Proofs that God is imaginary

[Camikaze]

I think a lot of religious people would have a problem if you just wrote off their religious belief as a chemical reaction that happens in certain parts of the brain. But I think this is the case, from what I recall.

And I completely agree with you. God can be as real as the idea of Santa, love and other imaginary things.

Spoiler :

From a South Park episode:

General: If I'm not mistaken, you're the one who bet that leprechauns weren't real. So why do you care what happens?

Kyle: Because I- [catches himself] I... Um... because I think... they are real. It's all real. Think about it. Haven't Luke Skywalker and Santa Claus affected your lives more than most real people in this room? I mean, whether Jesus is real or not, he... he's had a bigger impact on the world than any of us have. And the same could be said of Bugs Bunny and, a-and Superman and Harry Potter. They've changed my life, changed the way I act on the Earth. Doesn't that make them kind of "real." They might be imaginary, but, but they're more important than most of us here. And they're all gonna be around long after we're dead. So in a way, those things are more realer than any of us. [Cartman begins a slow clap, then speeds it up. The techs in the room join in and soon everyone is applauding Kyle's speech]

This idea was based on a few assumptions, namely:

1. (A quote): "God is not some Santa Claus figure above the clouds."
2. No one can explain God.
3. No one is wholly right in their explanation of God.

So, it isn't meant to categorically say that God isn't real, as such, but that God is definitely real in the way that Kyle described. It is what God is on top of that reality of feelings, if you like, that is the main argument, of which the above three assumptions again apply.

Also, it was referring to not only that feeling, but also, to paraphrase, 'the feeling of the warm Sun on a cool winter's day'. As in, God is present in all those good things that we feel.

 

[Traitorfish]

An interesting thought that my minister at church brought forward today that seems relevant to the thread topic (apologies if it has already been mentioned/dispelled/pondered):

God is a feeling that there is something bigger than us in the universe. The most important part of this sentence would be 'God is a feeling'. Note it is not 'God is like a feeling'. So if God is a feeling, how is He (it?) imaginary?

An interesting point, but simply claiming that your deity is a personfication of mankind's natural awe of the world doesn't make him "real", anymore than the Bogeyman, as a personfication of our natural fear of darkness, is "real". A character, not a factual entity.

 

[Camikaze]

An interesting point, but simply claiming that your deity is a personfication of mankind's natural awe of the world doesn't make him "real", anymore than the Bogeyman, as a personfication of our natural fear of darkness, is "real". A character, not a factual entity.

This is true, but perhaps God is not meant to be real, in the physical and literal sense. And, if you look at it from the perspective of assuming that God is a feeling, then God is certainly not imaginary, as is obvious by the amount of people that have that God feeling, if you like.

 

[BasketCase]

Which raises multiple questions:

1. Why would a Supreme Being have any special interest in one planet of one star system among countless others?
2. What do we need with an otherwise empty universe?
3. What would a Supreme Being need with a virtually empty universe?
4. What if there are other universes? (Multi-verse theory)

In order from top to bottom:

#1: When you're shopping for a house, you eventually take interest in one house--among countless others.

#2 and #3 together: Why plant just a few trees in the back yard of that house instead of completely filling the yard with trees? Because it looks niftier to have just a few trees. Because lots of trees would make it difficult for the lawn and flowers and bushes to grow. Because a large number of trees would compete for water and all of them would wilt, while one tree would grow bountifully and produce lots of apples.

#4: There are many other houses in your neighborhood--yet you don't concern yourself with them. They are beyond your sphere of influence. Sure, you can yell at your neighbor about that vine that's creeping over the fence, but that's about it. The God of that other house holds dominion over his "universe", so to speak.

As usual: we can make a good try at figuring out the motives of a God simply by examining our own motives.

 

[BasketCase]

So your leery of people taking up arms to defend their own right to believe...

Stop there. I'm just plain leery of people taking up arms to defend their right to believe in a religion. Period. No if's and's or but's about it. They do have the right, but sometimes this is merely a facade used as an excuse by evil men.

So prior to the Allies actually disclosing the fact that Nazi Germany was exterminating Jews you would have been fine with them just sitting down and awaiting whatever it is they got.

Wrong. Just because you don't know evil is being done, does not make it good. A war to exterminate an entire religion is always wrong.

But you don't mind exterminating people if there is a good reason?

Now you've got it.

So if Hitler had a good reason to exterminate the Jews in your eyes it would have been fine.

.....errrr, you had it, but lost it.

