tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post9060010508856708409..comments2024-03-18T03:29:09.653-07:00Comments on Christ the Tao: Yes, You are a Stamp Collector: God, Lawrence Krauss & "Non-Stamp Collector"Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger187125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-85478556988522167812018-12-02T22:18:50.488-08:002018-12-02T22:18:50.488-08:00Here is the full quote from "Nonstampcollecto...Here is the full quote from "Nonstampcollector":<br /><br />"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."<br /><br />-Stephen Roberts, otherwise known as, NonStampCollectorGaryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02519721717265344702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-4136377479453208982013-10-06T08:37:33.467-07:002013-10-06T08:37:33.467-07:00Update: Don Page, the quantum physicist, has recen...Update: Don Page, the quantum physicist, has recently critiqued what I am now calling TACT, the Theistic Argument from Cultural Transcendence. See post closest in date to this comment, for our discussion. David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-57280895676726189272012-01-03T17:22:31.601-08:002012-01-03T17:22:31.601-08:00David: (a) Most Americans believe in God, whereas...<i>David: (a) Most Americans believe in God, whereas most Americans do not collect stamps. Therefore, as with "vegetarian" or "teetotaler," it is more reasonable to define those who abstain from a common practice, than from an unusual practice, like collecting stamps.</i><br /><br />Dr H: The 'common practice' accessed in the analogy is not "stamp collecting," but <i>having a hobby</i>. Most Americans <b>do</b> have a hobby; stamp collecting is merely one example of many which could have been given.<br /><br /><i>(b) Not only do atheists ACT as if atheism were a positive behavior...</i><br /><br /><b>Some</b> atheists do. Most, at least in my experience, do not. Most atheists are not "evangelical" about their non-belief. Indeed, as I pointed out not long ago, some of my long-term friends aren't even aware that I <i>am</i> an atheist, because the topic has never come up among us.<br /><br /><i>(c) Faith is God is obviously an intrinsically more significant issue than collecting stamps. </i><br /><br />Perhaps, although I think you'd have an interesting time trying to demonstrate rigorously that it's "intrinsic".<br /><br />More to the point, what someone does as an avocation -- ie., their liesure time hobby or hobbies -- is often extremely significant in thier lives. Some would go so far as to say that <i>who they are</i> is largely defined by their interests. I think that's at least as significant as 'faith in God'.<br /><br /><i>(d) The idea of God seems to be either hard-wired into human beings</i><br /><br />There is no evidence that <i>any</i> <b>idea(s)</b> are hard wired into human beings. The capability for forming and expressing ourselves in certain ways, perhaps, but no ideas, <i>per se</i>.<br /><br /><i>(e) Atheists often exhibit a virulence against theism that reinforces the notion that their rejection of God...</i><br /><br />Again, <i>some</i> atheists may be like this; in my experience, most aren't. Disbelief isn't exactly the same as "rejection." As I've articulated in many places over the past few years, I've come to realize that I didn't once 'believe in God,' and then at some point 'stop believing.' I <i>never did</i> believe in God; therefore, I have not "rejected" anything.<br /><br />To maintain that I have "rejected God" is like saying that I've "rejected" the love of a woman whom I've never met, and with whom I've never had any prior contact or relationship.<br /><br />And the virulence some atheists exhibit against theism has more to do with the propensity of so many theists to either want to "convert" atheists to their brand of theism, or to pass laws and other blanket controls over social behavior that forces non-believers to behave as if they adhered to theistic concepts with which they do not agree.<br /><br /><i>So like many analogies, this one is not absolutely false, but it is usually is quite misleading.</i><br /><br />It's not perfect; no analogy is. But as analogies go, it's really quite good.Dr Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-58448512242564336962011-06-05T16:54:45.920-07:002011-06-05T16:54:45.920-07:00A concession and five problems with the "stam...A concession and five problems with the "stamp collector" analogy, first posted on John Loftus' blog: <br /><br />You can almost always find SOME parallel between two ideas. There is indeed this limited parallel between not collecting stamps and not believing in God: that they both involve not doing something, rather than (necessarily) a positive action. <br /><br />However, there are many differences as well. Five important ones come to mind: <br /><br />(a) Most Americans believe in God, whereas most Americans do not collect stamps. Therefore, as with "vegetarian" or "teetotaler," it is more reasonable to define those who abstain from a common practice, than from an unusual practice, like collecting stamps. <br /><br />(b) As noted above, atheists often act as if their unbelief were extremely significant. Not only do atheists ACT as if atheism were a positive behavior, they often generalize