Atheist/Anti-theist/Agnostic Troper Group

This discussion is a pile of misunderstandings and mistakes. Does anyone have a relevant topic to change the subject to?

The thing about calling someone out on burden of proof is that the other person has to understand and accept the concept in the first place. If it's mere ignorance, then you might just have to explain a few things first before you can continue.

But if they flatly refuse to believe that the onus is on them to prove their beliefs, then you've got a different sort of argument on your hands.

Sure, topic change: if God exists as an idea, does that mean we need to refine what "God does not exist" actually means?

It's all a matter of context. I rather doubt most people are thinking about God-as-an-idea when they assert that God exists or doesn't exist.

True. However it seems "exists" can get tricky.

edited 18th May '16 6:12:31 PM by Fireblood

I don't know how else you'd use the sentence; in order to say that "God doesn't exist", "God" must first exist as an idea capable of being expressed through language to someone else. And since I highly doubt you can debate the existence of something if you don't even have a concept for it, the sentence "God doesn't exist" will always be a shortened, implied version of "God as an actual, real world thing doesn't exist."

Besides, if you say "God as a hypothetical idea doesn't exist," then what the hell are you actually saying? You can't define something as an imaginary item, then claim it doesn't exist...because you just constructed it.

It certainly can. Harry Potter exists as an idea, a book, and a character. Harry Potter does not exist physically. And those are just the basic types of existence.

edited 18th May '16 6:39:18 PM by war877

Hmm, well said Reservoir. I didn't think of that.

Trying to redefine the meaning of "exist" when it comes to supernatural entities is often used as a tactic when discussing these topics, but it's pretty pointless.

What atheists and theists disagree about never was whether the concept of god(s) exist or not, but simply that god(s) are fictional or not. Atheists think god(s) are fiction, that's all.

Doesn't mean we don't like fiction (especially those of us coming to such a site, naturally). Of course, there are going to be frictions when somebody tries to impose a fictional view to the real world.

I classify myself as an agnostic.

Yes, the question has been whether god(s) have objective existence or not. As my tag line says, they aren't real if they'll go away by not believing in them.

So the Discworld gods aren't real in-universe by your logic?

edited 2nd Jun '16 6:03:11 PM by SmartGirl333

Money is not real, because when you stop believing in it, it loses all value.

Money is actually a complex system of agreements, contracts and documents that extend the bartering of material goods into a trade network that is more convenient for everyone involved.

maybe, but if faith in the system was lost, all those dollars stored in bank servers turn back into bits and bytes.

I think this, and the aforementioned faith based deities are excellent examples of two of the different ways things can exist beyond what we normally think of as existence. So saying god exists is a pointless question. Of course he exists.

Does he exist in an interesting way? Or in the way that you want him to?

Even saying something is fictional is not an argument here. Because being fictional is a mode of existence. In order to use that as evidence against a different mode of existence, you would first have to show that the two modes are mutually incompatible. Which is harder than it sounds.

Irrelevant existentialism. I agree that capitalism is bullshit and nothing is real it's all in our heads solipsism and all that shit i've heard every philosophical thing in the book but the thing is that being fictional is not a relevant measure of EXISTENCE.

It seems that the Discworld gods and money both fall into the "subjective existence" category I mentioned. They have a subjective reality, rather than an objective one.

It's a bit different. Money exists because we decided to make it exist.

Discworld gods sort of just eat belief.

Discworld gods do objectively exist in that universe, though. If enough people believe in a given god, that god can actually kill someone even if that someone doesn't believe in that god. (This is mentioned in Small Gods and probably a bunch of other books.) Their existence is contingent on the belief of a sufficient number of people (and sufficient degree of said belief), but it's still objective, all the same.

This is not true in our universe, as far as we can tell. Belief in deities is objectively true, but the deities themselves don't objectively exist.

Hmm, so I guess they're things which objectively exist but depend upon belief for that existence. It's an interesting idea for sure.

I think standard existence is everything that is physically reachable. By using this definition, I must admit a second type of existence to cover things that are in other universes.

This is my current theory for the most probable way that the various gods exist. They exist, but not here. Nor can they ever be physically proven or interact with us, as in either case, that would mean they are inside our universe.

If they can't interact with us or this universe in general, they're as good as nonexistent.

"Do gods exist?"

"Technically."

Inside people's heads, yes. The outside is another story (if you don't count the statues/relics/etc).

Deep down, all this measures up is whether people are able (or willing) to distinguish reality from fiction. You would think those two notions aren't that hard for most grown-ups, but no...