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What the Hell is a "God?"

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Ralf Cozza

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Mar 19, 1996, 3:00:00 AM3/19/96
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Do atheists reject the concept of a "god" (or "gods"), or ANYTHING
that is transcendent to physical laws? (Or is anything not governed by
physical laws considered a "god," too)? I'm confused about exactly
what atheists reject. Is Idealism rejected? Is Taoism rejected? Would
a non-personal, Creative Intelligence be rejected? Or is this up to
the individual atheist to decide? Is there an Atheist Creed? I
honestly would like to know. Thank you.

Yours truly,
Ralf Cozza


Paul Wright

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Mar 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM3/20/96
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In article <4in486$l...@news.mhv.net>, ra...@mhv.net says...
<Sigh> Try this: Think of the reason you reject a person who worships
Odin or Thor, or Cthuhlu. And then imagine those reason presed to the god
of the xtrian bible. And the you will see.

>Yours truly,
>Ralf Cozza
>

P. Wright, just tryin' to help....


Marc Fleury

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Mar 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM3/20/96
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Thus spoke Ralf Cozza (ra...@mhv.net):

>
>Do atheists reject the concept of a "god" (or "gods"), or ANYTHING
>that is transcendent to physical laws? (Or is anything not governed by
>physical laws considered a "god," too)? I'm confused about exactly
>what atheists reject. Is Idealism rejected? Is Taoism rejected? Would
>a non-personal, Creative Intelligence be rejected? Or is this up to
>the individual atheist to decide? Is there an Atheist Creed? I
>honestly would like to know. Thank you.
>
>Yours truly,
>Ralf Cozza

Personally, I reject everything which is not governed by physical laws, as
you say. (I reject more than JUST this, but it's a nice starting point.)

Of course, that leaves an interesting possibility. If someone were to
hypothesize an alien race so advanced that it has effectively become one
being, and that that one being is powerful enough to split the sea and
slay mighty Leviathan (heh =) heh)... well, I wouldn't necessarily
discount this being off-hand, as long as it was bound by the laws of the
universe.

Then again, I shave with Occam's razor, so...

(If you don't understand, look it up.)

-- Fleury.


Mats Andtbacka

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Mar 20, 1996, 3:00:00 AM3/20/96
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Ralf Cozza, in <4in486$l...@news.mhv.net>:

>Do atheists reject the concept of a "god" (or "gods"), or ANYTHING
>that is transcendent to physical laws?

that _is_ one admitted problem with atheism, never being quite sure
what it is we all agree doesn't exist.

fwiw, my two cents: there's nothing supernatural, and if it's not
supernatural i refuse to call it a "god"; ergo, no gods. others'
mileages may vary.

>Is Idealism rejected?

if it is, it's not because of atheism.

>Is Taoism rejected?

dunno, is it supernatural? you never quite know with those Eastern
philosophies...

>Would a non-personal, Creative Intelligence be rejected?

likely.

>Or is this up to the individual atheist to decide?

yes.

>Is there an Atheist Creed?

no.

>I honestly would like to know.

hope i've helped.
--
"I'm more differed from than differing" -- Arthur Dent

J J Hahn

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Mar 21, 1996, 3:00:00 AM3/21/96
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In article <4io1mm$4...@daryl.scsn.net>, Paul Wright <pa...@scsn.net> wrote:
>In article <4in486$l...@news.mhv.net>, ra...@mhv.net says...
>>
>>Do atheists reject the concept of a "god" (or "gods"), or ANYTHING
>>that is transcendent to physical laws? (Or is anything not governed by
>>physical laws considered a "god," too)? I'm confused about exactly
>>what atheists reject. Is Idealism rejected? Is Taoism rejected? Would
>>a non-personal, Creative Intelligence be rejected? Or is this up to
>>the individual atheist to decide? Is there an Atheist Creed? I
>>honestly would like to know. Thank you.
>>
> <Sigh> Try this: Think of the reason you reject a person who worships
>Odin or Thor, or Cthuhlu. And then imagine those reason presed to the god
>of the xtrian bible. And the you will see.

Forgive me if there is something I'm missing here, but... I realize that
the influx if kooky Christians often drives us to give stock answers to
common lame questions, but let's at least make sure we're answering the
right question. You've made a valid point and given a valid answer, but
it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the question.

While there is much that I disagree with in Mr. Cozza's previous thread
(the mysticism one), here he seems to simply be asking what we do and do
not believe in. The question "what is a god?" is a valid one and I'll
try to answer as best I can.

There is no governing board of atheism, so I suppose it is up to the
individual atheist what he or she believes in. Probably as long as you
don't call it god, you can believe anything you want if you want to go
strictly by the etymology of the term, but this is next to useless.

In my experience, my views are not too distant from those of most other
atheists I've chatted with, so I'll just give you my opinion, and you can
go from there and get a second opinion.

First of all, there is no such thing as the "supernatural". If it
existed, it would be natural, so supernatural, by definition, does not
exist. If gods exist, they are natural as well. I would say something
similar about "transcending natural laws" (at least until someone tells
me better what it's supposed to mean).

I don't think it rational to believe in anything for which there is no
evidence, and gods fit that description IMHO. I do think that it is at
best misleading to call anything 'god' that is not a being (ie naked
force such as gravity is not godlike unless we give it personal
attributes). I don't think you can get more precise than that since
historically believed in gods range at least from the eternal omni-God
down through the Greek gods who were not creators but did interfere in
human events. Some gods aren't even immortal (and even more aren't
eternal).

