Atheism vs (ignosticism, theological noncognitivism, igtheism)

[Igtheism]

Jim>>I don’t think that’s what “atheism” means now, today, to all the people who call themselves “atheists,” in Internet discussions. Maybe not anywhere.<<

Interesting. So, Jim, what do YOU say "atheism" means today? If you say as most atheists do "Atheism is the belief that no gods exist", then what about the sun? Sun worshipers worship the sun. That makes the sun a god. By definition, a god is something worshiped, right? You don't have to worship it yourself for it to be a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god, right? Not one that you worship, but still a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god and the sun is an existent god. If somebody worships the sun, then the sun is a god, right? And the sun exists. So atheists can't say they don't believe any gods exist if they believe the sun exists.

But my claim is that no one can give a meaningful definition for "God". Do you agree?

 

[Igtheism]

Jim>>I don’t think that’s what “atheism” means now, today, to all the people who call themselves “atheists,” in Internet discussions. Maybe not anywhere.<<

Interesting. So, Jim, what do YOU say "atheism" means today? If you say as most atheists do "Atheism is the belief that no gods exist", then what about the sun? Sun worshipers worship the sun. That makes the sun a god. By definition, a god is something worshiped, right? You don't have to worship it yourself for it to be a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god, right? Not one that you worship, but still a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god and the sun is an existent god. If somebody worships the sun, then the sun is a god, right? And the sun exists. So atheists can't say they don't believe any gods exist if they believe the sun exists.

But my claim is that no one can give a meaningful definition for "God". Do you agree?

 

[Igtheism]

Jim>>I don’t think that’s what “atheism” means now, today, to all the people who call themselves “atheists,” in Internet discussions. Maybe not anywhere.<<

Interesting. So, Jim, what do YOU say "atheism" means today? If you say as most atheists do "Atheism is the belief that no gods exist", then what about the sun? Sun worshipers worship the sun. That makes the sun a god. By definition, a god is something worshiped, right? You don't have to worship it yourself for it to be a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god, right? Not one that you worship, but still a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god and the sun is an existent god. If somebody worships the sun, then the sun is a god, right? And the sun exists. So atheists can't say they don't believe any gods exist if they believe the sun exists.

But my claim is that no one can give a meaningful definition for "God". Do you agree?

 

[Igtheism]

Jim>>I don’t think that’s what “atheism” means now, today, to all the people who call themselves “atheists,” in Internet discussions. Maybe not anywhere.<<

Interesting. So, Jim, what do YOU say "atheism" means today? If you say as most atheists do "Atheism is the belief that no gods exist", then what about the sun? Sun worshipers worship the sun. That makes the sun a god. By definition, a god is something worshiped, right? You don't have to worship it yourself for it to be a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god, right? Not one that you worship, but still a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god and the sun is an existent god. If somebody worships the sun, then the sun is a god, right? And the sun exists. So atheists can't say they don't believe any gods exist if they believe the sun exists.

But my claim is that no one can give a meaningful definition for "God". Do you agree?

 

[Igtheism]

Jim>>I don’t think that’s what “atheism” means now, today, to all the people who call themselves “atheists,” in Internet discussions. Maybe not anywhere.<<

Interesting. So, Jim, what do YOU say "atheism" means today? If you say as most atheists do "Atheism is the belief that no gods exist", then what about the sun? Sun worshipers worship the sun. That makes the sun a god. By definition, a god is something worshiped, right? You don't have to worship it yourself for it to be a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god, right? Not one that you worship, but still a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god and the sun is an existent god. If somebody worships the sun, then the sun is a god, right? And the sun exists. So atheists can't say they don't believe any gods exist if they believe the sun exists.

But my claim is that no one can give a meaningful definition for "God". Do you agree?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Jim>>I don’t think that’s what “atheism” means now, today, to all the people who call themselves “atheists,” in Internet discussions. Maybe not anywhere.<<

Interesting. So, Jim, what do YOU say "atheism" means today? If you say as most atheists do "Atheism is the belief that no gods exist", then what about the sun? Sun worshipers worship the sun. That makes the sun a god. By definition, a god is something worshiped, right? You don't have to worship it yourself for it to be a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god, right? Not one that you worship, but still a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god and the sun is an existent god. If somebody worships the sun, then the sun is a god, right? And the sun exists. So atheists can't say they don't believe any gods exist if they believe the sun exists.

But my claim is that no one can give a meaningful definition for "God". Do you agree?

