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What is the definition of "God"?

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Okay, I felt this deserved a separate thread from my other definitions thread. First off, allow me to state that I am an atheist. I am an atheist, because I see no evidence to believe in God and, until I do, I must accept his existence as false. By the way, someone asked Andrew Bernstein about atheism at a speech that I attended, and he agreed with my stance.

However, most Objectivists defend atheism by saying that God is defined as "existing outside of reality." Now, if this were true, I would consider it proof positive against the existence of God. But, where does this definition come from? I know pleny of Christians and none of them say that God exists "outside of reality." They might say "outside of our universe," but I don't know any who would agree that God exists outside of reality.

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However, most Objectivists defend atheism by saying that God is defined as "existing outside of reality."  Now, if this were true, I would consider it proof positive against the existence of God.  But, where does this definition come from?  I know pleny of Christians and none of them say that God exists "outside of reality."  They might say "outside of our universe," but I don't know any who would agree that God exists outside of reality.

We're not "defending" atheism, generally we're attacking theism.

That being said; God is usually defined one of two ways; by ascribing traits that contradict one of the three primary axioms, or by insisting that God is "unknowable".

The first is easy to demonstrate: people often claim that God is "infinite" . . . but (as is said in OPAR by Dr. Peikoff) infinite doesn't mean large, it means "having no specific quantity", which, in the case of an extant means the same thing as having NO quantity and thus no identity . . . everything that exists has identity. If it has no identity, it doesn't exist. Q.E.D.

Omnipotence contradicts identity, also, and causalty while we're at it. Omnicience contradicts volition. And so forth.

The second way is generally put forth, as you said, as God exists "outside the Universe" or "outside this space-time continuum" or "in another dimension". It's important to note that Objectivists tend to use the term universe and existence interchangeably and that this is actually a correct usage! (There are other correct usages of the term "universe" where this doesn't apply, but if you say "the Universe", you're talking about the whole of existence.)

In this terminology, saying that something exists "outside the Universe" is the same as saying it exists "outside existence" i.e. it doesn't exist.

It is interesting to note that the ancients put their gods in similarly out-of-the-way places but they weren't so ambitious about it . . . they'd just pick the top of a mountain no one had climbed or way off in the ocean somewhere (Aeneas and several other Greek/Roman heroes actually go visit, say, the land of the dead, and they get their by walking or by boat.)

I find this behavior somewhat amusing, such as a someone trying to hide dirt under a carpet.

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But, where does this definition come from?  I know pleny of Christians and none of them say that God exists "outside of reality."  They might say "outside of our universe," but I don't know any who would agree that God exists outside of reality.
The latter is a sad bit of evasion by X-ers who can't stand the contradiction, and therefore make up a distinction between "reality" and "the universe". There is no such distinction, and they should be ashamed. If you look at other religions (all of the theistic ones that you have ever heard of), you'll note that they have the same character -- an omnipotent, omniscient, undefined, infallible god. In this respect, the ancient gods were much more believable since they could screw up, they didn't have all the answers, and could even be killed. If you allow me to be labeled as a god, then of course, god exists.

O hell. I just looked at my post number on this. It was #667. If I were omniscient, I would have known that this topic would have come up, and I would have not posted whatever my last post was, and therefore this one would be for me post #666. I guess I've just proven that I'm not god, even if I am dog.

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My definition is, God is a figure , and the power, of each believer's imagination when he regards it as existing in and effecting reality and calls it God. Thus, there are as many Gods as there are believers. When believers talk about God as though it were one, not many, well that is just part of their self-deception. The Greeks were getting close with their many humanized gods. The next step was to to make man the supreme being of the universe. Ayn Rand did that. But first, there was the backward perversion of Christianity.

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I find this behavior somewhat amusing, such as a someone trying to hide dirt under a carpet.

:P I actually did laugh out loud at this one! :D

I think of it like saying there's a man on the moon or Santa at the North Pole or that my stuffed animals came to life when I left the room (as a kid).

I think in psychology they'd call it "magical thinking".

It's nice sometimes to think that there is something larger out there then the petty day to day problems that occur within existence, but today I think of that as "benevolence" and it is no longer a spooky ghost creature, but a fact of nature.

