When a stranger says the word "god," we do not know what he means without a context. This is because the symbol has been used and appropriated by different groups for different purposes.
Consider the three groups defined by Chris. The first and the third groups (empiricist theists and fideist theists) will contain people who have used the symbol to refer to something that does exist in their respective concepts of reality, while the second group (empiricist atheists) will contain people who have used the symbol to refer to something that does not exist in their concept of reality. If one subset of the first group (empiricist theists) defines the symbol "god" to point to a thing that exists in their concept of reality, as well as in the concept of reality of some in the second group (empiricist atheists), the debate will shift to a question, not of evidence concerning the correct concept of reality, but of propriety of definition.
And this is a debate that the second group (empiricist atheists) will have a hard time winning against the first group (empricist theists). It is generally regarded as good to allow those within a group to define their own terms; i.e., to let Catholics define what a Pope is, to let Buddhists define what the Buddha means, and so forth. If a community of theists regards the symbol "god" to apply very certainly to an object that is also within the conceptual universe of one who regarded himself as an atheist, the atheist has a couple options, but an option that is not available to him usually would be to convince the theist that he has wrongly so labeled himself.
One option would be to concede that he is an atheist in respect of some understandings of "god," and a theist in respect of other understandings of "god." Another option would be to maintain that the second group (empiricist atheists) has developed their own definition of the "god" in which they do not believe, and thus that others must respect the atheist's narrower definition of "god" just as much as atheists must respect theistic definitions.
What would be varieties of god worth recognizing in this way? I can think of five very quickly.
1) Nature itself, the pantheistic god.
2) The laws of nature, the god that science uncovers.
3) Particular aspects of nature, such as the Sun or a volcano.
4) The human society as a whole, as Durkheim defined the aboriginal god.
5) The king or other divine man.
Before the atheists (or anyone else for that matter) rejects any of these definitions for god, they should note that each has been held by a significant portion of humanity and that, whether or not they end up somehow as the correct understanding of "god," they should be used to illuminate how that word has been used historically, not devalued as aberrations.
Consider the three groups defined by Chris. The first and the third groups (empiricist theists and fideist theists) will contain people who have used the symbol to refer to something that does exist in their respective concepts of reality, while the second group (empiricist atheists) will contain people who have used the symbol to refer to something that does not exist in their concept of reality. If one subset of the first group (empiricist theists) defines the symbol "god" to point to a thing that exists in their concept of reality, as well as in the concept of reality of some in the second group (empiricist atheists), the debate will shift to a question, not of evidence concerning the correct concept of reality, but of propriety of definition.
And this is a debate that the second group (empiricist atheists) will have a hard time winning against the first group (empricist theists). It is generally regarded as good to allow those within a group to define their own terms; i.e., to let Catholics define what a Pope is, to let Buddhists define what the Buddha means, and so forth. If a community of theists regards the symbol "god" to apply very certainly to an object that is also within the conceptual universe of one who regarded himself as an atheist, the atheist has a couple options, but an option that is not available to him usually would be to convince the theist that he has wrongly so labeled himself.
One option would be to concede that he is an atheist in respect of some understandings of "god," and a theist in respect of other understandings of "god." Another option would be to maintain that the second group (empiricist atheists) has developed their own definition of the "god" in which they do not believe, and thus that others must respect the atheist's narrower definition of "god" just as much as atheists must respect theistic definitions.
What would be varieties of god worth recognizing in this way? I can think of five very quickly.
1) Nature itself, the pantheistic god.
2) The laws of nature, the god that science uncovers.
3) Particular aspects of nature, such as the Sun or a volcano.
4) The human society as a whole, as Durkheim defined the aboriginal god.
5) The king or other divine man.
Before the atheists (or anyone else for that matter) rejects any of these definitions for god, they should note that each has been held by a significant portion of humanity and that, whether or not they end up somehow as the correct understanding of "god," they should be used to illuminate how that word has been used historically, not devalued as aberrations.
4 comments:
Looking again, a sixth and seventh category of god occurs to me: particular aspects of human society and its systems, such as money or prestige or addiction, and particular organizations that are not embodied in a single individual, such as McDonald's Corporation. These are also sometimes considered "false" gods.
So long as you define god in those terms, than I cannot say that they don't exist. But it does negate anything "supernatural" about them. It's not as if the volcano is actually angry and erupts because of this, nor that there is anything inherently different about the king whom you call god.
Chris
Thanks for you thoughts, Peter.
Is belief in the "god" of "nature itself" necessarily "pantheistic"? The concept of a "creator" of "nature itself" seems to me to have been the dominant concept in most cultures around the world from what we can tell via written or image records left to us by "the ancients".
Hopefully I'll get my own fuller thoughts out this weekend with any luck.
I could glean three attributes of a god from Chris's reply, when reading into it:
1) A god is supernatural.
2) A god has personality traits.
3) But a god is inherently different from a mere man or woman.
From Bryan we get another way of defining a god: Creator.
Each of these individual characteristics can be debated, but the general sense of god that I get from all the definitions is:
A god is an intelligence or personality that is superior to that of men and women.
This definition could, when the intelligence and personality is added to the ascription of godhood, apply to all seven of the items listed as gods. That is, all seven of these things in the universe would, if regarded as personal and intelligent, be superior to ordinary men and women.
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