Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I call "fail" on the allied invasion of Normandy. Why? Because their attempts to build a giant robot out of the Eiffel Tower to invade the Soviet Union didn't work.
Now, see how absurd I look saying that? And why? Well, because the allies didn't try to build a giant robot out of the Eiffel tower. I simply ignored what was in front of me and constructed a strawman.
Likewise, no one is actually addressing what I am saying. I am saying this:
1)GOD has many conceptualizations among many religions.
2)One of the conceptualizations of GOD is of a metaphor for reality itself and those things we experience but as humans living human lives but can't really put into words.
3)This conceptualization is found in established religions (Wicca, Taoism, Gnosticism, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism) and is the definition that Joseph Campbell agrees on
4)The above is my definition of GOD, and as those things behind the metaphor (reality, our feelings) exist, GOD, at least in this conceptualization, does exist.
5) GOD can be understood by understanding Mythology, which as Jung and Campbell showed is, is really more metaphor about the human condition and the relationship of man to the transcendent (reality and our higher thoughts that go beyond the intellectual)
6)Religion, as I and the religions I mentioned is saying, is the holistic process of experiencing GOD as defined in point 1) though living the teachings of Mythologies which are to be taken allegorically, not literally.
No one is addressing the above. They are simply constructing strawgods and saying things like "that isn't the God of most Christians" (agrumentum ad Populum fallacy) or that God is silly (an appeal to ridicule and an object statement)
No one has been able to address the six points above and hence, I absolutely rule this argument.
Disagree? Well then I invite you to address the six points and ONLY the six points and not make up any strawmen arguments. Otherwise, I do indeed PWN!
I'll grant you 1 through 4; I don't think anyone here is debating those points as stated.
If GOD in point 5 is as defined in point 4, then I can accept 5 as a hypothesis although it's hard for me to see how it's objectively substantiatable ... and as others have pointed out you are departing from many people's definition of god. As for 6 ... that is the position of Unitarianism for instance but go very far to the right of that and literalism creeps right back in.
Many of us unbelievers have said that the very liberal religion that you're describing has quite a bit of common cause with atheism. Even liberal Christianity, like atheism, is opposed to Biblical literalism / interrantism because it defines an orthodoxy that excludes as heretics all who do not subscribe, and tends to consider ecumenism and other forms of inclusiveness to be evil.
Contrary to what you seem to think, in my experience while most atheists disagree on the value of chasing subjective personal experience, we don't really give a fig if someone wants to so long as they don't make god-claims that they assert are provable and so long as they don't proselytize or attempt to legislate that others must conform to their beliefs.
You didn't answer my question. The metaphor no longer exists if there comes a time when everything we perceive in the universe can be intellectually understood or conceptualized.
You question was a strawman and I already answered it: I was not speaking of natural phenomenon, like the origins of the Universe or anything (the GOD in the gaps argument) I am talking about things we experience as humans that we can't put into words, save poetry of a sort.
For example (again) the joy of music. We understand it, we experience it, but can we really put it into words that do justice to the sum of it? No...unless we use poetry.
Likewise, life itself can only be fully expressed in poems, and those poems are...Myths.
I am not making a God in the gaps argument. I am speaking of things science just isn't made to study. Can science quantify humor? Can it make an equation for the joy of sitting in a dark room and smiling at the darkness? No. That is GOD. Does my GOD end when I die? For me, yes, but if others live after me, and if reality continues after me (no solipsism) then their GOD lives on.
As per the full and complete definition of "God"..."God" is a title that can be assigned to anything or anybody that one feels has the attributes demonstrative of being such.
Also, "God" manifests in a myriad of ways...not just in the usual bunch of mainstream conceptualizations that many religions are based upon.
Thus: God Exists.
vpunks assertions are fully valid.
Anyone that doesn't like that will just have to learn to deal with it, or suffer whatever angst it causes them...because their displeasure (or dispute) with "God Exists" will not do a thing to change that fact.
As per the full and complete definition of "God"..."God" is a title that can be assigned to anything or anybody that one feels has the attributes demonstrative of being such.
Also, "God" manifests in a myriad of ways...not just in the usual bunch of mainstream conceptualizations that many religions are based upon.
Thus: God Exists.
vpunks assertions are fully valid.
Anyone that doesn't like that will just have to learn to deal with it, or suffer whatever angst it causes them...because their displeasure (or dispute) with "God Exists" will not do a thing to change that fact.
This is one of the funniest posts I've seen.....So I guess you and punk think that any title can be applied to anything at all....So I designate my car as Satan (A designation well deserved) and the tree in my front yard as God....
1. God
a. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
b. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
2. A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.
3. An image of a supernatural being; an idol.
4. One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed:
This is one of the funniest posts I've seen.....So I guess you and punk think that any title can be applied to anything at all....So I designate my car as Satan (A designation well deserved) and the tree in my front yard as God....
1. God
a. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
b. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.
2. A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.
3. An image of a supernatural being; an idol.
4. One that is worshiped, idealized, or followed:
Heeeeeeey sans...ya finally "get it"!
I like vpunks posts...but the ad pop slams gotta stop.
I love it. Ad Populum crushes 99.9999% of anything put up against it...it's AWESOME.
In fact, the concept of ad pop is a "God" to me...and another way "God" manifests!
I like vpunks posts...but the ad pop slams gotta stop.
I love it. Ad Populum crushes 99.9999% of anything put up against it...it's AWESOME.
In fact, the concept of ad pop is a "God" to me...and another way "God" manifests!
LOL....I've known for some time now that the ad pop fallacy was your god....
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
