"The actual definition/attributes of God"? Where does this supposedly definitive definition come from? How does one distinguish between whatever you believe is the correct definition of the word 'God' and supposedly incorrect ones?
What does it mean, what are you asserting, when you say that something is the "actual definition" or that it expresses the "actual attributes" of God? It seems to assume that God really exists, in order to possess "actual attributes". And it seems to assume that somebody out there already has authoritative knowledge of what God's "actual attributes" really are. You suggest very strongly that you are part of that divinely favored group.
The concept of God as described bytheologians commonly includes the attributes of omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence. In theism, God is the creator andsustainer of the universe, while in deism, God is the creator, but not the sustainer, of the universe. Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one God or in the oneness of God. In pantheism, God is the universe itself. Inatheism, God is purported not to exist, while God is deemed unknown or unknowable within the context of agnosticism. God has also been conceived as being incorporeal (immaterial), a personal being...
According to the Igbo people from the eastern region of Nigeria, Chineke is the creator of the world and everything good in it along with rain, trees, and other plants. Chukwu is a supreme God represented by the sun. The ancient God is not humanized in Igbo tradition belief. Because the igbo deities Amadioha and Ikenga are masculine, Chukwu is assumed to be male.
Many Igbo Christians refer to the Christian God as Chukwu as well.[2] The Igbo believe it is impossible for humans to conceive of the unlimited power of Chukwu. Many Igbo dialects refer to God by names such as "Chukwu", "Chiokike", or "Obasi."[3]
There are five aspects of Chukwu:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chukwu
- Chukwu - the first force and existence of all beings.
- Anyanwu - symbolic meaning of the sun. The sun reveals everything so Chukwu is the source of knowledge and the author of all knowledge.
- Agbala - the fertility of Earth, its people, and its spiritual world full of sub-deities.
- Chi - a sub-deity functioning as a personal, spiritual guide.
- Okike - creator of laws that govern the visible and invisible.
“If we examine the origin of anything in all the universe, we find that it is but a manifestation of some primal essence. Even the tiny leaves of herbs, knots of threads, everything, if we examine them carefully we find that there is some essence in its originality. Even open space is not nothingness. How can it be then that the wonderful, pure, tranquil and enlightened Mind, which is the source of all conceptions of manifested phenomena, should have no essence of itself?”
]I hope that you are capable of seeing that in the context of this 'proof of the existence of God' thread, to spin "actual definition" as you seem to be doing would beg the whole question and reduce the discussion to circular reasoning. Even Pachomius never made the elementary logical mistake that you seem to be making. He proposed his own concept of 'God', "creator and operator of the universe and everything with a beginning", not as the uniquely correct description of God's "actual attributes", but simply for the purpose of discussion.
In other words, anyone who doesn't agree with Jan Ardena's never-clearly-explained personal theology must be dishonest.
And before you butted in we had Pachomius providing his concept, repeatedly, that we had agreed upon for purposes of this discussion, and for which we were waiting for him to provide the proof he claimed he had.I hope you are capable of seeing that in order establish proof of God, we have to define God, and mutually accept it.
If you keep denying these attributes, you won't have a definition to work with, and the discussion is doomed before it begins.
Sorry. I thought I was clear. I'll try again.Regarding the mind; It sounds as if you're saying that prior to something entering your mind, it didn't exist, but now it does, therefore the default to existence is non-existence.
If such a transcendent, intelligent agency existed, then I'm sure he or she could create a universe if he or she wanted to. But it is surely idle speculation to try to work out how God may have created the universe when we haven't even established that any God exists.Do you think it is equally possible that a transcendent, intelligent agency could have caused the universe?
No God, too?He puts forward his explanation of nothing.
To me, nothing is exactly what it says on the tin; NO-THING! No space, matter, time,
No. If a person writes a book or "scripture", it is up to him to convince me that his claims in that book are correct. It is not up to me to prove him wrong. The onus of proof falls on the person making the claims. And extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, as they say.The answer is in every scripture. The onus is on you to show that these scriptures are wrong,
There's no universal definition of God.His concept is based on the existing universal definition.