about atheists in ways that suggest it is more than a negative description -- for example, atheists describe themselves as smarter than the norm ("brights"), allegedly commit fewer crimes, tend to be left-wing, etc. ect. <br /><br />(c) Faith is God is obviously an intrinsically more significant issue than collecting stamps. <br /><br />(d) The idea of God seems to be either hard-wired into human beings, a common inference from environmental data, or something that is revealed to people around the world. In any one of these cases, refusing to believe must involve a positive act of rejection, and therefore likely says something about the person who does the rejecting. <br /><br />(e) Atheists often exhibit a virulence against theism that reinforces the notion that their rejection of God says something concrete about them. In many cases, their turn to atheism can be traced to traumatic events in their lives. Therefore, the analogy to "teetotalar" seems a pretty good one. <br /><br />So like many analogies, this one is not absolutely false, but it is usually is quite misleading.David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-6806480147328346622011-05-04T14:43:30.310-07:002011-05-04T14:43:30.310-07:00==========
DM: Given just ONE of the ten or so ch...==========<br />DM: Given just ONE of the ten or so characteristics commonly found among conceptions of God worldwide -- supremacy -- people in different cultures often recognize they are talking about the same Being, even if sometimes in different ways<br />==========<br />And that is a pretty flimsy foundation to build such a general theory upon. You cannot know that they "recognize" that they are talking about a common being. All you can know is that they all ascribe the same particular characteristic to some invisible being which they conceptualize. What they are each conceptualizing may or may not have any other similarities.<br /><br />It's like having three different cultures who all have a tradition of treatment for many common aliments using a palliative that all three cultures describe as "small, round, smooth, and white." Except one culture is talking about a pearl, another is talking about a magic bean, and the third is talking about an aspirin.<br /><br />As regards the various other qualities you listed, the list is not even self-consistent. Omniscience and omnipotence are mutually exclusive qualities, and if one person's god is omniscient and anothers is omnipotent, they cannot logically be the same being.<br />Other qualities are so vague that they could embody a huge range of very different meanings: "purely spiritual"? "Perfect in spirituality?" Then there are the moral qualities, all of which are relativistically defined, and which consequently may mean very different things in different cultures: "good", "evil", "benevolent"; "righteous"; and so on.<br /><br />To say that people across wildly different cultures define these difficult, complex, and fuzzy qualities in anything like the same way, much less that the recognize them in a single invisible wholly conjectural "being", is just not credible, much less demonstrable in any meaningful way.Dr Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-60619917076869275962011-05-04T14:16:04.853-07:002011-05-04T14:16:04.853-07:00"...tracking off into the toolies..." ? ..."...tracking off into the toolies..." ? Is that a Chinese expression that doesn't quite translate, or a Seattlism? :-)<br /><br />==========<br />DM: I wonder if the reason Russian, Georgian, Yugoslav, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cambodian communists kept killing one another, is that they disbelieved in different Gods?<br />==========<br />Most likely the reason is that they're Russian, Georgian, Yugoslav, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cambodian. Ie., nationalism is a greater dividing factor than the fact that they share belief in certain economic principles (communism) is a unifying factor.<br /><br />==========<br />DM: Protestant atheists and the Catholic atheists <br />==========<br />Now there're a couple of interesting oxymorons.<br /><br />==========<br />DM: The argument isn't about how many gods there are.<br />==========<br />True. It was about whether it is in any way meaningful to say that "not collecting stamps" is my hobby.<br /><br />==========<br />As for scientologists in Seattle, they meet in a one-story building a few blocks from Microsoft, on 24th in Bellevue. I haven't seen any riots outside, yet. I'm glad you're so concerned about it.