great thoughts! Putting myself in the atheists shoes for a moment—it may be that what we think of as God is really just the highest intellectual/emotional state we humans are capable of now and throughout all history.
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What’s wrong with this argument?
- Thread starter Chriliman
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great thoughts! Putting myself in the atheists shoes for a moment—it may be that what we think of as God is really just the highest intellectual/emotional state we humans are capable of now and throughout all history.
Freodin
Devout believer in a theologically different God
It may be harder for you to "put yourself into the atheists shoes" than you imagine.
See... an atheist doesn't think of anything "as God". You can bring up any idea you want... love, "highest intellectual/emotional states of humans", the colour green... atheists wouldn't think of it as "God"... for again two simple reasons: a) "God" is thought of by most people who bring up this concept as something totally different and b) if "God" is what you present... then it already has a description/definition/name... and there is no need to call it "God" and confuse it with all the other things people call "God".
You call yourself a "Christian". You quote from the Bible as your signature. Admit it: you think of "God" as a lot more than intellectual states or love.
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Thats true, I do think of God as more than that, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be wrong and “God” is actually just a combination of ancient stories and people’s most imaginative ideas of what a perfect being who created the universe is.
I consider myself more of a progressive Christian where I look at the most profound/useful ideas in Christianity and apply them to see how it effects my life and those around me, while deemphasizing some of the antiquated ideas that aren’t effective in the modern era. Turns out truth and love are timeless!
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Kylie
Defeater of Illogic
The problem I have is defining God as being some other thing for which we already have a perfectly valid definition. By this logic, I could define God as a toaster, show that I have a toaster, and then claim I own God. Clearly this reasoning is ludicrous. In order for your argument to be valid, you need to demonstrate that your claim that two things are equal is valid. In other words, in Premise 1, you need to show that when you say, "We can define God as X," that it is valid to define God as X.
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1. If we can at least define Bigfoot as big and having feet
2. And we can say we’ve experienced big and have feet
3. Then we can say we’ve experienced Bigfoot
4. Therefore, Bigfoot exists
What’s wrong with this?
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1. If we can at least define Bigfoot as big and having feet
2. And we can say we’ve experienced big and have feet
3. Then we can say we’ve experienced Bigfoot
4. Therefore, Bigfoot exists
What’s wrong with this?
Eh, I see what you’re doing there, but not sure that it’s apples to apples.
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Yea good point. I guess it depends what you think “God” is. I can see “God” as the highest expression of human love and truth, no need to ad anything else, but that’s just me.
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Good points. I wonder if what people think is “God” is really just people across history being incredibly profound and loving(self giving/sacrificial) to the point of pure amazement. Like a moth to a flame, we can’t help but be attracted to amazing qualities/actions of good people. Thats my feeble attempt at understanding the gap between atheism and theism.
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Kylie
Defeater of Illogic
I think you're pretty close there. People experience things that they can't explain, and so attribute those things to God. They then claim those things are proof that God exists. Yet time and again we have found that there is a natural, non-God explanation for them.
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Yea, I could see that, and I’d ad that the ability to figure out the mysteries of reality is an amazing ability and I can understand why people would think so highly of it, even to the point of calling it God like. I think it’s important to recognize our abilities and also be humble enough to admit we don’t know everything, but there will always be that lingering possibility that maybe there’s a being out there that does know everything and that’s where theism can live.
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For as much as atheists contend that God doesn't exist, they sure do struggle to define what it is they think doesn't exist.
Yes, Chriliman's Op syllogism is guilty of defining God (or Zeus, or Bigfoot) into existence, but IF those abstract 'things' DO entail a necessary inference that God is real, then the argument does have at least some traction.
Chriliman's syllogism is closely related to CS Lewis' argument that the experience of thirst proves the existence of water.
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Freodin
Devout believer in a theologically different God
Not at all.
Atheists do not define what "God" is. They don't even try to. They only and exclusively react to the claims of theists, and their definition of what "God" is... and then use these definitions to establish if this is, in the atheists' view, a useful definition and the definition of something that is real.
I think I agree with this. The only problem here: Lewis' argument is false. It's false for very similar reasons that Chriliman's doesn't work.
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Yeah, the water argument is strange although to be fair, Lewis' actual examples, I think, may have been different.
We want water because without water we cease to exist. That is, we exist because of water not the other way round.
We want food because without food we cease to exist. That is, we wouldn't be here if food weren't here first.
We want air because without air we cease to exist. The thing we want precedes us.
We want sex because with sex we cease to exist. Sex is part of the species.
We want to exist because we exist. We've seen others cease to exist and we don't want that. Or rather, we fear the unknown.
We want water, air, food, and sex because we want to exist.
But death is the unknown, the final frontier. We want to exist, so therefore? We invent a solution. We want to exist, therefore an afterlife.
ETA: It reminds me of Adams' puddle
We want water because without water we cease to exist. That is, we exist because of water not the other way round.
We want food because without food we cease to exist. That is, we wouldn't be here if food weren't here first.
We want air because without air we cease to exist. The thing we want precedes us.
We want sex because with sex we cease to exist. Sex is part of the species.
We want to exist because we exist. We've seen others cease to exist and we don't want that. Or rather, we fear the unknown.
We want water, air, food, and sex because we want to exist.
But death is the unknown, the final frontier. We want to exist, so therefore? We invent a solution. We want to exist, therefore an afterlife.
ETA: It reminds me of Adams' puddle
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The experience of thirst entails that there must exist some 'thing' which is the object of that want/need.
Even if you didn't know what water looked like or had no proof of its physical existence, you could deduce that - as a properly basic belief - there must be such a thing as would cause your thirst.
No matter how much of a skeptic you are, you will look for water based on the 'belief' that it exists.
Even if you didn't know what water looked like or had no proof of its physical existence, you could deduce that - as a properly basic belief - there must be such a thing as would cause your thirst.
No matter how much of a skeptic you are, you will look for water based on the 'belief' that it exists.
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I think if we define God as an eternal being who exists outside the universe then yes I’d agree.
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