God and truth
For all those avowed atheists out there; if God and the beliefs in God’s existence and actions have no validity, no claim to truth, then what truth have you replaced them with?
For all those avowed atheists out there; if God and the beliefs in God’s existence and actions have no validity, no claim to truth, then what truth have you replaced them with?
Comments (117)
Quoting Outlander
What would you call these truths? The evolution of morals I appreciate. But am I right that you regard the truths as those things that are inherent, like “good”, pleasurable, bad, even terrible. And is this truth down to what we experience?
Edit: because wouldn’t a truth have to be applicable to everyone and understood?
I’m assuming your’re an atheist. .
Well are you or aren’t you?
Why would one have to replace anything?
Why would it be necessary to replace something that you never had?
Over time more and more people have come to believe and insist that God does not exist. Some people have grown up with idea of God’s existence then repudiated, for whatever reasons, that possibility. With that denial goes all previously accepted ideas of truth about the universe, themselves, morality and life and death, among many other beliefs.
It’s hardly likely, though maybe possible, for those people to then exist in a vacuum. So what instead have they filled that vacuum with?
So you mean morals and beliefs, not truths.
Quoting Brett
If they have stopped believing then whatever convinced them that they were wrong would be filling the space.
Quoting Sir2u
No, I mean truths.
Quoting Sir2u
Then what is that?
Quoting tim wood
I shouldn’t have to do this but if it makes it easier then fine.
“ Atheism” is typically defined in terms of “theism”. Theism, in turn, is best understood as a proposition—something that is either true or false. It is often defined as “the belief that God exists”, but here “belief” means “something believed”. It refers to the propositional content of belief, not to the attitude or psychological state of believing. This is why it makes sense to say that theism is true or false and to argue for or against theism. If, however, “atheism” is defined in terms of theism and theism is the proposition that God exists and not the psychological condition of believing that there is a God, then it follows that atheism is not the absence of the psychological condition of believing that God exists (more on this below). The “a-” in “atheism” must be understood as negation instead of absence, as “not” instead of “without”. Therefore, in philosophy at least, atheism should be construed as the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, the proposition that there are no gods).
This definition has the added virtue of making atheism a direct answer to one of the most important metaphysical questions in philosophy of religion, namely, “Is there a God?” There are only two possible direct answers to this question: “yes”, which is theism, and “no”, which is atheism.” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/
Quoting tim wood
Well for those who believe in God then God is the truth. And you help reinforce my point. What is this truth that has replaced the truth of God?
So the preposition that god exists is true, not a belief. Does that mean that one should not believe the truth?
Quoting Brett
Would that not be different for the individuals the stop believing.
But you have failed to take into account that many people that are atheists never believed in any god, would that mean that they never had any truths?
Quoting Sir2u
Yes, for believers God is a fact.
Quoting Sir2u
I don’t see why they would do that. Maybe I’ve misunderstood.
Quoting Sir2u
I don’t know how they would have come to that conclusion. Would that belief be from birth?
So it is a belief. Not all beliefs are truth. A god, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Yeti, Atlantis, easy money are some of the many things people believe to be true. How many of them would you consider to be facts. Based on the proof available for each of them I would guess that they all have the same chance to be so.
Quoting Brett
There are people that are never given religious education, that would mean that they never had what you call truth. Belief in god is not something that comes at birth, it is drummed into the young as they grow up. So why would anyone need to come to a conclusion, you believe what you are taught to believe until something changes the way you think.
Quoting Sir2u
I can’t see why someone would believe in something if they didn’t think it was the truth. You may not believe it’s the truth but that’s irrelevant to what they think.
Quoting Sir2u
But we’re not talking about facts.
Yes you are.
Quoting Brett
Information that is valid, or truthful is called a fact.
Quoting Sir2u
Yes you’re right they would not know of those truths about God.
Quoting Sir2u
Quoting Brett
This was in response to your post about how many people that are atheists never believed in God. If they were raised from being very young without any knowledge of God that would not make them atheists, it would just make them ignorant of the idea of God.
Quoting tim wood
Quoting tim wood
Do you even read my posts? Why are you still saying “depending on just what is meant by ‘atheist’”.
And if you’re not an atheist then the OP is not addressed to you.