I suggested to him that many things that we can conceive of have no existence in the real world.
They exist only as concepts or fantasies. For example, take unicorns or a planet made of Swiss cheese. Those things exists in the mind, but not in reality (I hope we can agree).
I suggest that, in addition, there are countless concepts that nobody has ever imagined, that neither exist in reality or in the mind.
Putting these observations together, I conclude that the "default" state of most things is non-existence rather than existence, counter to Pachomius's assertion.
When it comes to God, of course, there can be no dispute that God exists as a concept (or rather, as many different, often contradictory, concepts). The question is whether God exists in the real world, apart from our minds.
If such a transcendent, intelligent agency existed, then I'm sure he or she could create a universe if he or she wanted to.
But it is surely idle speculation to try to work out how God may have created the universe when we haven't even established that any God exists.
No. If a person writes a book or "scripture", it is up to him to convince me that his claims in that book are correct. It is not up to me to prove him wrong. The onus of proof falls on the person making the claims. And extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, as they say.
Please clarify: if God exists in the mind / as a concept (however you want to describe the mental picturing) then, irrespective of whether or not God exists outside of the mind, is this sufficient for you to claim that God exists? if so, are you not equating the mental picture to the thing itself?If they exist in the mind, then they exist. Just not in the outside world.
Do you think that everything we think of exists outside of the mind? Things like unicorns, leprechauns, celestial teapots etc?Maybe, maybe not.
One needs to separate the thing from the mental conceptualisation of the thing; separate the existence of the mental construct from the existence or not of that which it is a mental construct of.A thing cannot be non existent.
You can not prove that a planet made of Swiss Cheese does not exist. It may be a rational position to hold, but all it takes is someone to take a significant lump of the stuff and put it into orbit around a sun. A naturally occurring planet of the stuff would be less likely than that, admittedly.Such a thing is not known, or understood. A planet made of Swiss Cheese simply does not exist, because it is not known to, and more importantly, unlikely to be, based on what we know and understand. We can imagine such a thing, but it's simply an amalgamation of of what we know and understand. The imagination exists, but is unable to manifested.
One examines what is claimed about God and whether those claims are able to be proven, and if they are, have they been. And in the absence of such proof one tries to remain as rational as possible, if it that position is "I don't know".How would someone like yourself go about finding that out?
Few deny that God, or any deity, is possible. The questions are whether that possibility is meaningful, and which of the many possibilities are held to be rational.So you agree that it is possible. Good.
There are some concepts of God that are possible, and some are not. (Although you would undoubtedly claim that any concept that is not possible is not a concept of God.) Once the theist has defined the concept they are working to, then others can decide whether they think that concept possible or not.You don't have to idly speculate, as for most people it stands to reason. And for some it stands to reason that God does not exist. It's about accepting (not believing) the possibility, either way. That's why it's important if you have a concept of God.
Ah, the old "we don't know, therefore God did it. And you can't prove me wrong!"The information as we know it today, has obviously been written, but we don't know where the information contained within, came from. It was around before the printing press.
The information in the various "scriptures" are so tied to the eras in which they were written - full of the moral and social values and concerns of the times - that it would be extremely naive to believe that any of them is the work of an omnipotent deity.
All you need is an unfalsifiable claim and popularity. Neither speak to the veracity of the claim.True, but the overall attributes that make God, God, always remain the same.
It strikes me that humans whose concepts change drastically overtime, even their concepts of God, would not keep these attributes, but would change them over time.
They do change over time and between every culture. Not every culture is monotheistic, and some are strikingly different than you conceive. But I suppose ignorance is bliss.True, but the overall attributes that make God, God, always remain the same.
It strikes me that humans whose concepts change drastically overtime, even their concepts of God, would not keep these attributes, but would change them over time.
jan.