Could you please stop posting multiple copies of your posts? You only need to hit the "post reply" button once.

 

[blü 2]

Christians, Jews, and Muslims believe that "God", "Yahweh" or "Allah" refers to something that exists.

Atheists believe that "God", "Yahweh" or "Allah" refers to something that does not exist.

I have no doubt that gods exist as things imagined.

(It's often said that God exists as a supernatural, or spiritual, or divine, or immaterial being. No test can distinguish the supernatural, the spiritual, the divine or the immaterial from the imaginary.)

The question, therefore is whether any god exists who has objective existence, that is, can be found in the world external to the self, also called nature, also called the realm of the physical sciences.

Ignostics, theological noncognitivists, and igtheists do not believe that "God", "Yahweh" or "Allah" refers to anything that exists OR ANYTHING THAT DOES NOT EXIST! In other words, to say "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" is equivalent to saying "Zod", "Vahweh", and "Xallah", i.e., meaningless utterances.

I don't see that as the crux of the matter.

Rather, the point is that no Abrahamic religion (nor any other that I'm aware of) has a definition / description of a real god such that if we found a real candidate we could determine whether it were God (or, a god) or not.

So, for example, I can determine that this keyboard I'm typing on is not a panda, not light in the orange part of the spectrum, not a lump of quartzite, even that it's not a unicorn. But I can't determine whether it's God or not.

That's to say, there's no coherent concept of a real god, one with objective existence, one not imaginary.

Equally, there's no coherent concept of "godness", the quality that a real God would have and a real superscientist who could make universes, raise the dead, travel in time &c would lack.

That raises the question, why would you worship a superscientist?

And the further question, why would you not instead be giving utmost priority in finding out what out what the superscientist knows that you don't.

 

[Heyo]

Jim>>I don’t think that’s what “atheism” means now, today, to all the people who call themselves “atheists,” in Internet discussions. Maybe not anywhere.<<

Interesting. So, Jim, what do YOU say "atheism" means today? If you say as most atheists do "Atheism is the belief that no gods exist", then what about the sun? Sun worshipers worship the sun. That makes the sun a god. By definition, a god is something worshiped, right? You don't have to worship it yourself for it to be a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god, right? Not one that you worship, but still a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god and the sun is an existent god. If somebody worships the sun, then the sun is a god, right? And the sun exists. So atheists can't say they don't believe any gods exist if they believe the sun exists.

But my claim is that no one can give a meaningful definition for "God". Do you agree?

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[IndigoChild5559]

Noun. ignosticism (uncountable) The philosophical position that the question of the existence of God is meaningless, because the term "god" has no coherent and unambiguous definition. It may also be described as the theological position that other theological positions assume too much about the concept of god.

The position of ignosticism doesn't hold water. For example, the term "consciousness" also has not coherent and unambiguous definition, but no one questions that we are conscious.

 

[Heyo]

The position of ignosticism doesn't hold water. For example, the term "consciousness" also has not coherent and unambiguous definition, but no one questions that we are conscious.

Well, Daniel Dennett does. He thinks that consciousness is an illusion, just like Free Will.
And consciousness is similar to gods as everyone thinks s/he knows what it is but no two people can agree on a definition.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

TagliatelliMonster>>Sounds like rather pointless semantics.<<

Sound like you haven't thought it through that "God" is meaningless and there is nothing for you or anybody to believe or disbelieve labeled "God", as Christians use it. Why do you believe there is something existent or nonexistent to believe in labeled "God"?

Because people make claims about it and invoke it as a thing.

Is it pure blind faith, or can you give a meaningful definition for "God".

Theists define what they mean by "god". I merely respond to it. It's not my claim.

Sure. My claim is about YOU. I claim that YOU, TagliatelliMonster, like me, know of nothing that "God" means.

Pretty pointless claim.

You've proved it so far by giving no meaningful definition for "God". Can you? I don't think so.

It's not my job to define entities that other people claim exist.
It's upto them to define the entities they wish to make claims about.

Again, I'm just responding to the claims of theists.

But my answer is "YES", unless you can give a meaningful definition for "God". I claim you can't.

Your claim is correct. I'm not the one invoking such entities, so why would I have to define them?

Then you can't shrug your shoulders, for I will have proved my claim that YOU, TagliatelliMonster, cannot give a meaningful definition for "God", as Christians use it -- unless you can give one. Can you?

