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Theists: Please give me a reason to believe in your superpowered invisible overlord

Fast Eddie B said:
Every time you say "My imaginary God is different from other imaginary entities, well, just, because..."

THAT is Special Pleading.
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Its only special pleading if one assumes that god concepts are entirely imaginary. If god concepts can be derived by some other means, then all these arguments being fired at me are irrelevant.

If I take the singularity as an example. Astrophysicists have come up with an origin of the universe, indicating a singularity. By the same reasoning as used around here, discussion of the singularity and what form it may take is entirely imaginary wishful thinking. Whereas, the concepts used to discuss the singularity have actually been derived and crafted through intellectual enquiry and are not imaginary.

Anyone who entertains the idea of a singularity in the Big Bang is just as much a crackpot as someone who insists there is an Invisible Pink Unicorn in their garage.
 
Slowvehicle said:
Ah. Surmise as substitute for argument, with a healthy helping of dismissing the outliers. Interestingly top-down argument of moral development.
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This is not a surmise, as would be clear, once I get back to the 12-part survey. Please name one example of someone who is a pioneer in both nonbelief and the social/ethical, and we can dismiss this whole line of argument entirely.

Moreover, examples like Democritus and Knutzen are hardly outliers. The typify what is most frequently found throughout history. Knutzen lines up with Leukippos, Hawking, et al and Democritus lines up with Holbach, Ingersoll et al.

There is no top-down argument here at all. These are arguments based on grass-roots activities in all cases. Anything we know at all is drawn only from very personal experiences relating to highly individual cases.

Stone
 
Stone said:
Variants of deity do not preclude the idea that morals come from strictly partial glimpses of perfectly real aspects of deity on the part of the most enlightened social/ethical pioneers. So morals needn't be tied to one "particular deity" at all. "Particular deities" are only human constructs, in the same way that linear time is. "Simultaneous time" as uncovered by the quantum physicists does not preclude linear time as perceived by the unaided human brain in the first place. Linear time is still a property of time. Time itself is still a reality, even though it's a reality of far more complexity than previously glimpsed. The "particular deities" glimpsed by the altruistic pioneers are merely indications of a wider reality which is too glibly called Yahweh or Brahma in more parochial contexts.

Because "your deity" is only a single partially glimpsed aspect or property of deity emanating from one altruistic pioneer's perception. More in-depth synchronization of all such pioneers throughout time, plus rigorous scientific mapping of the brain, will be needed before a clearer model emerges of just what the "divine" really is -- and what it isn't. Different models still manage to foster morals because the pioneer responsible for them in each case has evidently caught some glimpse, however partial, of something real in the divine. They haven't necessarily glimpsed the whole.

Stone
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An interestingly hemetical hermeneutic.

If it is "moral", it came form a 'god'.

...whether or not the 'gods' exist at all.

Therefore, any moral innovator is being inspired by one-or-another of the 'gods'.

...whether or not the 'gods' exist at all.
 
punshhh said:
Astrophysicists have come up with an origin of the universe, indicating a singularity. By the same reasoning as used around here, discussion of the singularity and what form it may take is entirely imaginary wishful thinking. Whereas, the concepts used to discuss the singularity have actually been derived and crafted through intellectual enquiry and are not imaginary.

Anyone who entertains the idea of a singularity in the Big Bang is just as much a crackpot as someone who insists there is an Invisible Pink Unicorn in their garage.
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The HUGE difference is that there are pages, probably volumes, of equations based on observations that lead directly to the "singularity hypothesis".

Provide that sort of evidence for God or god or the Invisible Pink Unicorn and perhaps one could argue equivalency.

Until then, not so much.
 
punshhh said:
Its only special pleading if one assumes that god concepts are entirely imaginary. If god concepts can be derived by some other means, then all these arguments being fired at me are irrelevant.
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No. It is, in fact, special pleading when one assumes that 'god'-concepts are somehow different from other imaginary constructs.