Quoting Jmd123
How did this come about at age 10?
Atheist - Someone who does not believe in the existence of a god.
Theist - Someone who believes in the existence of a god.
If you have not been taught to believe in gods, it does not mean that you are ignorant of other people believing in their existence.
You can still know about the concept of gods even if you have not been trained to believe int hem.
But this discussion is getting boring without having the proper data necessary to continue. You said the the truths about god need to be replaced by something, so exactly which truths are you talking about? Maybe this will help to decide what could possibly replace them.
Quoting Sir2u
Data? What is proper data?
Quoting Sir2u
That’s not what I said. Reread my first post.
Quoting Sir2u
True, but it doesn’t make you an atheist.
Quoting tim wood
“ Most theists agree that God is (in Ramanuja's words) the “supreme self” or person—omniscient, omnipotent, and all good. But classical Christian theists have also ascribed four “metaphysical attributes” to God—simplicity, timelessness, immutability, and impassibility. The doctrine of simplicity states that each of God's real or intrinsic properties is identical with his other real or intrinsic properties, and with his being or nature. God's knowledge is identical with his power, for example, and both are identical with his being. Just as “Thomas Jefferson” and “the third president of the United States” have different meanings but refer to the same person, so “the knowledge of God” and “the power of God,” although differing in meaning, refer to the same reality, namely, the infinitely perfect divine life or activity.
Many classical western theists have also thought that God is timeless—altogether outside of time. God resembles abstract objects like numbers or propositions in having no temporal location or extension. God isn't an abstract object, of course, but an infinitely perfect life or activity. One shouldn't think of this life and activity as being in time, however—not even as everlasting. Thus God timelessly knows and wills that conscious life will emerge on earth after certain events and before others. But while temporality is a property of what God knows and wills, it isn't a property of God's act of knowledge or will. The objects of God's knowledge and act of will are in time but God himself and his activity are not.
God is also believed to be immutable. Something is immutable if its real properties can't change. Immutability follows from God's simplicity. An object undergoes real change when it loses one real property and/or acquires another. Real change thus entails that some of the object's real properties aren't identical. (If P, Q, and R are real properties, and x retains P through a change but loses Q and acquires R, then P, Q, and R are different properties.) So if God is simple, he can't undergo real change. God's immutability also follows from his timelessness since change entails a temporal transition from one state to another.
Finally, classical western theists have thought that God is impassible. God creates, sustains, and governs the world. It depends on him both for its being and for its qualities. But nothing acts on God or causally affects him. While the world is affected by God, God is not affected by it.” https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concepts-god/
Quoting Sir2u
Fine, then if you insist we’ll call belief a fact, but I don’t think that’s going to work for you.
And claims about gods are such propositions.
They're not replaced, they're true or false.
Okay I think I take your meaning. “God exists” is either true or false.
However I’m not saying that. I’m talking about a belief in God, not an argument whether God exists or not.
There is a third option - namely that the sentence "God exists" has no coherent meaning and thus you cannot assign a truth value to it.
If Shiva and the beliefs in Shiva's existence and actions have no validity, what have you replaced it with?
God is a concept and a word, and a poorly defined one at that. You happened to be raised in a tradition that takes that word seriously. It grows out of the same human mind that creates all kinds of rules for behavior.
But these victories, according to Eagleton, were at best equivocal, and in due course they would be reversed by the cunning of history.
First there were the fabled philosophers of the Enlightenment, leading the charge against priestly infamy and angels-on-a-pin theology; but none of them could envisage a world without God, even if they preferred to worship him in the guise of reason or science. Any damage they may have done to religion was repaired by the German Idealists with their woolly notion of spirit, and by their followers the Romantics, who reinvented God as either nature or culture.
You might think that Marx made a better job of deicide, but on close examination the communist hypothesis turns out to have been a surrogate for the heavenly city. And poor old Nietzsche, for all his bluster and derring-do, ended up resurrecting Christ in the form of the Übermensch. The 20th-century modernists fell into the same trap, vainly appealing to art to plug "the gap where God has once been", and if a few freaky postmodernists have managed to break away from religion in recent years, it was at the price of a complete denial of hope and meaning, which no one else is willing to pay.
