Is there anything inconsistent with the premise of no gods?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

"Nowadays, the Norse gods and goddesses are often described as being “the god of this or that,” but this easily leads to the misinterpretation that the gods exist outside of these things and merely control them from a distance. A more accurate way of speaking about them would be to say that, for example, Thor is not “the god of thunder,” but rather the god thunder. This is not merely symbolism, nor is it an attempt to “explain natural phenomena” in a “pre-scientific” idiom. It’s an account of the direct experience of the storm as a personal and divine force."
http://norse-mythology.org/concepts/pantheism/

A "divine force" that's also capable of holding a hammer (and therefore has, at the very least, hands and arms)?

At one point, it was also common for kings to claim descent from Norse gods. I don't know any offhand who claimed descent from Thor, but the British royal family tree famously includes Wotan as one of the ancestors of the current British royals. Anthropomorphism of gods isn't a modern phenomenon; a lot of the time de-anthropomorphism is revisionism.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

What do you mean by "see things their way?"

If by "see things their way" we mean "agree with and convert to," that's not at all what I'm getting at. Diversity of perspectives is both welcome and valued. This kind of "see things their way" is neither interesting to me nor desirable. I get maybe you were raised surrounded by Evangelicals, but I'd think you'd get by now that this is never my MO.

You're way off.

You'd think that someone who's as apparently sensitive to being misrepresented as you would be a bit more careful about not doing the same thing to others.

If, however, by "see things their way" we mean "understand the nature of this person's culture from its own perspective as told by its own people" this is not only desirable, but necessary to truly understand others. What I often see happening is people (perhaps without realizing it) overwriting the narratives told by other cultures with their own, or projecting their cultural habits onto a culture that does not share those habits. That's what I see nestled in the OP, because the OP applies poorly outside of classical monotheism, and to theologies that are non-transcendent or non-dualistic.

What I mean is that I see no need to "deify" everything, and I don't think that "deification" is necessary to view something as sacred.

You ask: "a challenge for theists: can you think of any reason why to reject this premise?"
Yes; as with the "problem of evil" the framing of this question is not applicable to my theology.

If this is your way of saying that you don't know of anything that's incompatible with a godless worldview, you could have just come out and said this in the first place.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

A "divine force" that's also capable of holding a hammer (and therefore has, at the very least, hands and arms)?[

At one point, it was also common for kings to claim descent from Norse gods. I don't know any offhand who claimed descent from Thor, but the British royal family tree famously includes Wotan as one of the ancestors of the current British royals. Anthropomorphism of gods isn't a modern phenomenon; a lot of the time de-anthropomorphism is revisionism.

Humans have to anthropomorphize divine beings and concepts to an extent in order to make it easier to understand. It's symbolism.

Yes, it was common for monarchs to claim descent from deities associated with kingship as a way of claiming authority and also to seek the deity's blessing over their rulership.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Humans have to anthropomorphize divine beings and concepts to an extent in order to make it easier to understand. It's symbolism.

Yes, it was common for monarchs to claim descent from deities associated with kingship as a way of claiming authority and also to seek the deity's blessing over their rulership.

... which would make no sense at all if the people they were trying to claim authority from viewed the gods as "divine forces" and not as anthropomorphic gods. Claiming descent from a deity like they would a human ancestor only works if the people believe that their gods are literal beings that are similar enough to humans to breed with them.

Edit: it's hard to copulate with a symbol.

 

[gnostic]

perhaps a different approach?....
a creation is reflection of it's Creator.

If that's true, then stealing, raping, murdering, wars, violence, famines and diseases would also be reflections of God.

 

[gnostic]

Humans have to anthropomorphize divine beings and concepts to an extent in order to make it easier to understand. It's symbolism.

Yes, it was common for monarchs to claim descent from deities associated with kingship as a way of claiming authority and also to seek the deity's blessing over their rulership.

And they have been doing that long before there were kingship in Israel and Judah.

 

[Quintessence]

You're way off.

About what? I've just gotten the impression from past conversations that you seem to treat all of our interactions like I'm trying to convert you or something. That's really strange to me, and I'm clarifying that that is never my MO. Of course I've also gotten the impression from past conversations that there is roughly 85% talking past each other in that often responses you make to my posts I find extremely confusing and non-sequitor (see three examples below).

You'd think that someone who's as apparently sensitive to being misrepresented as you would be a bit more careful about not doing the same thing to others.

I don't understand. Where did I misrepresent you?

What I mean is that I see no need to "deify" everything, and I don't think that "deification" is necessary to view something as sacred.

