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Atheism vs (ignosticism, theological noncognitivism, igtheism)

Igtheism

Rdwin McCravy
Igtheism
Would you also say "For myself personally, I don't say that "Bliffle exists" can't have meaning?" I don't think you would say that, would you?

Jim<<Yes, I would.

Hmm. Well, I assume you mean that you can't be sure that some people haven't coined "Bliffle", and that it refers to some technical term in some realm of technology with which you have never heard of. But you wouldn't put any money on that being the case. Is that right? Then I agree. You're just saying there is no absolute certainty, for our brains could possibly have gone kaput 5 minutes ago and we might only be thinking we're making sense by what we are saying when we aren't. Right?

Do you speak and write rows of letters when you aren't sure whether they are meaningful or not -- as though you believed they are meaningful words?

Jim>>I use the string of letters “God” often, every day, as if it referred to a person, even though I don’t see any way for it to mean anything.<<

Don't you consider it dishonest to speak as though you think you mean something, if you don't mean what you are causing somebody to believe?

[Me previously]: I'll try not to violate the forum rules.

Jim>>The main thing might be to avoid being preachy, and don’t try to turn other people’s conversations into conversations about what you’re saying in this one.<<

I'm trying to stick to atheism vs. (theological noncognitism, igtheism, and ignostic), and WHY I have the stand of lack of belief. I post under the title "igtheism" but I don't know which of those, if any, fits me. Maybe all of them do, maybe none. I don't know what words people have coined. I would guess that most of the English language was coined by Christians, and most wouldn't understand where I stand.

Jim<<<Also, it might be okay to discuss in these forums how to turn people away from some religions outside of the forums, as long as you aren’t actually trying to do it here<<

I think you mean this would be unacceptable for a Christian to post:

"If you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and turn from sin and give your heart and soul to God then you will suffer eternally in Hell".

but preceding and following it with a few qualifying words makes it acceptable, right?:

"IT IS MY BELIEF That if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and turn from sin and give your heart and soul to God then you will suffer eternally in Hell, HOWEVER I AM ONLY TELLING OF MY BELIEF, AND NOT TELLING YOU THAT YOU SHOULD ADOPT IT."

So I should always qualify what I say to make sure I am only speaking of my lack of belief and not suggesting that anybody drop their belief that the row of alphabet letters "God" is meaningful, right?
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
Jim>>I use the string of letters “God” often, every day, as if it referred to a person, even though I don’t see any way for it to mean anything.<<

Don't you consider it dishonest to speak as though you think you mean something, if you don't mean what you are causing somebody to believe?
I use that string of letters in my thinking, and with other people who use it, when I think that it facilitates communication between us. I don’t try to hide from anyone what I really think about it.

If you frame your debate as a debate with atheists, the discussion might get sidetracked into a debate about the meaning of “atheist.” It might be better to start a new thread with a title like this: “God does not exist” vs “‘God’ is nothing but a meaningless string of letters.” A brief description of the positions that you’re opposing to each other, rather than your labels for them, if you don’t want to be sidetracked into a debate about the meaning if “atheist” and whether or not you are one. Then in the first post, describe the opposing positions in more detail, and your reasoning for what you’re saying.
 

Igtheism

Rdwin McCravy
Jim<<No. Sorry.>>
What are you? Same as me? Someone who knows of no reason to believe that "God" is a meaningful word? That's really all anybody can say, if they really examine their heads, right? If you're like me, then we don't know if any of the labels "igtheist", "ignostic", or "theological noncognitivist" have been coined to fit us or not. I'm sure that they were all three coined by Christians or Jews. People don't seem to want to accept that the only thing that we can think of that religion could be based on is language trickery. I guess no atheists on here want their faith that "God" refers to something that does not exist challenged.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
Jim<<No. Sorry.>>
What are you? Same as me? Someone who knows of no reason to believe that "God" is a meaningful word?
That depends on the meaning of “meaningful.” :smiley: I don’t say that I know of no reason to believe that "God" is a meaningful word. What I say is that whenever I’ve tried to answer the question for myself “Do I think that God exists?” I got hopelessly lost in trying to understand what the question is, so I gave up trying to answer that question. I can’t see what anyone could possibly think that they’re communicating when they say “God exIsts.”
 

Igtheism

Rdwin McCravy
Jim>>That depends on the meaning of “meaningful.” :smiley: I don’t say that I know of no reason to believe that "God" is a meaningful word.<<

So you say you unable to think of anything for "God" to mean. We are never perfectly sure that we didn't go totally bonkers 5 minutes ago, and anything we think we know we might be totally wrong about.