"The Almighty," Eagleton concludes, "has proved remarkably difficult to dispose of." Rumours of his death have been greatly exaggerated: he has now put himself "back on the agenda", and "the irony is hard to overstate".[/quote]
More here.
Truthfully, I blame Carl Sagan. And astrology and tarot cards
Maybe some definitions would help. As Tim said, what exactly is a god. What is a truth as you use the word here.
Quoting Brett
OK, here it is.
Quoting Brett
I did read it again and it says just what I stated. The truths about god have to be replaced by something. The problem is you have not specified those truths yet either.
Quoting Brett
It does if they do not believe in god, unless you have another use of the word that you have failed to tell us. Maybe you think it is conditional upon the rejection of god, but that is not what the word means.
A few things to get out of the way first.
Quoting tim wood
Because you had responded to the OP which was addressed to atheists. Though it doesn’t matter to me except to know where you were coming from in your response.
Quoting tim wood
I personally have no position on God except that I cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. What I am talking about in my question is about people who believe and people who don’t. Even if I did believe and gave you my definition you would not accept it, which I understand. So I gave you a fairly reasonable idea of how God is perceived from a reasonable source.
I am not trying to make a statement about belief into a statement of fact because I have never made the statement that God exists. What I have being referring to is the idea that others believe in God’s existence.
Quoting tim wood
You’re right. I absolutely have no idea of what truth is. Which brings me back to the point of my OP.
If someone was raised a Christian and then at some point repudiated everything they had thought about God, which was, far as they were concerned, the truth, then what did they replace that repudiated truth with? Maybe the answer is nothing. But I can’t quite believe that would be the case.
To me if you had believed something was the truth and then found a reason to repudiate it then that would be a new truth. What is there about the new truth that is more true than the first truth? It seems to me that by repudiating a belief in a deity you are now operating on reason that is used to demolish the first truth. So my question was, what is the capital T truth they have found to replace it and why are they so convinced of that truth?
Quoting Sir2u
See my post to Tim Wood.
Quoting Sir2u
No, what it does not say is that a truth has to replace God. I do not say anything has to replace God. I ask what atheists replace the idea that God is the truth with.
Quoting Xtrix
Maybe so, but not to the millions of believers. As far as they’re concerned you’re the one with the problem.
Quoting Xtrix
This is merely your opinion of something you don’t believe exists. Your reducing that belief in the existence in God to some sort of human behavioural attitude so as to reduce its potential of existing and being responsible for the creation of that mind.
It makes no difference what you believe unless you’re refusing the right of others to believe.
I can't say if that "something" exists or not, since no one can tell us what it is.
Also, saying things like "merely your opinion" is so fatuous it's embarrassing. Here, I'll show you: that is merely your opinion that it's my opinion.
What this shows is a deep misunderstanding of what truth is.
How so?
You are treating truth as something else. Hence, you misunderstand the notion.
Quoting Brett
As I said, not to believers.
Quoting Xtrix
That’s your opinion, or truth. It doesn’t really matter which one it is, because you dismiss the reality of God’s existence.
...and there it is; opinion instead of truth.
So is the OP just asking for atheists opinions?
When I refer to truth in this OP I’m always referring the idea that believers believe God is truth or real. It’s not my truth. My point about the non believers is that is their new truth any more reliable than the truth they rejected?
Quoting Xtrix
How do we classify this statement?
So is "the knife is sharp".
Quoting Brett
You left out:
Quoting Xtrix
You are attempting to ask how a weird use of "truth" in a particular context works in a different context - you are taking the use outside of the language game which is its home. It ceases to be useful. It becomes nonsense.
Quoting Xtrix
So are you saying that whatever a believer might think it remains this?
Apply the same argument to Santa Claus. Just as fatuous.
Quoting Brett
I don't dismiss anything until you tell me what it is I'm supposedly denying.
Quoting Xtrix
I’m presuming you’re denying the existence of God.
Quoting Brett
Quoting Banno
Isn’t it true though that the statement by Xtrix is either true or an opinion?
Relevance? Can't poor old @Xtrix have true opinions?
Quoting Brett
No; I'm saying that the way you are using "truth" has no application outside of religious talk. And precious little in it.
Quoting Banno
What’s a true opinion?