Please clarify: if God exists in the mind / as a concept (however you want to describe the mental picturing) then, irrespective of whether or not God exists outside of the mind, is this sufficient for you to claim that God exists? if so, are you not equating the mental picture to the thing itself?
Do you think that everything we think of exists outside of the mind? Things like unicorns, leprechauns, celestial teapots etc?
If these things don't exist outside of the mind after being thought of, did they exist outside of the mind before they were thought of?
Therefore it should be quite clear that there are countless things that neither exist nor have been thought of, and it should not be a case of "maybe, maybe not".
One needs to separate the thing from the mental conceptualisation of the thing; separate the existence of the mental construct from the existence or not of that which it is a mental construct of.
One examines what is claimed about God and whether those claims are able to be proven, and if they are, have they been. And in the absence of such proof one tries to remain as rational as possible, if it that position is "I don't know".
There are some concepts of God that are possible, and some are not. (Although you would undoubtedly claim that any concept that is not possible is not a concept of God.) Once the theist has defined the concept they are working to, then others can decide whether they think that concept possible or not.
But without being testable, by being unfalsifiable, even with just those held to be possible you are left with mere idle speculation as to anything beyond that mere possibility of existence.
Ah, the old "we don't know, therefore God did it. And you can't prove me wrong!"
"seemingly by default"... rather shows your bias, does it not? I'd have thought the vast majority of people establish a concept from what their parents and/or teachers tell them. It is certainly not, in most cases, "by default".God is an existing concept of the mind. The mind doesn't conjour God up, it merely interprets what is there by seemingly default. But if I lived in a land where nobody had ever heard of God, and His attributes, and I made this up. Then no, it's not sufficient to claim that as a real fact.
Why does interest come in?I don't know if celestial teapots exist outside of the mind, and I don't know if I'm capable of thinking up something that has never been thought of before. I guess that's where interest comes in, as in ones interest and reasons for it.
You can think of many things that don't exist, and you can think of them for the first time... just pick a random number between 10 and 20 and imagine a person existing with that many eyes, ears, arms, legs etc, that lives under your stairs. I'm fairly sure you are capable of imagining something as novel living in a place such that you can prove it doesn't exist. Voila.I can't say whether countless things don't exist as yet. If by existence you something that the mind unfolds for the first time, then maybe you have a point.
Erraced?For it to truly not exist you'd need to not know anything about it. Erraced from memory. Talking and discussing the non existence is not something humans do funnily enough.
So one keeps their concept of God outside the falsifiable, outside interrogation, outside critical thought. Why give it any thought at all in that case?I'd have to say you're barking up the wrong tree with that approach.
God isn't about that.
Deism: God exists but does not interact further with its creation, such that there are no scriptures (which require interaction) that can be an authority.Show me these different concepts of God, and let's see if they contain any of the attributes from scriptures or world religions. That way you'll see that there really is one definition of God, which all concepts stem from.
No, it shows that God is indiscernible from nature itself, which is described by universal laws. There is no interaction, no miracles, no answering of prayer, nothing that can be attributed to God that is not merely an obeyance of those laws. God is effectively redundant by being such, and relegated to mere comfort blanket to explain that which is unanswerable.That suggests God is separate from His effect, and therefore evidence would or should be made available. It's not taking into account who and what God is. It is therefore always going to be speculative and incomplete (at best).
I am happy to accept them for purposes of discussion, but I do not take them as true without reason. I see no reason to appeal to authority. I also do not accept the attribute of "existing" when that is the very matter in question. A priori assumptions are not my forte.Once you accept, not deny, the commonly known attributes of God, then you can set about moving to the next stage. If you cannot bring yourself to accepting the attributes of this character, the conversation will only go round in circles. By knowingly denying God's attributes, your premise is God does not exist, therefore everything has to be denied.