Evidence for 'god's' existence is the only way to reapir the special pleading.

punshhh said:
If I take the singularity as an example. Astrophysicists have come up with an origin of the universe, indicating a singularity. By the same reasoning as used around here, discussion of the singularity and what form it may take is entirely imaginary wishful thinking. Whereas, the concepts used to discuss the singularity have actually been derived and crafted through intellectual enquiry and are not imaginary.
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The physical, empirical, objective evidence upon which the idea of the singularity is constructed has been presented, and can be tested, and amounts to more than "when I think about nature, I see a singularity".

punshhh said:
Anyone who entertains the idea of a singularity in the Big Bang is just as much a crackpot as someone who insists there is an Invisible Pink Unicorn in their garage.
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...except for that pesky ol' evidence problem.

Now, if you were to have said, "Anyone who seriously insists upon the existence of the Unicorn is as much of a crackpot as anyone who seriously insists upon the existence of a 'god'", you would be onto something.
 
Stone said:
This is not a surmise, as would be clear, once I get back to the 12-part survey. Please name one example of someone who is a pioneer in both nonbelief and the social/ethical, and we can dismiss this whole line of argument entirely.
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You have pretended to recruit the Gautama as a theisst, despite his own teachings. This makes me leery of accepting any of your definitions.

Consider the host of un-, non-, and anti-believers that comprise the Enlightenment.

Stone said:
Moreover, examples like Democritus and Knutzen are hardly outliers. The typify what is most frequently found throughout history. Knutzen lines up with Leukippos, Hawking, et al and Democritus lines up with Holbach, Ingersoll et al.
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Which runs counter to your argument...

Stone said:
There is no top-down argument here at all. These are arguments based on grass-roots activities in all cases. Anything we know at all is drawn only from very personal experiences relating to highly individual cases.

Stone
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Your contention that moral advances only happen because of the activities of individual iconoclastic theists is, in fact, inherently top-down.
Who is the iconoclastic theist driving the moral advance of marriage equality?

Not to mention, if moral advances only come form iconoclastic theists, that is, theists that see 'god' in a different way than other believers, how is that a reason to believe in'god'? The claim that one must reject, or run counter to, whatever 'god'-paradigm to which one's society adheres in order to affect moral advance seems much more to be an argument for rejecting 'god'-ideas and embracing iconoclasm, than for believing in any 'god'.
 
punshhh said:
Well, it is probably best to stay with god, as God, being omnipotent/present/benevolent will rapidly takes us into theology, which is crackpot philosophy around here.

god = intelligent being responsible for the origin and or persistence of our known world.

Such a god can be entirely finite and fallible.
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Why does a creator of a universe need to be intelligent?
 
RoboTimbo said:
Why does a creator of a universe need to be intelligent?
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Because he's sure that god is like a human just with a bigger toolbox.

(that is when he* isn't being all mysterious)

*god
 
Slowvehicle said:
An interestingly hemetical hermeneutic.

If it is "moral", it came form a 'god'.

...whether or not the 'gods' exist at all.

Therefore, any moral innovator is being inspired by one-or-another of the 'gods'.

...whether or not the 'gods' exist at all.
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Wrong. If plenty of the social/moral paradigms were introduced in tandem with no new spin on deity at all, then the phenomenon of social/moral paradigms would have no history of any symbiosis with counter-cultural spins on deity. At that point -- yes -- the notion of any symbiotic social-ethics connection with any notions of deity could be readily dismissed. But instead, the history of such ethical/social paradigms is always bound up with uniform connections with counter-cultural notions on deity. Why?

That's why unwrapping those notions of deity remains entirely relevant. Why are they always there when a pioneer engages with the deepest questions of social justice? Do those notions indicate something about the human brain when engaged in a struggle for social justice and fairness? Does the human brain trigger something illogical when engaged in pioneering new paradigms of social justice? Or is the brain responding to something external? We can't know until the brain is fully mapped.

