Thread #151015   Message #3525521
Posted By: Steve Shaw
12-Jun-13 - 06:01 AM
Thread Name: BS: Can all Athiests be lumped together?
Subject: RE: BS: Can all Athiests be lumped together?

But Joe, we end up with so many "concepts of God" that the concept becomes almost meaningless. He's a spirit that exists in all things. Or he's a force that drives nature. Either of these can be sentient or non-sentient. Or he's a big beardie-weirdie in the sky. He sets up the world to let it run on its own (justification for the all the nasty things that happen on his watch). Or he's all-seeing and all-knowing and he can intervene arbitrarily if we ask him to in our prayers (otherwise, why would you ask?) You can have "your own personal concept" that manages to wriggle round all the objections that make you feel a bit queasy about him. Pointing out to you this incredible diversity of elaborate concepts is not seeing things through a fundamentalist lens. It is simply pointing out the absurdity of it all.

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But then we get down to brass tacks, Steve. One idea about God that is almost universally held, is that God is ineffable, that God is beyond definition. Any attempt to define or even name God, falls short. So, all the words said about God, are approximations. As I've said before in one or the other of these too many threads, the tradition in Judaism is not to pronounce the name of G-D / YHWH, writing God's name without vowels. The Orthodox Christian tradition is to always speak of God in oxymorons, as I do when I speak of That Who Is Beyond and That Who Is Within.

So, than it ends up being a choice, not a matter of proof. You choose belief, or you don't. Either one is OK by me. People don't usually choose belief based on "blind faith" (which usually means doing what somebody else tells you to do). They choose belief because it makes sense in their lives, for one reason or another - oftentimes, it's because they have had one or several experiences that they perceive as the Presence of God. Belief should have some sort of rational basis, but it is by definition beyond rationality.

So, that's the deal, as I see it. Most or many nonbelievers see faith as some sort of control mechanism or some sort of obeisance to authority, but it's not that way in my life. My wife will tell you that I don't have an obedient bone in my body, and that I'm totally out of control.

-Joe-