What I wrote was a summary of your position, following from your previous posts. You claim you "don't know" where the information came from, yet you believe the notion of God as provided in scripture to be divinely provided. And you will continue to believe that until proven otherwise, knowing that such is not possible to do.I said neither of those things. Just deal with what I actually wrote, which was correct.
seemingly by default"... rather shows your bias, does it not? I'd have thought the vast majority of people establish a concept from what their parents and/or teachers tell them. It is certainly not, in most cases, "by default".
Why does interest come in?
You can think of many things that don't exist, and you can think of them for the first time... just pick a random number between 10 and 20 and imagine a person existing with that many eyes, ears, arms, legs etc, that lives under your stairs. I'm fairly sure you are capable of imagining something as novel living in a place such that you can prove it doesn't exist. Voila.
Erraced?
People talk about the non existence all the time - especially when, for example, discussing what comes after one dies.
So I struggle to see how you arrive at your conclusion that we do not discuss the non-existence.
So one keeps their concept of God outside the falsifiable, outside interrogation, outside critical thought. Why give it any thought at all in that case?
Deism: God exists but does not interact further with its creation, such that there are no scriptures (which require interaction) that can be an authority.
Pantheism: God is no more and no less than the entirety of the universe itself.
Dystheism: God is either not wholly benevolent or is actually wholly malevolent.
Of course they contain some similar attributes to the God of scriptures, the primary one being that they are unfalsifiable. But that proves nothing, means nothing.
No, it shows that God is indiscernible from nature itself, which is described by universal laws. There is no interaction, no miracles, no answering of prayer, nothing that can attributed to God that is not merely an obeyance of those laws. God is effectively redundant by being such, and relegated to mere comfort blanket to explain that which is unanswerable.
I am happy to accept them for purposes of discussion, but I do not take them as true without reason.
I see no reason to appeal to authority.
I also do not accept the attribute of "existing" when that is the very matter in question. A priori assumptions are not my forte.
What I wrote was a summary of your position, following from your previous posts. You claim you "don't know" where the information came from, yet you believe the notion of God as provided in scripture to be divinely provided.
And you will continue to believe that until proven otherwise, knowing that such is not possible to do.
[Hence my statement. So deal with your own position if you don't like it so succinctly summarised.
Sure, after we have read about or heard about it. There is nothing default about our concept: everyone starts with hearing/reading a claim of what God is, with the exception of those who quite genuinely arrived at the notion on their own.I meant the concept of God is seemingly by default. It seems that every person has some knowledge, notion, idea, concept, thought, about God.
And does that level of interest determine whether or not the object actually exists as anything other than a concept?Celestial teapots are not of interest, so it doesn't matter if it exists or not.
Yes there is. If it has never been put in that arrangement before then, while the components may be borrowed, the arrangement is novel.I can do that. But that's not new, it's simply mixing and matching data that I have knowledge about. There's absolutely nothing new about it.
You are arguing about an entirely novel concept when that is not even applicable to God. God as "first cause" is merely an extrapolation of the understanding one might have that all events have causes. God being "uncaused" is just something to avoid a paradox, and is merely the mirror of the requirement of all other things to be caused. Nothing novel about that.Person's exist, eyes exist, ears exist, arms and legs exist. I understand what ''under'' means, and stairs exist, and the notion of living under the stairs is nothing new. Not only me, but countless people know this, and countless people knew it also. What are the chances of me coming up with an entirely new concept?
Yes.Are they really talking about the ''non existent''?
philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/665/is-it-possible-to-determine-an-objects-nonexistenceI've looked but can't find any. Can you provide a link?
I've read your claim, but no explanation.I've clearly explained how.
If one does not keep it outside of such things then it is, by definition, falsifiable. Please name an attribute of God that is falsifiable?One doesn't have to keep their concept outside of those things, but one must at least comprehend the nature of God, and see it from the pov. If one can't accept that, then it is most likely that one believes that such a nature doesn't exist.
Please provide a link that supports the notion that a psychopath has no concept of love. It may be a different concept than you have, but are you again saying that only your concept is valid?A psychopath has no concept of love, so he/she has to try and understand it from an empirical standpoint. He/she could easily conclude that love doesn't exist, or it is only a concept in the mind. But those who love, and are loved, have a different understanding, and for them love does exist, but they cannot show what love is.