Neither do I, and that's not what I was talking about there. I was talking about the general failure of many in my culture to understand theologies and religions that aren't Abrahamic, or "understanding" them with Abrahamic biases (and thus not really understanding them).

If this is your way of saying that you don't know of anything that's incompatible with a godless worldview, you could have just come out and said this in the first place.

Not what I'm saying at all. I'm not sure how "this question isn't applicable" somehow becomes what is suggested here.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

... which would make no sense at all if the people they were trying to claim authority from viewed the gods as "divine forces" and not as anthropomorphic gods. Claiming descent from a deity like they would a human ancestor only works if the people believe that their gods are literal beings that are similar enough to humans to breed with them.

Edit: it's hard to copulate with a symbol.

If you're asking if the indigenous polytheist peoples actually believed that the Gods get it on with humans, I don't know, especially when it comes to the Germanic peoples because there's such a lack of primary sources. We simply don't know much about what they believe. In the Hellenic world, there was also this notion, but the more educated members of society tended to take Zeus' sexual affairs with mortals as more allegorical than literally.

Another way of looking at is that the classes of human society, especially in Indo-European religions, tended to be viewed as being put into place by the Gods themselves. For example, to the Germanic peoples, Tyr (and then later, Odin, in some areas) was the God associated with law and kingship. So it makes sense that a ruler would claim to be descended from him (it's not like they knew about paternity testings or whatever), just as a farmer would hold a special reverence for Thor and Freyr.

And they have been doing that long before there were kingship in Israel and Judah.

I know.

 

[Agondonter]

In only five posts in this thread, you've managed to call me asinine, inane, and accuse me of dishonesty. Don't pretend that you're being polite.

I called you a "sophist," (defining it in the process) which naturally entail those things, the first two referring to sophist statements and the last to their intellectual dishonesty..

You argue on the one hand, "religious adherents to engage in the Courtier's reply," and on the other complain that discussions tend to get skewed because of the predominance of anthropomorphic concepts that YOU initiate in threads like this. You post an open invitation to the Courtier reply and complain when people get sucked in (though I had to chuckle at the "it's hard to copulate with a symbol" comment because that's exactly what you do when you concretize the God).

 

[fantome profane]

Humans have to anthropomorphize divine beings and concepts to an extent in order to make it easier to understand. It's symbolism.

Some humans have to anthropomorphize divine beings and concepts in order to make it easier to understand, perhaps. Maybe they have to do this, or maybe they choose to do this, I don't know. But I do know that not all humans have to do this.

This is not a judgement on those who have to or choose to anthropomorphize, but I don't have to, and I choose not to.

 

[blue taylor]

Thinking to a recent thread about God's inaction in the face of human suffering, I got to thinking: it isn't just that God doesn't seem to act in response to suffering; it's that God doesn't seem to act at all.

I've seen theists try to reconcile this with different justifications for why God might exist but be "hands-off", but all this ignores the fact that the inaction of God (or gods) can also be reconciled with a different premise: that no gods exist.

With this in mind, a challenge for theists: can you think of any reason why to reject this premise? Is there any compelling evidence or valid logical argument that is demonstrably true and is incompatible with the premise that no gods exist?

Thinking to a recent thread about God's inaction in the face of human suffering, I got to thinking: it isn't just that God doesn't seem to act in response to suffering; it's that God doesn't seem to act at all.

I've seen theists try to reconcile this with different justifications for why God might exist but be "hands-off", but all this ignores the fact that the inaction of God (or gods) can also be reconciled with a different premise: that no gods exist.

With this in mind, a challenge for theists: can you think of any reason why to reject this premise? Is there any compelling evidence or valid logical argument that is demonstrably true and is incompatible with the premise that no gods exist?

I understand your question. Theists always have to make excuses for the inaction of their gods. You know "God works in mysterious ways", and so forth. However you did not mention deism. Deism answers your question perfectly, and fully. Why the beef against deism? Is it because it solves all the problems without prayers, tithes, worship, sacrifices, paid clergymen, huge churches, doctrine, holy books, sin, evil, hell, heaven, or religious wars?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

If you're asking if the indigenous polytheist peoples actually believed that the Gods get it on with humans, I don't know, especially when it comes to the Germanic peoples because there's such a lack of primary sources. We simply don't know much about what they believe. In the Hellenic world, there was also this notion, but the more educated members of society tended to take Zeus' sexual affairs with mortals as more allegorical than literally.

