What's wrong with this definition of God: maker of heaven and earth and everything?

[Foster Zygote]

Well, I am glad that you are around, so I can dialog with you.

I've seen you engage in a great deal of monologue, but to be brutally honest, I've never observed you to actually dialogue with anyone.

Now, that you don't believe in God as per concept in the Christrian faith, that is beside the point; the point in this thread is to obtain what you know of the information about the concept of God in the Christian faith, in order that you and I and others who have that point in mind, to discuss the concept of God namely that in the Catholic faith.

There is no point to this thread. I have already explained to you that atheists do not believe in supernatural agencies such as gods. This includes your god as well. It doesn't matter if you claim that your god is purple, or hermaphroditic, or smells like fish. It doesn't matter if you claim that your god is "Father almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth".

Now please feel free to do your part: Ignore what I've written and respond according to the script that you created in your imagination prior to creating the OP that has since been merged with the other threads you've started regarding this same subject.

 

[Foster Zygote]

It doesn't matter. All gods are in the same category: imaginary until proven otherwise. You can dress your concept up in gold lamé, map its anatomy, tell dazzling stories about its exploits, tell me it kills fascists and pees gasoline, hang it on a cross and drink its imaginary blood periodically, but that won't make it any more real. You will not define a god into existence, no matter how hard you huff and puff.

Ah, but my god smells like fish. You hadn't thought of that definition of God, had you? Ha Ha! Gotcha!

 

[Foster Zygote]

...they must first of all consider how the concept of God came about in the minds of the people who did formulate the statements.

Now we're getting to meat of your argument. We had to trim several pounds of fat away, but there it is.

The problem is that you also have to consider how a great many other gods have been conceptualized in the minds of the people who believed in them. Allow me to offer what seem to me to be the most likely explanation:

We humans have the ability to attribute agency to other members of our species. This is not an ability unique to us, but we are especially good at it. This ability was absolutely critical to our evolution as a social species. It enables us to understand that others in our social groups have motivations similar to ours. This not only enables individuals to adjust their behavior so as to compete with rivals, but more importantly, it allows individuals to recognize their common goals and work together to better attain those goals as a more effective group. The instinct to figure out what others are thinking as a critical survival tactic is so strong, that our ancestors attempted to figure out the motivations of everything that effected their survival, including forces which had no conscious agency such as the sun, the wind, the water etcetera. If they could figure out what these natural forces wanted, then maybe they could adjust their behavior so as to anticipate or even influence them. These are the origins of all gods, including your "Father almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth". They are simply ways of anthropomorphizing nature in the hope of understanding it and surviving it.

 

[yrreg]

Yes, yes! I agree with you, God is an engineer!

Quote:
In the West the concept of God among Christians is founded on the following two statements from the Christian faith:

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Genesis 1:1
I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. Apostles' Creed verse 1
​

------------------------

​

So if I understand this, you are saying that the concept of God is founded on the premise that he is an engineer. I would argue that such a premise is too narrow and may in any event be incorrect. Is he not also portrayed as omnisicient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent? These seem pretty decent characteristics on which to found a concept for a god. But we are still talking about attributes and not concepts. What about the idea that the concept of God comes from the fact that the universe is so fantastic and vast and beautiful that if one were to assume it is controlled by some intelligent design, such an intelligence must be even more fantastic and vast and beautiful. Since such control is clearly beyond the scope of human beings, there must be some vastly superior being or beings in charge. This inference is the concept of God.

[...]

.​

You have a very keen insight in saying that:

...the concept of God is founded on the premise that he is an engineer.

.​

Yes, God in the Christian faith, before anything else, in His fundamental relation to the universe, is that He built the universe and is the continuous operator of the universe.

That is what exactly is contained in these two statements about God in the Christian faith:

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Genesis 1:1
I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. Apostles' Creed verse 1​

I used to read about Masons, i.e., the Society of Freemasonry, hope I get the name of the organization correctly, they call God The Supreme Architect, and they also thereby indicate that God is also the supreme engineer.

In ancient times, the architect and the engineer is the same creative and constructive genius.

Let me read something about The Supreme Architect in the internet.