I think this was always my belief, but being raised Catholic and leaving that of my own accord-prior to Objectivism I would have called it *god* or *angels* even though I never believed such entities existed as entities in reality-it was just what I called the *idea*.

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I know pleny of Christians and none of them say that God exists "outside of reality."

Maybe not explicitly, but this is what they imply. Reality does not extend beyond that which is perceivable to humans. Everything that exists is knowable to man. The only attribute that theists use to describe God is that he is ultimately unknowable to humans. (One might ask; If "unknowable to humans" is an attribute, then how can any human claim to know of his existence?) The claim that reality exists beyond that which is perceivable to humans is arbritrary. It's a claim that can never be proven, because perception is the foundation for all human knowledge. The notion that a supernatural reality exists can only be accepted on faith- which is not a tool of epistemology.

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It is interesting to note that the ancients put their gods in similarly out-of-the-way places but they weren't so ambitious about it . . . they'd just pick the top of a mountain no one had climbed or way off in the ocean somewhere (Aeneas and several other Greek/Roman heroes actually go visit, say, the land of the dead, and they get their by walking or by boat.)

I actually think it's quite endearing. Thor? Sure, I know him. Good chap. Lives up there.

Where?

You see the tip of that mountain?

It is far friendlier that the mental corruption a modern person would spew forth.

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Maybe not explicitly, but this is what they imply. Reality does not extend beyond that which is perceivable to humans. Everything that exists is knowable to man. The only attribute that theists use to describe God is that he is ultimately unknowable to humans. (One might ask; If "unknowable to humans" is an attribute, then how can any human claim to know of his existence?) The claim that reality exists beyond that which is perceivable to humans is arbritrary. It's a claim that can never be proven, because perception is the foundation for all human knowledge. The notion that a supernatural reality exists can only be accepted on faith- which is not a tool of epistemology.

Okay, this is the best explanation I've seen on this thread, and I agree for the most part. However, if all reality is perceivable to humans, then what about extra dimensions? Extra dimensions are a pretty much accepted part of modern science, but can we perceive them? I guess we can't directly see them, but we can know they are there through math and physics. Am I off here?

Also, at that Andrew Bernstein speech, he said that atheism was the only logical belief to hold until evidence was presented for the existence of God. He did not mention anything metaphysical. GreedyCapitalist was at that speech, so maybe he can confirm it. I also know where there is a link to the speech, but it would take me a while to find it. So, can anyone explain the apparent difference in belief coming from an Objectivist?

I'm not suggesting that Objectivism is wrong on the concept of God; I'm just looking for answers and trying to resolve some of the few misgivings I have about the philosophy as a whole. The more I learn about it, the more I realize that my disagreements are mostly just misunderstandings so, if I have a misunderstanding, please point it out for me.

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You two are awful!

Yes, I find the ancient Greek and Roman gods to be a lot more personable. They have good stories. The Catholics even kept a few of the lesser ones around as saints. (Hippocrates, anyone?)

A digression: I wandered across an interesting idea when reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson . . . that most pantheons have a "clever" or "trickster" god, and that you could pretty much detect a society's attitude towards the mind and technological progress by whether that tricky god was considered malevolent or benevolent.

B. Royce . . . why do you find it necessary to define god in this manner? Do you have to keep it around for some reason?

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A digression: I wandered across an interesting idea when reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson . . . that most pantheons have a "clever" or "trickster" god, and that you could pretty much detect a society's attitude towards the mind and technological progress by whether that tricky god was considered malevolent or benevolent. 

Is it a digression?

I really only understood this of *GOD*. I think a great many "floating abstraction-ist Christian-Deist-Mysticists" might do the same.

For rational un-integrated adults, god might mostly mean benevolent universe vs malevolent universe (good vs evil)

we aren't given much else as an option.

I see this as being evident in the (quote un quote) mandate, that Bush supposedly got in the election in regards to religion.

It isn't that America is full of mysticism, but that it is wholly benevolent and optimistic and has no philosophy to integrate this except religion (that is generally known and/or accepted) i.e. a default [EDIT:REALITY] reality.

