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That is your opinion. Many may agree. Many may disagree.
The sadistic serial rapist would disagree.
Speaking atheistically you are no better or worse than he is ultimately.
Why is that opinion of yours the "objective truthful way to treat people"?
What makes your opinion more truthful objectively than the opinion of the serial rapist?
Maybe so.
Many do not.
Many like to be brutal and sadistic. Many do not care about themselves let alone anyone else.
If each person determines their own meaning in life, then the rapist is simply doing what he wants. When he dies, he will die and become dust just like you.
I see little reason to believe in God in the first place.
Tillich said:God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore, to argue that God exists is to deny him.
Tillich said:It is as atheistic to affirm the existence of God as it is to deny it. God is being-itself, not a being.
That is your opinion. Many may agree. Many may disagree.
The sadistic serial rapist would disagree.
Speaking atheistically you are no better or worse than he is ultimately.
Why is that opinion of yours the "objective truthful way to treat people"?
What makes your opinion more truthful objectively than the opinion of the serial rapist?
Maybe so.
Many do not.
Many like to be brutal and sadistic. Many do not care about themselves let alone anyone else.
If each person determines their own meaning in life, then the rapist is simply doing what he wants. When he dies, he will die and become dust just like you.
Paradoxum, I get that. All I am trying to do is open up the possibility that the God you reject is also rejected by me, yet I would still believe that God exists.
Paul Tillich in his Systematic Theology says
He also says
The BIG question is what we are talking about when we talk about 'God'. If we are understanding 'God' as being a Supreme being' who sits upon a throne up beyond the clouds and if we call this 'theism' then atheism is natural in an age of space exploration. But why should our concept of God be beholden to premodern ideas? So when you say that you reject God, I am not so sure you do!
What do you think God is, in more detail?
Macquarrie said:Most commonly, when we assert that something exists, we mean that it can be found within the world of space and time. But clearly God does not exist in that sense. He is not an item within the world, so that in the ordinary sense of the word exist, God does not exist, he is nothing. Still, it would seem very odd to someone who believed in God as the ultimate reality to be told that he does not exist! As we have noted in the case of some of the mystical writers discussed earlier in the book, when they say that God does not exist or that he is nothing, they mean that his mode of being transcends the kind of being that is exemplified by the existence of objects in space and time...When we speak of God as being, we do not mean that he exists as a rock or a galaxy or even a human being exists. He is not a being in the ordinary sense of the word. God exists in the sense of the source of all existence. He is, so to speak, existence raised to a higher power, not so much being as letting be.
Macquarrie said:We cannot frame the idea of a superexistent transcending the existent things of the world, any more than a dog or cat coming into my study can understand what a book is. In each case there is a level of reality beyond the power of comprehension. Yet people do not just remain silent. They stretch language to the uttermost, not to comprehend, but, again in Wittgensteins term, to show or point to (zeigt) the mystery.
Macquarrie said:God is the ultimate reality, the primordial source of everything that is, the originary event of giving. Because of this ultimacy, he cannot be annihilated or overcome.
Paradoxum, I get that. All I am trying to do is open up the possibility that the God you reject is also rejected by me, yet I would still believe that God exists.
Paul Tillich in his Systematic Theology says
He also says
The BIG question is what we are talking about when we talk about 'God'. If we are understanding 'God' as being a Supreme being' who sits upon a throne up beyond the clouds and if we call this 'theism' then atheism is natural in an age of space exploration. But why should our concept of God be beholden to premodern ideas? So when you say that you reject God, I am not so sure you do!
So, do you reject the God as described in the bible and embrace the concept of a more universal God, one who does not involve himself with human lives or interact with the goings on on earth?
I believe what he says makes a lot of sense. But I dont believe it is God that is like the Oldsmobile, I believe it is religion. Peoples concept of God changes as people change, but religion is written down and that is more difficult to change with the times. The reason his friends Kathy, Mike, and Gary were offended is because the religion they chose says these things! The bible says women should not teach or lead over men, and it doesnt make exceptions for women with master degrees. The bible says homosexuals are going to hell; and it doesnt make an exception when society decides they should not. The bible says the earth was created in 6 days and it doesnt care what science says!
Paradoxum,
I believe the evidence is in how we live life. I think that atheists perhaps have internalized the core values of theists on issues of qualitative matters - purpose, beauty, value of life, meaning, morality etc. Atheists feel at liberty to remove 'God' from the equation when contemplating these issues because general agreement on many of them has entered the collective consciousness. That means, in my opinion at least, that the collective consciousness houses in itself a God-concept, constructed through various anthropological patterns of thought, constructed, to a large degree in the west, through the Christ event and its impact on our development. I believe it is important to honestly study the God concept that has arisen in our collective human consciousness and which acts as a foundation for many of our beliefs.
I also believe that it is as impossible to live an honestly nihilistic, materialistic life as it would be to honestly live as a literalistic Christian.
I think that atheists perhaps have internalized the core values of theists on issues of qualitative matters - purpose, beauty, value of life, meaning, morality etc.
I also believe that it is as impossible to live an honestly nihilistic, materialistic life as it would be to honestly live as a literalistic Christian.
I believe that the God described in the Bible is shaped by the humans who wrote it, it says more about them than God (cf. Feuerbach). As I understand God, he is the ground of being and so is involve himself with human lives but is not interventionist - 'in him we live and move and have our being' (Acts 17:28).
IMO, there is no question the God of the bible is a man made attempt (a desperate attempt) to accomplish the following:
-try to explain the world they lived in
-try to control people with fear and intimidation
-get people to follow the rules by tossing out the carrot of eternal life
When people ask me which God I don't believe in, I tell them I don't believe in the God discribed in the Bible, Koran, Vedas, and all the other unsubstantiated holy texts I've heard of.When I talk about God I talk about Ultimate Love...a concept few humans can comprehend and certainly cannot with God Himself to show, to indwell.
People tell me they don't believe in God and I ask them to describe to me this god you don't believe in... and they come out with the same rhetoric I read here in the non-Christian forums, and from agnostics and atheists... and indeed, I don't believe in the god they describe....for truly they do not know God Almighty.
I wish they (you?) did.
When I talk about God I talk about Ultimate Love...a concept few humans can comprehend and certainly cannot with God Himself to show, to indwell.
People tell me they don't believe in God and I ask them to describe to me this god you don't believe in... and they come out with the same rhetoric I read here in the non-Christian forums, and from agnostics and atheists... and indeed, I don't believe in the god they describe....for truly they do not know God Almighty.
I wish they (you?) did.
When people ask me which God I don't believe in, I tell them I don't believe in the God discribed in the Bible, Koran, Vedas, and all the other unsubstantiated holy texts I've heard of.
Ken
How exactly, does a non-believer describe a God they already don't believe in?
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