Jim>> What I say is that whenever I’ve tried to answer the question for myself “Do I think that God exists?”

If "God" has no meaning then it is not a word. If "God" is not a word, then when placed among words the resulting string cannot be a sentence. So what you're labeling "a question", namely "Do I think that God exists?" may not be a question at all, since it may not even be a sentence. In fact you don't even know how to answer the question "Is that a question?" We can't even know whether we're making any sense at all because we may have gone crazy awhile ago.

jim>>I got hopelessly lost in trying to understand what the question is, so I gave up trying to answer that question.<<

Since you don't even know whether it is a question or not. And it makes no sense to speak of "answering a non-question".

jim>>I can’t see what anyone could possibly think that they’re communicating when they say “God exIsts.”

Sounds like me. Do you have any label for somebody that thinks like you and me? Have you ever asked an atheist why he believes that "God" refers to something that does not exist?
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
So you say you unable to think of anything for "God" to mean.
I’m thinking that when people think or say “God,” associating that with “God” in the Bible, if they’re imagining something that they’re calling “God,” whatever they’re imagining could not possibly be and do everything that the Bible says “God” says and does. When they say “God” exists, they could be imagining something that does not exist, and calling that “God,” even though it can’t be or do what the Bible says “God” is and does; or they could be thinking that the Bible is talking about something that “exists“ when it says “God,” even though there’s no way for anyone to imagine or describe it, to be able to have an opinion about whether or not it exists.
 

rational experiences

Veteran Member
When I apply a spiritual assessment of my conscious perceptions and ask a question like any human can.

"Where did we come from" I never said God.

I said from out of spirit.

Science says that out of spirit was the eternal. Which means what existed before we did....and what allowed us to be released.

I would as a spirit blame God the Earth and its history of being present as a planet and owning its gas spirits for why I came out of spirit as original parent self.

An adult male self or an adult female self....who lived and died...but had sex and had children. So my consciousness, the baby to adult is taught by their memories. And after they died, both of them owned an eternal being.

I learnt that when a scientist talks about the "dead arose" out of ground stone fission reaction, I saw that occurrence when I got irradiated. And it was unholy and evil.

Human spirit memory however says, we came back to life after being deceased, for when Ice cooled the Earth gases, animals came back out of the eternal spirit, and so did the 2 human parents. Came back from spirit after being deceased.

Same aware knowledge, came back from being deceased...but 2 separate and totally different memories.

One is a natural spiritual human memory and the other is an occult irradiation fall out science memory.

What I learnt as a spiritual human.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
@Igtheism I don’t think you’ll ever convince me to say what you want me to say about the character string “God,” but for discussion purposes I’ll say that it’s impossible for anyone to imagine anything that “God“ in the Bible could be referring to. Also, I can’t see what it could possibly mean to say “God created the universe” and “God exists.” That looks like a logical contradiction to me.

I don’t see any of that as a way of convincing anyone not to follow Judaism, Christianity or Islam. You say that some people have been convinced by your arguments that what you’re saying is true. Have you ever seen or heard of anyone being convinced by your arguments not to follow Judaism, Christianity or Islam?

I don’t put any identity label on my views. All I’ve ever seen those do in Internet discussions is make it impossible for people to understand each other.
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
Jim>> What I say is that whenever I’ve tried to answer the question for myself “Do I think that God exists?”

jim>>I got hopelessly lost in trying to understand what the question is, so I gave up trying to answer that question.<<

Since you don't even know whether it is a question or not.
Right. I like that way of saying it. I don’t see any way for it to actually be a question. If there’s any way for it to be an actual question, I’m not seeing it.
 

Igtheism

Rdwin McCravy
Jim>>>I’m thinking that when people think or say “God,” associating that with “God” in the Bible, if they’re imagining something that they’re calling “God,” whatever they’re imagining could not possibly be and do everything that the Bible says “God” says and does.<<

You seem to realize just what I realize about Christianity. Atheists don't realize this. Christians see atheism as a belief, not as a lack of belief. Atheism is the belief that "God" is like "unicorn", a meaningful label for something that does not exist. But with you and me, "God" is not at all like "unicorn", but like "Zeebik", a row of letters that nobody seems to know of anything that it could refer to.

Jim>>>When thy say “God” exists, they could be imagining something that does not exist, and calling that “God,” even though it can’t be or do what the Bible says “God” is and does; or they could be thinking that the Bible is talking about something that “exists“ when it says “God,” even though there’s no way for anyone to imagine or describe it, to be able to have an opinion about whether or not it exists.<<

I was raised a Christian, and what I did when I heard, read or spoke "God", was to imagine the human Jesus that I'd seen in the paintings. I did not believe that the finite-sized flesh and bones human that I was imagining was anything that was being spoken about, but for a long time that satisfied me and I didn't question.