The Great Architect of the Universe (also Grand Architect of the Universe or Supreme Architect of the Universe) is a conception of God discussed by many Christian theologians and apologists. As a designation it is used within Freemasonry to neutrally represent deity (in whatever form, and by whatever name each member may individually believe in). It is also a Rosicrucian conception of God, as expressed by Max Heindel. The concept of the demiurge as a grand architect or a great architect also occurs in gnosticism and other religious and philosophical systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Architect_of_the_Universe

-----------------

The word "demiurge" is an English word from a Latinized form of the Greek δημιουργός, dēmiourgos, literally "public worker", and which was originally a common noun meaning "craftsman" or "artisan", but gradually it came to mean "producer" and eventually "creator". The philosophical usage and the proper noun derive from Plato's Timaeus, written circa 360 BC, in which the demiurge is presented as the creator of the universe. This is accordingly the definition of the demiurge in the Platonic (ca. 310 BC-90 BC) and Middle Platonic (ca. 90 BC-300 AD) philosophical traditions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge

So, you see, God as engineer and architect or plain builder, lastly creator of the universe, that is an old concept with the thinking men of antiquity.

Let us we two, you and I, Cassis, exchange thoughts about God as engineer of the universe.


Yrreg

 

[Sun Countess]

I used to read about Masons, i.e., the Society of Freemasonry, hope I get the name of the organization correctly, they call God The Supreme Architect, and they also thereby indicate that God is also the supreme engineer.

No, I'm pretty sure The Architect is from The Matrix.

 

[AdMan]

Let us we two, you and I, Cassis, exchange thoughts about God as engineer of the universe.


Yrreg

How does this tie in with your question on "What is the concept of God with atheists?"

Are you abandoning it?

You received a number of answers which you failed to address. Why is that? You asked the question. Why didn't the answers merit an answer in return?

 

[jsfisher]

Let us we two, you and I, Cassis, exchange thoughts about God as engineer of the universe.

Gerry, you should probably go first since you are more familiar with what you will eventually prompt Cassis to say. I doubt you'll accept the simple and direct, "My thoughts are that your 'god as engineer of the universe' is pure fiction."

 

[Sun Countess]

Where is it written that a universe needs an engineer anyway? yrreg, do you have any evidence that there's some engineer operating this universe from behind some sort of veil? What exactly does this engineer do? Does he (because I'm pretty sure you think it's a he) replace the lightbulbs that he's strung up on the firmament or turn the moon on so that we have a soft light in the nighttime? Does he keep track of the cancer to kids and tapeworms to intestines ratios?

 

[arthwollipot]

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Genesis 1:1
I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. Apostles' Creed verse 1​

As an atheist, I reject this concept of God as I reject all others.

 

[yrreg]

Dear Loss, you are welcome to exchange thoughts with me here.

Originally Posted by yrreg

Thanks, everyone for your reactions, but I am still waiting for Foster Zygote to return.

​

Having once been Yrreg's favorite, my heart bursts with sadness to see the torch passed.

Well, Loss, you are welcome to exchange thoughts with me here even on one and one basis, if others are just into irrelevancies.

Our last encounter was about evidence, and readers can look up our exchange if they care to read something about evidence from our thinking, which might be useful to them to determine whether the existence of God can be known and is known to Christians from evidence.

I will just say here that it is the teaching of the Christian faith that God's existence is known from evidence in the existence of the material universe.

That is for the atheists who deny the existence of any parts of the universe that are not material; for all other humans who admit the existence of other parts of the universe that are not material, then there is also evidence.


I am at present trying to see who is the most thinking competent here; there might be several but I prefer to choose the one most of course on my observation most competent in thinking: one criterion of which is the habit of focusing on the topic and not going into irrelevancies.



Yrreg

 

[yrreg]

Let us turn our attention to the origins of the concept of God as creator.

I've seen you engage in a great deal of monologue, but to be brutally honest, I've never observed you to actually dialogue with anyone.


There is no point to this thread. I have already explained to you that atheists do not believe in supernatural agencies such as gods. This includes your god as well. It doesn't matter if you claim that your god is purple, or hermaphroditic, or smells like fish. It doesn't matter if you claim that your god is "Father almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth".

