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Does the word "God" denote something?

As background to the question, I've been reading Bertrand Russell's essay "On Denoting" were he makes the point about how there are statements/words/ideas which are meaningful—such as "the current king of France"—but don't actually refer to anything—where as "the current monarch of England" does. In other words, we can have words/phrases/ideas which seem to refer to something but do not actually denote (or in computer programming language "point" to) something.

In other words, "the Ground of All Being" is a meaningful idea, but is there an actual object to which such a title is referring to?

Rhetoric 7 Jan 22
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6 comments

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0

The word God is meant to intimidate people. I think it even intimidates some non believers. Wow, I better be careful what I think about.....God! It's just a word, used to refer to some big cosmic thingamy that created the universe and us. It's a sound we make from electrical impulses in our brain. Change the impulses and the word and the impact changes. You should bow to God who created heaven and earth! Scary! Then say, You should bow to the Cosmic Duck that laid the universe! Yeah right, gimme a break. God, Cosmic Duck, what's the difference? There's no more evidence for one over the other. But when we hear or read the word "God" we stiffen up. Well I bloody don't. Strip away the emotional response and you're left with a meaningless sound. Like Cosmic Duck.

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If there was ever a word that is more vague than any other, surely it's the word god.
Theists never agree about what their god is, even ones from the same religion.
Other "believers" in a god simply redefine themselves into being believers, like calling the universe their god like pantheists do.

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So not interested in a god rhetoric.

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Opinion would vary on what "God" would denote. Concreteness of the object being but one variance.

For myself, "God" would be meaningful, but only in the context of a fictional, superlative agent or as a given in the description of someone else's meaning within a context they would be referring to.

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I refuse to spell god with " G"

2

Depends on your definition of "object". Is there an object that the word "uncertainty" refers to?

skado Level 9 Jan 23, 2018
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