As said, once you have found a robust unfalsifiable position, why would it need to change?It means that all concepts of God are drawn from one understanding which has not changed, period. It shows that while concepts change, The universal understanding, comprehension, and notion, doesn't. All these are in relation to that one God.
If you were to be honest, that should change your current perception.
Yet all meta-testing of such things have shown nothing that suggests they do. Other people might beg to differ and many would do so through an ignorance of statistics, of the way the universe works, or simply through a poor subjective interpretation of events.You say there is no interaction, miracles, or answering of prayer. I say that other people beg to differ.
For purposes of discussion, quite often in fact. Outside of that, I don't.Why would you take them as true, if you didn't know that they are true? Where do you ever just accept something as true?
It is not "all of a sudden". As I learnt to think more critically, I learnt not to accept things on the basis of authority, but to label what they say as their claim, the veracity of which is to be tested/challenged later. It is the difference between a practical acceptance in the absence of contradictory evidence, and believing as true on the basis of no evidence.You've accepted authority all your life. It is how you have understood the world around you. Why all of sudden do you not want to acknowledge authority?
So what's the alternative? Non-Existent? What's the difference in terms of what either of those position actually mean? You don't know if God exists or not. But you've conveniently positioned yourself in a way that convinces you that God does not exist.
It is not what you said, but forgive me for joining the dots. If you don't want that to happen then don't mark the paper with dots.Then you shouldn't have, because that is not what I have said. You have misrepresented what I said. And you keep moving the conversation to theism and atheism.
We were working with Pachomius' definition before you interrupted.If we are to conclude whether or not God exists, then we have to have a mutual definition for us to work with. I am saying that there is a definition we can work with which sums up reasons for belief and non-belief in God, in general.
For Pete's sake! If you think someone has misunderstood you then ffs correct them, tell them what you did mean! Don't just say "that's not what I said!" and expect discussion to move forward. You complain and write far more about someone misunderstanding you than you do actually trying to correct that misunderstanding.I wish you would summarize my position, at least it would show that have some comprehension of what I'm saying. But if you do comprehend what I'm saying, but choose to act like you don't quite comprehend enough to try to confuse what I'm saying. Then stop it.
What about wild children (children growing up without supervision in the wilderness)? They have no innate knowledge of it. What about remote tribes with no contact with missionaries? They have no innate knowledge of it. The only thing similar between cultures is superstition, a form of ignorance.I meant the concept of God is seemingly by default. It seems that every person has some knowledge, notion, idea, concept, thought, about God.
The same way as one goes about finding out whether any given thing is real or not.How would someone like yourself go about finding that out?James R said:When it comes to God, of course, there can be no dispute that God exists as a concept (or rather, as many different, often contradictory, concepts). The question is whether God exists in the real world, apart from our minds.
Most people who believe in God don't believe because they were "reasoned" into it. On the other hand, many atheists have reasoned their way out of belief in God.Jan Ardena said:You don't have to idly speculate, as for most people it stands to reason. And for some it stands to reason that God does not exist. It's about accepting (not believing) the possibility, either way. That's why it's important if you have a concept of God.James R said:But it is surely idle speculation to try to work out how God may have created the universe when we haven't even established that any God exists.
But you believe in what is written in at least some of these "scriptures", don't you? You don't know where the information came from, but you believe it is true regardless. Why is that?Jan Ardena said:The information as we know it today, has obviously been written, but we don't know where the information contained within, came from. It was around before the printing press.James R said:No. If a person writes a book or "scripture", it is up to him to convince me that his claims in that book are correct. It is not up to me to prove him wrong. The onus of proof falls on the person making the claims. And extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, as they say.
Sure, after we have read about or heard about it. There is nothing default about our concept: everyone starts with hearing/reading a claim of what God is, with the exception of those who quite genuinely arrived at the notion on their own.