Stone
 
Slowvehicle said:
You have pretended to recruit the Gautama as a theisst, despite his own teachings. This makes me leery of accepting any of your definitions.

Consider the host of un-, non-, and anti-believers that comprise the Enlightenment.
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Thanks, I have.............. La Mettrie, De Sade, Turner, Holbach, Meslier, Knutzen, Bayle, Diderot, Hume, Spinoza ..... on and on. None of these go outside the Hawking-versus-Ingersoll orbit -- when they pan out to be atheists at all, that is (Hume proved to be a red herring and not a real atheist, as a few others did).

Slowvehicle said:
Which runs counter to your argument...
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-- which actually shows you still don't understand what I'm saying. Unless a pioneering egalitarian has devised her/his own spin on the cosmos in addition, whether materialist or theist, I discount that spokesman's own orientation on the cosmos as merely an accident of education and/or environment. Democritus already had the older Leukipppos, the first Atomist, as his mentor, and he accepted the Atomist construct implicitly. Thus, his egalitarianism, which is entirely his own and totally individual for his time and culture, has no bearing on a (borrowed) construct when it comes to his take on the cosmos. It doesn't come from the same "template".

We have examples of egalitarians out there whose egalitarianism and whose spin on the cosmos both come out of the same "template" -- i.e, their own consciousness -- so one can measure that as an organic adaptational phenomenon on the ground. However, the waters are muddied when it comes to Democritus.

At the same time, I'm just as strict when it comes to theists. To those who may admire St. Francis, just as splendid a chap as Democritus, I would have to say that I reject the relevance (in this context) of his spin on the cosmos too. It too has no organic evolutionary bearing on his egalitarianism for the same reason. It too is borrowed rather than coming from the same template -- i.e.,, his own consciousness -- as his egalitarianism. After all, St. Francis had already allowed himself to be steeped in the Gospels the way Democritus had been steeped in Atomism, with no self-made take on the cosmos at all, which means that St. Francis's theism also has no direct bearing on his egalitarianism in terms of measuring it as an evolutionary phenomenon.

Perhaps, I didn't make this clear before, but the only cases where I'm ready to perceive a materialist or theist stance as having adaptational significance is when it is as original with an egalitarian as her/his egalitarianism. In both these cases, it isn't.

Slowvehicle said:
Your contention that moral advances only happen because of the activities of individual iconoclastic theists is, in fact, inherently top-down.
Who is the iconoclastic theist driving the moral advance of marriage equality?
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Thomas Cannon. I suggest you read up on him. He is a real hero, IMO, and his contribution to gay rights is huge.

Slowvehicle said:
Not to mention, if moral advances only come [from] iconoclastic theists, that is, theists that see 'god' in a different way than other believers, how is that a reason to believe in'god'? The claim that one must reject, or run counter to, whatever 'god'-paradigm to which one's society adheres in order to affect moral advance seems much more to be an argument for rejecting 'god'-ideas and embracing iconoclasm, than for believing in any 'god'.
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Actually, it shows that there is a visceral experience involved on the part of the pioneer that was plainly not culturally influenced, since it flouts the surrounding culture rather than reflecting it. No pioneer bothers to flout the surrounding culture unless there is something visceral and tied to intimate personal experience that triggers that opposition. Plainly, in these cases, something visceral and personal happens to the pioneer that triggers a conviction of some sort of weird counter-cultural deity or other in tandem with some new ethical/cultural/social ethic. Why the recurring connection? I don't gainsay the possibility of some answer other than external stimulation. But I do question -- emphatically -- any degree of honesty at all in simply choosing to ignore the pattern altogether. Either acknowledge it and address it one way or the other, or get off the pot.