Quoting Banno
So is this what you disagree with? I can’t go from using the word truth in a religious context to using it outside of religion?
A true belief.
Quoting Brett
No; you cannot expect the word to be used in the same way in both contexts. Hence, your OP question is senseless.
Quoting Banno
Okay. I agree there. Is that the same for believers in God’s existence?
If you read it very carefully asked what truths about god have to be replaced, not what should replace god.
Quoting Brett
It’s possible there’s something very wrong with my post. But as yet I can’t see it.
I don’t think that I’m referring to “truths” about God, whatever that means. I’m referring to the idea of believers that God exists, something that is true to them. Can we at least look at the sentence by itself to start? Is that a truth to believers?
That is an understatement.
Quoting Brett
That is why I asked for more information about what you were actually talking about, because I don't know what you think.
Both atheists, those that do not believe a god exists, and theists, those that believe on does exist, have their opinion about it. They might consider it to be true but neither has any proof to back up their opinion. The main difference between atheists and theists is that there are so many "one true gods" that it is impossible for them to all be true whereas the atheists have only one true concept.
Quoting Sir2u
Okay. Let me be clearer. I was not referring to “truths” about God. I was referring to the idea that God exists exists for believers.
So the answer is yes, for them it is true that a god exists. But for me it is true that he doesn't. Go figure.
Quoting Sir2u
Which is that God doesn’t exist. Is that the sum total of what has replaced that original belief in God’s existence? What else do they think as a result of repudiating that belief?
Quoting Sir2u
So I’m talking to an atheist here?
Quoting Sir2u
Which is part of my point. As an atheist you have no proof that God does not exist. So why do you believe that to be true?
Anything that is referred to as a god does not exist, I am not going to worry about which one.
Quoting Brett
If there is no original belief in a god then nothing has to be replaced, not all atheist are converts to atheism.
Quoting Brett
They don't think anything because they have not repudiated anything. Have lost nothing means that nothing to replace.
Quoting Brett
Does it make any difference? From what I remember you asked us specifically for responses.
Quoting Brett
After you tell me why you believe there is one. It should be easier for you to prove the existence of something existent that for me to prove the non-existence of something.
You might make more sense if you learn to read a whole post before responding to anything instead of doing it bit by bit. It is also bloody annoying having to read so many posts made in reply to one post of mine.
Quoting Sir2u
If you read my posts you’d have seen that I neither believe or disbelieve.
So I'm talking to an agnostic here then?
What did you replace the truths about the existence of god with then?
Quoting Sir2u
This is something I’d like to know. Those atheists who feel they’ve been aetheists for as long as they can remember, I.e. they did not need to repudiate God, did they, sometime, decide that the idea that God exists is false, or do they just not care? How did they establish that something doesn’t exist that they never believed existed in the first place. Or are they just saying believers don’t know enough to say God exists?
Quoting Sir2u
What? How could I replace something I never thought existed?
Which is what I have been saying, I never thought it existed either so there is nothing to replace.
Most atheist don't think gods exist either.
Which brings us to the end of another pointless non discussion on god.
And please learn to post properly before starting more threads, explain exactly what you are talking about and give the definitions and info needed for people to be able to reply properly.
Quoting Sir2u
Fine, then you’re not a believer who repudiated God, so my question doesn’t apply to you.
Quoting Sir2u
Really? Someone on a philosophy forum needs a definition for atheist?
Quoting Brett
You might have missed this.
This is an oddly worded sentence. There is the assumption of replacement. So I am going to make a few assumptions here. Usually belief in God entails
1. Purpose and
2. Morality
Are you asking what atheists replace those two things with if they don't believe in a God? Or is there something different you would like to add?
Quoting Philosophim
Yes.
A fantastic question then. Some atheists don't understand why people stay religious, even though "rationality" reveals the lack of evidence for the truth of the religious tenants. I do not view people who hold religion as lacking rationality, as many are good people who want to hold onto morals and a purpose in life. Good people will often hold onto morals and purpose in life, even if there are some underlying rational questions they have not answered.
And on the flip side, I hope you don't view atheists as "rational" but bad people who reject purpose and morality. The reason I started philosophy many years ago was to answer the questions of God, knowledge, and morality. Why are we here? What's it all for?
