Posted: Mar 07, 2012 3:16 am
Teuton wrote:DefineGod wrote:
No trouble at all, I agree that it is very important to understand definitions before discussion. I think some of the earlier posts may make it a bit clearer what I mean.
"God is a symbol. When referring to God I am referring to an abstraction.
God is a symbol for all that exists."
In other words, you're using the name "God" to refer to Being/Existence: God = Being/Existence.
Given this definition of yours, I am not an atheist because I do believe in the being of Being/the existence of Existence—conceived of either as the beings/existents, i.e. as the sum/totality of all beings/existents, with Being/Existence being many things, or as "the One", "the Substance" Spinoza's, with all other beings/existents being ontologically reducible to attributes, modes, or "partial aspects" of that One/Substance.
That seems like a fair and accurate description of what we have been talking about. I think that in this particular case, one can be an atheist or a theist and have quite similar metaphysics/ontogeny. Using Tillich's definition of faith, the subject/choice of what to put faith into will be where atheists and theists will differ. Choosing the type of religious practice or non-practice, is up to the individual. What do you think?