"Is Idealism rejected?" Not sure; which idealism are you thinking of?

"Is Taoism rejected?" Sometimes. Taoism and Buddhism have a lot of
variation among their adherents. They range from positively atheistic
to very positively theistic. I find a lot of value (much more so than in
Christianity) in the philosophical aspects of Taoism and Buddhism, but
when they decay into religious metaphysical forms, I lose interest. It
depends upon whether you see the Tao as the way of nature or of some
over-riding cosmic force.

"Would a non-personal, Creative Intelligence be rejected?" How can it be
'non-personal' and an 'intelligence' at the same time?

I hope this helps. It is a bit difficult because of the wide variation
of gods and also because I didn't just decide "I don't believe in gods!"
I have a more general epistemology that rejects anything that lacks
evidence, and this combined with the stunning lack of evidence in favor
of all gods leads me to atheism as a consequence. Whether I decide that
the tooth fairy and the cosmic aether are gods or not, I still reject them
as a result of this epistemology.


JJ Hahn
----------------------------------------------------------------
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered.
Religion is answers that may never be questioned.

ed...@netcom.com

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Mar 25, 1996, 3:00:00 AM3/25/96
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In article <4iqs25$6...@gold.tc.umn.edu> hahn...@gold.tc.umn.edu (J J
Hahn) writes:
=In article <4io1mm$4...@daryl.scsn.net>, Paul Wright <pa...@scsn.net>
wrote:
=>In article <4in486$l...@news.mhv.net>, ra...@mhv.net says...
=>>
=>>Do atheists reject the concept of a "god" (or "gods"), or ANYTHING
=>>that is transcendent to physical laws? (Or is anything not governed by
=>>physical laws considered a "god," too)? I'm confused about exactly
=>>what atheists reject. Is Idealism rejected? Is Taoism rejected? Would
=>>a non-personal, Creative Intelligence be rejected? Or is this up to
=>>the individual atheist to decide? Is there an Atheist Creed? I
=>>honestly would like to know. Thank you.
=>>
=> <Sigh> Try this: Think of the reason you reject a person who worships
=>Odin or Thor, or Cthuhlu. And then imagine those reason presed to the
god
=>of the xtrian bible. And the you will see.
=
=Forgive me if there is something I'm missing here, but... I realize that
=the influx if kooky Christians often drives us to give stock answers to
=common lame questions, but let's at least make sure we're answering the
=right question. You've made a valid point and given a valid answer, but
=it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the question.
=
=While there is much that I disagree with in Mr. Cozza's previous thread
=(the mysticism one), here he seems to simply be asking what we do and do
=not believe in. The question "what is a god?" is a valid one and I'll
=try to answer as best I can.
=
=There is no governing board of atheism, so I suppose it is up to the
=individual atheist what he or she believes in. Probably as long as you
=don't call it god, you can believe anything you want if you want to go
=strictly by the etymology of the term, but this is next to useless.
=
=In my experience, my views are not too distant from those of most other
=atheists I've chatted with, so I'll just give you my opinion, and you can
=go from there and get a second opinion.
=

Even more simple: Suppose I run out from the forest, yelling, ``I saw a
Fmgldslkeif!'' What would any ordinary person do? Well, they would say
something like, ``Calm down, son. What is a Fmgldslkeif?'' Then, I could
start off explaining things like, ``Well, it is about 30 feet tall and
about 20 feet wide, is brown colored, and ....'' Basically, I would
describe the thing. And, every word I use to describe the thing should be
understandable, so it doesn't help if I were to say, ``It is about 15
magnoks tall and 18 rumwats wide, and has this yuenghih color around its
poofbag...'' No that won't do. Furthermore, even if I give descriptions
that are understandable, they must be verifiable. Saying, ``It's the
biggest thing I've ever seen!'' leaves a lot of verification problems
unresolved. If the biggest thing I've seen is a bread box, this thing can
be quite a bit of otehr items.

Now, let's carry this same situation over to god. A person comes to me
(or any ordinary person) and says, ``I've met God!'' Well, what _is_ god?
Can this person give me dimensions? Color? Shape? The bible claims god
is the word, and the word is god. Well, what the heck does that mean?
God is a phrase? How does one meet a phrase? Some people sort of
describe god as infinite. Well, what does that mean? How can you test
infinite? Some people claim god is all-loving (which isn't really a
description of the thing, but even so...), well,again, how would you test
it? How would you know all-loving when you see it? Does any other thing
possess this property? If yes, then you can make comparisons. It's like
comparing colors. You can say, ``This car is green, like that leaf
there.'' Then, I can go pick up the leaf bring it next to the car, and
match colors. I could piss-ant argue about the hue isn't quite right or
the leaf is a duller shade, but at least we have a way to compare. So, is
there some other entity that is all-loving? If yes, what is it (saying
it's Jesus doesn't help much, right?), if no, then how could anyone even
know that god is all-loving.

Now, just proceed on with this very simple critical analysis, and one will
immediately reach the conclusion that god does not and cannot exist: does
not because the characterizations of god are not found anywhere else, so
we cannot make any comparative analysis of the existence. Cannot exists
because there are internal contradictions to the characterizations. If
you claim god is infinitely powerful and all capable, then he's going to
have a hard time creating a rock so heavy that he can't lift it. Thus,
one must make sure that there are internal consistencies in one's
definition.

Pretty straightforward, isn't this? I mean, that's what ordinary people
would do under any other circumstances.

EDEW

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