Atheism is a belief fueled by jealousy

[Magical Realist]

So now you're claiming that "Skydaddy" was an insult?

No..I'm claiming forumdaddy is an insult. Accept responsibility for your own words.

[Ostronomos]

The G.O.D. or simply God realizes itself. It carries itself into existence.


The human brain is a computer with full read/ write capability. Does that mean the universe is a computer with equal capability?

[Syne]

So now you're claiming that "Skydaddy" was an insult?

No..I'm claiming forumdaddy is an insult. Accept responsibility for your own words.

So you can claim that others need/seek a surrogate father, but it's somehow suddenly insulting when people do so of you. Hypocrite.

Come on, you can tell us. Is Yaz your forumdaddy?

Insulting Yazata as well as me now. Same old shit again..

And how you seeing Yaz as a surrogate father figure would be insulting to him, I can't imagine. Are you so reprehensible that even the association of your admiration taints others? O_o

[Magical Realist]

So you can claim that others need/seek a surrogate father, but it's somehow suddenly insulting when people do so of you. Hypocrite.

More ad homs. How typical..

Are you so reprehensible that even the association of your admiration taints others?

Oh lookie! Another ad hom. Why am I not surprised? What is your problem? Can you not carry on a normal conversation without insulting people?

[Yazata]

I assume you do realize the difference between a personal god and a god conceived of as a person. The former acknowledging the potential for a personal relationship with the divine, the latter tending toward a bearded man in the clouds, much like a holdover from Greek mythology in Olympus. I don't really think I need to point out which is more child-like.

But doesn't the possibility of having a personal relationship suggest that whatever is on the other side of the relationship is another person? The 'Big Bang' seemingly fulfills some of the traditional functions of God, creator of the universe and first cause. But people don't typically enter into personal relationships with the Big Bang. The laws of physics arguably exercise a controlling and guiding function over the unfolding of reality, but again people don't typically enter into personal relationships with Lagrangians or Hilbert space.

The Bible is filled with anthropomorphic language that seemingly treats God as a person (except much grander and exalted). God speaks (Gen 1:3), he sees (Gen 1:4). He commands, he judges.

Deuteronomy 9:8 reads: "Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the LORD was so angry with you that He would have destroyed you."

Examples of this kind of thing are everywhere in the Bible. Even Jesus speaks about God this way. (For Jesus, God is "my father", not some abstract principle of the philosophy of his time.)

Yes, actual children are taught simpler ideas, and maybe MR left religion before becoming aware of its common adult form.

Which is?? (It would seem to be an adult form that most adults are unaware of.) If you believe that Jewish/Christian/Islamic-style theistic belief can be separated and divorced from a God with human psychological characteristics, then I again ask you to expand on whatever adult view of God you are proposing. What is it? How is it consistent with the theological traditions?

As I wrote earlier, I'm attracted to aphophaticism. That might be a starting point. Eastern Orthodox theology has many interesting ideas (Gregory Palamas and the essence/energies distinction etc.) But the point is that this is stuff for theological intellectuals. Most believers are entirely unaware of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essence%E2...istinction

Children cannot be expected to understand things like omnipresence, immanence, and transcendence

I'm not convinced that adults, including the theologians, do either. These are still open topics of contoversy among philosophical theologians and in the philosophy of religion. (Just as they have been for many centuries.)

To the right person, simple sleight of hand appears legitimately supernatural, and from our perspective, we have pretty good reason to think that "magic" is just a knowledge we don't understand yet. Whether you believe said knowledge will eventually preclude a god is your prerogative.

The idea of God's mode of action seems to be that whatever God wants (he has goals and desires, psychological anthropomorphism) God gets. "His will" (psychological anthropomorphism again) becomes reality. The idea of omnipotence is tied up with that.

The comparison to magic comes from the fact that no attempt is made to explain a plausible mechanism by which this might take place. It's just 'Abracadabra! Poof! The rabbit emerges from that hat and the universe is created.

(Interestingly, Isaac Newton's proto-Kantian idea of the universe being the realm of God's imagination handles that rather more elegantly.)

Again, a "person" with a psychology akin to the Greek pantheon (i.e. analogous to our own) isn't espoused, at least by Christianity.

I don't think that you are giving the Greek pantheon sufficient credit. I find it (arguably) more intellectually sophisticated than monotheism.

Concerning Christianity, the whole range of psychological predicates that we use with other human beings (and sometimes only with other human beings) seems to be in play when we are talking about God. Presumably this vocabulary is being used truthfully and meaningfully.

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:8)

Everyone is free to have their own opinions. What they are not free to do with utter impunity is ascribe false beliefs only to ridicule or malign.

Like Ostro did in post #1? Strangely, you've been entirely silent about that.

