Beyond the problem of complete acceptance, I have yet to find a definition of God that is not:
Obviously empirically false (e.g. omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and nothing else) or
Incoherent - (e.g. omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and some fourth property that we cannot possibly fathom that supercedes the other thre,
i.e. we literally have no idea what He is)
Most definitions of god involve a lot of hand-waving, to the point at which you don’t actually know what you mean when you say “I believe in God.”
This is the main reason I do not associate atheism with an affirmative belief in non-existence. “I do not believe bleggs exist” is not a reasonable statement unless you can reasonably define bleggs.
“Any agent with supernatural powers who is responsible for the creation of the universe and/or mankind, who is ontologically superior to mankind” seems like a fairly catch-all definition of God (as opposed to god(s), which could be somewhat different). Admittedly, there’s some hand-waving in “ontologically superior,” but I think this definition is pretty effective. Admittedly I know little about Eastern religion, so I may be missing something big. I’m not attached to that definition at all and would love to see a better one if someone has one.
I feel fairly comfortable describing myself as an atheist without having a catch-all definition of God. What I mean when I describe myself as an atheist is that I believe in the non-existence of God according to the (differing) definitions used by 95%+ of people who claim to believe in God. In a discussion with an individual theist, if they ask me what I mean when I say God doesn’t exist, I can ask them what they believe about God and then tell them why I believe that God doesn’t exist.
In the rare case of a theist who believes in a God who created the universe and has had no further involvement, I will explain to them why I think that the God they believe in is a meaningless concept and not something to which the word belief can be usefully attached.
Basically. If you had a god that is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good/benevolent, and has absolutely no other characteristics governing his behaviour, you’d expect to live in a much, much nicer world than you actually do.
Most of the responses to this problem postulate that god has some other set of goals in addition to these four, i.e. he wants to reward the faithful, or he wants to ensure free will, or something like that. These responses generally succeed only by making the concept of god so muddy that you don’t know what you believe in, i.e. He’s all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful, except for whenever he’s not. More explicit point here.
Beyond the problem of complete acceptance, I have yet to find a definition of God that is not:
Obviously empirically false (e.g. omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and nothing else) or
Incoherent - (e.g. omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and some fourth property that we cannot possibly fathom that supercedes the other thre, i.e. we literally have no idea what He is)
Most definitions of god involve a lot of hand-waving, to the point at which you don’t actually know what you mean when you say “I believe in God.”
This is the main reason I do not associate atheism with an affirmative belief in non-existence. “I do not believe bleggs exist” is not a reasonable statement unless you can reasonably define bleggs.
“Any agent with supernatural powers who is responsible for the creation of the universe and/or mankind, who is ontologically superior to mankind” seems like a fairly catch-all definition of God (as opposed to god(s), which could be somewhat different). Admittedly, there’s some hand-waving in “ontologically superior,” but I think this definition is pretty effective. Admittedly I know little about Eastern religion, so I may be missing something big. I’m not attached to that definition at all and would love to see a better one if someone has one.
I feel fairly comfortable describing myself as an atheist without having a catch-all definition of God. What I mean when I describe myself as an atheist is that I believe in the non-existence of God according to the (differing) definitions used by 95%+ of people who claim to believe in God. In a discussion with an individual theist, if they ask me what I mean when I say God doesn’t exist, I can ask them what they believe about God and then tell them why I believe that God doesn’t exist.
In the rare case of a theist who believes in a God who created the universe and has had no further involvement, I will explain to them why I think that the God they believe in is a meaningless concept and not something to which the word belief can be usefully attached.
Just to make sure I’m up to date, is the evidence against (1) largely (roughly) that there is evil?
Basically. If you had a god that is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good/benevolent, and has absolutely no other characteristics governing his behaviour, you’d expect to live in a much, much nicer world than you actually do.
Most of the responses to this problem postulate that god has some other set of goals in addition to these four, i.e. he wants to reward the faithful, or he wants to ensure free will, or something like that. These responses generally succeed only by making the concept of god so muddy that you don’t know what you believe in, i.e. He’s all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful, except for whenever he’s not. More explicit point here.