Now please feel free to do your part: Ignore what I've written and respond according to the script that you created in your imagination prior to creating the OP that has since been merged with the other threads you've started regarding this same subject.

Honestly, what I have seen so far with my present attempts to get atheists to think beyond their self-imposed delimitation of their mind's embrace is just insistence that they don't want to think, and period.

But I like us all to think about the origins of the concept of God as creator of the universe, that concept has a long development until at the time when Genesis 1:1 was written, it has already arrived at the formulation that God is the creator of the universe, the heaven and the earth.

And in that connection to delve on what were the grounds for the ancient thinkers to come to such a formulation of God, namely, as creator of heaven and earth, or what I would say to be their totality of the universe.



Yrreg

 

[arthwollipot]

I hate incompetent thinking. Don't you?

 

[pakeha]

Am I the only one who reads Yrreg's post in this fellow's voice?

Thanks, everyone for your reactions, but I am still waiting for Foster Zygote to return.

However, just the same I will say to everyone that this question of God or no God, it has engaged also atheists interminably to this day and everywhere in the internet, and more so in the internet because it is easy and quick to write in the internet and get oneself published.

Now, my opinion or conviction even though I must have already said this piece time and again in my writing in this forum, is that atheists are not genuinely thinking when they write about God in the Christian faith, because they insist on not getting the concept correctly.

Not genuinely thinking because to my observation they always delimit their thinking reach when it comes to God, so that in their delimited thinking they already set as off-limits any thinking that they will exercise with their mind as tabooed when it touches on the concept of God...

But back on OP

....So, you see, God as engineer and architect or plain builder, lastly creator of the universe, that is an old concept with the thinking men of antiquity.

Let us we two, you and I, Cassis, exchange thoughts about God as engineer of the universe....

I hate to interrrupt this intimate little encounter but I'm confused as to why Yrreg want to delimit God to a Judeo-Christian definition.

 

[arthwollipot]

And in that connection to delve on what were the grounds for the ancient thinkers to come to such a formulation of God, namely, as creator of heaven and earth, or what I would say to be their totality of the universe.

The ancients came up with gods because they hadn't invented science yet. Once science was invented and people started to be able to make conclusions based on evidence, there was no longer any need to invoke a god as an explanatory principle.

Richard Dawkins once remarked that Darwin had made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist, by explaining via science what had previously only been explained via god. Every testable statement religion has made about the universe has, on scientific examination, found to be more or less inaccurate.

God is no longer required as an explanatory principle. Now we have science, which is much more reliable.

 

[yrreg]

Anthropomorphical knowing is human knowing, the only one we have.

Now we're getting to meat of your argument. We had to trim several pounds of fat away, but there it is.

The problem is that you also have to consider how a great many other gods have been conceptualized in the minds of the people who believed in them. Allow me to offer what seem to me to be the most likely explanation:

We humans have the ability to attribute agency to other members of our species. This is not an ability unique to us, but we are especially good at it. This ability was absolutely critical to our evolution as a social species. It enables us to understand that others in our social groups have motivations similar to ours. This not only enables individuals to adjust their behavior so as to compete with rivals, but more importantly, it allows individuals to recognize their common goals and work together to better attain those goals as a more effective group. The instinct to figure out what others are thinking as a critical survival tactic is so strong, that our ancestors attempted to figure out the motivations of everything that effected their survival, including forces which had no conscious agency such as the sun, the wind, the water etcetera. If they could figure out what these natural forces wanted, then maybe they could adjust their behavior so as to anticipate or even influence them. These are the origins of all gods, including your "Father almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth". They are simply ways of anthropomorphizing nature in the hope of understanding it and surviving it.

There is just the same what I submit to be the common knowledge of mankind, even though different cultures think differently in concrete particulars of explaining an experience of life.

But of course that also depends on the kinds of experience different cultures have come across, different persons have gone through.

Now, you emphasize that it is anthropomorphical for Christians to address God as Father, that is analogical.