Edited by Dominique
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You two are awful!

Yes, I find the ancient Greek and Roman gods to be a lot more personable.  They have good stories.  The Catholics even kept a few of the lesser ones around as saints. (Hippocrates, anyone?)

A digression: I wandered across an interesting idea when reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson . . . that most pantheons have a "clever" or "trickster" god, and that you could pretty much detect a society's attitude towards the mind and technological progress by whether that tricky god was considered malevolent or benevolent. 

B. Royce . . . why do you find it necessary to define god in this manner?  Do you have to keep it around for some reason?

No. Simply, if what a man says exists is not based on his looking at reality, it must be based on his imagination. If he says he is looking at, praying to, or hearing God, he is "in" his own mind, not in reality.

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However, if all reality is perceivable to humans, then what about extra dimensions?  Extra dimensions are a pretty much accepted part of modern science, but can we perceive them?

Extra dimensions are an accepted part of modern science? Granted, I haven't researched the issue, but I didn't know that it was a commonly accepted theory.

What is an "extra dimension" and how can one discover its existence using something other than the evidence of their senses as a foundation?

Also, at that Andrew Bernstein speech, he said that atheism was the only logical belief to hold until evidence was presented for the existence of God. He did not mention anything metaphysical. GreedyCapitalist was at that speech, so maybe he can confirm it. I also know where there is a link to the speech, but it would take me a while to find it. So, can anyone explain the apparent difference in belief coming from an Objectivist?

Where's the difference in belief? He doesn't believe in God because there is no evidence of God's existence. The evidence cited by theists is supernatural (not real). The theist's metaphysics is that existence can and does exist beyond what can be perceived by humans (although they can't explain how they know this to be true). The Objectivist's metaphysics is that all of reality can be perceived by man. Andrew Bernstein and I share metaphysical beliefs, and therefore reject the notion of a God that somehow exists beyond reality.

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Extra dimensions themselves are supposedly not perceivable, because we are limited to the 3 in which we live. But there is evidence that they exist...don't ask me what, because that's not really the point of this thread.

As for Andrew Bernstein, I think his atheism is different. His, and mine, states that there is no evidence for God, therefore we do not believe. Most Objectivists go farther than that, to say that God is an arbitrary non-concept that is, by definition, self-contradictory. That's different than what Bernstein said and what I currently believe. I have no evidence that there is an invisible bowling ball orbiting my head, therefore I dismiss it as nonsense...that doesn't mean that the concept of an invisible bowling ball orbiting my head is self-contradictory.

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That's different than what Bernstein said and what I currently believe.

Maybe the whole problem is that you choose to use words like "believe" instead of "think". Is that a slip on your part? Perhaps you should introspect about the fuzzy choice of words...

I have no evidence that there is an invisible bowling ball orbiting my head, therefore I dismiss it as nonsense...that doesn't mean that the concept of an invisible bowling ball orbiting my head is self-contradictory.

Not self-contradictory, but contradictory to many, many things we regard as knowledge, such as: primacy of existence, the nature of consciousness, the law of identity, the law of causality... the list goes on and on. God(s) can and have been shown to be contradictory to these facts, meaning: either god(s) exist and these facts are false, or god(s) do not exist and these facts are true.

So which it? Existence, identity, and causality... or god(s)? You can't have both.

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Maybe the whole problem is that you choose to use words like "believe" instead of "think".  Is that a slip on your part?  Perhaps you should introspect about the fuzzy choice of words...

Not self-contradictory, but contradictory to many, many things we regard as knowledge, such as: primacy of existence, the nature of consciousness, the law of identity, the law of causality... the list goes on and on.  God(s) can and have been shown to be contradictory to these facts, meaning: either god(s) exist and these facts are false, or god(s) do not exist and these facts are true.

So which it?  Existence, identity, and causality... or god(s)?  You can't have both.

I don't know much about Objectivist epistemology, so I can't really answer that at the moment. For now, I will go on saying that I do not believe in God because there is an absence of convincing evidence.

