IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
The problem starts with your definition of god. It is too narrow. For many people, a god is simply a supernatural being that has incredible but limited power over nature and human affairs.
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Polytheism is a form of atheism
- Thread starter vijeno
- Start date
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
I wonder if the OP realizes that when Christianity first came to Rome that its believers were considered to be "atheists".
Heyo
Veteran Member
That's why I am an Agnostic. (I am also an atheist by definition but my chosen identification is Agnostic.)
The word "god" has so many definitions that it is basically meaningless and believers in gods won't agree on one definition. So they don't know what they are talking about - and atheists who act as if they know aren't helping.
Well.
If being A is omnipotent, then it can destroy being B. But if being B is also omnipotent, it can destroy being A. Or A can create a new planet, but being B can destroy it. If either one is truly omnipotent, that would mean that they can limit the other beings omnipotence... or not...?
In short, two omnipotent beings lead to a contradiction, therefore THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!
So, if I read you right, your argument boils down to the idea that the definition of a god is "an aspect of reality and nature that are greater than human". So a god is of limited power, and part of nature, only more powerful than a human?
That's all cool, of course, and obviously I've heard it before, but I'll probably never quite understand it. Like, what does it even mean for a being to be an aspect of reality that is greater-than-human? What IS such a being? What is its essence, its definition?
To me it just seems like "more of the same, only with different words". Like gods are just humans, but a bit moreso. And I never quite saw the sense in that. (Apart, of course, from all the wonderful myths and stories, and the inspiration and all that!)
Feel free to offer yours!
VoidCat
Use any and all pronouns including neo and it/it's
Me a polytheism worshipping many deities one being a cat goddess...
Hmmm never knew I was atheist!/s
Really I doubt atheists pray to deities, and do ritual work surrounding them. I dont believe in an omnpotient god/goddess. My deities have limited power. They are still deities. You might want to educate yourself on what different definitions of gods are there
Hmmm never knew I was atheist!/s
Really I doubt atheists pray to deities, and do ritual work surrounding them. I dont believe in an omnpotient god/goddess. My deities have limited power. They are still deities. You might want to educate yourself on what different definitions of gods are there
PureX
Veteran Member
You rigged the scenario by defining "god" as a singular absolute, and then declared all other ways of defining god as "atheist" by comparison.
What you're not understanding, apparently, is that you rigged the scenario to provide you the result you were seeking. But God/gods can be a lot of different things to a lot of people, because God is the ultimate mystery. And that mystery opens the doors conceptually to a lot of different possibilities.
This is something I just don't understand. Can you explain to me why you do not apply this same standard to all other words and concepts in your native language, given most words are polysemic and humans do not agree on one definition for a particular word just in general? Does this mean we never know what we are talking about related to anything, as words have multiple meanings? I mean, there was a thread recently where folks were arguing about what the word "claim" implies (I've also seen examples with the word "atheist" and "evidence" and "fact" around these forums). They would not agree on one definition (no surprise, as most words in English are polysemic and have more than one definition). This, by how you treat the word "god" would logically mean you think the words "claim/atheist/evidence/fact" are meaningless and nobody knows what they are talking about when they use those words, right?
Right?
PureX
Veteran Member
Or that a multiplex of 'demigods' must contradict the will of the godhead.
Isabella Lecour
amor aeternus est
1. Alright, let's take a look at this thought experiment.
2. A god like that is either uninterested in us or highly interested in us.
3. As we are often said we are made in the image of god, then applying human motivations is acceptable.
4. A god that is highly interested in us is more likely the most attention seeking, narcissistic god imaginable. Sounds just like the gods of old.
5. If that god is uninterested in us, then there is no issue at all but it rather pointless to bother and be very boring for them.
6. A god that has all the 'O's" don't need humans to do his light work. He can get down here and do it himself.
7. If he's that much of an attention seeker, we'd all know where and how he'd want worship or whatever it is he wants from us.
8. As it's been radio silence, an all "O" god either doesn't exist, doesn't care or we got something just a bit weird. I'm leaning on the weird here.
9. An all "O" god has no limitations...so it is in limitations that life is experienced...so he could shatter himself and play with limitations..thuse tons of gods and some of which are angry, narcissistic, and downright foolish. He gets to experience all life has to offer.
10. An "O" god can do anything, including creating families of gods, making demigods, daemons and devils and anything else, all as an extension of himself. He can fight among himself. He can even go F himself, in the most litteral of manners. Remember, the "O" god has no limitations.
In conclusion, in no way are those who believe in multiple gods, atheists. To say god can't or won't do such a thing is to put limitations on a god that you say is an "O" god. If anything, if you don't believe in multiple gods, maybe you don't believe in god at all.
PureX
Veteran Member
When all things are absolutely equal (as with omniscience), there are no longer "things" (plural). They are one thing. Even if there are many different manifestations of that thing (from our perspective).