<br />==========<br />You're lucky. In my neck of the PNW some of them have actually occasionally attempted to kill people.Dr Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-20126025089008300692011-04-30T10:18:51.217-07:002011-04-30T10:18:51.217-07:00Dr. H: Cute with the dragon, unicorn, and aardvark...Dr. H: Cute with the dragon, unicorn, and aardvark, but you're missing the point, again. Given just ONE of the ten or so characteristics commonly found among conceptions of God worldwide -- supremacy -- people in different cultures often recognize they are talking about the same Being, even if sometimes in different ways. Add a few more characteristics, and it's not only not that difficult, it's rather inevitable. <br /><br />Lamin Sanneh, for instance, points out that Methodist missionaries were worried that the native Zulu word for God would encourage old pagan ways, to they called God "uJehova" and an Anglican said "uDio," which the Zulu tossed out with contempt, and the missionaries all came to their senses and used the correct Zulu term. (Translating the Message, 206) The hesitation is a function of European insolation and arrogance; we became radicalized during the long contest with Islam, and then arrogant with the power of the Industrial Revolution, and forgot Christian practice and precedent, as well as good sense.David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-74650813316252395052011-04-30T10:07:15.112-07:002011-04-30T10:07:15.112-07:00Thanks, Neil. Yes, that seems to be a pretty comm...Thanks, Neil. Yes, that seems to be a pretty common way of talking among Greek philosophers, including the citations I gave from Stoics. <br /><br />I was reading a bit this morning from Raymond Pannikar, The Unknown Christ of Hinduism, where he describes the intellectual incontruity and practical congruity between Brahman and the "God" that Indians worshipped, accepting the difference as a product of human perceptual limitations.David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-75396852538377949242011-04-30T08:56:13.698-07:002011-04-30T08:56:13.698-07:00This thread is fading, but let me add a link abou...This thread is fading, but let me add a link about Plato and theism, from a very interesting thinker and Facebook Friend Stephen Lovatt:<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/notes/stephen-lovatt/evidence-that-plato-was-a-convinced-theist/10150227221451311" rel="nofollow">www.facebook.com/notes/stephen-lovatt/evidence-that-plato-was-a-convinced-theist</a><br />If you aren't a FB member, you might need to set up an account to see this. (David, you have one?)<br /><br />(Heh, Captch is "tomests" - Someone trying to insinuate "Thomists" here?)Neil Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04564859009749481136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-68594993111662333192011-04-28T18:51:52.406-07:002011-04-28T18:51:52.406-07:00Dr. H: You seem to be tracking off into the toolie...Dr. H: You seem to be tracking off into the toolies with this, but all right, let's go there. <br /><br />I wonder if the reason Russian, Georgian, Yugoslav, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cambodian communists kept killing one another, is that they disbelieved in different Gods? If only they could have come together and agreed what God not to believe in, they would have all gotten along well. <br /><br />The Irish didn't have THAT problem. Even the Protestant atheists and the Catholic atheists knew they didn't believe in the same God. In fact, I once met a former Protestant terrorist who got both Catholic and Protestant terrorists (in prison) mad at him, for converting to (serious) Christianity. <br /><br />The argument isn't about how many gods there are. It's about tribes and history. Crips vs. Bloods. Hatfields vs. McCoys. Lions vs. jackels. <br /><br />As for scientologists in Seattle, they meet in a one-story building a few blocks from Microsoft, on 24th in Bellevue. I haven't seen any riots outside, yet. I'm glad you're so concerned about it.David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-27035949154326434092011-04-28T18:13:13.064-07:002011-04-28T18:13:13.064-07:00==========
Neil: Once I make my context clear, eve...==========<br />Neil: Once I make my context clear, even while accepting the legitimacy of your idea in other contexts, you have to address the relevance of the more telling point. [...]<br />I think David is saying, there is an essential core which is more important than the variations in concept.<br />==========<br />That's one of the things he is saying, and to some extent I agree with that. But I also think that he's seeing more agreement with his theory than there actually is, among the average religious peons.<br /><br />If the Pope, the American Baptist Conference, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rabbi Yosef, Ayatollahs Khamenei and Sistani, and David Miscavige all agree that they're all worshiping the same supreme being, and that henceforth their religions will all be one big happy family, then still need to convince the masses whose tithes support them.<br /><br />We see how well that worked in Northern Ireland, where Catholics and Protestants continued to murder each other for decades, despite impashioned pleas from religious leaders on both sides that such behavior was, among other things, unChristian.<br /><br />So, you see, the "more telling point," for me, is not whether or not we can craft an apparently valid philosophical or theological argument that (say) Yahveh, Allah, God, Shang Di, and L. Ron Hubbard are really all the same guy. <br /><br />What matters to me is whether the average Jew in Tel Aviv, the average Muslim in Riyadh, the average Baptist in Atlanta, the average Catholic in Belfast, the average Confucianist in Beijing, and the average Scientologist in Seattle all believe it enough to sit down and play nice together.<br /><br />I am not optimistic about this happening.Dr Hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12556054257610269618noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-76883368052933158082011-04-28T18:02:05.103-07:002011-04-28T18:02:05.103-07:00==========