Stone
 
Stone said:
Thanks, I have.............. La Mettrie, De Sade, Turner, Holbach, Meslier, Knutzen, Bayle, Diderot, Hume, Spinoza ..... on and on. None of these go outside the Hawking-versus-Ingersoll orbit -- when they pan out to be atheists at all, that is (Hume proved to be a red herring and not a real atheist, as a few others did).
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It is sad to me that you see that your "not really an atheist" stance is fatal to your "argument". If you are prepared to ssert that (for instance) the Gautama was (in your opinion, unsupported by his own works) "really" a theist, and that Hume was "not a 'real atheist' "; then you are willing to claim whoever youchoose to be on your side, reality, and history, be switched.

And, of course, you will reject any moral innovator as "not really an innovator", if, by your standards, they do not fit your cookie-cutter of "iconoclastic theism".

Nor does your idiosyncratic claim about the "only" source of moral leadership being "iconoclastic" theists lend the weight of approbation to theism, but to iconoclasm. One wonders how much more an "iconoclastic theist" it is possible ot be than to reject the silly superstitions of theism altogether?

Stone said:
-- which actually shows you still don't understand what I'm saying. Unless a pioneering egalitarian has devised her/his own spin on the cosmos in addition, whether materialist or theist, I discount that spokesman's own orientation on the cosmos as merely an accident of education and/or environment. Democritus already had the older Leukipppos, the first Atomist, as his mentor, and he accepted the Atomist construct implicitly. Thus, his egalitarianism, which is entirely his own and totally individual for his time and culture, has no bearing on a (borrowed) construct when it comes to his take on the cosmos. It doesn't come from the same "template".
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The highlighted makes my previous point for me, even more clearly than I did.

c<snip of more evidence of the moving goalposts>

Thomas Cannon. I suggest you read up on him. He is a real hero, IMO, and his contribution to gay rights is huge.[/quote]

1. Cannon is, at best, a "default theist".

2. Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated does not, in its text, support Marriage Equality; at most, Cannon argues that the acts of homosexual attraction are not "unnatural". At no point does what survives of the text mention, much less address, Marriage Equality, or marriage at all.

3. It is a reach to claim that a pamphlet written in the 17th century, the text of which was largely lost until 2003 (and not widely available until republication in 2007, and still widely unknown), was instrumental in, or formative of, the drive for marriage equality.

None of which will, of course, keep you from co-opting Cannon.

Stone said:
Actually, it shows that there is a visceral experience involved on the part of the pioneer that was plainly not culturally influenced, since it flouts the surrounding culture rather than reflecting it. No pioneer bothers to flout the surrounding culture unless there is something visceral and tied to intimate personal experience that triggers that opposition. Plainly, in these cases, something visceral and personal happens to the pioneer that triggers a conviction of some sort of weird counter-cultural deity or other in tandem with some new ethical/cultural/social ethic. Why the recurring connection? I don't gainsay the possibility of some answer other than external stimulation. But I do question -- emphatically -- any degree of honesty at all in simply choosing to ignore the pattern altogether. Either acknowledge it and address it one way or the other, or get off the pot.
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Again, you pretend that the key is "theism in an iconoclastic way" rather than iconoclasm itself.

I am not "ignoring" your "pattern"--I am demonstrating that is a construct of your presumptions,requiring special pleading, fancy footwork, revisionism, and tunnel vision.

Your pretense that I am not "addressing" it is part and parcel of what comprises your argument.

But feel free to continue to bluster.
 
Stone said:
Wrong. If plenty of the social/moral paradigms were introduced in tandem with no new spin on deity at all, then the phenomenon of social/moral paradigms would have no history of any symbiosis with counter-cultural spins on deity. At that point -- yes -- the notion of any symbiotic social-ethics connection with any notions of deity could be readily dismissed. But instead, the history of such ethical/social paradigms is always bound up with uniform connections with counter-cultural notions on deity. Why?

That's why unwrapping those notions of deity remains entirely relevant. Why are they always there when a pioneer engages with the deepest questions of social justice? Do those notions indicate something about the human brain when engaged in a struggle for social justice and fairness? Does the human brain trigger something illogical when engaged in pioneering new paradigms of social justice? Or is the brain responding to something external? We can't know until the brain is fully mapped.