Note that I'm not arguing with you...I'm just trying to understand but, at the same time, I know that my unfamiliarity with some of the Objectivist philosophy will place certain limits on my ability to carry on conversations, and that question falls outside my current limits.

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Extra dimensions are an accepted part of modern science? Granted, I haven't researched the issue, but I didn't know that it was a commonly accepted theory.

I think the idea stems from either quantum physics or quantum mechanics. The Objectivist physicist David Harriman stated explicitly at the 2001 summer conference in Palo Alto that quantum physics/mechanics are bunk, and from what I understand of them (basically, asserting that classical physics is wrong) I agree. This will probably also be stated in his forthcoming book on the history of physics, The Anti-Copernican Revolution and the Fall of Physics.

What little I have seen written on the "theory" is full of completely arbitrary assumptions and assertions, enough to make me chuckle while reading it.

Edited by TomL
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I don't know much about Objectivist epistemology, so I can't really answer that at the moment.  For now, I will go on saying that I do not believe in God

Here's my point: there is a big difference between saying one does not believe in god(s), and in saying one thinks god(s) do not exist. The difference is psychological and probably subconscious for you. You need to identify that difference and bring it to the surface of your explicit knowledge and deal with it directly.

The existence of god(s) is not the only issue concerned; the epistemological process here touches everything in your life, so you'll want to examine it very carefully, if you care at all about your ability to set goals, achieve them, and be happy.

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I think the idea stems from either quantum physics or quantum mechanics. The Objectivist physicist David Harriman stated explicitly at the 2001 summer  conference in Palo Alto that quantum physics/mechanics are bunk, and from what I understand of them (basically, asserting that classical physics is wrong) I agree.  This will probably also be stated in his forthcoming book on the history of physics, The Anti-Copernican Revolution and the Fall of Physics.

What little I have seen written on the "theory" is full of completely arbitrary assumptions and assertions, enough to make me chuckle while reading it.

I think you might mean String Theory here. Quantum mechanics in NOT bunk. Without it you wouldn't have been able to use the computer or the internet that you used to type your post. If on the other hand you want to state that most of the interpretations of the theory are bunk, that is acceptable. But to say QM itself is bunk is to negate over a century of data, flawless predictions, and the worlds greatest minds. No insult is intended here but if you think QM is bunk you seriously need to check your premises.

Edited by me to correct spelling.

Edited by Rational_One
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Okay, this is the best explanation I've seen on this thread, and I agree for the most part.  However, if all reality is perceivable to humans, then what about extra dimensions?  Extra dimensions are a pretty much accepted part of modern science, but can we perceive them?  I guess we can't directly see them, but we can know they are there through math and physics.  Am I off here?

The concept you are missing here is that of the arbitrary. The arbitrary is a claim that is presented without proof – that is, without a tie to reality. This is what Objectivists mean when they say that something is “outside reality.”

Now, philosophy as such cannot teach us anything about reality outside of the perceptual evidence we have of reality. However, unlike other animals, we are not restricted to direct evidence of reality for knowledge. We cannot see atoms, photons, or love for that matter, but we do know that these things exist by induction from things we CAN perceive directly, such as chemicals, light rays, and affection.

Thus, philosophy cannot tell us that no other dimensions can exist, but it does tell us that whatever exists, exists as something, and can only be known to us by a perceptual means of experiencing its nature. Since “God” has neither a perceptual connection to reality, nor a nature to be perceived, we can say that the very concept of “God” is an impossible contradiction.

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A note on some of the posts above: if you find yourself arguing physics, biology, or mathematics in a debate on the basics of philosophy, you’ve lost track of the topic.

Philosophy is an inductive science on the basic nature of reality, and man’s relation to it. It cannot teach us about the specialized sciences, and the specialized sciences do not teach us philosophy. Philosophy IS required to establish the proper epistemological method for the sciences, and can be applied to disprove theories that are inconsistent with reason. However it will not tell you how many dimensions there are, what the biological basis of consciousness is, or whether QM is bunk.

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I don't know much about Objectivist epistemology, so I can't really answer that at the moment.  For now, I will go on saying that I do not believe in God because there is an absence of convincing evidence.

Um, the three axioms are part of the Metaphysics, not Epistemology.

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