Atheists/Agnostics: How Much Sense Does God Make?

How much sense does God as a concept or entity make to you?

  • Atheist: God makes a lot of sense, no problems intrinsic to his existence

  • Atheist: God makes moderate sense, but I still have a few qualms or questions

  • Atheist: God makes no sense, and/or is absurd

  • Agnostic: God makes a lot of sense

  • Agnostic: God makes moderate sense

  • Agnostic: God makes no sense, and/or is absurd


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Received

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For the sake of this poll, God refers to a personal, interventionist God, and not an Eastern, pantheistic, God-is-the-universe conception. How much sense does God make to you? I'm talking about the idea of God as a concept and an entity, whether or not he exists. E.g., does God sound like madness, does his existence make a lot of sense, moderate sense but you still have a few questions?

If you answer, "it depends," then if you had to choose a definition that seemed most reasonable to you (i.e., one you would have if you were a theist), how much sense does this preferred conception of God make...?
 
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variant

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How much sense does God make to you? I'm talking about the idea of God as a concept and an entity, whether or not he exists. E.g., does God sound like madness, does his existence make a lot of sense, moderate sense but you still have a few questions?

If you answer, "it depends," then if you had to choose a definition that seemed most reasonable to you (i.e., one you would have if you were a theist), how much sense does this preferred conception of God make...?

God makes sense in that it seems like a projection of humanities sense of things onto the universe around them.

God as an objective or independent thing is nonsense, as I see no reason the universe should or does conform to our viewpoint.
 
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Paulos23

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The idea of a personal God, that is a God that takes personal interest in individuals, just doesn't make any sense to me.

A watchmaker God I am fine with, but that sort of God wouldn't be worth worshipping because he wouldn't be interacting with the universe.
 
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quatona

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Good point. Then if you had to choose a definition that seemed most reasonable to you, how much sense does this preferred conception of God make...?
Personally, I find it weird to start with a mere word and define it until it makes sense.
If I were hard-pressed to choose a reasonable definition, I´d probably define "God" as the projection surface of a person´s ideals.
 
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ToddNotTodd

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Personally, I find it weird to start with a mere word and define it until it makes sense.

It makes words meaningless as tools of conversation if everyone can define a word however they wish.

I've defined god as myself and only myself. My co-worker has defined himself and only himself as god. It's odd that we are both correct, huh?
 
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Paradoxum

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I chose the second option. I think my old conception of God still sort of makes sense to me.

But trying to imagine God pushes me to the limits of my comprehension, so it's hard to know if what I'm thinking of really makes sense or not.
 
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VeryIncompetent

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I was raised in a Catholic household, though my family was open-minded and was only mildly troubled when they found out I was an atheist.

I'm still undecided whether there's some prime mover who kicked existence off, but it feels somewhat apparent to me that there is no God that is active in the world today. In my opinion, there are just too many problems in the teachings regarding God of every religion I've come across.

Once I got through a semester of a legitimate theology class in my freshman year of high school, I decided that theism seemed illogical to me.
 
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Tree of Life

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The idea of a personal God, that is a God that takes personal interest in individuals, just doesn't make any sense to me.

A watchmaker God I am fine with, but that sort of God wouldn't be worth worshipping because he wouldn't be interacting with the universe.

This is curious. Why is a watchmaker God acceptable but a personal God not acceptable?
 
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Paulos23

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This is curious. Why is a watchmaker God acceptable but a personal God not acceptable?

Because I find a personal god paradoxical, and a watchmaker god is consistent, logically. Plus, we may never know if there is a watchmaker since he would just start the universe and never interact with it again.
 
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VeryIncompetent

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Paulos23 said:
Because I find a personal god paradoxical, and a watchmaker god is consistent, logically. Plus, we may never know if there is a watchmaker since he would just start the universe and never interact with it again.

I agree with you there. I feel like a watchmaker god is very consistent with the amount of suffering in the world. The only part of history that I have a reasonable doubt about is the beginning of the universe, but I'm almost certain that there's no god present at the moment.
 
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KCfromNC

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Good point. Then if you had to choose a definition that seemed most reasonable to you, how much sense does this preferred conception of God make...?

God(s) defined as purely mythological character makes the most sense to me.

But isn't asking "does the definition of X which makes the most sense to you make the most sense to you" kind of uninteresting?
 
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jayem

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As a naturalist, I believe the whole of the universe is a function of matter/energy and the fundamental forces. Particles in motion is everything. If you want to call that God (kind of like what Spinoza termed the "substance" of the universe) then that would make sense. But it's not a personal God and it has no will, or purpose, or moral qualities. We should study and respect it, but it makes no sense to worship it.

Any kind of supernatural diety makes no sense to me. Other than as a product of our imaginations created to explain what we don't understand.
 
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Archaeopteryx

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How much sense does God make to you? I'm talking about the idea of God as a concept and an entity, whether or not he exists. E.g., does God sound like madness, does his existence make a lot of sense, moderate sense but you still have a few questions?

If you answer, "it depends," then if you had to choose a definition that seemed most reasonable to you (i.e., one you would have if you were a theist), how much sense does this preferred conception of God make...?

It depends on the definition. Like others, however, I find the second question a bit... tautological?
 
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bhsmte

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How much sense does God make to you? I'm talking about the idea of God as a concept and an entity, whether or not he exists. E.g., does God sound like madness, does his existence make a lot of sense, moderate sense but you still have a few questions?

If you answer, "it depends," then if you had to choose a definition that seemed most reasonable to you (i.e., one you would have if you were a theist), how much sense does this preferred conception of God make...?

Your poll is missing the type of God we are talking about.

To me, the Christian or personal concept of God makes no sense and can not be reconciled with the reality of the world we live in.

In regards to a universal or non personal God who does not interact with people's lives, is much more plausible IMO, but still unlikely.
 
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DogmaHunter

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How much sense does God make to you? I'm talking about the idea of God as a concept and an entity, whether or not he exists. E.g., does God sound like madness, does his existence make a lot of sense, moderate sense but you still have a few questions?

If you answer, "it depends," then if you had to choose a definition that seemed most reasonable to you (i.e., one you would have if you were a theist), how much sense does this preferred conception of God make...?

To me, it's completely absurd and I wonder every day how anyone can take it seriously.
 
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