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I think it would be a good exercise for us atheists and agnostics to define the so-called God we either believe doesn't exist or do not know whether it exists. What do you call it? Is it Jesus or not Jesus but just God by itself. What are it's functions? What are it's attributes?

think-beyond 7 Apr 11
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5

Sounds a bit daft. How can you define something that doesn't exit.?

@irascible My favourite is the big guy with the white beard and a deep voice, from the Simpsons.

@Moravian
How can you claim something doesn't exist if you don't first define it?

@skado Depends exactly what you mean by "define"

1
State or describe exactly the nature, scope, or meaning of.
‘the contract will seek to define the client's obligations’

More example sentencesSynonyms
1.1 Give the meaning of (a word or phrase), especially in a dictionary.
‘the dictionary defines it as ‘a type of pasture’’

More example sentences
1.2 Make up or establish the character or essence of.
‘for some, the football club defines their identity’

More example sentences
2
Mark out the boundary or limits of.
‘the river defines the park's boundary’

More example sentencesSynonyms
2.1 Make clear the outline of; delineate.
‘she defined her eyes by applying eyeshadow to her eyelids’

@Moravian
Ok, so which did you mean?

@skado I would think the first one.

3

A rather non-religious man at my work told me yesterday that he believed in god. I surprised him by asking which one. He told me the biblical god. Then I asked him why he left all the other gods out when he made that choice. He really did not know, so I told him maybe this was the god his parents had. Then I bid him good day and left because I had already clocked out.

I do not deal with functions or attributes but this is how I deal with people who claim they are believers. I want to cause others to think.

Yes, religion by default. That's how it survives.

2

Whats the point. Who cares. Waste of time. etc, etc, etc.

2

Not our problem. You define whatever it is you want to call god and we'll tell you if it makes sense.

2

There is no evidence, facts or data to support the claim of any god(s) existence. Let it go.

2
2

All of them. Anything which includes any element of the supernatural.

1

The way I see it is that there are two kinds of Atheists/Agnostics: Free thinkers who speculate with open minds and then Recovering Christians or any religion that has placed a grip on them so that now they are simply rebelling, angry over the damage religion has done to them. Religion does something else when you are been indoctrinated at such a young age. It commands you to follow their dictates and the crowd. "Thou shall not think for yourself. We will tell you what to think. We will punish you if you stray." So while there is rebellion against the institution the process remains. Maybe there are a few steps to achieve freedom from religion; the goal being free thought without anger so that one can get to know his own true identity and truly live. So as not to generalize I must recognize the people I know who are of a religion and still have open minds and are compassionate and good people. One size doesn't fit all.

1

I don't identify as atheist or agnostic or theist because the god those terms are generally understood to refer to is a fundamentalist god, and I am no flavor of fundamentalist.
I figure the likes of Einstein and Spinoza and Sagan might not be the worst company to keep, so I have no hesitation in embracing their non-fundamentalist understanding of God. Sagan describes it well in his quote below:

"The word “god” is used to cover a vast multitude of mutually exclusive ideas. And the distinctions are, I believe in some cases, intentionally fuzzed so that no one will be offended that people are not talking about their god.

But let me give a sense of two poles of the definition of God. One is the view of, say, Spinoza or Einstein, which is more or less God as the sum total of the laws of physics. Now, it would be foolish to deny that there are laws of physics. If that’s what we mean by God, then surely God exists. All we have to do is watch the apples drop.

Newtonian gravitation works throughout the entire universe. We could have imagined a universe in which the laws of nature were restricted to only a small portion of space or time. That does not seem to be the case. … So that is itself a deep and extraordinary fact: that the laws of nature exist and that they are the same everywhere. So if that is what you mean by God, then I would say that we already have excellent evidence that God exists.

But now take the opposite pole: the concept of God as an outsize male with a long white beard, sitting in a throne in the sky and tallying the fall of every sparrow. Now, for that kind of god I maintain there is no evidence. And while I’m open to suggestions of evidence for that kind of god, I personally am dubious that there will be powerful evidence for such a god not only in the near future but even in the distant future. And the two examples I’ve given you are hardly the full range of ideas that people mean when they use the word “god.”

skado Level 9 Apr 14, 2019
1

I once heard someone say, "You already don't believe in thousands of gods, I just don't believe in one more." How many definitions are you ready to entertain?

