"Do atheists hate the God...?"

Originally posted by googlefudge
I have more to say but it's very late and this deserves more brain power than I can currently muster.
[although I will note that Twhitehead seems to get what I am saying pretty much, I like vistesd's posts
as well {as ever}]

But I want to post this response...

To know ¬P [I prefer ~P] requires that I know that the universe is logically sound.
...[text shortened]... alsification. In other words Popper is too limited, and is superseded by Bayesian inference.[/i]

I know that feeling (trying to respond to posts when it's late). I think ¬ is the standard symbol, but ~ is fine since it's unambiguous, and I know what you mean by it.

Originally posted by DeepThought
I know that feeling (trying to respond to posts when it's late). I think ¬ is the standard symbol, but ~ is fine since it's unambiguous, and I know what you mean by it.

Not all keyboards seem to have the same symbol keys.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]"Do atheists hate the God they don't believe in?" (by Matt Slick)

"People behave according to what they believe not what they don't believe. When an atheist says that God doesn't exist or denies Him or works hard to disprove His existence, he is behaving in a manner that is consistent with what he believes. Likewise, when an atheist spe ...[text shortened]... the-god-they-dont-believe-in
_________________________

Question: What do you believe?[/b]

When an atheist criticizes what the God-image represents, for example because the God of the Book of Job acts immorally, he is not necessarily hating God.

Originally posted by sonship
[b]

No actual referent ?

It's a horrible idea that God, this paragon of wisdom and knowledge, power, couldn't think of a better way to forgive us our sins than to come down to Earth in his alter ego as his son and have himself hideously tortured and executed so that he could forgive himself.

Richard Dawkins

No expression of h ...[text shortened]... t bully.” Richard Dawkins
[/quote]

So there is a referent and Dawkins expresses contempt it.

If the word "God" is to have a referent, then an atheist can take it to be "the principles anthropomorphically represented by a mythical being (whether or not any such being really exists ) . " Atheists can then dispute whether those principles are laudible. That is what I take Dawkins to to be doing.

Originally posted by googlefudge
That's a nice self reinforcing delusion/catch 22.

Either someone thinks the devil does exist, in which case the devil has failed to convince
them that it doesn't exist.
Or they think the devil doesn't exist, in which case they have been fooled by the devil.

In other words anyone who doesn't believe exactly what you believe has been deceived and ...[text shortened]... il.

So of course nobody should believe that they exist.

To do so is completely irrational.

Please, by all means, continue using my posts as a flimsy excuse to mock me and painstakingly explain why I'm deluded. It does nothing to lessen my faith. If anything, it reinforces it. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Originally posted by googlefudge
Only a minority of the worlds 7 billion people believe in the Christian god after all.

"Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." -- Matthew 7:14, KJV

Originally posted by Suzianne
Please, by all means, continue using my posts as a flimsy excuse to mock me and painstakingly explain why I'm deluded. It does nothing to lessen my faith. If anything, it reinforces it. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Like I said, self reinforcing delusion.

You couldn't be a better case study if you tried.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Like I said, self reinforcing delusion.

You couldn't be a better case study if you tried.

Sigh. It's like teaching a pig to sing.

Yours is the delusion, backed up by your ego.

Logic is merely the toolbox you use to self-delude.

Originally posted by DeepThought
... I'm not aware of any religious wars between Christians, over points of doctrine, for about three centuries.

See the division between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church regarding the filioque. This has divided the Eastern from the Western Church for over a millennium and still does. It goes back to the Arian Heresy (which see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01707c.htm)

It hasn't come to a hot shooting war in the last three centuries, but it did do -- when Constantinople was in imminent danger of being sacked by the Turks, the Orthodox patriarch appealed to Rome for military support. Rome granted military aid on condition that Orthodoxy adopt the Catholic line on the filioque; under duress, the patriarchs agreed. In the event, Rome betrayed Constantinople, Constantinople fell to the Turks (1453), the patriarchs renounced the filioque, and the Eastern Church has never forgiven the Catholic Church. The division remains unresolved and is absolutely fundamental to Christian theology.

It was the rise of secular states which put an end to Europe's centuries of religious wars among Christians, and no doubt Christians would go back to a hot shooting war if secular powers became too weak to prevent it.

Suppose someone asks "do you hate the present King of France?" It would be perfectly correct to say "how can I hate someone who doesn't exist, there is no present King of France." Still, one might further ask, "would you hate the King of France if there were one?" One might do, and then again one might not.

The phrase "the present king of France" has no referent, because there is no such person. Nonetheless, the phrase the "King of France" does have a meaning, and we can very well criticize the form of government which is headed by a king, without necessarily hating the person who would be king if there were one.

The same applies to the God-concept, for example God as represented in the Book of Job, a God who makes a pact with the devil and who personally authorizes and permits the devil to murder Job's family. That is an abominable sort of God by any moral criterion, and it does not matter whether such a God really exists; the story of such a God maltreating Job and his family is subject to moral evaluation, without hate necessarily entering into it.

Originally posted by moonbus
for example God as represented in the Book of Job... That is an abominable sort of God by any moral criterion...

By any human moral criterion. The Bible's contents prior to the Book of Job arguably demonstrate why (and how) our standards are not God's standards. I often wonder who wrote the Book of Job, and why did the Council decide to keep it in what became "our Bible". Just probably the moral story involved, the difference between the embodiment of evil and God. It's been argued countless times already. Myself, I have doubts whether the story is true, it reminds one of one of Aesop's fables. Still, the lesson is interesting to ponder, either way.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Like I said, self reinforcing delusion.

You couldn't be a better case study if you tried.

Self-reinforcing, yes. Faith begets faith. But delusion? Not likely. It's difficult to be objective when your bias demands a certain answer. When your bias demands that you drive us down to make your truth more likely, that doesn't give your truth much credence.

Originally posted by Suzianne to googlefudge
It's difficult to be objective when your bias demands a certain answer.

[1] Surely you are claiming to have strong faith and not claiming to be objective? [2] Doesn't the bias that your strong faith imbues you with also demand certain answers as defined by the theology you subscribe to?

Originally posted by Suzianne
By any human moral criterion. The Bible's contents prior to the Book of Job arguably demonstrate why (and how) our standards are not God's standards...

Well, I disagree with you on that. What the Book of Job, and much else in the OT for that matter, demonstrates is that the standards of 3,000+ years ago are no longer valid. Take Leviticus, for example. Any sane person who reads that and has at least a smattering of historical knowledge about world religions, must realize that what is described there is utterly barbaric: the butchering of a live animal on a stone altar by a 'priest' who literally drenched himself in the still-hot blood of the dying animal. The gory ritual described in Leviticus is thoroughly pagan, a bronze-age throw-back, which was long ago abandoned. Its continued presence in the Bible is a historical accident. No sane person should believe everything in the OT, much less practice everything in it.

I consider myself a sane person. And I believe the Old Testament.

The sacrifices of the animals commanded by God were instructive to help us understand what it meant for the Human Lamb - the Son of God, to die for all the human race.

This is why the Gospel of Luke doesn't immediately follow, say, the book of Genesis.

Take even the famous utterance of God in the book of Job -

"Will you condemn Me, that you may be justified ?" Job 40:8

King James Bible
Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous?

Darby Bible Translation
Wilt thou also annul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me that thou mayest be righteous?

World English Bible
Will you even annul my judgment? Will you condemn me, that you may be justified?

The Son of God was condemned that sinners might be justified. The divine revelation therefore needs the book of Leviticus to teach mankind beforehand, that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Animals were used in this revelatory education.