Stone
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How sad that this is supposed to be an argument supporting reasons for believing in 'god', when it is, however poorly you realize it, an OT argument for embracing iconoclasm.

ETA: Do you mean to be making the argument that "iconoclastic theism" includes atheism? That is, that the realization that 'god' does not exist, nor can be demonstrated to exist, is a kind, or type, of theism (albeit a maximally iconoclastic kind)?

Not to mention, a careful disputant would use absolutist terms more carefully, and more accurately.
 
Slowvehicle said:
It is sad to me that you see that your "not really an atheist" stance is fatal to your "argument". If you are prepared to ssert that (for instance) the Gautama was (in your opinion, unsupported by his own works) "really" a theist, and that Hume was "not a 'real atheist' "; then you are willing to claim whoever youchoose to be on your side, reality, and history, be switched.
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You don't know your history. Hume was actually astonished when first introduced to such a thing as an atheist -- at a dinner table in France. He was a Deist who did not believe in an afterlife. Consequently, he was no Christian. But that did not make him an atheist. Before the incident in France, he reputedly said "I don't know of a real atheist". The response was [paraphrase] "Then let me introduce you to some". (I believe the numbers around the table were something like 12 atheists and 3 general skeptics ranging from Deist to agnostic, etc.)

You will also have to go a long way to prove to me that the Buddha sermons in the earliest Pali collection of his sermons, the Digha-Nikaya, show Buddha as something other than a simple believer in some sort of deity.

Slowvehicle said:
And, of course, you will reject any moral innovator as "not really an innovator", if, by your standards, they do not fit your cookie-cutter of "iconoclastic theism".
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No: I will reject any innovator if their innovation is confined to either one sort of paradigm -- involving engagement with a new construct for the cosmos, which can either entail nonbelief or belief -- or the other -- involving engagement with a new construct for social justice. Their innovation must involve both for it to be relevant here.

Slowvehicle said:
Nor does your idiosyncratic claim about the "only" source of moral leadership being "iconoclastic" theists lend the weight of approbation to theism, but to iconoclasm. One wonders how much more an "iconoclastic theist" it is possible ot be than to reject the silly superstitions of theism altogether?
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I'd love to read about a pioneering social/cultural paradigm that also involves a pioneering rejection (pioneering for its culture) of theism altogether. No such individual is known, something that astonished and perplexed me when I first found that out. I think you're making this exchange circular.

Slowvehicle said:
1. Cannon is, at best, a "default theist".

2. Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated does not, in its text, support Marriage Equality; at most, Cannon argues that the acts of homosexual attraction are not "unnatural". At no point does what survives of the text mention, much less address, Marriage Equality, or marriage at all.

3. It is a reach to claim that a pamphlet written in the 17th century, the text of which was largely lost until 2003 (and not widely available until republication in 2007, and still widely unknown), was instrumental in, or formative of, the drive for marriage equality.

None of which will, of course, keep you from co-opting Cannon.
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If you don't accept Cannon, why don't you give us a pioneering pacesetter who promotes marriage equality while also being a pioneer (for the culture involved) in promoting nonbelief?

Slowvehicle said:
Again, you pretend that the key is "theism in an iconoclastic way" rather than iconoclasm itself.

I am not "ignoring" your "pattern"--I am demonstrating that is a construct of your presumptions,requiring special pleading, fancy footwork, revisionism, and tunnel vision.
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That's a bogus claim, since you have yet to read the survey. You are demonstrating no such thing. You are just distorting my thinking left, right and center. I'm not even claiming a proof of deity. I am showing that if ethical pioneers are healthy for humanity, then it's worthwhile to determine just why the ethics pioneers constantly pioneer some new take on deity as well. It could have nothing to do with a deity and everything to do with a quirk in the human brain.

