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Believer vs. Believer

Epix, if you capitalize the word for a god every time you refer to any god, it carries with it the wrong assumption that there is only one god of whom one is speaking. Some of us try, at least, to avoid really stupid mistakes such as that, and try, with varying success, to write in clear English.

As a general rule, when I am speaking about a specific god, such as the Jehovah of the Bible, I do try to remember to capitalize it, but clearly it would be both a mistake and an insult to use the name "God" which is generally understood by English speakers to refer to the Biblical figure, when one is discussing gods in general, including all the imaginable deities, idols, demiurges, and just plain nutty ideas that fall under that heading.

If you're going to participate in a forum where people disagree on whether there is a god at all, and what sort of thing that might be if it does exist, you're going to have to get used to occasional sloppiness in writing (this is, after all, a forum where people often write hurriedly), as well as to occasional good English prose, in both of which the word "god" will not be capitalized most of the time. It's grammar. It's not personal, existential or political, and to philosophize about it is about as productive as looking at an empty box and describing the flavor of its contents.
 
epix said:
The way the atheists write my name. They don't capitalize the first letter. That's a breach of the rules given by the grammar and not following the rules leads to lawlessness and anarchy. Do the atheists like anarchy?
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You chose epix. Not Epix. What a strange idea that you do not wish to be known by a name that you personally selected.

Norm
 
Myriad said:
Your user name is epix. It is not Epix. If you wanted to be called Epix you would have entered Epix instead of epix as your user name.
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Off-topic, but I actually entered Ehcks with a capital E and it gave me this. This isn't the only forum it happened at. *shrug*

JoeBentley said:
I think (and this is an epix post which means it is about as easy to follow as beat poetry written in Sanskrit) epix was trying to make some point about atheist writing "god" vice "God" not his own name.
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But "god" isn't a name, it's a description. The biblical god's name is something like YHWH.

I don't go around calling people Humans with capital H's.
 
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Maybe I should looking into getting my own personal forum community I rile up and talk to in vague references and esoteric inferences (which of course is the way clever people talk to each other, as cleverness is an inside joke apparently) where I basically say the same thing using dozens of paragraphs every month for several years, because it seems to be awesome for Epix.
 
bruto said:
the word "god" will not be capitalized most of the time. It's grammar. It's not personal, existential or political, [...]
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To be fair, it can be. When conversing with someone who I know will be irritated by a small g where a big G is correct, and who I feel deserves a dose of irritation at that moment, I'm not above using it for that purpose. For such a trivial matter, it's impressively effective with some people.
 
JoeBentley said:
I think (and this is an epix post which means it is about as easy to follow as beat poetry written in Sanskrit) epix was trying to make some point about atheist writing "god" vice "God" not his own name.
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It was actually God, not me, if I can believe Vincent, who has found a perfectly logical way for the strong atheists to write the name God.

As you know, the tree of atheism grows two major branches: positive, also called strong or hard; and negative, also called weak or soft. The difference between both branches lies in the response to the issue of the existence of God. Strong atheism asserts that God doesn't exist, whereas weak atheism holds that the chances of God being a real deal is small. This view can be expressed by adjusting God's name: you just use small letter 'g' instead of 'G'. So when you read sentence, such as, In the afternoon, I'll go surfing with god, you know that the sentence was written by the weak atheist.

But the strong atheists often use the same syntax; they italicize the first letter of the name and, unlike in the case of the weak atheists, the way they write the name doesn't reflect upon their view. The obvious adjustment would be skipping the name entirely - God doesn't exist after all. But the sentence, In the afternoon, I'll go surfing with , doesn't have the necessary informative value. So God suggested a logical solution as seen in the OP.
..., absence is rendered by number zero. Since zero is very similar in shape to letter o, why don't the Strong Atheists write G0d instead of God? Isn't that logical?
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If you apply the suggestion in the aforementioned sentence, In the afternoon, I'll go surfing with G0d, it's beyond any doubt that it was written by a strong atheist. So the logical syntax for each branch of atheism that reflects upon its position is as follows:

Weak atheism/the probability of God's existence is small: god
Strong atheism/the probability of God's existence is zero: G0d

But that's not the main subject of the OP. There are two guys who believe in God's existence, but one of them - the science guy - clearly despised the way that the other believer made his case for the existence of God, which ushers in a parallel paradox: the weak atheists are actually the strong atheists, because the latter are tremendously weak-minded in their arguments that build their position. Positive/hard/strong atheism is an excursion to the Dark Ages, as the posts that deal with the epix/Epix irrelevant issue vouch for. Strong/positive/hard atheism is a neural chaos; it is a positive contribution to the study of the theory of chaos; it is really something hard to believe, as Kurt Gödel indirectly proved back in the 1930's.
 
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epix said:
As you know, the tree of atheism grows two major branches: positive, also called strong or hard; and negative, also called weak or soft. The difference between both branches lies in the response to the issue of the existence of God. Strong atheism asserts that God doesn't exist, whereas weak atheism holds that the chances of God being a real deal is small. This view can be expressed by adjusting God's name: you just use small letter 'g' instead of 'G'. So when you read sentence, such as, In the afternoon, I'll go surfing with god, you know that the sentence was written by the weak atheist.
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I don't see why cryptic codes are needed for self-identification of strong or weak atheists. People can just say what they do and don't believe, and that way, a typo or grammatical error in capitalization won't cause any confusion about their meaning.

The weak atheist can say "In the afternoon, I won't go surfing with God, because there is no evidence that any god exists."

The strong atheist can say "In the afternoon, I won't go surfing with God, because no god exists."

But that's not the main subject of the OP. There are two guys who believe in God's existence, but one of them - the science guy - clearly despised the way that the other believer made his case for the existence of God, which ushers in a parallel paradox: the weak atheists are actually the strong atheists, because the latter are tremendously weak-minded in their arguments that build their position.
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Having read several entire books on the subject of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, I found that the second author made a much better case, based on what Godel's theorem actually proves and what is actually involved in proving it. Neither author's religious beliefs have any influence whatsoever on that assessment.

Positive/hard/strong atheism is an excursion to the Dark Ages, as the posts that deal with the epix/Epix irrelevant issue vouch for.
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There was very little strong atheism (at least, expressed out loud) in the Dark Ages. That's one of the things that made them the Dark Ages -- and I say that as a theist.

One possible conclusion is that God works through atheists against the suffering and errors that religious tyranny imposes. God is permitted to practice irony, is He not?

Like others, I misread a portion of your OP and thought you were referring to your own name being capitalized or not capitalized. I admitted the error, and I now apologize for it. Nonetheless, based on what I thought you meant, I responded helpfully with explanations and practical suggestions. In what way did that resemble "an excursion to the Dark Ages?"

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
epix said:
<snip>T
The way the atheists write my name. They don't capitalize the first letter. That's a breach of the rules given by the grammar and not following the rules leads to lawlessness and anarchy. Do the atheists like anarchy?

I don't think so. I think the habit of not capitalizing the first letter in your name is somewhat symbolic of the relationship between you and them. Unlike them, you don't exist.

But making one letter smaller wouldn't cause me going away.
<snip>
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Making one letter larger wouldn't make Him exist.
The idea of the creator of everything wondering about the capitalizing of his name seems rather...................trivial.

The epix process: write paragraphs of drivel to make a meaningless point.
 
MontagK505 said:
Making one letter larger wouldn't make Him exist.
The idea of the creator of everything wondering about the capitalizing of his name seems rather...................trivial.

The epix process: write paragraphs of drivel to make a meaningless point.
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Your reasoning is weak. Making one latter larger would make God logical and therefore assumable.

God defines himself as
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

Since words comprise letters, and letters, as you can see above, fall into two categories - uppercase and lowercase - "God" is a logical name, because of the following comparison, which is based on opposites and which satisfies the definition:

FIRST is to LAST as UPPERCASE is to LOWERCASE

Atheism is based on weak reasoning, but so is inherited theism. Hopefully, one day, both good-for-nothing monsters will annihilate each other to verifiable non-existence.
 
epix said:
Your reasoning is weak. Making one latter larger would make God logical and therefore assumable.
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Your logic is... disturbing.

