Lack of Agreement on What God Is
Few people want to say they don’t believe in a god. This is because everyone is supposed to believe in “something.” The result of this is that a lot of different somethings get called “God”--and all sorts of people with all sorts of different ideas then can say, “I believe.”
For example, God can be personal or impersonal, a spirit or a force, a being or an essence. God can be singular, a trinity, or one of many gods. God can exist outside the universe, inside the universe, or even be the universe. And while some see God as clearly definable, others fear that too much precision would serve to limit God. They therefore prefer to render God vague, mysterious, or indefinable.
On top of this, as philosopher Daniel Dennett points out, “Many people believe in belief in God. That is, they think it's a good thing.” So they profess the belief but avoid thinking too much about what they mean by it. To the degree that they have specific ideas, they rarely explore their full implications.
All of this creates a messy situation that atheists, in particular, find frustrating. For how can they begin to argue about a concept that won’t hold still or that so many people define in different ways? This tends to force atheists in their books to use what they consider the “standard” definitions of God and then go after those. And to the extent that readers mean the same sorts of things by the term God, this can be a fruitful approach. But to the extent that some readers don’t identify with the definitions provided, the book will seem to be attacking a straw man and miss the point.
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The original post mentioned how these discussions often go around in circles for failure to identify what we mean by God. So here is what I see as the three elements that I think people try to define with their concept of God:
1. the metaphysical - what are the origins of the universe, was there a force that created matter, or what forces or energy radically altered the state of existing matter to set the Universe on the trajectory that led us to our present surroundings. Can we call these forces and/or energy "God"?
2. the divine - is there an ongoing, deliberate force affecting the universe and life in it, and if so, do we have an energy, or soul, that shares a connection with it. In particular, do we have an essence that continues with this divine energy after our death?
3. the moral - do we have purpose - that is, do we have an intended path that is in harmony with a divine force? Can our path in life be judged as either in harmony or out of harmony with the order intended by the divine force?
My attempt to strain the mud may be simply increasing its turbidity, but let me hear your thoughts. I'm fairly new to this site, but enjoying the more substantive dialogues that I've read here.
Exactly! This is a fabulous OBSERVATION. But that's all it is. Many people look at the sun everyday, and many people see it differently, but does that mean it doesn't exist? No. In fact, the very existence of so many views seems to make it more likely, more probable, and more believable that God exists. There are many different points of view on what government ought to be, but this observation does not mean that government doesn't exist. I agree completely with the observation, but that's all it is. It fails to function as an argument, and therefore cannot be valued as such in evaluatin the existence of God. In fact, this argument is much more easily turned into a theistic argument.
Why does existence of 'many views make it more likely...that god exists'? What is the connection between number of opinions or definitions and likelihood of existence? As far as I am aware there is no physical law linking these two attributes.
Those observations are not then incompatible with each other,but God's putative properties exhibit incompatibility such that we ignostics declare Him vacuous. Thus arguments for Him start off without substance and they further exhibit no substance for Him.
jdfrieze, gee whiz.
I began with this argument because its theme runs throughout all the other arguments. And that theme is that the burden of proof to show that a god exists rests with the theist. The person who finds no warrant to believe in a god doesn't have to prove anything. The nontheist merely needs to wait for the evidence to be presented, wait to be persuaded. And whenever an argument is proffered, that argument needs to be analyzed to see if it indeed makes its case.
So we start with the definition. What is anyone even talking about when they talk about God? It often isn't clear. So we can barely begin the discussion! The theist has therefore failed to define terms, or to agree upon terms well enough, to allow a case for a god to be made in the first place.
So, to make sense of this and all my other arguments, you need to keep in mind that I make no attempt to disprove God. I only seek to show that the arguments put forth in support of God have failed. And, in the absence of a workable case for God, the only reasonable conclusion to draw, at least for now, is that God doesn't exist.
The same logic follows for the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
[I am brand new to this site so bear with me] I agree with you that if we cannot agree on the definition of "God" we cannot begin to prove or disprove his/her/its existence. We might as well start by looking within ourselves using metaphysics and psychology and look for clues to why we have a need to account for our existence with a creator. I am perfectly willing to accept that all that is (in the physically measurable universe) always existed yet changes form continuously. There are however a few curious concepts in physics (and metaphysics) which lead me to my agnostic stance. As an agnostic I don't try to believe or disbelieve in a God in a traditional theistic way. I think that however it can be argued that IMHO a universal order (complexity well beyond disorder) and consciousness continuously evolving would take the place of a thus far primitive "God" concept.
I am curious that if we as people are matter and matter and energy are as Einstein and others have proven are a continuum (i.e. can be converted) than we are all actually energy that is in a much "rested" state. If were are potential energy then the power of our consciousness is in itself also energy (IMHO of a higher level than the physical) that we thus have not been able to understand). I would submit to you that this energy which is life, that = spirit and consciousness, is all pervasive and not limited to our limited understanding of living matter.
Also I find it curious that according to the 2nd law of thermodynamics implies entropy and quite obviously life in opposition to this law with its enormous complexity. So I think there are extremely difficult arguments for the theists to prove their side but my best hypothesis is that we may continue to uncover "proof" of at least persuadable evidence to the critical mind that the ultimate answers to these questions may be found at the yet unimaginable levels obtained by human consciousness BEYOND thought....namely the realm of the spiritual humanist
Regards,
spiritualagnostic 11/30/08
Fellow naturalist,it is so true about that burden. Now I do ever try to reflect nature not needing God to direct or sustain it.
Faith is not a warrant for belief,contrary to Alvin Platinga, as it is just the we just say so of credullity. It begs the question of God as there is indeed no evidence whatsoever for Him. With Sydney Hook, we naturalist find that science is acquired knowledge while faith begs the question of being knowledge. Faith keeps believers in the darkness of superstition!
We rationalists do not have to be omniscient but to find no evidence for Him as presented and no logic in the arguments for Him.
I agree that the lack of a single definition of God is not a good argument against there being one, but similarly, I don't see that the reverse is true either.
For example - there are many mythologies about dragons/serpents around the world, in many cultures, and which have been independently developed within these cultures. These mythologies have a quite a few similarities and a lot of discrepancies. But I would use this lack of agreement as evidence of there being dragons.
Those examples you gave are things that we can demonstrate to others. The sun feels warm, produces light, we can measure all of it's attributes. If you are going to claim that because literally every person could have a completely different way of conceiving god that that would mean that God is everything to everyone. He can be anything you want him/her/it to be! So which is more likely: an amorphous being that is beyond description and consistently contradictory... or a figment of our imaginations?
Ponder that one.