1

How about Crappus Maximus Extremis for a name?
Function - totally useless to rational and logical people but a crutch to the insecure, etc, etc.
Attributes- ( biblically speaking), a vicious, demanding, genocidal, psychopathic, sociopathic, ego-centric, Homophobic, Misogynistic, Dictatorial, Tyrant of the utmost order.

??

1

Let's give a non-existent thing a name? How about Noopis. It has no functions because it does nothing because it doesn't exist. Similarly, it's attributes, like it, are non-existent.

lerlo Level 8 Apr 11, 2019

@Marcel3405 well just as religious people seem to need others to support their beliefs, apparently you need support in your non-belief. It's unfortunate that you're not secure in your beliefs. "We" don't need to get organized or need a mascot for our beliefs, thank you.

@Marcel3405 no more than your conclusions

@lerlo I seem to see that those atheists who identify their non-god as Jesus or Christ, are not free of the yoke Christianity has placed on them. I see these people as having been hurt by Christianity and not yet healed - therefore, not free within themselves to open their minds. Some of them harbor the anger that their Christian experience has done to them and that anger has too big a place in them. Worse is that they are not aware of this or how it affects them. I am not generalizing. I think this applies to some - this "some" includes too many people.

@think-beyond yes, many here are mad at their god for disappointing them. Of course, their god had a name when they believed in it so not unusual for them to maintain the name of that god. But you call on us to name what doesn't exist which seems pointless.

@lerlo You have a point.

You mean to tell me you wouldn't want to be Santa Claus?

Bummer! 😔

@SleeplessInTexas well when you put it that way...sit on my lap and tell me what you want for christmas 😉

1

Since it doesn't exist, it can't be defined. Try defining a unicorn

@Matias Plenty of people who would argue with that definition, just as there are plenty of people who would argue with any particular definition of a god.

@Matias A simple dictionary defi ition is never enough. As soon as you start expanding the definition and giving attributes you start disputes. That is why people have been arguing about the existence and attributes of god's for the last two thousand years. Which is why a lot of atheists simply say they have no beliefs in the supernatural.

@Matias Likewise with unicorns - is your unicorn a wild vicious creature that can only be tamed by a virgin or is it a plump cuddly creature with a rainbow mane?

@Matias I think if you examine the further reaches of theology you will find that there are those who claim that the fact that we can define god implies his existence. If he didn't exist, we would have no way to conjure up the concept.

1

As for me only: I don’t believe in a 3-headed lobster god who speaks Tagalog and has the power to perfectly manicure its lawn using its claws. Is that specific enough for you?

1

You're only talking about the Holy Trinity and Christianity, just one monotheistic religion (with three 1/3rds of a God, if you can believe that crap!) Why attempt to define this one more than any other? Because we grew up with it? Most of us think more broadly than that. I have no interest in attempting to define Bronze Age nonsense.

1

What? I would not know where to begin answering that. There are too many definitions and I don’t subscribe to any of them.

0

nah. too many of them. i don't disbelieve in one god or a dozen gods. you now how many gods there aren't? i don't feel like explaining who each god isn't. that's what wikipedia is for. but i can say none of them will have a real attribute or function since not one of them exists.

g

@Marcel3405 christmas spirit? that's not a thing outside of religion. that one doesn't count. as for the others, we already have those ideas. why do they need personifications, especially divine ones, and especially multiple ones, since there are a hundred sun gods, a hundred love goddesses, etc.? we already have names for those ideas.

g

0

There's a bunch of so-called Gods I don't believe in. Ill call one Cthulu..

0

myth

0

I never think about this stuff and haven't for decades until I joined this site. I still don't think about it, but the discussions here can be interesting.

0

Others posit their definition. We accept (believe) or reject (disbelieve) that definition. Just like belief in any other thing.

OHJim Level 5 Apr 11, 2019
0

Part of the reason I don't believe in a good is because there is no clear definition

Buxx Level 7 Apr 11, 2019

@Matias "Supreme Being that is omniscient, omnipresent, all-mighty, pure Consciousness, and so on" is extremely vague. What qualifies something as a "Supreme Being"? And compared to what? How can anybody know if something is "pure Consciousness"? There is a heated debate about if consciousness even exists. "Omniscient, omnipresent, all-mighty" are meaningless terms. This is not comparable to your definition of a unicorn, since that has verifiable attributes.

0

All proposed divinities, why do you think YHWH (yep, that is the name of the jewish-christian-islamic god) and his spin-offs have a special place in my atheism?

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