tell me anything about the existant which gives rise to these properties. As an analogy* if I were to say to you "This computer is annoying" and you were to respond "What is a computer" it would be absolutely no use to you if I were to reply "It's slow and too heavy" as I haven't answered the question, I have simply provided further secondary characteristics rather than state what a computer is such that it has the capacity to be annoying, slow and heavy. So, when I ask for a definition of God I am not looking for a list of secondly characteristic but rather a fundamental expression of it's character that can give rise to these secondary characteristics. So, what properties of God allow it to be "All knowing" or "All powerful" etc. 2) God created the universe and everything in it, or God controls the universe. Again this tells us nothing about the nature of God such that it has the capacity to do these things. Without a description of it's primary character we can make no judgement on whether it is even capable of doing the things it's meant to be able to do. This has the effect of rendering such statements as meaningless. In other words we must know what a thing is before we can apply the secondary characteristics to it of what it can do. 3) God is the universe. OK, the universe exists, I'm sat in it for a start, so yeah by this definition God exists as we can provide primary characteristics of what the universe is. Now, somewhere around here I had a point... hmmmm... Oh yes, so what I would like is for a theist to provide me with some fundamental primary attributes which describe God such that it may do the particular things or affect things in the world in a particular way. * and assuming you don't know what a computer is...[/Quote] Ok, fair enough, but my difficulty is that when they say 'you can't know God - only his signs' (or similar) that the ignostic position doesn't allow for the testing of that evidence because you're sat around waiting for a definition. my criteria is taking the evidence they give for their position (for example - a common one - we know God exists because he gave us signs that science has since verified which the people of time couldn't have known - or another one, these predictions came true) is to test that evidence. If we find that the explanation they give doesn't stand up, we can then assume that their idea of what God is capable of is flawed, if their whole idea of what he is happens to be flawed, then we can assume it doesn't exist. I'm not sure if I'd worded that right, I'm trying to do a million things at once so I hope you get my point? By aliens we typically mean a lifeform on another planet. We can define life... jb OK, that was my misunderstanding, I thought you meant a specifically intelligent alien lifeform. Sorry, I hold my hands up to completely misunderstanding that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drone Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 theres no debating, just theological rants. Is this meant to me?? .. Remember when I suggested I did not agree with the atheist definition, your quickly dismissed what I was saying, by saying atheism is "just" a definition, when I was saying it was more than that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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