Neil: You are referencing what some ph...==========<br />Neil: You are referencing what some philosophically illiterate jihadist thinks.<br />==========<br />Interesting that you should phrase it that way. Does not every one of the Big Three western religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) insist that God's truth is readily accessible to <i>anyone</i>? Or is it really necessary to be a philosophically learned, lettered theologian to understand what the Talmud, the Bible, or the Koran is talking about?<br /><br />==========<br />Neil: Do you think that Islamist thinks there really is *another* God in existence, and I worship Him instead? <br />==========<br />He thinks that you are worshiping a false god -- e.g., a god that is not really "God". And yes, I have spoken to Muslims who believe this, although none of those I know personally seem prepared to kill for it. I have also spoken with Christians who hold the same belief with regard to Muslims and "Allah".<br /><br />==========<br />Neil: BTW, I'm an independent so I don't focus on the "Christian God" myself anyway.<br />==========<br />I wasn't making any assumptions about your actual personal beliefs with my hypothetical example.<br /><br />==========<br />Neil: Even he probably realizes there isn't, and what he means is: "There is one true God, and you have mistaken beliefs about Him. <br />==========<br />Maybe. Would you be willing to literally stake your life on that assumption?<br /><br />==========<br />Neil: But I see you do have a point: people's ideas of "God", once defined, do vary. <br />==========<br />The question, or at least <i>a</i> question is: is a religion defined by a theoretical doctrine or documents, or is it defined by the actual day-to-day beliefs of the masses of it's alleged adherents?<br /><br />Whole new religious have arisen from people attempting to answer that question in various ways. For myself, I am very much concerned with the real world, and with the impact of varous religious beliefs on life in that real world. Consequently, in a practical sense I have to fall on the latter side of that question.<br /><br />It doesn't matter so much what some obscure theologian publishes in the <i>Harvard Theological Review</i> or what the Pope proclaims, as it matters how many Catholics in the United States think that God wants them to kill doctors who work in clinics where abortions are performed.<br /><br />It's pretty unlikely that the Pope is going to shoot anybody in the name of Catholicism, but plenty of rank-and-file Catholics have justified all sorts of violence with recourse to their faith.<br /><br />(I will insert here that I am an ex-Catholic, myself, so if I seem to be coming down harder on Catholics it's simply the result of greater familiarity.)<br /><br />Anyway, it is that sort of action and immediacy that essentially defines religion, in my view.Dr Hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12556054257610269618noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-68471106650827914002011-04-28T16:50:18.950-07:002011-04-28T16:50:18.950-07:00==========
DM: What is gujek, you ask? It's t...==========<br />DM: What is gujek, you ask? It's the brightest object in the sky, they say. It's made of burning ball of tar, and is the daughter of Earth.<br /><br />Oh, the sun! You say. How did you know? Simple -- there's only one "brightest object in the sky," and that's what we call the sun. The natives may be a little confused about the exact nature of and source of gujek, but no doubt you're talking about the same object.<br />==========<br />Not really the best analogy, under the circumstances.<br /><br />There are umpteen ways the we can observe and measure the sun, obtaining physical evidence that what we call "the sun" and what your tar-burning natives call "gujek" are probably the same thing. If nothing else all sighted human beings can directly observe the sun/gujek, and even the non-sighted can feel its heat.<br /><br />"God", on the other hand, is invisible. To the best of my recollection no one claims that in His undisturbed state he gives off any measurable emmanations, no gamma rays, alpha particles, -- He isn't usually even assumed to have gravity.<br /><br />When comparing invisible, undetectable entities we can be much less certain that our differing descriptions are refering to the same thing.<br /><br />I say "excuse me, I must feed the invisible purple dragon that lives in everyone's attic." My neighbor replies, "Oh, you mean the invisible pink unicorn that lives in everyone's attic." His neighbor says, "no, no, you must be talking about the invisible blue aardvark that lives in everyone cellar."<br /><br />We might, indeed, all be refering to the same entity, which we merely perceive in different ways. Or there might be a dragon, a unicorn, AND an aardvark. <br /><br />Or, being that the one thing we seem to agree on, <i>a priori</i> is that the entity is invisible -- there might be nothing there at all.Dr Hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12556054257610269618noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-15266825104149383302011-04-28T12:42:51.363-07:002011-04-28T12:42:51.363-07:00[Note to confused emailed comment recips: revised]...