You have yet to address how come it's the most forward-looking ethics pioneers who also present the most visceral and personal and the most counter-cultural claims of all for a "new" deity. Your insistence that this is merely iconoclasm in general that's involved here is unconvincing and certainly unclear. How come an eminently healthy and useful outlook on expanding social inclusiveness is always tied to these new-fangled deity notions that only get the pioneer into further trouble? Why is that never tied to just as iconoclastic a claim for there being no deity at all? The latter was what I expected to find when I began my research, particularly expecting that from some time early in the Enlightenment. Ain't there.

Stone
 
Stone said:
You don't know your history. Hume was actually astonished when first introduced to such a thing as an atheist -- at a dinner table in France. He was a Deist who did not believe in an afterlife. Consequently, he was no Christian. But that did not make him an atheist. Before the incident in France, he reputedly said "I don't know of a real atheist". The response was [paraphrase] "Then let me introduce you to some". (I believe the numbers around the table were something like 12 atheists and 3 general skeptics ranging from Deist to agnostic, etc.)

You will also have to go a long way to prove to me that the Buddha sermons in the earliest Pali collection of his sermons, the Digha-Nikaya, show Buddha as something other than a simple believer in some sort of deity.



No: I will reject any innovator if their innovation is confined to either one sort of paradigm -- involving engagement with a new construct for the cosmos, which can either entail nonbelief or belief -- or the other -- involving engagement with a new construct for social justice. Their innovation must involve both for it to be relevant here.



I'd love to read about a pioneering social/cultural paradigm that also involves a pioneering rejection (pioneering for its culture) of theism altogether. No such individual is known, something that astonished and perplexed me when I first found that out. I think you're making this exchange circular.



If you don't accept Cannon, why don't you give us a pioneering pacesetter who promotes marriage equality while also being a pioneer (for the culture involved) in promoting nonbelief?



That's a bogus claim, since you have yet to read the survey. You are demonstrating no such thing. You are just distorting my thinking left, right and center. I'm not even claiming a proof of deity. I am showing that if ethical pioneers are healthy for humanity, then it's worthwhile to determine just why the ethics pioneers constantly pioneer some new take on deity as well. It could have nothing to do with a deity and everything to do with a quirk in the human brain.

You have yet to address how come it's the most forward-looking ethics pioneers who also present the most visceral and personal and the most counter-cultural claims of all for a "new" deity. Your insistence that this is merely iconoclasm in general that's involved here is unconvincing and certainly unclear. How come an eminently healthy and useful outlook on expanding social inclusiveness is always tied to these new-fangled deity notions that only get the pioneer into further trouble? Why is that never tied to just as iconoclastic a claim for there being no deity at all? The latter was what I expected to find when I began my research, particularly expecting that from some time early in the Enlightenment. Ain't there.

Stone
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Could you name an innovator then tell us what social innovation he came up with and the new-fangled deity he introduced?
 
Stone said:
You don't know your history. Hume was actually astonished when first introduced to such a thing as an atheist -- at a dinner table in France. He was a Deist who did not believe in an afterlife. Consequently, he was no Christian. But that did not make him an atheist. Before the incident in France, he reputedly said "I don't know of a real atheist". The response was [paraphrase] "Then let me introduce you to some". (I believe the numbers around the table were something like 12 atheists and 3 general skeptics ranging from Deist to agnostic, etc.)

You will also have to go a long way to prove to me that the Buddha sermons in the earliest Pali collection of his sermons, the Digha-Nikaya, show Buddha as something other than a simple believer in some sort of deity.

No: I will reject any innovator if their innovation is confined to either one sort of paradigm -- involving engagement with a new construct for the cosmos, which can either entail nonbelief or belief -- or the other -- involving engagement with a new construct for social justice. Their innovation must involve both for it to be relevant here.

I'd love to read about a pioneering social/cultural paradigm that also involves a pioneering rejection (pioneering for its culture) of theism altogether. No such individual is known, something that astonished and perplexed me when I first found that out. I think you're making this exchange circular.

