What is Dart's concept of God?

[Guest]

Dart,

What is your idea of god?

What is your ontological explanation for this universe?

-AS8




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

[_antishock8]

Dart,

Why are you so reticent to answer a couple of simple questions? You're obviously keen on sniping Atheism, but when asked to lay out your brand of theism, in a clear and concise manner, you don't take it. That's strange.

Here's what I think YOU think God is:

I think you're an "open theist". I think you adhere to that idea, without naming a specific god, to divert attention from the truth that you are a Christian. You tipped your hand when you mentioned Vox Day. From Wikipedia:

Vox Day on Christian theology and atheism

Thodore Beale (a.k.a., Vox Day, author of The Irrational Atheist) is an Open Theist who has publicly expressed skepticism about God's omniscience. In The Irrational Atheist, he wrote "it is important to note that the Christian God... makes no broad claims to omniscience." He coined the term "omniderigence", which describes the doctrine of Calvinists and others who believe that God is responsible for acts of evil as divine puppet mastery. In The Irrational Atheist he postulates a Game Designer God that is loosely based on the simulation hypothesis of Nick Bostrom as a potential answer to the theological problem of evil and also claims to refute the Euthyphro Dilemma. He describes atheists as being "irrational" and "clowns of reason"[18] and blames their lack of belief in the existence of God on a "social autism" which he conjectures is the result of a mild form of Asperger's Syndrome.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_theism

Open theism is a theological movement that has developed within evangelical and post-evangelical Protestant Christianity as a response to certain ideas that are related to the synthesis of Greek philosophy and Christian theology. Several of these ideas within Classical theism (a designation which is not to be taken as inclusive of all of orthodox theism) state that God is immutable, impassible, and timeless. For several versions of classical theism, God fully determines the future; thus, humanity does not have libertarian free will, or, if free, that its freedom must necessarily be compatible with God's determining actions.[1] Open theists argue that these attributes do not belong to the God of the Bible and are at odds with personhood.

-------

Your posting style, your reference to Aristotlelian deity, and references to deism now make sense. You're an aggressive and hostile Christian a la Theodore Beale that has latched onto Open Theism. Why all the subterfuge?

[Guest]

So. Dart has been a stealth Christian this whole time. Is this an apologist tactic? To obfuscate one's identity and intention, clothe one's ideology in vague terms like "open theist", and go about attacking ideologies that are deemed a threat to Christianity?

Very disappointed in Dart. :(

[_TAK]

Chirp Chirp..

[_antishock8]

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

-Richard Dawkins

I can see why Dart went to the "open Theist" ideology. To align one's self with the God of the Old Testament is to aide and abet in child murder, incest, genocide, and rape. It probably makes Dart cringe to think his god would be a god that is so involved in human affairs that other than providing a teacher, a la Christ, anything more requires that god to become as debased as Dart sees humanity to be.

[_Some Schmo]

Quite frankly, it's likely he knows that anything he describes as a god is going to get shot down in bitter flames, and he just does have the balls to put it out there.

Course, that's giving him way more credit than he deserves.

[_mikwut]

I am confused.

Why is conception primary? Why does someone who believes in God, be it through experience, feeling, belief - whatever, have to have a description and conception of that very being? To me conception is secondary to existence, and conception can be modified, develop and change over time without uprooting or defeating the original belief.

If one day my experience while walking in the woods brought me into seeing a white glittering horselike object with a horn I would come to believe in the existence of unicorns. Now, why would I have to explain an entire conception of all the magical properties of unicorns, respond to critical attempts of attacks on the unicorns reputations, and what their intents and desires and properties are? I would simply believe in unicorns.

Darts arguments to me, particularly the anthropic arguments don't entail a necessary conception for the being inferred therefrom.

I don't mean to derail or inappropriately interrupt your thread, but sincerely curious as to why you demand a conception?

my regards, mikwut

[_Jersey Girl]

mikwut,

Not meaning to derail either, there is a thread in progress pinned to the top of this forum regarding the Stanford authorship study, if you'd care to join.

[_Ray A]

An article to consider in this discussion:

God...In other words.

Dawkins:

“It’s not a meaningful word,” he retorts. So what about those other dimensions that some scientists believe might exist? Yes, he concedes, modern physicists do talk about 11-dimensional space. “But that’s nothing to do with theology.” How does he know? Might not God exist in one of those states? “That might be true, but what’s sure, well, highly unlikely, is that anything that theologians of modern day or any day have to say is going to have anything to do with the wonder of what future physicists are going to discover. It’s going to dwarf not only modern-day science but present-day theology as well.”

But was there not, in his mind, a tiny possibility that one of these future physicists could discover God in one of these dimensions?

“Well, I’m convinced that future physicists will discover something at least as wonderful as any god you could ever imagine.” Why not call it God? “I don’t think it’s helpful to call it God.” OK, but what would “it” be like?

“I think it’ll be something wonderful and amazing and something difficult to understand. I think that all theological conceptions will be seen as parochial and petty by comparison.” He can even see how “design” by some gigantic intelligence might come into it. “But that gigantic intelligence itself would need an explanation. It’s not enough to call it God, it would need some sort of explanation such as evolution. Maybe it evolved in another universe and created some computer simulation that we are all a part of. These are all science-fiction suggestions but I am trying to overcome the limitations of the 21st-century mind. It’s going to be grander and bigger and more beautiful and more wonderful and it’s going to put theology to shame.”

Methinks there's a lot more to Dawkins than meets the eye, no pun intended.

[_EAllusion]

Open theism is just a reference to a response to a perceived incompatibility between divine foreknowledge and free will. The open theists choose to resolve this by denying God has omniscience of the sort that allows perfect knowledge of the future. They tend to be liberal, but there's no basis to think Kevin is an open theist. There's also no need to speculate or care, as that's a rather esoteric matter for most of a person's views concerning God.