[Note to confused emailed comment recips: revised]:<br />Dr H: You are referencing what some philosophically illiterate jihadist thinks. That does not IMHO make a genuine conceptual (ie, non-sociological) point. As an "intellectual", you should of course know better yourself, but I think furthermore that you should also realize the low relevance even of the example. Do you think that Islamist thinks there really is *another* God in existence, and I worship Him instead? (BTW, I'm an independent so I don't focus on the "Christian God" myself anyway.) Even he probably realizes there isn't, and what he means is: "There is one true God, and you have mistaken beliefs about Him. Your worship is tainted by a false concept and false teachings." If he was smart (ummm, do you see enough statements from real Muslims, like scholars, or would rather continue putting cinematic lines into puppet characters? ;-) he would probably say: "you need to worship God and live according to the precepts of Islam, since the revelations you follow are incomplete and need further interpreting." Well, OK, someone else and from another religion might be less accommodating - but what if the most astute more often found common ground?<br /><br />Like I said, there are two different meanings of "different" (numerical versus descriptive, and even in physics a pain - like, "no, those are two different Argon atoms I'm talking about - but yeah, they are identical ....") and which is "right" depends on context. Once I make <i>my</i> context clear, even while accepting the legitimacy of your idea in other contexts, you have to address the relevance of the more telling point.<br /><br />But I see you do have a point: people's ideas of "God", once defined, do vary. Yeah, no ****, Sherlock! ;-) I think David is saying, there is an essential core which is more important than the variations in concept.Neil Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04564859009749481136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-20488722946321989272011-04-28T12:15:05.885-07:002011-04-28T12:15:05.885-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Neil Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04564859009749481136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-44078004191202218852011-04-27T19:28:29.942-07:002011-04-27T19:28:29.942-07:00==========
Neil: Dr H, you are still confused abo...==========<br />Neil: Dr H, you are still confused about how to refer to notional entities.<br />===========<br />Neil, you are confused about what you imagine to be my confusion. Relax, you'll figure it out, eventually. ;-)<br /><br />==========<br />Neil: What do you even mean by saying, "The theologian often makes the mistake of thinking that similar sets of qualities ascribed by various cultures to their particular god means they are all refering to the same God."<br />==========<br />I was poking fun at David by turning his original statement around on him. His claim is basically that everyone, across cultures, is worshiping the same God, and if they think otherwise, they are mistaken.<br /><br />The converse is an equally valid statement: that various cultures may regard their particular definition of "God" as quite separate and distinct from the "God" (or, to them, false gods) of other cultures, and David, in thinking they are referencing the same being, is mistaken. (David being the main "theologian" I had in mind when I made that comment.)<br /><br />To tell the truth, I don't think the reality is all either one way or the other. There probably is some of the cross-cultural referencing to the same being that David sees; I just think he may be seeing it in more places than it actually is.<br /><br />And let us not forget the original point made at the start of this thread. Not content with letting people decide for themselves whether or not they are , say, Christians, David is now presuming to challenge the self-definition of a particular sub-culture of atheists.<br /><br />'We are,' he says, 'all stamp collectors,' -- even if we say we're not.<br /><br />Well <b>this</b> non-philatelist is here to tell him that he's wrong about that.<br /><br />David's penchant for wanting to define others' religious beliefs (or lack thereof) for them is not one of his more endearing traits. <br />Fortunately he has other redeeming qualities, so I keep coming back. ;-)Dr Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-74722709896253679252011-04-27T19:07:08.437-07:002011-04-27T19:07:08.437-07:00==========
Neil: Also, you express a misunderstan...==========<br />Neil: Also, you express a misunderstanding of the semantics and logic of descriptions versus notional "entities."<br />==========<br />No, I do not.<br /><br />I merely reference what many (many, many) religious followers profess or seem to believe.<br /><br />Here, let's take a hypothetical example:<br /><br />A Shi'ite with a machette tells you that you need to worship the one true God, Allah, or he will cut off your head as an infidel. <br /><br />You tell him that, as a Christian, you already worship the one true God, and that Allah is just another name for Him.<br /><br />Your burnoosed antagonist replies "the Christian God is a false God; he is NOT Allah!"<br /><br />So... he has the machette held to your neck. Are you going to try to convince him that your position is philosophically correct in the next 10 seconds? <br /><br />Or will you say "Allahu Akbar" and hope it gets you throught he next five minutes with your head still attached?Dr Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-36607205862712698602011-04-27T18:54:08.316-07:002011-04-27T18:54:08.316-07:00==========