What I know of Norse religion I've learned through in the context of learning about British history and the sagas like the Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok and the Saga of Ragnar's Sons that describe Viking raids in Britain and the "Great Heathen Army" from the Viking point of view. Those sagas have no issue with describing people who we know are real, doing things we know really happened, but in the midst of all these real events, the same sagas describe these people interacting with gods, mythical creatures and magic forces.

I just think it's a mistake to assume that everything in ancient texts and religions that doesn't square up with a modern scientific understanding of how the world works was intended to be taken symbolically. These people didn't have modern sensibilities of the limits of what's physically possible; it makes sense that they would sometimes make assumptions about how the physical world works that we now know are incorrect.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I understand your question. Theists always have to make excuses for the inaction of their gods. You know "God works in mysterious ways", and so forth. However you did not mention deism. Deism answers your question perfectly, and fully. Why the beef against deism? Is it because it solves all the problems without prayers, tithes, worship, sacrifices, paid clergymen, huge churches, doctrine, holy books, sin, evil, hell, heaven, or religious wars?

My personal "beef" with deism is that in its premises, it denies any possible rational justification to accept its conclusion.

Edit: but I didn't specifically mention deism because it's just another example of what I described in the OP: it tries to reconcile the lack of evidence for God with God's existence by arguing that God is non-interventionist in general.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

What I know of Norse religion I've learned through in the context of learning about British history and the sagas like the Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok and the Saga of Ragnar's Sons that describe Viking raids in Britain and the "Great Heathen Army" from the Viking point of view. Those sagas have no issue with describing people who we know are real, doing things we know really happened, but in the midst of all these real events, the same sagas describe these people interacting with gods, mythical creatures and magic forces.

I just think it's a mistake to assume that everything in ancient texts and religions that doesn't square up with a modern scientific understanding of how the world works was intended to be taken symbolically. These people didn't have modern sensibilities of the limits of what's physically possible; it makes sense that they would sometimes make assumptions about how the physical world works that we now know are incorrect.

Some of the Sagas were meant to be more or less straight-up histories and others less so.
http://www.allempires.com/article/index.php?q=use_of_sagas_histiographical_sources

 

[Marsh]

Thinking to a recent thread about God's inaction in the face of human suffering, I got to thinking: it isn't just that God doesn't seem to act in response to suffering; it's that God doesn't seem to act at all.

Didn't you hear? The destruction of New Orleans in 2005 was punishment by God. He decided to take action against all those pesky homosexuals. It must be true -- more than one evangelical type assured me Hurricane Katrina was a proof of God's activity on Earth.

 

[Marsh]

so you believe the body is not a learning device?
or that it will not produce a unique spirit?

There is a chimpanzee in Japan that excels at a memory test devised by his/her handlers that no human has yet succeeded at. The numbers 1 through 9 flash once, for a fraction of a second, on a computer screen in random order and then disappear. The chimp then touches the screen nine times, selecting the hidden numbers in the correct sequence. No human has yet been able to match the chimp at this task.

Does this mean chimps have unique spirits? What do you mean by unique spirit? Soul?

 

[Thief]

........; the conclusion is that everything we can experience or infer is consistent with there being no gods. If it's consistent with other premises, then this is a separate matter.

so you can separate the creation from the Creator?
and therefore substance is 'self' starting?

science would disagree....
an object at rest will remain at rest until "Something" moves it

the universe is not self starting
Spirit first

 

[Thief]

I think a large sticking point is the insistance that there must be an underlying purpose in order for something to function or exist.

I have no idea where this particular notion comes from other than through a type of indoctrination that there must somehow be rhyme or reason, even though the universe itself demonstrates no such requirement even in light it has been clearly "working fine" without this added connotation.

kinda hard to say ....I AM!.....without something to show for it

 

[Thief]

There is a chimpanzee in Japan that excels at a memory test devised by his/her handlers that no human has yet succeeded at. The numbers 1 through 9 flash once, for a fraction of a second, on a computer screen in random order and then disappear. The chimp then touches the screen nine times, selecting the hidden numbers in the correct sequence. No human has yet been able to match the chimp at this task.

Does this mean chimps have unique spirits? What do you mean by unique spirit? Soul?

saw that documentary years ago
we humans are simply different
the brain is wired differently

have you seen the guy that can recite the value of pi......?
for 6hrs without stopping....
and a table full of witnesses with computer generated printouts checking his recital

perhaps all of life has a soul
what?.....the next life has no bugs in it?
I just hope mosquitos and ticks fail to cross over

 

[Thief]

If that's true, then stealing, raping, murdering, wars, violence, famines and diseases would also be reflections of God.

God gave Man dominion......freewill

perhaps such things continue....in hell