When MR responded to it in post #2, you jumped on him in post #3.

And quite frankly, I see nothing wrong with post #2. I agree with pretty much everything MR said there and I think that he said it in a fairly mature fashion.

I have shown his straw man to be naive or uninformed.

I think that I've done a pretty good job of arguing just the opposite.

[Syne]

So you can claim that others need/seek a surrogate father, but it's somehow suddenly insulting when people do so of you. Hypocrite.

More ad homs. How typical..

Are you so reprehensible that even the association of your admiration taints others?

Oh lookie! Another ad hom. Why am I not surprised? What is your problem? Can you not carry on a normal conversation without insulting people?

Wow. You really need to learn the definition of ad hominem. Since there were none there (learn to read question marks), you can only be tone trolling.
And I'm not the one who said you seeing Yaz as a surrogate father was insulting to him.

[Magical Realist]

you can only be tone trolling.

Now I'm trolling! lol!

ad ho·mi·nem
ˌad ˈhämənəm/Submit
adverb & adjective
1.
(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining

[Syne]

I assume you do realize the difference between a personal god and a god conceived of as a person. The former acknowledging the potential for a personal relationship with the divine, the latter tending toward a bearded man in the clouds, much like a holdover from Greek mythology in Olympus. I don't really think I need to point out which is more child-like.

But doesn't the possibility of having a personal relationship suggest that whatever is on the other side of the relationship is another person? The 'Big Bang' seemingly fulfills some of the traditional functions of God, creator of the universe and first cause. But people don't typically enter into personal relationships with the Big Bang. The laws of physics arguably exercise a controlling and guiding function over the unfolding of reality, but again people don't typically enter into personal relationships with Lagrangians or Hilbert space.

No, the relationship being personal does not make the related to necessarily a person. People claim to have a personal connection with nature all the time, and I doubt they're all envisioning a personified "mother nature" or something. Maybe I was overly optimistic about your differentiation skills. The Big Bang would, indeed, fulfill some of the functions of a god, if only we could have any knowledge of how it occurred, so we could classify it as wholly naturalistic, which even science predicts we can never accomplish. The laws of physics break down at the Big Bang singularity, and those laws have no will or even aesthetic to evoke personal sentiment.

The Bible is filled with anthropomorphic language that seemingly treats God as a person (except much grander and exalted). God speaks (Gen 1:3), he sees (Gen 1:4). He commands, he judges.

Deuteronomy 9:8 reads: "Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the LORD was so angry with you that He would have destroyed you."

Examples of this kind of thing are everywhere in the Bible. Even Jesus speaks about God this way. (For Jesus, God is "my father", not some abstract principle of the philosophy of his time.)

And? Again, why would any conception of god preclude certain pronouns? Even a deist god.
And your "abstract principle" sounds just like MR's "impersonal metaphysical abstraction" straw man. Who said god was either?

Yes, actual children are taught simpler ideas, and maybe MR left religion before becoming aware of its common adult form.

Which is?? (It would seem to be an adult form that most adults are unaware of.) If you believe that Jewish/Christian/Islamic-style theistic belief can be separated and divorced from a God with human psychological characteristics, then I again ask you to expand on whatever adult view of God you are proposing. What is it? How is it consistent with the theological traditions?

What's so hard to understand? Humans communicate things in human terms that other humans can comprehend. And just like humans are self-aware and have a will, so does the source of such being. If you want to call that "human psychological characteristics", that's fine. But a person who is invisible, which logically implies a localized embodiment of some sort, can only apply to a manifestation, like Jesus, whose invisibility would defeat the purpose.

As I wrote earlier, I'm attracted to aphophaticism. That might be a starting point. Eastern Orthodox theology has many interesting ideas (Gregory Palamas and the essence/energies distinction etc.) But the point is that this is stuff for theological intellectuals. Most believers are entirely unaware of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essence%E2...istinction

To the contrary, most Christians don't believe everything is a direct part of god (its essence), even being completely unaware of the relevant theological arguments.

Children cannot be expected to understand things like omnipresence, immanence, and transcendence

I'm not convinced that adults, including the theologians, do either. These are still open topics of contoversy among philosophical theologians and in the philosophy of religion. (Just as they have been for many centuries.)

Open controversies among philosophical theologians doesn't reflect on the average believer. Being unencumbered with the nuanced philosophical arguments surrounding each, most believers have no trouble understanding that god is everywhere, in everything, and beyond everything. Those are, on their face, simple ideas for adults.

To the right person, simple sleight of hand appears legitimately supernatural, and from our perspective, we have pretty good reason to think that "magic" is just a knowledge we don't understand yet. Whether you believe said knowledge will eventually preclude a god is your prerogative.