Neil: Dr. H, there is an accepted logi...==========<br />Neil: Dr. H, there is an accepted logical usage of "a religion" being some widely accepted teachings or concurrence of most scholars, that may not apply to the masses (whether you like the "class war" aspect of this or not.)<br />==========<br />Of course. However, it is the beliefs of the people on the streets (or in the pews) that tend to be responsible for most of the direct action in the world taken in the name of world. So as a practical matter, I am most concernd with what -they- happen to profess to believe, even though I may enjoy a philosophical debate on teh side as to what the <i>theoretical</i> tenets of a religion may be.<br /><br />It is the difference between having an intelectual discussion of of how reality is an ephemeral creation of the mind with no real substance, on the one hand -- and then having someone give you a swift kick in the shins with their steel-toed Birkenstocks(tm) on the other.<br /><br />==========<br />DM: Also, please don't confuse "true" member of X religion with "true Scotsman", a common red herring:<br />==========<br />I am not doing that at all. My comments were in reference to <i>David's</i> penchant for indulgeing in the "no true Scottsman" fallacy rather freely at times.Dr Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-84198939893176693402011-04-26T19:10:53.692-07:002011-04-26T19:10:53.692-07:00David, sorry: I should have read further before I ...David, sorry: I should have read further before I said you hadn't given God very many specific attributes -- I see that you have:<br /><br />==========<br />DM: (1) transcends all other beings; (2) He is creator; (3) He is judge of humankind; (4) unique knowledge (omniscience); (5) unique power (omnipotence); (6) He is perfectly good (see Homer or Virgil for contrast); (7) He is incorporal; (8) but is called "Father" or (sometimes) "Mother" metaphorically, not literally; (9) He is not worshipped with idols; (10) He is eternal, and has no origin.<br />==========<br /><br />Good, that's something to work with. But I'm getting tired of typing today, so I think I'll ponder these for a while and comment later on, if such seems called for.Dr Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-15574506101864798672011-04-26T19:06:40.613-07:002011-04-26T19:06:40.613-07:00I don't have time to respond to everything rig...I don't have time to respond to everything right now, but let me follow up on these last comments by Dr. H and Neil. <br /><br />Suppose you travel to a distant land where people talk about an object called "gujek." What is gujek, you ask? It's the brightest object in the sky, they say. It's made of burning ball of tar, and is the daughter of Earth.<br /><br />Oh, the sun! You say. How did you know? Simple -- there's only one "brightest object in the sky," and that's what we call the sun. The natives may be a little confused about the exact nature of and source of gujek, but no doubt you're talking about the same object. <br /><br />What this shows is that it doesn't take much to define "God" across cultures, and having defined him, two different cultures are right to recognize the commonality between their languages. God is "the Supreme Being." Having said that, we all know Who we're talking about. <br /> <br />As a matter of fact, we often know a whole lot more than that. I didn't give thousands of examples, true, but I did cite books that certainly give hundreds. What is remarkable is that awareness of God's character so often goes so far beyond "the Supreme Being." <br /><br />So Dr. H's little joke about Uncle George is about as far off as you can get. Attend to the earlier discussion about Shang Di, please - and that' just the beginning. <br /><br />Neal's explanation is well-stated, too.David B Marshallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04029133398946303654noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-44621900395456299852011-04-26T19:05:53.727-07:002011-04-26T19:05:53.727-07:00==========
DM: You should know, though, that the ...==========<br />DM: You should know, though, that the toll of the witchhunts was about 50,000.<br />==========<br />No one knows with that degree of precission, but most modern estimates put the number at somewhere between 50,000 - 200,000. I suppose you can be forgiven for picking the side of that range that seems more favorable to your position. ;-)<br /><br />Also, this only addresses the various Inquisitional witch-hunts, and doesn't include little contretemps like the Albigensian genocide or the Thirty Years War.<br /><br />==========<br />DM: Witches were burned not during the Middle Ages proper, but during the Renaissance.<br />==========<br />The Renaissance and the Middle Ages are not sequential. The Rennaissance begain around 1300, and the Late Middle ages run from about 1300 to 1450, so the two periods overlap. The Church Inquisition began in 1231 (the formal inquisition, anyway), and so a goodly part of it coincided with the Middle Ages.