No, there's never a good reason to exterminate Jews. There's a good reason to exterminate terrorists. There's a good reason to exterminate all Jews who are terrorists. But then, there's also a good reason to exterminate all white people who are terrorists, al black people who are terrorists, all Irish who are terrorists, all French who are terrorists (or mimes....) and all Japanese who are terrorists.

But that does not translate into "a good reason to exterminate all Jews or all white people or all black people or all Irish or all French or all Japanese".

Keep re-describing the analogy all you like. I'm not buying it.

 

[Agent327]

God can be as real as the idea of Santa, love and other imaginary things.

First: love isn't an imaginary thing. (Other than that, love makes a good analogy to God, in that both can be experienced and faith seems to be a big part of it.)

Returning to topic: Proofs that God is imaginary.

As I said, I don't think this can be proven or denied, but I would like to mention one thing. (Alright, two...)

1. God is greater than the universe
2. The universe (as far as we currently know) is immense.

Which raises multiple questions:

1. Why would a Supreme Being have any special interest in one planet of one star system among countless others?
2. What do we need with an otherwise empty universe?
3. What would a Supreme Being need with a virtually empty universe?
4. What if there are other universes? (Multi-verse theory)

Within this context I'd like to remind of the following definition of God: is that which is infinite, eternal, permanent, unchanging

In order from top to bottom:

#1: When you're shopping for a house, you eventually take interest in one house--among countless others.

#2 and #3 together: Why plant just a few trees in the back yard of that house instead of completely filling the yard with trees? Because it looks niftier to have just a few trees. Because lots of trees would make it difficult for the lawn and flowers and bushes to grow. Because a large number of trees would compete for water and all of them would wilt, while one tree would grow bountifully and produce lots of apples.

#4: There are many other houses in your neighborhood--yet you don't concern yourself with them. They are beyond your sphere of influence. Sure, you can yell at your neighbor about that vine that's creeping over the fence, but that's about it. The God of that other house holds dominion over his "universe", so to speak.

As usual: we can make a good try at figuring out the motives of a God simply by examining our own motives.

Ad 1) Perfectly true, but again a flaw in the analogy; constructing houses, then selecting one as the preferred would a better one.

Ad 2) & 3) As far as we know only one tree was planted. (And trees competing for water seems to me just a description of how nature works; I think it's safe to assume God has no problem with nature as is.)

Ad 4) Are you saying there are more universes that God didn't create (outside his sphere of influence)? Because that just doesn't seem to coincide with the concept of God.

Those are meant to be two possible answers to the question - obviously they're not consistent with each other, so the theist would have to choose.

OK, good. (Although I'd be interested in your answer as well.)

To say that something may have a property does not entail that it has that property, either "intrinsically" or "implicitly"! If you love someone it is not because you think they really are better than everyone else - or even because you think that they may be better than everyone else. If you did, you'd think anyone who loved anyone else was mistaken. But that would be ludicrous.

I'd have to disagree. I believe, in theory, you could love anyone (i.e. take anyone as your love); the properties necessary for you to love "your other half" must be present first, for you to discover love "in that special someone". After the fact, again I disagree with your conclusion (which follows automatically from the previous assertion). Also, I am not suggesting that your love is better than every other woman.

If by this you mean you're not assuming that being creator of the universe is part of the definition of God, then what is the relevance of the original question?

I'm not "assuming" things I do not state. It is generally assumed that being God entails a.o. creation of the universe. I would like to depart from such general assumptions (to arrive at an accurate general definition of "God"; using denomination-/religion-specific definitions isn't helpful with this, using concepts common to all religions is.)

---

As a general comment I'm observing that people tend to use analogies in this discussion; while that may be helpful, that only works for a perfect analogy. And I'm more interested in a perfect definition of God. (Although a good or working definition of God will do fine. As an intermediate conclusion with regards to the thread topic, I'm inclined to say that so far there haven't been valid proofs that God is imaginary
nor to the effect that God is real.)

 

[civ_king]

I personally believe that love is hormonally driven but because there are so few facts it is pure conjecture

 

[Smidlee]

I personally believe that love is hormonally driven but because there are so few facts it is pure conjecture

Is not your personally belief that love is hormonally driven also hormonally driven?

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, all cognitive experiences with an emotional flavour will have hormonal input. Just like, most ideas have a visual component.

 

[Smidlee]

People who believe God is imaginary has a bottom to top universe view , that is an unintelligent universe somehow create intelligence so it can observe itself for some reason. Thus the universe created the mind
Those who (no matter what faith) believe God is very real (more than just a feeling but the Creator) sees the mind came first , thus the mind create the universe.

 

[Plotinus]

People who believe God is imaginary has a bottom to top universe view , that is an unintelligent universe somehow create intelligence so it can observe itself for some reason.