God defines himself as
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
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No, a human being wrote that.

Since words comprise letters, and letters, as you can see above, fall into two categories - uppercase and lowercase - "God" is a logical name, because of the following comparison, which is based on opposites and which satisfies the definition:

FIRST is to LAST as UPPERCASE is to LOWERCASE

Atheism is based on weak reasoning, but so is inherited theism. Hopefully, one day, both good-for-nothing monsters will annihilate each other to verifiable non-existence.
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So, what about my lack of belief in Odin is based on weak reasoning?
 
Myriad said:
I don't see why cryptic codes are needed for self-identification of strong or weak atheists. People can just say what they do and don't believe, and that way, a typo or grammatical error in capitalization won't cause any confusion about their meaning.

The weak atheist can say "In the afternoon, I won't go surfing with God, because there is no evidence that any god exists."

The strong atheist can say "In the afternoon, I won't go surfing with God, because no god exists."
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Yes, they can, but they usually choose going cryptic by writing, "In the afternoon, I won't go surfing with god."
Having read several entire books on the subject of Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, I found that the second author made a much better case, based on what Godel's theorem actually proves and what is actually involved in proving it. Neither author's religious beliefs have any influence whatsoever on that assessment.
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I didn't say that there was any influence of this kind, even though Marshall's intention to establish God via celebrated Gödel by using false arguments was more than apparent.
There was very little strong atheism (at least, expressed out loud) in the Dark Ages. That's one of the things that made them the Dark Ages -- and I say that as a theist.

Like others, I misread a portion of your OP and thought you were referring to your own name being capitalized or not capitalized. I admitted the error, and I now apologize for it. Nonetheless, based on what I thought you meant, I responded helpfully with explanations and practical suggestions. In what way did that resemble "an excursion to the Dark Ages?"
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I didn't say that there was any atheism in the Dark Ages. It's obvious that the assertion of non-existence of God is so strong that it overlaps into other issues. The reference to Dark Ages is a popular way to express state of mind that made that not well-regarded period of time possible. I didn't single you out - there were other "gems" in those replies that would flourish under the medieval popes.
 
epix said:
Your reasoning is weak. Making one latter larger would make God logical and therefore assumable.<snip>
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Does capitalizing Aphrodite change the validity of assuming a female love-goddes with that nomenclature exists?
 
epix said:
Yes, they can, but they usually choose going cryptic by writing, "In the afternoon, I won't go surfing with god."
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There's nothing wrong with that. Only so much can be conveyed by one short sentence. If you need more information than that, you can ask them, which is more reliable than expecting people to hide further meaning in single words using obscure codes that you invented. Maybe the person who said "In the afternoon, I won't go surfing with god" believes in God but doesn't own a surfboard, or surfs with God frequently but the surf isn't up today, or believes in many gods but won't go surfing with one because it might make the others jealous. And she doesn't capitalize carefully. So ask.

And speaking of asking... I'm not familiar with the phrase "inherited theism." Can you tell me exactly what you mean by inherited theism?

Respectfully,
Myriad
 
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epix said:
Yes, they can, but they usually choose going cryptic by writing, "In the afternoon, I won't go surfing with god."
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Why do you write, "In the afternoon, I won't go surfing with odin"? Shouldn't that be "epix won't go surfing with Odin"?

I didn't say that there was any influence of this kind, even though Marshall's intention to establish God via celebrated Gödel by using false arguments was more than apparent.
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Trying to establish a god by using false arguments? Whatever will they think of next?

I didn't say that there was any atheism in the Dark Ages. It's obvious that the assertion of non-existence of God is so strong that it overlaps into other issues. The reference to Dark Ages is a popular way to express state of mind that made that not well-regarded period of time possible. I didn't single you out - there were other "gems" in those replies that would flourish under the medieval popes.
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It seems that "Dark Ages" is your own particular "gem". :wink:
 
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