The closest thing an atheist can come to for understanding god

Most Western people have an immediate idea of God as a senior authority figure that is much like the idea of a president or king. It isn't new, sure, but it's fairly pervasive.
Some leader that has to be obeyed, which isn't really what it's about, and it never has been.

This is the same kind of thinking as the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus belong in. Which is ironically where (some who claim to be) atheists try to put it, but it's not the idea at all, to start with.
 
greenberg said:
Not at all. Those things are true regardless whether one believes in God or not.
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I thought the discussion was about how to understand god.

However, I agree with what you say but not necessarily the way your react.

Resources running out: Of course you are right. I said in one of my posts, I cannot remember where, that we are raping the earth to manufacture baubles. We are essentially poweless in the face of large corporations but there are little things we can do which, collectively, might make a difference. These remarks also apply to the threat of global warming.

Only eat food that is in season and grown as close to home as possible. I shudder when I see food that has been flown halfway round the world.

Ask the origin of everything one buys. I will not buy goods made in China, for example. That is a political gesture.

Consume less and with more discretion

I think I have said enough to give you an understandingof my position.

As to existential Angst, we all suffer fron it to some extent but we must not allow it to stop us from acting. We can only inject whar meaning we can into life and get on with it.

I know this is off thread but I have taken the liberty to state my poition. I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt who said " We have nothing to fear but fear itself" Are you familiar with the Latin tag, timor mortis mors mei ?
 
lightgigantic said:
I take it you missed a few bits in the OP
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Nope, I just read it and disagreed with a few things.


Metaphysically, time is distinguished as absolute and real.
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I disagree.

are you trying to argue that SI is a branch of metaphysics?
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No. Just pointing out that because something is an SI unit, that does not make it real or tangible. It just means we can bung some numbers into some formulae and make a few useful predictions.

but the closest an atheist is going to get to comprehending god is comprehending time.
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Sorry, but no. The analogy is rather weak. Time does not have any of the attributes of god.
 
Most Western people have an immediate idea of God as a senior authority figure that is much like the idea of a president or king. It isn't new, sure, but it's fairly pervasive.
Some leader that has to be obeyed, which isn't really what it's about, and it never has been.

This is the same kind of thinking as the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus belong in. Which is ironically where (some who claim to be) atheists try to put it, but it's not the idea at all, to start with.

P.S. I didn't post this twice "intentionally", or maybe I do (subconsciously) like repeating myself; I did it twice coz I thought it didn't happen the first.
 
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Frud11 said:
Most Western people have an immediate idea of God as a senior authority figure that is much like the idea of a president or king. It isn't new, sure, but it's fairly pervasive.
Some leader that has to be obeyed, which isn't really what it's about, and it never has been.

This is the same kind of thinking as the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus belong in. Which is ironically where (some who claim to be) atheists try to put it, but it's not the idea at all, to start with.
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You are quite wrong. As an atheist, I put god in the same category as unicorns etc. because there is not a shred of evidence to support the notion of god. This has nothing to do with authority figures or anything of the kind.
 
greenberg said:
First of all, like I said, I imagine those factors above would play a part in "understanding God"; this qualifies my statements as personal.

Realizing resources are not limitless is another aspect of the constrained nature of existence. Directly related to realizing one is completely helpless against some things or beings and has no control over them, there is also the realization that resources are not limitless. I might even put these two factors into one.

Not only is one helpless and has no control over some things and beings, it is also so that no matter what one would do, no matter how long one would do it - some things get lost forever, pass forever, can never be renewed or brought back. - The notion that nothing is worse than losing a day.

Realizing these constrainsts can give a person a sense of grave urgency and humility - which, in my estimation, are necessary both for understanding God and time.
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thanks for your reply

actually according to some eastern standards, humility is the first aspect of any sort of knowledge
 
Phlog...,

Time itself was created along with space at the point of the big bang
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That would be impossible. Any event, i.e. the change of one state to another will always require the passage of time. Hence for the BB to occur time must have existed to allow the change of state from no BB to the BB. It is therefore not possible that time started with the BB.

Furthermore, when considering what might have occurred before the BB we will always reach a point that time must have been present. If there was a point when time did not exist then we could not exist now since nothing could have occured without time to start the sequence that led to us. It follows then that time had no beginning.
 
phlogistician said:
No. Just pointing out that because something is an SI unit, that does not make it real or tangible. It just means we can bung some numbers into some formulae and make a few useful predictions.
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time is ultimately not a SI unit
rather a SI unit is what we use to determine the (relative) validity of time

hence

Factually, however, time has nothing to do with the relativities of things; rather, everything is shaped and calculated in terms of the facility offered by time.

Sorry, but no. The analogy is rather weak. Time does not have any of the attributes of god.
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I tend to disagree
 
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I guess I don't see how an understanding of the time concept would lead me closer to accepting the possibility that a god might exist.

From the reference - "Absolute time is continuous and is unaffected by the speed or slowness of material things. "

We know this to be false. We know that time is not a constant or absolute but is always relative to the observer and is dependent on the velocity of material objects.

