IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Perhaps you are not understanding the question. Atheism means a lack of belief in God/gods. For a god to be an atheist, it would have to not believe in itself, and that just makes no sense.
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Polytheism is a form of atheism
- Thread starter vijeno
- Start date
Your problem is in Statement 1. Polytheists simply don't use that definition for their "gods." Zeus may have been considered strong, and head God and all that, but clearly he was also considered flawed in many ways by those who believed in him.
Your post is just one example of what the theist/atheist argument has been about forever -- "how do you define God?" -- and it never really gets resolved. But I will say this: if your definition is tri-omni one you give above, you will always meet contradiction -- that cannot be helped. And that should tell you that it might well, therefore, be a very good argument against that definition from the outset.
Once you get that, atheism is easy.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Oh I agree, which is yet another clear contradiction in Christianity, but I'm just putting out how that was viewed in the Christian faith.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
I'm not following. I have never heard a christian claim that any god was an atheist.
Well, any God who thinks He's the only one is obviously an atheist with respect to all the other gods!
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
That is not the way the word is defined. If you believe in ANY god, even if it is just one, you are not an atheist.Well, any God who thinks He's the only one is obviously an atheist with respect to all the other gods!
So, you begin to understand what happens when we try to make broad, general assumptions from that which has been too narrowly (albeit seemingly broadly) defined.
Isabella Lecour
amor aeternus est
The word "god" is not a singularly defined word. Even using the Cambridge Online Dictionary, everyone is sitting on contradictions, for reasons.
... or not recognize itself as a god.
McBell
Unbound
Seems to me that that would depend entirely upon the definition of 'god' being used.
Some definitions of 'god' have a clause along the lines of "greater than oneself".
So then if god does not believe that there is anything greater than him/herself, by the very definition of 'god' being used, that god would in fact be an atheist.
paarsurrey
Veteran Member
Polytheism is a form of atheism
Polytheism/Trinity and the Atheism of the West are flip side of the same coin, disillusioned with unreasonable trinity and pious frauds of the Hellenist/Pauline-Christianity "in the name of Jesus-god" they have subscribed to western Atheism (et al), equally or more, if not the most superstitious, please, right?
Regards
Polytheism/Trinity and the Atheism of the West are flip side of the same coin, disillusioned with unreasonable trinity and pious frauds of the Hellenist/Pauline-Christianity "in the name of Jesus-god" they have subscribed to western Atheism (et al), equally or more, if not the most superstitious, please, right?
Regards
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
This is just utter nonsense. Atheism is defined as the lack of belief in God/gods or the belief there is no God/gods. Since polytheists believe in gods, BY DEFINITION they are not atheists.
Furthermore, although Trinitarianism is thoroughly illogical, it is not polytheism. The opening line of the Creed is "We believe in One God." Calling Trinitarianism polytheism is a straw man for Muslims to knock down.
I don't know anyone who became an atheist due to the irrationality of Trinitarianism. Their reasons are more likely to be things like there is no proof of God's existence, or that it makes no sense to believe in God when there is so much suffering of innocents in the world, or that so many wars are fought over religion, or that theists cannot even agree about God, or simply that they do not sense God's presence.
Perhaps if you spent more time listening to people with the intent to understand, instead of focusing on how you are going to propagate your own ideas, you would not make these sort of mistakes.
Yerda
Veteran Member
Side stepping the issues with the definition, you could re-express this as:
1. more than one god can't exist (per the definition)
2. therefore the supposed gods that polytheists believe in can't all be gods
3. therefore polytheists are atheists
Which doesn't necessarily follow, imo. You could have concluded that all the gods polytheists believe in are instances of a single god and therefore they are monotheists. No?
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
He appears to be unaware of the history of the word "atheism". It would in some ways be more accurate to call Christianity "atheism" since the original Roman term applied to those that did not believe in the Roman gods.
History of atheism - Wikipedia
" Early Christians were widely reviled as atheists because they did not participate in the cults of the Greco-Roman gods.[44][45][46][47] During the Roman Empire, Christians were executed for their rejection of the pagan deities in general and the Imperial cult of ancient Rome in particular."
In other words, it is highly ironic for Christians to claim that polytheists are atheists.
If that god realizes śūnyatā, specifically the Mahāyāna teaching that all entities are empty of an intrinsic nature, that god could say, ‘There is no me.’ In that sense, he would be an atheist. People who believe in him could then say, ‘Our god is an atheist. He said, “There is no me”’
Paganism (which is polytheistic, animistic and pantheistic) is based on what is observed in Nature. There is no "omnipotent, onmipresent, and omniscient being" that can be observed in Nature that is outside of it. However, we see that we live in a multifaceted universe with various opposing forces playing off of each other, keeping it all going. In most Paganism, only the Gods who are friendly to humans and living beings, as in our survival, are actively worshipped. They were called upon and sacrificed to for protection and prosperity. For example, the Greeks didn't worship Typhon and the Norse didn't worship Loki or Fenris. Those figures are in opposition to the Gods and their creations, such as Zeus and Odin, humanity and the Earth.
stvdv
Veteran Member
Good start to define god
True
Seems quite reasonable to me
You made the choice so much easier, by taking "multiple gods" out, thanks for that
Just 1 God, thank God
I think that depends on the Trinitarian.
Some resolve the contradictions in Trinitarianism by ending up as modalists (i.e. the three "persons" of the Trinity are each actually different "modes" of a single God), but some resolve it by ending up as Tritheists. Tritheism is a form of polytheism.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
But when they do that, then by definition they are no longer Trinitarians; they are Modalists.
Yes, but if you ask them if they believe in the Trinity, they'll give a sincere "yes."
Being an actual Trinitarian takes a level of compartmentalization that most people aren't capable of, IMO.