Ignosticism: What Is God?

[brightlights]

This is a definition that you're using simply to make it fit what your stance is: That everybody worships a god. The worse part about this is that the rest of your post doesn't even support or follow this definition.


This is what I mean. In this paragraph, you've changed your meaning from "enjoy" to "something to do with foundations."

I should connect the dots here. I mean to say something like: to worship something is to so richly and completely enjoy it that it becomes foundational to your life.

It seems obvious that you're twisted up into knots trying to justify your thinking. Your definitions don't match up with one another, with your usage, or with the given passages. Also, nothing in the dictionary definition says that you worship has to have "blind devotion."

Thanks for pointing it out.

For instance, if we use your first definition, your claim has an entirely different meaning and changes from essentially:

"Everyone worships a god."

to

"Everyone has something they richly enjoy."

So, as you can see, your claim is probably right but only if we use the correct words and not try to sneak in a meaning that you're supposedly not using.

Now, using the correct words and their dictionary definitions, I'd say that yes, there are things I deeply and richly enjoy, but NO I do not worship anything and do not have a god of any kind.

I'd say here the same thing I said above. I'll rephrase it to: Everyone has some thing (or things) they so richly enjoy that should they lose these things their lives would seem to lack meaning.

As an aside, I don't believe that a dictionary is an absolute authority on what a word means. The definition you find in the dictionary certainly has validity to some point, but I believe what the Bible is describing is something different and I would not use the dictionary definition when we're talking about what the Bible means by worship.

 

[griggs1947]

My form of ignosticim -igtheism pervades all arguments for His existence as well as for His attrubutes. As we naturalists dispose of each argument for Him, we find one less referent for Him such He cannot exist! And since He has contradictory,incoherent attributes, again He cannot eixst!
So my form inheres in atheism rather than as Alfred Jules Ayer and Theodore Drange insist that ignosticism works against both theism and atheism.

 

[sandwiches]

I'd say here the same thing I said above. I'll rephrase it to: Everyone has some thing (or things) they so richly enjoy that should they lose these things their lives would seem to lack meaning.

I would say that I can only think of one thing that I would feel lost losing and that's probably my senses. Without any senses I would feel like my life would be meaningless as I wouldn't be able to experience the universe outside my mind.

Having said that, I would not equivocate this to mean that I worship my senses as gods.

 

[UnReAL13]

My form of ignosticim -igtheism pervades all arguments for His existence as well as for His attrubutes. As we naturalists dispose of each argument for Him, we find one less referent for Him such He cannot exist! And since He has contradictory,incoherent attributes, again He cannot eixst!
So my form inheres in atheism rather than as Alfred Jules Ayer and Theodore Drange insist that ignosticism works against both theism and atheism.

Ignosticism is even at odds with Agnosticism, as the philosophy states that even Agnostics assume to know too much about the nature of a deity at times.

Agnostics will sometimes say things like "I don't think a god would be so vengeful and unforgiving..." or something to that effect, but how can they even be sure of this much? Perhaps a deity is entirely cruel and unmerciful. Or perhaps a deity is something that doesn't even have a consciousness.

I will admit though, it's interesting how people will use this whole philosophy to support either Theism or Atheism. My Ignostic stance is rooted more in Apathetic Agnosticism and Neutralism. I'm also a Pluralist/Compatibilist on top of that. And I suppose I might as well add, Humanist/Hedonist

 

[sandwiches]

Ignosticism is even at odds with Agnosticism, as the philosophy states that even Agnostics assume to know too much about the nature of a deity at times.

Agnostics will sometimes say things like "I don't think a god would be so vengeful and unforgiving..." or something to that effect, but how can they even be sure of this much? Perhaps a deity is entirely cruel and unmerciful. Or perhaps a deity is something that doesn't even have a consciousness.

I will admit though, it's interesting how people will use this whole philosophy to support either Theism or Atheism. My Ignostic stance is rooted more in Apathetic Agnosticism and Neutralism. I'm also a Pluralist/Compatibilist on top of that. And I suppose I might as well add, Humanist/Hedonist

As I've said before in this thread, unlike ignostics, I don't claim ignorance or incomprehension when asked if I believe in a god. I simply answer the best of my knowledge and understanding of what a god is. If their definition differs from mine, then they can always explain that to me and then I'll answer again whether I believe in that specific definition of god or not.

However, all semantics games aside, the general concept of "gods" or "god" is understood sufficiently by most of those who used to be theists, live in predominantly theistic societies, have contact with theists, or interest in theism; so, that's the majority of us.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

A general concept of god/gods is only relatively familiar to us in the Western sense, but not necessarily an Eastern sense. The idea of divinity varies a lot with the consideration of a globalized system of understanding that people can draw from. God can be systematically formulated to a great extent or it can be so mysterious that all you say is what it isn't. This hardly seems clear, except if you generalize with statistics.

 

[sandwiches]

A general concept of god/gods is only relatively familiar to us in the Western sense, but not necessarily an Eastern sense. The idea of divinity varies a lot with the consideration of a globalized system of understanding that people can draw from. God can be systematically formulated to a great extent or it can be so mysterious that all you say is what it isn't. This hardly seems clear, except if you generalize with statistics.

Well, I can only speak of concepts I know or understand. All concepts of "gods," "deities," "spirits," "goddesses," etc are concepts for which I have no reason to accept that they reflect reality in any measurable sense.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

Exactly the point of ignosticism, which is not exclusive of being an atheist in at least the implicit or weak senses of the word. If the concepts are unfalsifiable and unverifiable apart from the presumption that you are experiencing them, it really throws a wrench into any claims of rationality of those concepts and only a relative coherence within the group. At best they are like philosophical jargon one could throw around that only graduate level philosophers would understand. Similarly, people can throw around God concepts but only those "insiders" can understand. It's similar, but not the same

 

[UnReAL13]

However, all semantics games aside, the general concept of "gods" or "god" is understood sufficiently by most of those who used to be theists, live in predominantly theistic societies, have contact with theists, or interest in theism; so, that's the majority of us.

I don't think it's so clear looking at religious definitions. Eastern religions differ vastly from western ones. Religions like Wicca include views rooted in monotheism, polytheism and atheism. There are so many different beliefs and perspectives of what a deity is supposed to be, so how can anyone really be sure which interpretation is correct?

Ignosticism is not a game of semantics, it's a philosophical tool used to clarify theological language. There's not only Theistic interpretations, but also Deism, the belief in a god that created the universe and no longer intervenes, as well as Ietsism, the belief that "something" is out there which might not necessarily be a "god".

There are several different viewpoints to consider when throwing around a term so ambiguous in its meaning. It's not just that most definitions seem incoherent, but there's also a wide variety of definitions to choose from. This term "god" is the most nebulous term in our language, because it's completely unfalsifiable. Anyone can say that anything is "god", and nobody will be able to prove them wrong. Nor will they be able to verify their claim.

Ignosticism recognizes this stalemate, and comes to the conclusion that the term "god" is rendered meaningless. It has about as much meaning to it as a random curse, even a grunt or moan. Deity is synonymous with god, which I use more often because Christians tend to think that saying "god" always implies the Christian version "God". As if this word could never be used to refer to a deity of any other kind.