There are other rows of letters that they speak and write, such as "spirit", "soul", "divine", and "holy", that I have no idea of anything they could be used for.

One thing that has occurred to me about this way of thinking. I never ask

"What does this word mean?"

without having the thought hit me that what I'm really asking is this:

"Why did some humans of old put this row of letters together? What, if anything, did they have in mind for it to be used for?"

I'd like to ask you to read and comment on this short article written by a Catholic priest, Father Ronald Rolheiser. He seems to think like you and me, yet he is a devout Christian! Does that seem possible?

The Ineffability of God | Ron Rolheiser

When Rolheiser says "God is ineffable", he seems to be realizing that you and I are right, but somehow he must be thinking that the row of letters "God" magically took on meaning all by itself with no help from humans. He doesn't believe that any humans are able to imagine anything for the row of letters "God" to mean. So he must believe that the row of letters became meaningful somehow. It's really amazing to me that he could have come this close to our way of thinking and yet still be a devout Christian. What's your take on it?
 

Jim

Nets of Wonder
... with you and me, "God" is not at all like "unicorn", but like "Zeebik", a row of letters that nobody seems to know of anything that it could refer to.
For me, “God” and “Zeebik” are alike in that way, but different in some others. I use “God” often, every day, in my thinking, but I wouldn’t have any idea how to use “Zeebik,” or any reason to learn.
I'd like to ask you to read and comment on this short article written by a Catholic priest, Father Ronald Rolheiser. He seems to think like you and me, yet he is a devout Christian! Does that seem possible?

The Ineffability of God | Ron Rolheiser

When Rolheiser says "God is ineffable", he seems to be realizing that you and I are right, but somehow he must be thinking that the row of letters "God" magically took on meaning all by itself with no help from humans. He doesn't believe that any humans are able to imagine anything for the row of letters "God" to mean. So he must believe that the row of letters became meaningful somehow. It's really amazing to me that he could have come this close to our way of thinking and yet still be a devout Christian. What's your take on it?
He’s still using “God” as if it refers to something. He says “God is still real, still there,” Besides that, he might be using “is,” “real,” and “there” without having any idea what they could possibly mean in that context. Diverting attention with one hand while a card slips into the other from his sleeve.

Incidentally, when I wrote that, I had nothing In mind that “hand,” “card” and “sleeve” could be referring to.
 
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Jim

Nets of Wonder
He seems to think like you and me, yet he is a devout Christian! Does that seem possible?
It doesn’t surprise me at all. I don’t see how it would be possible for anyone with any training in theology to think that it would ever be possible for anyone to imagine anything that “God” in the Bible could be referring to, to be able to say that it exists or does not exist.
 
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Jim

Nets of Wonder
@Igtheism I want to go back to what is the point of all this. If it’s to convince people who want to discredit Judaism, Christianity, and Islam that your way of thinking is better than theirs, for that purpose, I’d like to know if you’ve ever actually seen it working for that purpose. If it’s just to try to convince them that your way of thinking is true, without any other aim or purpose beyond that, then I would recommend starting a new thread, with a title and an opening post that make that more clear, For example;
Title: “‘God‘ is meaningless“ vs “God does not exist,”

Opening post: My argument is that the string of letters “God” with a capital “G,” as it is used by people who equate that with the same string “God“ in the Bible, isn’t referring to anything that can exist or not exist. The true argument against people saying “God exists,” is not “God does not exist.” The true argument against that is that “God exists” is a meaningless string of letters and a space, that looks like a statement but isn’t.
 
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Jim

Nets of Wonder
@Igtheism I agree that no one could be imagining anything that “God” could be referring to. If that’s a reason to say that “God” is meaningless, that makes “the,” “for,” “if,” “by,” and I’m thinking a multitude of other words that you use many times a day, meaningless also.
 

Igtheism

Rdwin McCravy
Hi, Jim. Language is a tool that humans invented thousands of years ago to cause one person, a speaker or writer, to cause another person, the listener or reader, to think of what the speaker is thinking of that he wants the listener to think of too. The idea is for the speaker to use language to inform the listener. Language is our substitute for mental telepathy. Little words like articles ("a", "an", and "the"), prepositions ("for", "if" and "by"), conjunctions ("and", "or", "but") are not meaningless. They just help us 'point' and substitute for 'playing charades'. Have you ever tried to communicate with someone who doesn't speak English, like some Mexican workers? How do you communicate with them? You 'play charades', i.e., point and make motions with your hands to take the place of words.