As I said we all have experiences and on the basis of our experiences we come to explanation on what things are and how things come about and who brought them about.

God is the creator of heaven and earth, meaning the universe: heaven and earth cover everything that is experienced by man: but there are many many things not covered by the experience of man, ever.

Power is experienced by man from his father.

Wherefore analogically man addresses God the creator of the universe as also father, but not all completely and restrictively as like his biological father.

You prefer to dwell on your self-delimited way of thinking so as not to go above and beyond what you call anthropomorphical way of knowing, but that is human knowing and it is the only one we have, and still man can go beyond that but still analogical to that.



Yrreg

 

[slingblade]

You know how you get all excited about having new toys, but after a while, you find yourself missing your old toys?

Glad you're back, Gerry.

 

[yrreg]

The concept of God with atheists is that they get it all wrong and miss it.

Originally posted by Yrreg

Let us we two, you and I, Cassis, exchange thoughts about God as engineer of the universe.

Yrreg​

How does this tie in with your question on "What is the concept of God with atheists?"

Are you abandoning it?

You received a number of answers which you failed to address. Why is that? You asked the question. Why didn't the answers merit an answer in return?

The concept of God with atheists is that they get it all wrong and miss it.

Take this mantra of atheists who always insist that they are against all gods, goddesses, deities, divinities, whatever spaghettis, invisible pink unicorns, celestial teapots, tooth fairies, Santas, sky daddies, they just don't believe them, etc.

That is certainly not to come to the correct concept of God, specially in the Christian faith, namely, God the creator of the universe.

And they don't even have any awareness that they are into irrelevancies although they feel that they are very smart.



First, why bring in so many gods, goddesses, deities, divinities, spaghettis, unicorns, etc., like small town kung-ful fighters who boast they can beat any and all other fighters: when they don't even know who is the #1 champion in their days unless they travel far and wide instead of keeping to their meager village.

Then you don't really think hard to examine God in concept as the creator of the universe.


Start with God as engineer who built the universe: men in antiquity know that if there are houses and there are (primitive) machines), there are men who built them.

So, analogically there are superior entities builders of the universe, and eventually they come to the concept of one builder and that is the God creator of the universe, the cosmic house and cosmic machine of everything that exists and operates and has a beginning and an ending.


Now, I don't reply to every post transmitted and published here, because as I said time and again, if it is not relevant although it seems smart and flippant, I am not investing time and labor in it: because I want to learn from real thinkers the first sign of real thinking is relevancy, not smartness and flippancy.

I have to be careful now, whether by intention or by irrelevant garrulity, some atheists can make me lose my equanimity (that is calm-ness, hahaha) as to get also myself flippant, which flippancy in reply to flippancy ends up with no one the wiser.

But both sink into mean nastiness.



Yrreg

 

[slingblade]

This just in: God still not real; Generalissimo Franco still dead.

 

[yrreg]

You are always looking for authority to depend on, use your own mind to think.

Where is it written that a universe needs an engineer anyway? yrreg, do you have any evidence that there's some engineer operating this universe from behind some sort of veil? What exactly does this engineer do? Does he (because I'm pretty sure you think it's a he) replace the lightbulbs that he's strung up on the firmament or turn the moon on so that we have a soft light in the nighttime? Does he keep track of the cancer to kids and tapeworms to intestines ratios?

You are always looking for authority to depend on, use your own mind to think.

Okay, you don't accept some entity built the universe, then what is your ultimate explanation for the existence of the -- now this is not irrelevant, the nose in your face?

This is the challenge for you to do genuine personal thinking instead of looking for some authority who put it down in writing somewhere, and you just have to look up the text.

Seriously, men in antiquity have thought about the ultimate explanation for everything that has a beginning and an ending, and they have come to the concept of God as the creator of the universe, and they put it down in writing for record to posterity, here are two example of such records:

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Gen. 1:1
I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. Apostles' Creed verse 1​

About evidence, look up my exchange with Loss Mentor I mean Leader on what is evidence, what is the target of evidence, and how evidence operates to be a piece of proof for the existence of something the certainty of whose existence is in doubt.



Yrreg

 

[slingblade]

Penis.