Nah. I was giving an example to show how if one decides to limit one's understanding of the gods to only one culture's notions, one can paint anyone as an "atheist." It serves as a cautionary tale about how useless the terms "theist" and "atheist" are without qualifiers or context. Gods are that which a peoples or culture choose to deify. It's more like an appellation or a title that designates something has a particular status and implies a particular relationship between the person deifying and the deified. Everything - reality, the universe, and beyond - has been deified by humans. So why do we deify things and what kind of status and relationship does deification imply?
The specifics honestly vary quite a lot, but at core deification means something is considered worthy of worship. That is, it is something of sacred or special status to those people. In most cases, that's because it is greater-than-human or a "higher power." It is something that has power over the fates and fortunes of the people, without which the people would not be as they are. And more important than mere "believing in" such deities is actual practice - showing due respects and celebrating that upon which your very lives depend.
You know that giant ball of hydrogen gas you probably see every day (unless you work night shift)? Probably the most widely deified aspect of our reality throughout history and across the globe? Our ancestors understood as much as we do that without Sun, there's no us. In general, if you depend on it for your existence, it's bigger than you are... because you do not exist without it existing. For pre-Christian indigenous religions, the world around us was recognized as the ground of all being and thus was the gods: things like Sun, Moon, Earth, Trees, Rivers, or experiences and phenomena like Love, War, Justice (gods are immanent and non-supernatural). But humans didn't limit deification to the natural world and also have conceptualized gods as something that exists outside of nature, like a sort of perfect ideal template from which nature springs forth (gods are transcendent and supernatural). In either case, it traces back to "hey, without these very powerful forces reality as we know it wouldn't exist and neither would I, might be good to show some appreciation!"
Most of the gods are very, very not human. I don't think anyone would mistake the forest for a human, or the phenomenon of war for a human, or the moon for a human. There are gods that are explicitly human - ancestor worship (e.g., days of the dead, funerals) has been more or less routine throughout human history and both apotheosis (e.g., rulership by divine right) and autotheism (e.g., Satanism) are also present in the world's cultures. The sense is that being an ingrate who never shows thanks, gratitude, or appreciation for the sacred and important things in your life (aka, the gods) is... well, humans are social animals if nothing else. Nobody likes an ingrate. And showing mutual appreciation for things - whether the word "god" is used or not - is an important thing we bond and commune over.
Dao Hao Now
Active Member
I don’t have one.
I’m not convinced of any of the claims I’ve heard yet.
It’s up to whoever holds the belief to define the god that they believe in, then it’s up to me to determine if I can rationally accept their claim.
How could I possibly know the attributes of a thing I’ve never been convinced to exist?
Thus why I suggested…..
Heyo
Veteran Member
Wrong!
jk
It's a useful question. If all words were meaningless, communication would be impossible. Usually the meaning is clear in the given context or can be easily resolved by asking. There are only so many meanings for most words.
Not so for "god". There are possibly as many definitions for god as there are believers (and some additional for the atheists who think they know what they are talking about). Even asking "which god?" often doesn't help as even the believers in a named god don't agree about its attributes.
We usually connect meaning to words by association. We know what "chair" means because we have seen chairs and non-chairs and build a mental image. That works pretty well for real objects (even though it stays fuzzy at the edges). For abstract entities, especially complex abstract entities its useless. The gods aren't the only ones who suffer from that. I think that "consciousness" is an equally meaningless term.
So, without a proper definition, discussion about gods is useless. Questions like "does god exist" or "do you believe in god" are unanswerable (for me).
That's fair. The meaning of gods is typically pretty clear within the context of a particular culture or individual. Personally, I don't find it all that difficult to simply take responsibility for what the gods are for me. That was not always the case. There was a time I outright refused to take that responsibility - to study comparative theology or different types of theism at all - and was squarely in the atheist to agnostic camp. It didn't last. For others, it does. And with how much there is to do out there in the world, I fault no one for not tackling that particular challenge and instead investing their time elsewhere.
paarsurrey
Veteran Member
Polytheism is a form of atheism
In a way, yes, when they fall from believing in Oneness of G-d- the natural and the normal, they are either the Atheism people or the Polytheism people or in between somewhere, right?
Regards
In a way, yes, when they fall from believing in Oneness of G-d- the natural and the normal, they are either the Atheism people or the Polytheism people or in between somewhere, right?
Regards
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
This is simply another example of one of your outrageous posts. Put simply, polytheism is the belief in many gods. Atheism is the LACK of belief in any God/gods. Try speaking regular English -- you do not have the authority to change the meanings of words.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
How would a God be an atheist?
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
As a Christian I was taught that God is the only real God and all the rest were false gods that could do nothing.
Particularly Isaiah 44:6 in the Old Testament.