Atheists are not committed to the view that there was purpose behind the emergence of intelligence. On the contrary, the notion that the universe is intrinsically teleological is normally a feature of theism.

 

[Flying Pig]

I read something interesting considering 'live choices'; it said that to most people believing in Zeus or Santa Claus are not live options, but believing in God or the afterlife are. Howeverr, can anyone come up with a decent argument as to the difference between belief in Zeus and belief in Jehovah?

 

[Plotinus]

I read something interesting considering 'live choices'; it said that to most people believing in Zeus or Santa Claus are not live options, but believing in God or the afterlife are. Howeverr, can anyone come up with a decent argument as to the difference between belief in Zeus and belief in Jehovah?

Of course - Zeus is just one god among many, whereas Jehovah is a monotheist God. That means that he can have the Anselmian attributes of maximal excellence as well as the attribute of being creator of all other things and the final explanation of all things, whereas Zeus cannot have these attributes. But most arguments for the existence of God are arguments for the existence of a maximally excellent being or of a being which is the final explanation for all other things. So these can be arguments for the existence of Jehovah, but not for the existence of Zeus. So there are far more arguments for the existence of Jehovah than there are for Zeus.

Of course you could redefine "Zeus" to have these attributes, and indeed, some ancient philosophers - especially the Stoics - did exactly that. But then the only difference is the name.

This is quite apart from the fact that monotheism is often considered to be more rational than polytheism, for various reasons such as the principle of parsimony.

 

[Flying Pig]

If we substitute 'the Jewish conception of ------' with the 'Christian conception of Jehovah', on the other hand, it becomes far more tricky.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Of course - Zeus is just one god among many, whereas Jehovah is a monotheist God. That means that he can have the Anselmian attributes of maximal excellence as well as the attribute of being creator of all other things and the final explanation of all things, whereas Zeus cannot have these attributes. But most arguments for the existence of God are arguments for the existence of a maximally excellent being or of a being which is the final explanation for all other things. So these can be arguments for the existence of Jehovah, but not for the existence of Zeus. So there are far more arguments for the existence of Jehovah than there are for Zeus.

The Jews began worshipping Jehovah as their own God, but acknowledged the existence of other gods, did they not? It was only later (after the Babylonian exile, I think? My exact knowledge about this part of history is a shy sketchy) that it became solidified into a true monotheistic religion, rejecting the existence of all other gods outright.

Of course you could redefine "Zeus" to have these attributes, and indeed, some ancient philosophers - especially the Stoics - did exactly that. But then the only difference is the name.

Yeah, I remember Seneca talking about "God" and me being thoroughly confused as to why this was. The parallels between Christianity and Seneca's stoicism are striking, its really a wonder that Justinian saw fit to ban it.

Of course, Zeno and the like still regarded the traditional Greek pantheon as legitimate, and indeed played it up quite a bit with the whole Astrology thing.

This is quite apart from the fact that monotheism is often considered to be more rational than polytheism, for various reasons such as the principle of parsimony.

If this has already been explained, I apologize. What is the principle of parsimony?

 

[Plotinus]

If we substitute 'the Jewish conception of ------' with the 'Christian conception of Jehovah', on the other hand, it becomes far more tricky.

Since neither you nor I nor anyone else seems to have used either of these terms, I don't exactly see what you're getting at.

The Jews began worshipping Jehovah as their own God, but acknowledged the existence of other gods, did they not? It was only later (after the Babylonian exile, I think? My exact knowledge about this part of history is a shy sketchy) that it became solidified into a true monotheistic religion, rejecting the existence of all other gods outright.

Yes, it was a gradual thing, although I think they had reached the monotheist stage before the exile at least. So yes, it would depend on "which" Jehovah you're talking about. I assumed that Flying_Pig was referring to the monotheist Jehovah since I doubt that many people would consider the polytheist Jehovah any more credible than Zeus.

If this has already been explained, I apologize. What is the principle of parsimony?

That is the principle that simpler explanations are to be preferred to complex ones. So at its most straightforward here, you might think that if you're going to believe in gods, better to believe in just one.

 

[Flying Pig]

It's interesting - I can't see a logical reason, but so many people say 'look at the world, there must be a God, I'm off to church'

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I was under the impression that Jehovah was just a misunderstanding of how one was supposed to read the tetragrammaton, since the vowel points of Adonai were often added to remind the reader to say "Lord" instead of speaking the ineffable name. It seems odd that everyone here is speaking of Jehovah as if it is the actual name.

 

[Flying Pig]

Jehovah is the name that you can't say - watch The Life of Brian

 

[Smidlee]

dp.............