To Discuss The Concept Of A Creator, We Must Remove The Word "God" From It (souls, bible)
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It is now my contention, that in order to ever have a serious discussion regarding the concept of a Creator, we have to remove the word God from it. There is clearly a stigma attached to the word. It carries with it all the nonesensical, superstitious, tyranical, bigoted, outdated, and hate filled notions that are inherently present in the facet of organized religions and beliefs ABOUT the God{s} depicted in them. It seems to do nothing but muddy the waters and undercut the potentialy valid concept of a Creator. A built in "polluting the well" of sorts. We also have to retrain ourselves on what it is we see a Creator as i.e. the visual image we have of a Creator. The classic white bearded man in the sky is also a blight on the conversation.
This creator could be anything from other worldly beings, to an unconscious/conscious unseen energy or force, or even Mystics nature concept.
Using the word God also allows for people of religion to slip other unproven and unfounded characteristics through the back door and give attributes to this idea of a non-descript Creator.
So in closing, I think if we could move away from this "God" stigma, we may be able to move away from the typical and tawdry religious based ideasabout a Creator, and make way for more intelligent and intellectual conversations about the possibility of there being a non-descript Creating factor, whatever that creating factor may be. It would make for better mind exercising commentary, and may draw in more people who will otherwise be put off by the implications of the word "god"
Wouldn't you agree?
General thoughts? Comments? Criticisms? Etc. Etc. ?
Last edited by WhipperSnapper 88; 05-06-2012 at 10:35 PM..
It seem that the use of anything other than 'Nature' is going to be a synonym for 'God'. And 'Nature' suggests an unplanned origin which misses the Creation/Creator idea altogether.
Perhaps the best we can do is put it in lower case. 'God' being reserved for designating a particular personal god (e.g Biblegod) rather than what I call 'Sortagod', which is a more general, non - particular creative and creating entity.
I'm afraid you cannot assign to the universe any attribute of intelligence, design, consciousness, purpose, planning, directed creation or other anthropomorphic projection and expect that people won't think you're referring to God.
If people promoting the idea of a creator would actually give a concrete explanation of what they're talking about, it wouldn't be so easy to confuse it with other god concepts. But doing that would also give people specific ideas to argue against, and traditionally that hasn't been good for the plausibility of the creator in question.
Indeed. I think the problem with the word "god" is that if you are trying to sell a new or minority idea then by using the word "god" you are likely to end up spending more time telling people what you do NOT mean rather than what you DO.
Clearly some people on here do not mind that however as they actually want to sneak in some of the attributes of what people think of when they think of the word "god". So they use that word, pretend to be talking about something else... but then suddenly they will slip in things like Jesus and souls and afterlives and moral judgement and the like.
So not only is it unhelpful that the word "god" clouds many issues.... it is even worse because some people are actually actively TRYING to confuse the issue by using the word.
Both the words "god" and "creator" imply a sapient individual personality.
For most people, that is different than a mix of forces one might find in nature.
(Although some could argue that it is impossible to distinguish between a sapient personality and forces of nature, because all sapient personalities can be reduced to simple causes-and-effects of the forces of nature.)
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It seem that the use of anything other than 'Nature' is going to be a synonym for 'God'. And 'Nature' suggests an unplanned origin which misses the Creation/Creator idea altogether.