The main words are the nouns (names for things) and the verbs (action words). The world is a bunch of chunks of matter moving through space. If you think about it, when we talk or write we're just telling other people what chunks of matter have moved and in what way they have moved. Even if we talk about our emotions and feelings, we are talking about something going on within our bodies that we are detecting -- some chunks of matter moving around through space. Everything is material and physical. Even when we use our brains to think, it's just a bunch of neurons in our brain moving around in certain ways. Matter (and energy like light, heat and radiation) is never still, but is always moving. Even if we think something isn't moving, we're wrong(!), because the earth is turning on its axis and orbiting the sun constantly, and even the whole solar system and Milky Way galaxy are moving through space. And even things we say are 'still' are moving right along with it all. So all there is -- is STUFF MOVING! lol Can you think of anything that can't be analyzed down to "stuff moving"? I can't.
 

Igtheism

Rdwin McCravy
Are you happy with the world being so religious, with all the wars and suffering it has caused? Certainly you know that 9/11 and all Muslim terrorism to date is caused by religion.

Unfortunately many Christians don't believe that Hitler and the Nazis were Christians. They are very wrong about that and need to know better. During WW2 nearly all Germans were either Catholic or Lutheran. I am pretty sure they justified killing Jews because Jews had the blood of Jesus on their hands. Hitler said in his book "Mein Kampf":

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord"

What started the hatred of Jews in Germany? Many, including me, suspect that Martin Luther, a German, started it.

Back in the 16th century, he published "On the Jews and Their Lies," in which he said the Jews were "base and whoring people" full of the "devil's feces . . . they wallow in like swine.". I really suspect Martin Luther was the creator of German anti-Semitism, which finally resulted in the Holocaust.

Christians in this country justified slavery because of they were the sons of Ham. Google "Hamiticised Negroes". The Bible speaks of condemnation of people because of the bad behavior of an ancestor. In fact, Christianity preaches that we are all born "in sin" because Eve, and later Adam, picked some fruit off the wrong tree, and so a savior had to die in our place so we don't have to go burn forever in Hell. We are supposedly the descendants of "sinners" Adam and Eve, so we "inherited their sin". Religion has taught that! Religion has taught that black people inherited the curse of Ham. Religion has taught that Jews inherited the sin of killing the Christian savior.

Anyway, If you have no interest in any movement to get rid of any religious beliefs, then it's true you have nothing to say. But if you're interested in keeping a movement going which may eventually rid the world of religion, then you do. They may kick me off here for saying that, and if so my email address is mccravyedwin at gmail dot com. Write me.
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
Are you happy with the world being so religious, with all the wars and suffering it has caused? Certainly you know that 9/11 and all Muslim terrorism to date is caused by religion.

Unfortunately many Christians don't believe that Hitler and the Nazis were Christians. They are very wrong about that and need to know better. During WW2 nearly all Germans were either Catholic or Lutheran. I am pretty sure they justified killing Jews because Jews had the blood of Jesus on their hands. Hitler said in his book "Mein Kampf":

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord"

What started the hatred of Jews in Germany? Many, including me, suspect that Martin Luther, a German, started it.

Back in the 16th century, he published "On the Jews and Their Lies," in which he said the Jews were "base and whoring people" full of the "devil's feces . . . they wallow in like swine.". I really suspect Martin Luther was the creator of German anti-Semitism, which finally resulted in the Holocaust.

Christians in this country justified slavery because of they were the sons of Ham. Google "Hamiticised Negroes". The Bible speaks of condemnation of people because of the bad behavior of an ancestor. In fact, Christianity preaches that we are all born "in sin" because Eve, and later Adam, picked some fruit off the wrong tree, and so a savior had to die in our place so we don't have to go burn forever in Hell. We are supposedly the descendants of "sinners" Adam and Eve, so we "inherited their sin". Religion has taught that! Religion has taught that black people inherited the curse of Ham. Religion has taught that Jews inherited the sin of killing the Christian savior.

Anyway, If you have no interest in any movement to get rid of any religious beliefs, then it's true you have nothing to say. But if you're interested in keeping a movement going which may eventually rid the world of religion, then you do. They may kick me off here for saying that, and if so my email address is mccravyedwin at gmail dot com. Write me.
If you are so much against religion or religious people, why are you in a religious forum then?
 

Igtheism

Rdwin McCravy
I'm in a religious forum because of my interest in religion. I'm not against religious people. I'm not against non-fundamental and evangelical denominations, just denomination that preach hellfire and damnation. You never hear anything from Methodist and Episcopalian pulpits about hellfire and damnation. To them, "serving God" just means "being moral and kind", and I'm all for that. Churches are great family clubs.
 
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