My conclusion after all these years is that we are a part of the existence all around us. Instead of a void, there are things. Life and non life are all jumbled together into this beautiful set of physical and chemical interactions that make something, over there being nothing.
We are parts of existence that have gained the gift or curse of realizing what we are. Of getting to see reality in a way beyond ourselves. Of being able to imagine a reality of what the world can be, and shape it. In this journey, you either come to appreciate it and love it, or resent it and reject it. The path to heaven or hell. Some people resent other existence. Try to tear it down if its beautiful. Some resent themselves. Some hate it all. They have seen the world, they see it as an abyss, and wish all of it would end.
Others, like myself, see the beauty of it all. We are amazed by the complexity. We love seeing other people live out their passions and dreams. We love the struggle of being able to live out our own passions and dreams. We go along our way, understanding we're all in this existence together, working, laughing, dreaming, and one day dying. So we make the best of the time we have. We help others have an easier and happier day. We do pursue our own dreams, but we try to elevate others along the way, not crush them.
When there is a God, you realize you have a choice. But your purpose is made for you, and you are set to follow that, or reject that. When there is no God, you realize you have a choice. But you make your own purpose. You are truly free, and you realize the ramifications of what you do are immediate, and not in the future. If I make fun of of a person I don't like so that they feel hurt, there will be no consequence in the afterlife. No reward or punishment. I will have to live with the fact I made another human being like me suffer for my own selfishness. Do I want to live like that? No.
The consequences of life become clear. There is no reward or punishment waiting on the other side. But was that why you wanted to be a moral person originally? Or did you want to be a moral person because it was right? That it made the world a better place? So instead of paving the way for the afterlife, you pave the way for today and tomorrow. Suffering needs to be ended now, as there may not be a later. There is no God who will come along and save people, so you need to do it yourself. It puts moral decisions in very real and stark terms. You understand there is a time limit, so you get things done.
Can a religious person arrive at these conclusions and do these things too? Yes. Some people cannot live in a positive way without the idea of a God or afterlife existing. They need a structure, and people telling them what to do. There is no shame in this, as we are a social race that also craves unity, family, and belongingness. Some people live their life better with atheism, but I also believe some people live their life better with religion.
So in the end, if you do not have the existence of another being dictating your purpose, then you dictate your own purpose. You obtain pure freedom, and the responsibility that goes along with that freedom. I hope that answers your question.
Right -- and "God" hasn't been explained yet. So you might as well be saying I am denying X. Maybe I am, maybe I'm not -- we can't know until you tell us what X is. You're talking as if X is the most well understood entity in the world -- it isn't. Which is what I've said from the beginning.
All this proves is that you've grown up believing in a word you don't understand. If you want to explain what it is, then do so -- otherwise you're wasting everyone's time. If God is nature, I believe in it. If God is love, I believe in it. If God is a supernatural humanoid sky father, I see no evidence to believe in that. If God is anything we can't understand, then I believe in that too. Etc. etc.
Hindus really believe in Brahman and Shiva. Are these truths to you, or do they have no validity? If not, what have you replaced them with?
Quoting Brett
The Easter bunny exists for some believers. Ectoplasm exists for some believers. Who cares? The only reason you're asking this question is because we happen to be living in the Christian West, which takes the word "God" seriously, as if it's something everyone knows. I'm sure Hindus ask the same thing about non-believers in Hinduism.
This is a dead end.
No, I think I corrected you on the incorrect definition you were using. What I meant was the definition of truth that you were using incorrectly, as others also pointed out.
And do try to put all of your answers in one post, you do not earn extra points for all of the unnecessary post. You just look childish trying to up the number of posts you have next to your name.
Quoting Xtrix
I agree. I am out of here too.
Quoting Sir2u
If I’ve given a definition of truth on this OP then I’d be happy to see it.
You did not give a definition of how your were using the word, that is exactly what I and others have said. Jeez, do not bother answering. :shade:
You need to give me the definition of truth I was using incorrectly. Actually in using the word “truth” I was talking about how others use it. I can’t define that, only that they believe, for instance, that God is a truth. I can’t take responsibility for their usage or explain it. I’ve never referred to my idea of truth so I’m unable to define it correctly.
Edit: maybe it’s unclear but my posts are really asking what is truth?