<br /><br />==========<br />DM: And they were not burned because they used the wrong name for God, but because they were perceived as having sold out to the devil, ...<br />==========<br />... ie., worshiping the wrong god...<br /><br />==========<br />DM: ....or poisoning wells, shifting shapes, flying on broomsticks, etc.<br />==========<br />Or any of a variety of other excuses, frequently including someone with the power to launch an inquisition (including various Church officials) coveting the land or other property of the accused, which was, of course, forfeit to the Church upon their conviction.<br /><br />A practice which survives in various municipalities to this day, although now they call it "emminent domain", and they usually don't burn you at the stake when they take your property. ;-)Dr Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-67509046594785219982011-04-26T18:32:00.762-07:002011-04-26T18:32:00.762-07:00Dr H, you are still confused about how to refer to...Dr H, you are still confused about how to refer to notional entities. You didn't seem to get anything out of what I said (I don't expect everyone to agree, but at least they could consider it and show they did.) What do you even mean by saying, "The theologian often makes the mistake of thinking that similar sets of qualities ascribed by various cultures to their particular god means they are all refering to the same God." If I actually had a bunch of Gods in a room like people at a party, I could wonder if someone talking about "that tall skinny girl" was one person or another, depending on which of those actual people might answer that description. But when you are talking about meanings, then "same" *is* about the same meaning. There is no clear meaning to "different God" like there is to "different country." The meaning of "God" is like "our universe" - varying beliefs about "it" don't refer to "different universes" as long as the referring concept is the same. Otherwise, you are saying that Ptolemaists believed in an "other" universe, rather than their believing something about it different than what we believe.<br /><br />In a nutshell: "different" can mean either an actual, "numerically distinct" entity among several, or it can mean "different traits being supposed" about the same entity. I realize there is some ambiguity in the definition of "God" anyway, but once we say some ultimate being responsible for the universe, itself not created or contingent, etc, then the referent has been created by semantic fiat. Then we can wonder to what extent people agree about the traits and actions of that numerically "same" entity.Neil Bateshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04564859009749481136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-66574905981598135122011-04-26T18:27:48.638-07:002011-04-26T18:27:48.638-07:00==========
DM: Show that there is a creature with...==========<br />DM: Show that there is a creature with many distinct traits corresponding to those of a vampire, that it shares between hundreds or thousands of independent cultures. <br />==========<br /><br />I question whether you have in fact done this for God across "thousands" of "independent" cultures. Hundreds, perhaps, but even then, it depends on how you are defining "culture" and "independent."<br /><br />It also depends on just what qualities of "God" you are talking about. You really haven't delineated very many here, other than 'a supreme being, creator of the universe, who is all good.'<br /><br />That's a start, but it's pretty broad. It puts me in mind of the fishing engaged in by some alleged "psychics":<br /><br />"I see a name starteing with a "P'... Peter... Paul ... Pasquale ..."<br /><br />Mark:(no reaction from the mark)<br /><br />"P.. P... wait, it's more like a J... J, that's it... John, James ... could it be Jeraboam? ..."<br /><br />Mark: Well, no, I don't know any...<br /><br />"G! Yes, that's it, G! Someone close to you; Gerald... George ..."<br /><br />Mark: My God! It must be Uncle George! Why you're amazing!!<br /><br />"Yes, it Uncle George! It was G... rhymes with "P", that's what threw me at first ..."<br /><br /><br />... and so on.<br /><br /><br /><br />Not to put too fine a point on it, if those are your criteria, it's no wonder you're finding commonality everywhere you look. It's rather like searching for a man with "two ears and a nose". :-)Dr Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-37770119014706686622011-04-26T18:09:12.357-07:002011-04-26T18:09:12.357-07:00==========
DM: He often makes the mistake of think...==========<br />DM: He often makes the mistake of thinking that two different names for one God, means two different gods. <br />==========<br /><br />The theologian often makes the mistake of thinking that similar sets of qualities ascribed by various cultures to their particular god means they are all refering to the same God.Dr Hnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5071813.post-73292392003795681172011-04-26T18:04:02.227-07:002011-04-26T18:04:02.227-07:00{{BTW David, sorry fo rthe long string of consecut...{{BTW David, sorry fo rthe long string of consecutive posts. My ISP has been having some "issues" for the past 6 weeks, only recently resolved, and I am playing catch-up as a result.}}Dr Hnoreply@blogger.com