Also from the ref "Eternal time is the primeval source of the interactions of the three modes of material nature. It is unchangeable and limitless, and it works as the instrument of the Supreme Personality of Godhead for His pastimes in the material creation."

Since we now know that time is changeable and operates in synergy with material things then we can safely say it isn't a source of any kind. And to me that leaves the potential connection with a possible deity somewhat - errrrr what?
 
Myles said:
As an atheist, I put god in the same category as unicorns etc. because there is not a shred of evidence to support the notion of god.
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Not a shred, except for thousands of years of worship, and a lot of records?
Myles said:
... This has nothing to do with authority figures or anything of the kind.
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Bullshit.
People who say they equate God with an "inconsequential" notion do so because it's the inverse of the notion they have of a consequential God.
 
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Thousands of years of worship doesn't prove anything. For thousands of years, other concepts were honored too. Ancient books are interesting, but hardly compelling evidence. Anyone can write a book and declare anything they want to exist.
 
LG said:
Metaphysically, time is distinguished as absolute and real.

are you trying to argue that SI is a branch of metaphysics?
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It's a response to your attempts to argue that 19th century metaphysics is a branch of factual reality.
LG said:
Go back to the original post and try using probability, mass, interval or distance in place of "time" - actually it is time that makes these other terms even comprehensible, yet time can be determined as something separate from them.
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I don't have much trouble determining distance and interval, say, first, and defining time in relation to it - even measuring time in terms of these more fundamental (in this approach) entities.

LG said:
Time is the phenomena that empowers all acts of perception and also the observable, yet is metaphysical since it remains outside of these things.
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It is by remembered acts of perception that I derive time, as a secondary and dependent entity, in my new just -invented 19th century metaphysical system.

It's my chosen manner of abstracting order of location and interval in space. It seems to work OK, as long as nobody takes it too seriously.
LG said:
Nothing is equal to or greater than time in the way that it affects all things.
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Entropy. Gravity. Probability. Ratio. Number. Distance.

"Time is what keeps everything from happening at once. Space is what keeps everything from happening to me".
 
Cris said:
I guess I don't see how an understanding of the time concept would lead me closer to accepting the possibility that a god might exist.
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It wasn't meant to

rather it was meant to indicate that time occupies a certain ontological status with atheists as god does for a theist
(not in the sense of worship but in the sense that it is the primary controlling force on our actions)
From the reference - "Absolute time is continuous and is unaffected by the speed or slowness of material things. "

We know this to be false. We know that time is not a constant or absolute but is always relative to the observer and is dependent on the velocity of material objects.
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seems you are not referencing absolute time - time may travel slower or quicker, but it is always forward and never backwards or stationary
Also from the ref "Eternal time is the primeval source of the interactions of the three modes of material nature. It is unchangeable and limitless, and it works as the instrument of the Supreme Personality of Godhead for His pastimes in the material creation."
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i didn't include that, since explaining the modes of material nature is a combination of something beyond most reader's patience to listen to and my patience to explain
:bugeye:

Since we now know that time is changeable and operates in synergy with material things then we can safely say it isn't a source of any kind. And to me that leaves the potential connection with a possible deity somewhat - errrrr what?
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does the synergy of time with material things enable time to go backwards?
 
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spidergoat said:
Thousands of years of worship doesn't prove anything. For thousands of years, other concepts were honored too. Ancient books are interesting, but hardly compelling evidence. Anyone can write a book and declare anything they want to exist.
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How about some of those ancient Greek and Roman records? Not compelling? Too ancient, perhaps?
We worship what Pythagoras had to say about triangles, not much like they did back then, but we respect or honour him, and especially his mathematical science, at least part of his philosophy.

Existence is something that gets decided when others check out the ideas of individuals. Funny how history appears as the recordings of individual people. Some of them even get remembered, and have things we use all the time named after them, right? We invoke their memory constantly.

But of course, token names, rituals of calculation and precision, and invoking the memory and ideas of dead people isn't worship, is it?
 
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Time is the basic measurement of the activity of our senses, by which we calculate past, present and future; but in factual calculation, time has no beginning and no end.
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Yep. Measure and calculate are functions of a thermodynamical process in a brain. This is what makes time appear (and the fact that the world constantly changes). Change is the only reality, but we see no "instant" of time and no point of arrival, because we have to keep breathing and changing, we "move on" from it.
Time is not subject to any form of psychology, nor are the moments objective realities in themselves, but they are dependent on particular experiences.
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Particular experience, like visual patterns of energy, patterns of sound, pressure, taste, are all due to the way things (atoms and energy) interact due to charge and separation.

Taste is explained by the way certain combinations (patterns or structures) of atoms interact with sensors (neural cells), due to their kinematic (vibrational) nature and their "shape" (which isn't static). Pressure (say from a breeze: momentum of molecules of air), is due to electrostatic forces: change again, due to charge separation.

Any experience or observation is sensory, and senses "work" because things interact and exchange energy/information. It can be explained as change, because time is change. Change is also separation.
 
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