I still shrugh my shoulders because I have no interest in trying to define things I don't even believe to be real or of which I'm not making any claims.

It's not my claim. It's the theist's claim. Upto the theist to define the things they are claiming to be real.
Again, I'm just responding to claims made by others. Why would I have to define the things that THEY are making claims about?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

If you say as most atheists do "Atheism is the belief that no gods exist",

That is not at all what "most atheists say".

What most atheists say is that atheism is a disbelief of the claim that a god exists.

Do you understand the difference?

then what about the sun? Sun worshipers worship the sun. That makes the sun a god.

Myeah.... I just call it the sun.
So what about sun worshippers?

By definition, a god is something worshiped, right?

I don't know. Is it?
I'm pretty sure the Greek Pantheon for example had a number of gods that weren't to be worshipped.... and which were actually seen as the enemy.

In christianity there is satan. Satan isn't a god. Yet there are satan worshippers. So clearly worship is not what defines a thing a god.

You don't have to worship it yourself for it to be a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god, right? Not one that you worship, but still a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god and the sun is an existent god. If somebody worships the sun, then the sun is a god, right? And the sun exists. So atheists can't say they don't believe any gods exist if they believe the sun exists.

"do you believe gooblobobblybiibo is real? no? but it's a pencil, you do believe pencils are real right? Yes? So there, then you believe gooblobobblybiibo is real! CHECK MATE A-gooblobobblybiibo-IST!!!!"

I don't you could make a more semantic argument. I mean, you could certainly try, but I doubt you'ld be succesfull...

But my claim is that no one can give a meaningful definition for "God". Do you agree?

Yes.
It's kind of hard to give meaningfull definitions of undetectable, undemonstrable, unfalsifiable entities. It's also kind of hard to distinguish such things from the non-existant.

Take a hint.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Could you please stop posting multiple copies of your posts? You only need to hit the "post reply" button once.

@Igtheism and maybe also try to use the quoting function properly.

 

[night912]

I have also heard atheists say "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" can't be meaningless, because then Christians, Jews and Muslims wouldn't be worshiping anything, and we know they do. Atheists think they have defeated me when they ask "What deity do Christians, Jews and Muslims believe in?" My answer to that is "They do not believe in any deity. They only think they do, speak as though they do, and behave as though they do. But they don't."

Atheists didn't defeat you, you defeated yourself. But now comes the questions, if your opponent are atheists and you lost because of your own doing, does that mean that you lost to atheists? So wouldn't that make you being defeated by atheists?

 

[night912]

"You don't have to worship it yourself for it to be a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god, right? Not one that you worship, but still a god. Zeus is a nonexistent god and the sun is an existent god."

What is a nonexistent god? A god that doesn't exist.


"If somebody worships the sun, then the sun is a god, right? And the sun exists. So atheists can't say they don't believe any gods exist if they believe the sun exists."

The sun exists, but the "sun god" does not exist if one does not believe that the sun is a god.

The word, "nonexistent" exists, but that does not mean that "nonexistent" exist. See how word games can also be self defeating?

So if you use word games against atheists and you defeated yourself using your word game, does that mean that atheists defeated you? Yes, because a lost is a lost.

To quote a movie character,

“It doesn’t matter whether you win by an inch or a mile, winning is winning.”

 

[Igtheism]

joe 1776:>>Do you believe that the universe was caused? If so, define the cause for me, please.<<

Why do you think the row of words "X caused the universe" makes any sense, regardless of what you put in there for "X"? I don't know of any reason to believe it is even meaningful at all. That's because I claim that if you are talking without thinking of anything you could be talking about, then you aren't talking about anything at all.

I sure can't think or imagine anything that the row of words "X caused the universe" could be talking about, can you?

I can't so I would not speak or write that row of words, except to put it in quotation marks to quote you or somebody who uttered or wrote it.

People forget that humans made up all words in all languages. No words dropped down from the sky. People made them all up. Think about how we came to learn to use and interpret what the words in our vocabularies mean, particularly the word "cause" and "create". We weren't born knowing any words. We had to learn them all. Think about how we came to learn the word "cause". We learned it by hearing cases of usage of "A caused B" when we knew what A and B meant. We did not learn "cause" from cases of usage "A caused B" when we didn't know anything for A or B to mean. So I can't see how there is any way that "X caused the universe" can make any sense.

If you think it does mean something, what does it mean?