If you don't accept Cannon, why don't you give us a pioneering pacesetter who promotes marriage equality while also being a pioneer (for the culture involved) in promoting nonbelief?

That's a bogus claim, since you have yet to read the survey. You are demonstrating no such thing. You are just distorting my thinking left, right and center. I'm not even claiming a proof of deity. I am showing that if ethical pioneers are healthy for humanity, then it's worthwhile to determine just why the ethics pioneers constantly pioneer some new take on deity as well. It could have nothing to do with a deity and everything to do with a quirk in the human brain.

You have yet to address how come it's the most forward-looking ethics pioneers who also present the most visceral and personal and the most counter-cultural claims of all for a "new" deity. Your insistence that this is merely iconoclasm in general that's involved here is unconvincing and certainly unclear. How come an eminently healthy and useful outlook on expanding social inclusiveness is always tied to these new-fangled deity notions that only get the pioneer into further trouble? Why is that never tied to just as iconoclastic a claim for there being no deity at all? The latter was what I expected to find when I began my research, particularly expecting that from some time early in the Enlightenment. Ain't there.

Stone
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I have a presentfor you.

Since all you are going to do is argue in a circle, and interpret any piece of history, philosophy, or theology as support for your "argument", no matter how narrowly you have to construe it, or how much of person's work you have to ignore to do so; I hereby cede to you the last word in this OT derail.

Should you choose to haul yourself back to the topic, I'll discuss it with you. I'll no longer play in your "iconoclastic theism" (as long as you get to be the sole arbiter of what constitutes "real iconoclasm", and "real theism") as the "only source" (as long as you get to ignore the top-down nature of your "argument") of "moral innovation? (as long as you get to decide which issues are "innovation" and ignore the rest) sandbox.

In the meantime, it would be...refreshing...to see any actual argument about why any person ought to believe in any 'god' (particularly given the quality of arguments raised in support of believing in it).
 
punshhh said:
This is irrelevant, as I am not attempting to prove anything, or say there is a necessity for anything. Although I accept that there probably are necessary things.
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You asserted a "puppet master." Care to take that back then?

punshhh said:
I don't see the relevance of worship, surely this is a response derived through religion. If god exists, it exists independent of humanity and its responses.
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It's wholly relevant to the definition. If something is not worshiped, it's not a god, and there's no reason to call it a god. It's just a being, an entity, or an alien; something we do not know about.

punshhh said:
I don't assume one, I consider that it might exist for the purposes of discussion of gods. The problem is that you and numerous other posters on this forum, assume a lack of gods, with only the flimsiest rational justification.
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You want to talk flimsy rational justification? I and others have repeatedly asked you for evidence, and all you've done is spout the same sophistry and circular arguments.

punshhh said:
The erosion of such explanations is irrelevant to the issue. These are imagined explanations, humanity is bound to clothe the concept of god with human characteristics. If god exists, it exists independently of humanity and what humanity thinks.
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Then it's not a god. Refer to the definition of gods. You can call it a thingy, or the Force if you want.

punshhh said:
I suggest you discard these arguments as I am considering a philosophically derived god, for which such arguments are irrelevant.
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Again, what makes your philosophically derived god special? What warrants it any special consideration? Why should I take it any more seriously than deliberately fabricated and imaginary beings?

punshhh said:
Life exhibits agency.
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Which in no way allows you to make the logical leap up to a creator god.

punshhh said:
Your use of the word "must", makes it irrelevant. I am not claiming anything means an intelligent creator must exist, only that similar characteristics can be observed in nature. As such, to consider that there may be intelligent agency in nature, is not purely imaginary, it can be scientifically observed.
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And you'd be perfectly fine if you stopped right there.

punshhh said:
I am not considering an omnipotent etc God, which your point addresses. I am considering god like beings and there are numerous entities in the set of intelligent agents.
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Got any examples not pulled whole-cloth from your imagination?
 
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