Hi Jason Resch "God" is a word, and the meanings of words are established by use. So the word "God" can mean whatever you intend it to mean.
----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Jason Resch Receiver: everything-list Time: 2013-02-04, 22:12:54 Subject: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS. On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 2:04 AM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: On 2/3/2013 7:20 PM, Jason Resch wrote: On 2/3/13, meekerdb<meeke...@verizon.net> ?rote: On 2/3/2013 8:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: It simpler to generalize the notion of God so that indeed basically all correct machines believes in God, and in some theories question like "is God a person" can be an open problem. But you have a vocabulary problem related to the fact that you cannot cut with your education which has impose to you only one notion of God. Why should there be more than one notion designated by "God". Do you not agree that there are multiple religions and each is free to designate its own God or Gods? ?o choose one sect of one religion's God as the standard God for all atheists to disbelieve in is favoritism. ?hy do the atheists choose the Abrahamic God over the God the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Zoroastrians, the Deists, the Platonists, or any of the myriads of religions since lost to history? Because that's the god of theism - hence a-theism. So are you also an a-deist? ?hat about an a-Brahmanist, or a-Hyper-intelligent-simlatorist? ? You say it is because it is the most popular. ?ven if that were so, Atheism isn't about rejecting one God, it rejects all Gods. Not at all. ?ll the atheists I know allow that a deist god is more likely to exist than a theist god. They still (I would think) put that probability less than 50%. ? You would have to be quite an expert to disqualify every religion's (and indeed, every person's) notion of God. I don't have to 'disqualify' them (whatever that means); I just fail to put any credence in them. How do you differentiate yourself from agnostics, who also fail to put any credence in them? ? The Abrahamic religions use the word to designate a particular notion: an omniscience, omnipotent, benevolent creator person who wants us to worship him. Not all do, which you failed to account for in your below probabilities. Not all what do? Not all?hristians?efine God as an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent creator person who wants us to worship him. ? ? just took the proportion of the world population that self identified as Christian, Muslim, and Jew. ?he major remaining portions are non-believers and Hindus. ? Together their adherents constitute 54% of those who believe in a theist god. ?nd if we take your view that atheists and agnostics use the same definition, That is not my view. ? am trying to ascertain what is the God that atheists disbelieve in, and if it is one in particular (and not all of them, which is what I thought most?theists?elieved (e.g. Richard Dawkins and John Clark say they believe in zero Gods)), why have they chosen some particular religion's God instead of others? ?re there Gods atheists believe in but do not tell anyone about? ? then 70% of people use that same meaning. ? If there's some other notion, why not call it something else. The discordians have their own notion of Pope, as do the Catholics. Who is anyone to say there is only one meaning of Pope? That's not two different meanings any more that king is two different notions because there is more than one king. They have different properties though. ?s is the case between Gods of various religions. ?here are some nearly universal characteristics, but no two are identical. ?ou could even say, every Christian has a different understanding and view point of what God is. ?erhaps there are Gods in some religions which are not only consistent or probable, but real. ?hould science not have some interest in their investigation (especially if they are part of reality)? Why then, should there be only one meaning of God? Because then we wouldn't know what "God" meant. ?f course like many words it may refer to more than one thing and there may be some variations. ?"Automobile" refers to lots of different things, but they all have wheels, motive power, and carry people over surfaces. ?hat doesn't mean you can call an aircraft carrier and automobile. So then what are the universal properties of God? ?ou seem to shy away from them and prefer your own overly specific, self-inconsistent definition, because it is the one you can most comfortably admit you disbelieve in. ?his is trivial though and I think we can do better. ?t is like a mathematician proving there are no numbers that are prime and even and greater than 2, so the mathematician decides he has proven all there is to prove and gives up deciding to advance the field by proving anything else. In showing that an omnipotent, omniscient, omni-benevolent God cannot exist, you end up doing science and advancing the field of theology. ?ou could prove logically some possible properties of God are mutually inconsistent (e.g., God cannot be both omnipotent and omniscient, or both omnipotent and omnibenevolent). ?nd with that advancement in understanding you gain new insight into what God can be and can alter the notion of it, just as the notion of Earth as a flat plane has changed. ? This is not to say the word is meaningless. ?here are commonalities between different religions and belief systems. ?n nearly all, it can be said that God serves the role as an ultimate explanation. ?hether it is the Platonic God, Can you cite Plato referring to such a being? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge ? the Hindu God, the Sikh God, or the Arbrahamic God, this property is almost universal. ?n this respect, it is perfectly natural for Bruno to say under the arithmetical/CTM belief system, God (the ultimate explanation) is arithmetical truth. ?nder Aristotelianism, the ultimate explanation is matter (The buck stops there), and so matter is the God of Aristotelianism. Except that all those gods are persons. ?rithmetical truth is (a) ill defined It cannot be defined. ? and (b) not a person. Bruno says this is not settled. ? Brent Would we be better off had we abandoned the word "Earth" or "World" merely because we discovered it is round instead of flat, instead of amending our notion of what the "Earth" or "World" really is? The Earth is defined ostensively. ?f we could define god(s) ostensively then it would make sense to say we discovered it's properties were different than we had supposed. Which we would if theology were treated with a scientific?ttitude. ?o you have any objection to a scientific treatment of theology? Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. 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