What do we really mean by "God"?

[wynn]

I've always been something of an atheist, for as long as I can remember (even as a child). But I don't recall a whole lot of unwholesome dynamics taking place between myself and the theists around me. My family was/is quite secular and religiously eclectic. They didn't really concern themselves with what my religious beliefs were, if any. My community was/is pretty much the same. I don't recall anyone preaching to me until I was an adult, and then it was because I sought it out because of my own curiosity.

My experience with theists is quite different, as I mentioned before - not exactly rosy. But while many people whom I've talked to about this, theists and atheists alike, tend to conclude that the skeptical way I think about theism mostly has to do with my negative experiences with theists, I myself don't think it does. I think that my idea that theism is a highly elitist, exclusivist endeavor is grounded primarily in considerations of religious epistemology as such. (And strictly speaking, the theists actually agree with me on this.)

Several of my closest associates are deeply religious people. And they speak freely about their beliefs and faith. That's fine with me, it's something that's important to them. But I don't think that any of them expect me to unconditionally trust what they say on these matters. They fully expect that I won't.

Preachers and leaders of spiritual/religious organizations certainly expect us to trust them unconditionally (even if they sometimes say that they don't expect us to do so).

while we cannot but acknowledge that the only source of all input on the topic of "GOD" are theists, we have no first-hand knowledge.

I can't entirely agree with that, because I don't want to flatly dismiss the possibility of theistic sorts of religious experience. The psychology and epistemology these events are obviously open to discussion, but I want to at least acknowledge that people around the world report many varieties of what they interpret as transcendent experiences.

I was referring to non-theists; non-theists indeed have nobody else to rely on for input on the topic of GOD except theists. Other than God Himself, that is, but I wouldn't pin my hopes on that possibility.

At this point, I'm reasonably convinced that religious experiences do happen, and that sometimes they can be totally convincing to the person experiencing them. But they aren't nearly as convincing to outside observers.

Exactly. Which is why, as far as the anticipation of personal divine revelation goes, there is the issue of how to make sense of something that is confirmed by nobody else but oneself. Idiosyncratic notions of belief in God seem to be difficult to maintain in the long run.

I haven't had any experiences like that. An occasional sense of transcendent mystery certainly (that's probably the thing that's motivated my lifelong interest in philosophy), but nothing that suggests any personal agency, and nothing that even remotely verifies any of the traditional theistic religions.

Come to think of it - what is there to verify?

God isn't like the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus.
With the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, children actually have good reason to believe they are true, given that the child can observe a relatively stable cause and effect relationship attributed to the being (ie. the child puts a tooth under the pillow and the next morning the tooth is gone and there is money instead of it; or the child desires a particular gift, and she receives it) and the phenomenon is explained to them by people they trust (ie. their parents).

When it comes to God, what relatively stable cause and effect relationship can one observe?

And the people who talk to us (non-theists) on the topic of GOD - it can hardly be said there per default exists a relationship of trust there.


When it comes to theism, I can't think of anything that could be subject to verification.
Trying to verify whether Jesus is the Son of God or whether he indeed rose from the dead, or whether Mohammad is God's prophet, or whether Vishnu has ten avatars per cycle, and such -- I don't see how it would make sense to set out to try to verify any of that.


What about the traditional theistic religious could be subject to verification?
What did you have in mind when you said "nothing that even remotely verifies any of the traditional theistic religions" ?

I don't believe in God, so I'm not really motivated to frantically dial numbers.

I suppose my eagerness to find out "the truth about God" may be in part motivated by my early experiences with theists. From early on, I was categorically excluded from the theistic community in which I nevertheless lived (the kind of thing that can happen to children that are not baptized but live among Christians). I've always wanted to understand why the Christians stigmatized me so, but could never fathom the matter, and envied them.

(All this talk about "God" is kind of academic to me.)

To me too.