And does that level of interest determine whether or not the object actually exists as anything other than a concept?
Dismissing a notion c to apathy about it says nothing about its existence or otherwise.
Yes there is. If it has never been put in that arrangement before then, while the components may be borrowed, the arrangement is novel.
You are arguing about an entirely novel concept when that is not even applicable to God.
God as "first cause" is merely an extrapolation of the understanding one might have that all events have causes. God being "uncaused" is just something to avoid a paradox, and is merely the mirror of the requirement of all other things to be caused. Nothing novel.
Being "all powerful", if one's concept includes that, is merely an extrapolation of the natural dominance of certain members of society.
So you are committing a fallacy by requiring examples of concepts to be wholly unique when the concept of God is similarly not wholly unique.
In fact, any discussion that is on the subject of non-existence must, by its very nature, be also about non-existence, since to exist is to not non-exist.
I've read your claim, but no explanation.
If one does not keep it outside of such things then it is, by definition, falsifiable. Please name an attribute of God that is falsifiable?
Please provide a link that supports the notion that a psychopath has no concept of love. It may be a different concept than you have, but are you again saying that only your concept is valid?
But please, provide a link, as I disagree with you on this.
As said, once you have found a robust unfalsifiable position, why would it need to change?
All the notions of gods that have been falsifiable have been brushed aside.
Yet all meta-testing of such things have shown nothing that suggests they do. Other people might beg to differ and many would do so through an ignorance of statistics, of the way the universe works, or simply through a poor subjective interpretation of events.
It is not "all of a sudden". As I learnt to think more critically,
I learnt not to accept things on the basis of authority, but to label what they say as their claim, the veracity of which is to be tested/challenged later.
If one wishes to find out whether the concept exists in reality, one takes the concept without the a priori assumption / attribute of existence, and one tries to establish whether that concept exists in reality.
If you start with the assumption of existence, one may as well stop there and just claim "it exists!".
It is also not a "convenient" position and I have not convinced myself that God does not exist. I am an agnostic atheist.
It is not what you said, but forgive me for joining the dots. If you don't want that to happen then don't mark the paper with dots.
We were working with Pachomius' definition before you interrupted.
I am not trying to debunk God. I do not have the belief that God exists and I am agnostic in that I don't think God, even if it exists, is knowable. How can I possibly debunk something like that?I think you're just stalling.
This way you don't have to seriously address questions where you have to admit something that shows your points to be mistaken.
It's an obvious trait. You cannot debunk God, but you think that in time something will materialise, so until then you just going round in circles, with some logic, but mainly irrelevant stuff.
Because I am not claiming in this thread to have proof of the existence (or non-existence) of any concept of God. Pachomius is. It is HIS concept that is being discussed. Any concept I have (not that I have one) is thus an irrelevancy to that discussion. I do not need to provide a concept in order for him to continue with HIS proof of HIS concept.What good is that?
He wanted YOUR concept of God. You failed to provide, opting instead to knock his concept.
I'll cut your response to what is actually relevant to this thread (saves having to deal with the rest of your drivel?
I am not trying to debunk God
I do not have the belief that God exists and I am agnostic in that I don't think God, even if it exists, is knowable. How can I possibly debunk something like that
I can try to debunk people's claims to be able to prove the existence of God. Hence my involvement in this thread.
Yours seems to be just to interrupt with irrelevancies.
Nothing you have said thus far has progressed the discussion on Pachomius' claimed proof of the existence of God - except where you seem to agree that God is not provable.
Because I am not claiming in this thread to have proof of the existence (or non-existence) of any concept of God. Pachomius is. It is HIS concept that is being discussed.
Any concept I have (not that I have one) is thus an irrelevancy to that discussion. I do not need to provide a concept in order for him to CONTINUE with HIS proof of HIS concept.
Why do you struggle with that notion? Why do you CONTINUE with the same irrelevancy in this regard as Pachomius?
How many more times must it be explained before you grasp it?