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Help please 'God' a nonsense word?

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Help please 'God' a nonsense word?

Gadfly II
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Posted 10/07/09 - 03:34 PM:	#41
Makarismos wrote: Its your idea, anyone reading can refer to your earlyer post on the subject. If you are right, you must be wrong. If you don't think this follows then simply supply one example of a time when an definition does not rely ion any other definitions. Of course, this canot be done, can it? Actually, you reached the wrong conclusion about my post and the conclusion that you offer is false. I'm offering to help you think it through.
Dare to use your own reason. Kant

Cadrache
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Posted 10/07/09 - 03:41 PM:	#42
I agree with most of your viewpoints 180 Proof - but this one doesn't do you any good. Science is inexhaustably better than religion at accurately modelling the world far beyond the reach of our perceptions -- unaided & otherwise -- and contrary to our intuitions. Whether or not God is a fiction; I can still be as accurate as claiming "God figured it out." as I am at "Mr. Newton discovered Gravity." Especially if I do not understand Mathematics. It's mostly due to the capability of learning, more then the private/public experience/knowledge factor. The thing I don't like about how people talk about W. in this case is that by their interpretation a rock should be able to learn any public experience. ( I really should sit down and read that part of W.) But besides that - this thread is interesting.
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

Gadfly II
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Posted 10/07/09 - 03:48 PM:	#43
Makarismos wrote: If you are right, you must be wrong. If you don't think this follows then simply supply one example of a time when an definition does not rely ion any other definitions. Of course, this canot be done, can it? The definition of the word "mammal" is dependent on what in fact mammals are. Do you imagine that all mammals nurse their young BECAUSE Mr. Webster says they do?
Dare to use your own reason. Kant

baden511
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Posted 10/14/09 - 08:05 AM:	#44
I think this question raises the really important issue not necessarily of whether the word 'God' is a nonsense, but what exactly is meant by the word 'God'. For some religious people they will simply point to the Bible or some other religious book and say the being depicted there is 'God'. In which case I would take them as defining 'God' as a fictional (and contradictory, at least in the case of the Bible) character, which they happen to think is real. In this case similar to unicorns or goblins etc... Other religious people would probably try to define 'God' in more abstract terms and it's here where some meeting of minds may be potentially possible between non-theists and theists. There are a range of definitions for 'God' that take the form that 'God' is nature, or 'God' is the Universe, or 'God' is that which caused the Universe to come into being, or 'God' is that feeling people experience in certain states of extreme happiness, or some combination of these things. These definitions are far removed from the anthropomorphic ones provided to us by old religious books, and the actual phenomena being referred to in these cases can be looked at from either a religious perspective or a non-religious one, and are certainly not nonsensical. As an aside, I believe the idea of eternal heavenly bliss is nonsensical because it defies reason. Not because an afterlife is scientifically impossible, that avenue of argument isn't necessary. Eternal bliss is nonsensical because all happiness or bliss is relative, it cannot exist without the possibility of its opposite. In fact I would argue consciousness itself could not exist in such circumstances and so eternal bliss actually equates to eternal oblivion, which is what most non-theists expect of death anyway. Incidentally if those who would seek happiness in drugs knew of this principle they might think twice before chasing dragons down blind alleys.
"Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Moses (Numbers 31:17-18) "Do not harm little children" - Satanic Bible. Rule no.9 "I do not suffer fools gladly."

180 Proof
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Posted 10/14/09 - 08:16 AM:	#45
Cadrache wrote: I agree with most of your viewpoints 180 Proof - but this one doesn't do you any good. Science is inexhaustably better than religion at accurately modelling the world far beyond the reach of our perceptions -- unaided & otherwise -- and contrary to our intuitions. Whether or not God is a fiction; I can still be as accurate as claiming "God figured it out." as I am at "Mr. Newton discovered Gravity." Especially if I do not understand Mathematics. It's mostly due to the capability of learning, more then the private/public experience/knowledge factor. The thing I don't like about how people talk about W. in this case is that by their interpretation a rock should be able to learn any public experience. ( I really should sit down and read that part of W.) But besides that - this thread is interesting. You completely lost me, C. Glad you're enjoying yourself though.
The question isn't "Which explanations do I believe?" but rather "Which explanations do I least disbelieve?" Absence of evidence THAT MUST BE THERE (i.e. implied by any claim, concept, or (its) predicates, that affects changes in/to the world) entails evidence of absence. [What cannot be done?[What cannot be hoped?[What cannot be known?]]]

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