Philosophy Discussion Forums

I believe in him when I need an imaginary target to blame for all of my problems.

It feels good because he never fights back, just like Jesus.

Philosophallic Soda wrote:I believe in him when I need an imaginary target to blame for all of my problems.

It feels good because he never fights back, just like Jesus.

Get back to me in a hundred years. We'll talk, then.

That would violate my golden rule of not talking to strangers unless they offer me candy.

Offically I do neither, there is a difference in "not" holding the proposition "god exists" to be true, and holding the proposition "god does not exist" to be true, it is the difference between atheist and anti-theist. Officially I'm an atheist, I simply do not hold "god exists" to be true, I neither hold it as false, rather I believe that the truth or falsity of that proposition depends entirely on the identity of god. Theism never defines god in the first place, (at least not in any non-controvertial way, there is little or no conformity of thought where theism is concerned, everyone has their own unqiue idea of what god is) and so its very difficult to know what your being asked when someone says "do you believe in god?", its not an easy question to answer because I have no idea what you mean when you say the word "god", it has a multitude of meanings! God is just a name, and names are like algebra, they are in and of themselves meaningless unless you actually provide a concept with which to refer that name, and there is no unifying theory or concept of god.

If you yourselves knew what god was then I could actually tell me in a way that isn't ridiculously vauge, incoherent, illogical or at the very least controvertial, then I may be able to actually deem myself to either be a theist or an anti-theist, but until then I am an atheist.

I am theist under some definitions of god, anti-theist under others, but holistically, because there is no unifying definition, I am an atheist.

I believe in god because I choose to. I have free will; I can believe whatever I wish.

However, belief in god (at least as the personification of all necessary fundaments or "first things", including free will, reason, morality, etc.), is a necessity for rational discourse and a meaningful life.