Quoting Xtrix
I don’t know how to make this any clearer. I am not defining God, I am not saying I believe in God. I am referring to a God that believers believe in. That can be any God. I gave some idea of this perception of God with a Stanford reference. What else can I do if I don’t believe myself? So I haven’t grown up believing in a word I don’t understand, because I don’t believe.
Edit: that should be “I don’t know” if God exists.
Thanks for your thoughtful post.
I’m assuming there are many ways of living within an idea of God. Protestants seem to believe we are permanently damned in this life because of original sin. So we have no free will. Catholics believe that Baptism frees one from that sin and so despite believing in God they have free will.
I have no reason to believe the morality of a believer is any different from an atheist. I think we are ethical creatures. Whether we believe in a God or not we still seem to find value in unity, family and belongingness. It may be because of God or it may be that those qualities contributed towards our success at survival in evolutionary terms. It doesn’t really matter, the results are the same.
We have free will whether we believe in God or not (The Protestant story aside) and we live with the consequences. And we seem to do more right than wrong. No side can be blamed more than the other for the calamities we find ourselves facing.
It seems to me we are the same people whether a believer or not.
So going back to my question, what exactly is it that atheists have chosen over being a believer? It seems to me the “truths” they believe in are the same as the believers.
Quoting tim wood
Thanks for the effort there.
This is essentially what I’m trying to get at. What has the atheist exchanged for their belief in Gods and God’s word except another theology? But unless one is without any sense of ethics and morality then they are essentially still believing in the same thing they did previously except there is no cause.
I believe I attempted to answer that question, but to sum it up succinctly, believers are under the impression that there is a greater power. Atheists don't believe there is a greater power. Morality and purpose is given to a believer, while morality and purpose have to be determined by an atheist. Is there something else beyond this you are curious about?
Who let the dogs out? Not only do I have no idea, I am reconciled to the fact that I will live out the rest of my life and die without ever knowing who let the dogs out. I simply add that to the list of absurd nonsensical questions that people post on the forum
I acknowledge that I will never understand life's mysteries. Are you saying that my acknowledgment of my limitations is a "theology"?
What do you care what they say they believe in? Do you care what Hindus believe in? One calls this amorphous thing "God," the other calls it "Brahman," etc. Who knows what they mean by these terms?
Quoting Brett
It can be any THING at all. So you're essentially saying "it can be any X." Some mean they believe in "love" or "nature" or the "unknowable"...and on and on. So what? Until we know what we're talking about, how can we possibly talk about it in any meaningful way? Maybe we believe, maybe we don't. Maybe we want to "replace" it with something, maybe we don't.
Again, this isn't even a coherent question. It's just a dead end.
Quoting Philosophim
Yes. It seems to me that the morality and purpose given to a believer and the morality and purpose that has to be determined by an atheist are the same. The atheist who believes in God lived by a set of morals they received through teachings or family or church. Then for some reason they rejected the existence of God. Now I don’t know what it is to believe in God, but I assume your idea of purpose and morality is essentially what a Christian God is all about. So they reject everything about God, existence and teachings. Total rejection, annihilation.
Then they seek and determine their own purpose and morals through their own efforts. And what they find, it seems to me, is exactly the same thing, but they believe they found this through their own independent efforts. Maybe it’s true that they have.
Presumably there are no atheists on this forum. But I’m curious to know what they feel they’ve achieved in rejecting God and forming their own sense of morality which turns out to be not much different than what they already had. This includes choosing to commit crimes, choosing to go against social mores, or whatever. They were always free to do that anyway.
Edit: so why choose atheism?
Quoting tim wood
First of all I’m not a member of any church and my ideas of God in this discussion are what others propose or live by. Quoting tim wood
This suggests they were not a moral/ethical person when they believed in God.
I feel there is, on this forum, a real inability to discuss God, or a refusal to consider any post that mentions God and instead we get this rabid, bullying tone, for what purpose I have no idea.
Quoting tim wood
Of course there is no single precise definition of the word, but there is universal agreement that it has to do with the religion / God / etc.
From WIkipedia: "Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. "
From Britannica: "Theology, philosophically oriented discipline of religious speculation and apologetics that is traditionally restricted, because of its origins and format, to Christianity but that may also encompass, because of its themes, other religions, including especially Islam and Judaism. The themes of theology include God, humanity, the world, salvation, and eschatology (the study of last times)."
