How does one come to the conclusion that there is no God?
Throwing in a bone as this should be a debate group not?
everybody at some age starts to question his existence and begins a journey into the study of Philosophy to form a personal belief as to why one is here and how one comes to be here.
At some point one throws out what parents and religion have always taught and begins on his own.
now, in a recent read of Plato's doctrine of forms I came to ask the following question.
How can someone come to believe and or deny the very existence of God?
How do you come to the concept of "god" being different from just being.
Keep in mind, this is not a rhetorical question or a question meant to poke fun and ridicule the very idea of atheism or any theism.
It is a simple way of trying to understand how an theist moves to the atheist sit, or back and comes to this conclusion.
Nor am I saying "there is a God and atheists are wrong", I am simply trying to understand
And this should be the place to do so. It is a philosophy forum after-all
In the study of philosophy it seems quite obvious to me that ultimately, everything leads to a one. (a one that can't be directly defined from within, as any definition is in a sense true already as they come into being by stating them (how ridiculous they may seem to an observer within...)
As Plato would say, there are many images of the universal truths here on earth ... and in this universe as it doesn't end at the border of our planet.
Naturally, as humans, we come to ask ourselves where these images came from and where the universals reside. (for me that would be our imagination, the non linear aspect of being, and reality our linear aspect of being)
Now I understand how these universals can come to be without an ultimate "one" state it all lies in the potential properties of such state.
But for some : the existence of universals and the existence of man comes to contradict themselves without the existence of a God.
The other potential answer besides a god of some sort seems to be the idea that we came from "nothing". (Stenger did a fine job on this one, he pointed just as I do to the potential properties of nothing... as a simplest system it tends to be unstable LOL, it would aggregated to something in no-time)
But in philosophic thought the idea that nothing came from nothing is ludicrous and simply cannot be.(some philosophers have a hard time thinking in concepts outside linear time, see above)
That brings me to maths (being just another form of language but one able to talk in concepts outside linear time) ,it even shows an equation is able to bite its own tail and is able to hold itself. (fractals etc.) It is even able to fill every apparent gap and more important it is able to make every (unidimensional) part of this equation the point of origin and end-point of the equation. We can make maths visible in numbers and signs within our reality but realy don't have to as it is our reality and much more already.
In this sense a single god would be the equation as a whole and the single parts of it.as there is no space or time to divide them
a multiple god just the same but a different snapshot in time :)
In the end there is No outer-division...a one state...
So maybe there is no need for discussion , I'm god, and so are you...? and all god definitions are true.. including the non god. (that will be hard for some)
so, as I am still, and always be in the search of our existence and goal (but I have some clue already...sorry)
Now give me an idea of where you are coming from and what your thoughts are on my thinking.
and maybe we explain why we are fighting over "gods"
Thank you Erik for this good philosophical post again at last!
AntwortenLöschenMy own position to the question about god is for many years already "I don't know" and as there are many gods, I don't know how to serve him/her well. If he/she exists and is all-knowing, he/she knows and understands my dilemma, and as a good god he/she will forgive me. When he/she is not all-knowing and good, I won't serve him/her and await the consequences. When there is no god I have no problem with him/her and just try my best.
This is for me the core problem it are not the gods who struggle against each other.
AntwortenLöschenThey simply are "by definition".
You could say: remove the definition and the god is gone, but you can't remove definitions, as definitions (sets of properties) are part of reality.
am I saying god exist?
Being in this case an undefined, I can't deny such existence.(does something exist because you can't conclusively deny it?... Hell unicorns may exist, you can't conclusively deny that either)
But a believer has the same problem: He can't conclusively define his god? (Does it exist if you can't conclusively define it? A black hole exists as a true black hole untill we know better.(and we have many types of black holes already)
To be clear: The multiple definitions for "the word god" exist, just as any definition of being exists.
Gods or states are in such simple definitions (being just summed properties), and sure their creators were trying not the ignore the potential properties of "nothing", but it is hard if you have no perfect metaphor for it.
Eventually
It are the creators- holders- keepers who struggle
They've by their claim set a goal: To be the most important (true).
For me
Religion is about the god definition maker/keeper's self-satisfaction, (and suddenly it can be any fan-club even any football club, philosophy page it is structurally no different)
Do know, I struggle with this self satisfaction myself and I'm not a believer, So I can imagine how hard they struggle within their added constraints, the self-accepted arrogance (claiming to have the only truth, to be the apparent best). The maker/keeper's haughtiness (by trying to repress other ideas in west and east),
the maker/keeper's conceitedness (longing to control other minds if only to prove their "right")
Some if not all are in many cases the root of their own problem as they act in self-conceit
it all becomes an extended metaphor with, I agree, a complex but in many cases ignoring logic, that governs an entire scripture.
It's hard but this god thing is based on ignorance.(to ignore makes it a delusion, to solve this they simply made the hidden voice the predominant one.
without knowing it they act out their own defined opponent's (within monotheist religions it is called Satan) wish to live the delusion.
They will not agree as it would make their religions "nonsense' and part of their lower-self.
so I can't blame you to be a "non decided" on this subject and to just live to your best understanding, claim nothing, and simply "be your own definition" is hard (doubtful in a good sense) enough.
Now I'm preaching...
lol
AntwortenLöschenI suspect I am just pragmatic, Erik, avoiding endless loops of thoughts I can't handle....
If you check out most mainstream atheist positions (including historical ones), you generally don't see a *conclusion* that there is no god, per se.
AntwortenLöschenWhat you see, more often than not, is some version of the statement "no convincing argument or evdience exists in favour of god". Which is a very different statement, and underlines the essential core issue to me.