On Sun, Aug 5, 2012 AM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > I remain astonished why atheists defend a so particular conception of God. >
And I remain astonished that so many people think the idea of God is idiotic but still have such a strong emotional attachment to the ASCII characters G-O-D that they insist on still using them even though they don't even claim to know what G-O-D means. > This confirms what I have already explained. Atheism is a variant of > christianism. > And so "atheism" and "Christianity" now join "free will" and "God" as words that mean absolutely positively nothing. When I tell people I'm a atheist I might as well just burp at them or tell them I'm a teapot for all it will inform them about what I think. > They defend the same conception of God than the Christians, as you do all > the time. > Yes, Christians and I do have one thing in common, we both think that it might be good if words mean something. Otherwise when I say I don't believe in God I wouldn't even know what it is I don't believe. And I also have the same conception of Santa Claws as small children do, the only difference between us is that they think he exists and I don't. > Note that philosophers use often the term "God" in the general and > original sense of theology: > Maybe that's part of the reason philosophers no longer do philosophy and haven't found anything important in a thousand years or so. > as being, by definition, the transcendental cause of everything. > Cause? If its still involved with cause and effect then I don't see what makes it transcendental; if it’s a cause we should be able to perform experiments on God just like any other aspect of our world; assuming of course that God exists. > I have already told you that God is supposed to be responsible for our > existence; which is not the case for the bulldozer. > Excellent! Apparently I've convinced you that words should actually mean something, it may not be very close to what most people mean by the word "God" but at least you mean something. So now that I know what we're talking about and "God" is not "a force greater than myself" I can now say that I no longer think a bulldozer is God and I now know that my parents were God. > I am agnostic > Technically I suppose I too am agnostic about a omnipotent omniscient conscious being that created the universe but you've got to decide how to live your life and emotionally I'm a atheist because, although I can't prove that He does not exist, I think I can prove that God is just silly. Beliefs are a emotional state and nobody believes only in things he can prove, and even more important nobody believes in things they think are silly. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