I could go on and on. Search the phrase "definition of theology" and you get 2,200,000 hits.
None of the standard definitions remotely fits my thinking.
- - - - - - - -
This exchange reminds me of conversations I had with the now banned Frank Apisa - he had his own, umm, unique definition of the word "God" - which resulted in pointless looping back & forth debates.
But look. If expanding the definition of the word "theology" to include the position that the whole subject is incoherent - if that rocks your boat? Then go for it. If you could get all the theologians (or people who consider themselves to be theologians) to buy into your definition? That would be a most impressive achievement.
Quoting Xtrix
I find it highly unlikely that you don’t know what they mean by those terms. You might not understand it but you know what they mean. If you think the Stanford reference is not good enough then say so.
Quoting tim wood
Quote me instances of my apparent beliefs about God.
Quoting tim wood
Why can’t I discuss God without believing in God? And once again how can I define something I don’t believe in? I’ve given an example of the general idea of God from a Stanford website. If I did give a definition you would then refute it as subjective.
Quoting tim wood
Of course it says something about what they believe.
Quoting tim wood
So then you’re an atheist?
I haven't replaced them with anything. I was born an atheist like everyone else. There was nothing to replace.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
That’s interesting. What does it mean: that you didn’t know there was a God or you repudiated God’s existence at an early age?
It also suggests that one can only think of God and God’s existence if they have been taught it.
It means that I had no notion of
Quoting Brett
to replace with something else. Same as everybody.
I don’t think you can be born an atheist. An atheist is someone who repudiates the existence of God. I don’t know why or how you could repudiate the existence of something you’re unaware of. Simply been unaware of the idea of God doesn’t make you an atheist.
That's called strong atheism. There is also weak atheism, atheism by default if you like.
It’s an interesting theory but it doesn’t contribute much towards my equity. When you realised there was some idea out there about God how did you respond?
Really, being ignorant of something is a long way from repudiating something.
Quoting Brett
No, it sounds like you've never been part of a religion before. I do not believe I have to keep holy on the sabbath day. I do not believe in condemning people who are gay. I do not believe in spreading the gospel of Jesus. I do not believe the Israelites are God's chosen. I do not believe that there is life after death.
There are also far more religions than Christianity. If I were a Muslim, I would not need to keep the pillars anymore. I would not need to visit Mecah. I would not believe that Mahamud is the prophet.
Remember how I stated religion tells you what morality is, while atheism means you have to determine it yourself? There are many conclusions that are drawn differently. I even noted that some atheists conclude there is no morality, and believe there is no purpose in life.
Does this clarify the difference?
My family had a sort of weird religious background. No one was devout. My maternal grandmother was raised an Irish Catholic, my grandfather a Protestant. My grandfather decided to switch to Mormonism at some point and wanted to move to Utah, most likely for the polygamy :rofl: My school was very non-denominational Christian. We prayed every day, sang hymns, etc. We were taught that God put dinosaur bones in the ground to test us.
Despite this, or perhaps because of its inconsistency, I never thought of it as anything different from Aesop's fables, HCA's fairy tales, or my Superman comics. I recall the local Mormon Elders asking me if I said my prayers, to which I said yes because I said them at school.
The first time I realised anyone took it at all seriously was when I was 11 and my class was being visited by prefects from "the big school". My best friend asked me to say, if asked, that he wasn't religious. I asked what the fuck he was talking about and he told me that he believed in God. That blew my mind. It's something I've never really got my head around since. I get the tradition and mythology and ceremony and community aspects, but to actually believe in it as fact has never made any sense to me, sometimes to the extent that I suspect you're all lying :rofl:
Quoting Brett
You didn't ask me about repudiation. You asked a question based on the false assumption that everyone has had, at some point, some belief in God that they have had to replace with another belief.
I have no idea, and neither do you. Who's "they"? Christians? Which ones? Protestants? Catholics? Which denomination? Maybe it's "god" as a kind of sky father -- fine, let's go with that one as a kind of "average." What about it? What reason is there to believe in it? What reason is there to believe in Wodin?
Who cares?