 

[Igtheism]

joe 1776:>>Do you believe that the universe was caused? If so, define the cause for me, please.<<

Why do you think the row of words "X caused the universe" makes any sense, regardless of what you put in there for "X"? I don't know of any reason to believe it is even meaningful at all. That's because I claim that if you are talking without thinking of anything you could be talking about, then you aren't talking about anything at all.

I sure can't think or imagine anything that the row of words "X caused the universe" could be talking about, can you?

I can't so I would not speak or write that row of words, except to put it in quotation marks to quote you or somebody who uttered or wrote it.

People forget that humans made up all words in all languages. No words dropped down from the sky. People made them all up. Think about how we came to learn to use and interpret what the words in our vocabularies mean, particularly the word "cause" and "create". We weren't born knowing any words. We had to learn them all. Think about how we came to learn the word "cause". We learned it by hearing cases of usage of "A caused B" when we knew what A and B meant. We did not learn "cause" from cases of usage "A caused B" when we didn't know anything for A or B to mean. So I can't see how there is any way that "X caused the universe" can make any sense.

If you think it does mean something, what does it mean?

 

[Igtheism]

joe 1776:>>Do you believe that the universe was caused? If so, define the cause for me, please.<<

Why do you think the row of words "X caused the universe" makes any sense, regardless of what you put in there for "X"? I don't know of any reason to believe it is even meaningful at all. That's because I claim that if you are talking without thinking of anything you could be talking about, then you aren't talking about anything at all.

I sure can't think or imagine anything that the row of words "X caused the universe" could be talking about, can you?

I can't so I would not speak or write that row of words, except to put it in quotation marks to quote you or somebody who uttered or wrote it.

People forget that humans made up all words in all languages. No words dropped down from the sky. People made them all up. Think about how we came to learn to use and interpret what the words in our vocabularies mean, particularly the word "cause" and "create". We weren't born knowing any words. We had to learn them all. Think about how we came to learn the word "cause". We learned it by hearing cases of usage of "A caused B" when we knew what A and B meant. We did not learn "cause" from cases of usage "A caused B" when we didn't know anything for A or B to mean. So I can't see how there is any way that "X caused the universe" can make any sense.

If you think it does mean something, what does it mean?

 

[Igtheism]

joe 1776:>>Do you believe that the universe was caused? If so, define the cause for me, please.<<

Why do you think the row of words "X caused the universe" makes any sense, regardless of what you put in there for "X"? I don't know of any reason to believe it is even meaningful at all. That's because I claim that if you are talking without thinking of anything you could be talking about, then you aren't talking about anything at all.

I sure can't think or imagine anything that the row of words "X caused the universe" could be talking about, can you?

I can't so I would not speak or write that row of words, except to put it in quotation marks to quote you or somebody who uttered or wrote it.

People forget that humans made up all words in all languages. No words dropped down from the sky. People made them all up. Think about how we came to learn to use and interpret what the words in our vocabularies mean, particularly the word "cause" and "create". We weren't born knowing any words. We had to learn them all. Think about how we came to learn the word "cause". We learned it by hearing cases of usage of "A caused B" when we knew what A and B meant. We did not learn "cause" from cases of usage "A caused B" when we didn't know anything for A or B to mean. So I can't see how there is any way that "X caused the universe" can make any sense.

If you think it does mean something, what does it mean?

 

[Igtheism]

joe 1776:>>Do you believe that the universe was caused? If so, define the cause for me, please.<<

Why do you think the row of words "X caused the universe" makes any sense, regardless of what you put in there for "X"? I don't know of any reason to believe it is even meaningful at all. That's because I claim that if you are talking without thinking of anything you could be talking about, then you aren't talking about anything at all.

I sure can't think or imagine anything that the row of words "X caused the universe" could be talking about, can you?

I can't so I would not speak or write that row of words, except to put it in quotation marks to quote you or somebody who uttered or wrote it.

People forget that humans made up all words in all languages. No words dropped down from the sky. People made them all up. Think about how we came to learn to use and interpret what the words in our vocabularies mean, particularly the word "cause" and "create". We weren't born knowing any words. We had to learn them all. Think about how we came to learn the word "cause". We learned it by hearing cases of usage of "A caused B" when we knew what A and B meant. We did not learn "cause" from cases of usage "A caused B" when we didn't know anything for A or B to mean. So I can't see how there is any way that "X caused the universe" can make any sense.

If you think it does mean something, what does it mean?