Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
Troutman's explanation basically means what I suspected him to mean: that he rejects the notion of a "personal" god. However, this post of your has brought to my attention another issue in this whole discussion: the precise definition of "god" is becoming more and more fluid to the point that it becomes unintelligible to speak of it/him in a fairly general context. I seriously doubt that there is a single person in the Western world who does believe in "'god' as comprehended in ancient cultures," and this is in the same sense that no one in the developed world comprehends the cosmos, climate, or the mind in even remotely similar terms as in the ancient world.
I think that this explanation renders the whole question practically meaningless, since among theists the idea of "god" has experienced substantial development.
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Yes, yes, and yes, and this is the reason why I consider myself ignostic.
The departure in the major religions from the idea of an anthropomorphic God has rendered him (it? whatever) as nothing but, in philosophical terms, an
intentional object. A
concept, not a
thing. This strengthens a religion from some forms of criticism, but weakens it in practice at the same time, in my opinion, but I won't go into that here. Basically, when someone asks "do you believe in God?" my first response shouldn't be yes or no, but "tell me what you conceive God to be, and then I will tell you whether I believe in that conception or not." The original question, by itself, is meaningless. This is as important for the atheist to understand as it is for the religious.