The idea of God's mode of action seems to be that whatever God wants (he has goals and desires, psychological anthropomorphism) God gets. "His will" (psychological anthropomorphism again) becomes reality. The idea of omnipotence is tied up with that.

The comparison to magic comes from the fact that no attempt is made to explain a plausible mechanism by which this might take place. It's just 'Abracadabra! Poof! The rabbit emerges from that hat and the universe is created.

(Interestingly, Isaac Newton's proto-Kantian idea of the universe being the realm of God's imagination handles that rather more elegantly.)

Could you plausibly explain an iPad to an isolated tribesman? Where could you start that would even begin to make sense and link his state of knowledge to the truth? He would swear that it's all magic. No explanation that he would find plausible could possibly approach the facts. But just because he doesn't understand it, and can't readily be made to, doesn't make it magic.

Again, a "person" with a psychology akin to the Greek pantheon (i.e. analogous to our own) isn't espoused, at least by Christianity.

I don't think that you are giving the Greek pantheon sufficient credit. I find it (arguably) more intellectually sophisticated than monotheism.

Concerning Christianity, the whole range of psychological predicates that we use with other human beings (and sometimes only with other human beings) seems to be in play when we are talking about God. Presumably this vocabulary is being used truthfully and meaningfully.

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:8)

The Christian god is idealized far beyond the flawed Greek gods. If you think people worshiping gods that depict every human flaw is "intellectually sophisticated", that's on you. Again, the source of being is likely to share basic traits, like self-awareness and will, with contingent beings.
The source of being is necessarily the greatest connection between beings...love.

Everyone is free to have their own opinions. What they are not free to do with utter impunity is ascribe false beliefs only to ridicule or malign.

Like Ostro did in post #1? Strangely, you've been entirely silent about that.

When MR responded to it in post #2, you jumped on him in post #3.

And quite frankly, I see nothing wrong with post #2. I agree with pretty much everything MR said there and I think that he said it in a fairly mature fashion.

Obviously, since MR responded, he didn't get away with "ascribing false beliefs" "with utter impunity". I have Ostro on ignore, and rarely like engaging with him. And MR is a big boy who can fight his own fights.

If you don't even understand that religion emerged independently all over the world and that the same impetus for that still exists in humans, we're probably at an impasse.

I have shown his straw man to be naive or uninformed.

I think that I've done a pretty good job of arguing just the opposite.

Well, it's become pretty clear that you share his naive notions.

People regularly express a personal connection to nature, even speaking of nature's wrath, serenity, or even nurturing. Even naming it Mother Nature, Earth Mother, etc.. Do you really think they believe it to be a person? Is this person invisible because you can't see it or because it's just not a single, embodied personage? Is this person magic because you cannot know how it came to exist? O_o

I know you're better than this.

---

you can only be tone trolling.

Now I'm trolling! lol!

ad ho·mi·nem
ˌad ˈhämənəm/Submit
adverb & adjective
1.
(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining

Yes, hypocritically accusing people of ad homs for the exact same thing you've said is trolling.

The position you are maintaining is a naive one. And as I've repeatedly told you, if you try crap like inferring someone wants a surrogate father, you can expect the same in return. IOW, if mine was ad hominem, so was yours...and as always, you started it.

[Magical Realist]

Yes, hypocritically accusing people of ad homs for the exact same thing you've said is trolling.

Wrong. Calling me a troll is simply another one of your pathetic endless ad homs you've made to me in lieu of having no argument left to make. This is how we always end up. You calling me names and insulting me repeatedly in posts and me being the bigger man and just moving on. It's what you are, as even members here messaging me agree. And no, I never ad homed you or anybody else here.

[Syne]

Yes, hypocritically accusing people of ad homs for the exact same thing you've said is trolling.

Wrong. Calling me a troll is simply another one of your pathetic endless ad homs you've made to me in lieu of having no argument left to make. This is how we always end up. You calling me names and insulting me repeatedly in posts and me being the bigger man and just moving on. It's what you are, as even members here messaging me agree. And no, I never ad homed you or anybody else here.

No, when you've hypocritically called the same thing you've said an ad hominem, you are demonstrably either intellectually dishonest or trolling. Take your pick.
We always end up this way because you always find some way to take a reply to your position personal and start actually slinging ad hominems first. You then just pretend you never did, falsely claim the high ground, and whine about it, even though it's all there for everyone to read.

Here was the first ad hom between us in this thread:

Sounds like a refusal to grow up and face the reality of life to me. The missing Daddy you never got enough of.

See, you seem to have taken my observation that your notion of god was naive (not that you were child-like or naive, and even comparable to that of many Christians), as a personal insult when it wasn't. Then you simply used that as justification for all your whining and posturing since.