God
<infobox>
<title source="title1"> <default>God</default> </title> <image source="image1">
</image> <group> <header>Information</header> <label>Gender</label> <label>Scientific Name</label> <label>Positions</label> <label>Debating Against</label> <label>Skills</label> <label>Links</label> </group> </infobox> >Causer. Maker. Tinker. Meddler. Destroyer. From misopathy to philanthropy, this concept and its entailing dogma is the key contributor around which the GDC is centered for debate. Not beholden to brand, region, version, translation, nor context, it is the all-attributing attributelessness that makes this concept so enticing to be set as placeholder for phenomena not yet (or already) explained. >Automaton. Benefactor. Saboteur. Provocateur. Voyeur. All of these words properly describe the concept of gods, but none of them describe the god of the person you are currently debating. Saying "aw, but I can explain all that with my god!" We know they can, we could explain it too; it is not difficult coming up with ex-post facto justifications when you have a poorly defined being that conceptually can fix any problem for you. Such is the pursuit of rational discourse. Getting your interlocutor to elucidate the characteristics of their god in a way that would progress the conversation forward makes you want to go back to debating the definition of the word "atheism".* *This is not an invitation to start debating the meaning of the word "atheism." Stop it. No, you heard me. Stop it. Don't make me pull this wiki over. >Cryptographer. Oracular. Indicter. Confuser. Prosecutor. The very grandiloquence required to write a wiki page about an all-powerful catch-all should be enough to turn you off to the concept. Though there are sincere and even perhaps rational believers, beware those that use this ill-defined construct as a crutch for their own ignorance. If their grand designer saw fit not to equip them with a cogent argument outside an appeal to the magical or mysterious, that's really not your problem. >Monger. Redeemer. Expropriator. Comforter. Torturer. With so much to say, perhaps we should leave the rest to the debates. Should there be rationale demonstrated or even, (dare I say it?) evidence presented that indicates your version of your god concept positively exists in reality, please contact the James Randi Foundation and the Nobel Foundation for your money and prizes.
Atheistic/Non-theist Views on God(s)
> And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence -- Bertrand Russell
> "I do not need the idea of God to explain the world I live in." Salman Rushdie
> "Every generation is suborned in its favor. Those who dissent from it are losers, those who oppose it are ostracised; while in the past, for century after century, it has replied to criticism with imprisonment, and to scepticism with the dungeon and the stake. By such means it has induced a general tendency to allow its pretensions without inquiry and its beneficence without proof.” ― Joseph Mazzini Wheeler, Crimes of Christianity
> "If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people." --- Dr. Gregory House
> “The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive.” ― Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
> “The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.” ― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel
> “One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would like to think—though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one—that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.” ― Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
> “The idea of “Ten Commandments” is a deeply compelling one. It combines two impulses that are ingrained in our nature as human beings: making lists of ten things, and telling other people how to behave.” ― Sean Carroll, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
> "What does god need with a starship?" --- Admiral James T. Kirk
Specific Religion's Views on God(s)
Buddhist Claims:
> Overcome anger by love; overcome wrong by good;overcome the miserly by generosity, and the liar by truth. Speak the truth; do not yield to anger; give even if asked for a little. These three steps lead you to the gods.
Islamic Claims:
> Holy Quran Chapter 13 Surah Raad verse 16 Say: "Who is the Lord and Sustainer of the heavens and the earth?" Say: "It is Allah." Say: "Do ye then take (for worship) protectors other than Him such as have no power either for good or for harm to themselves?" Say: "Are the blind equal with those who see? Or the depths of darkness equal with Light?" Or do they assign to Allah partners who have created (anything) as He has created so that the creation seemed to them similar? Say: "Allah is the Creator of all things: He is the One the Supreme and Irresistible."
Taoist Claims:
> "After ingesting a speck of this elixir for thirty days, a chick will grow wings and become a flying immortal. The ten thousand gods will become your attendants and offer protection, and the Jade Women will be at your service. The divine immortals will welcome you, and you will rise to Heaven." (Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China)
Norse Claims:
> 26. In swelling rage | then rose up Thor,-- Seldom he sits | when he such things hears,-- And the oaths were broken, | the words and bonds, The mighty pledges | between them made. 27. I know of the horn | of Heimdall, hidden Under the high-reaching | holy tree; On it there pours | from Valfather's pledge A mighty stream: | would you know yet more? (The Poetic Edda)
Classical Greek/Roman Claims:
> His first-born I, the third from Jupiter: O'er spacious Crete, and her bold sons, I reign, And thence my ships transport me through the main: Lord of a host, o'er all my host I shine, A scourge to thee, thy father, and thy line." (The Illiad)
Scientology Claims:
> "A mechanism used in dianetics is the valence shift. We know the way a patient gets into valences when he dramatizes his engrams in life. He becomes a winning valence and he says and does rather much what the person in the winning valence did in that engram. The theory behind it is this: returned to a time the patient may consider too painful to enter, he can be shifted into a valence which felt no pain. A dull way to persuade him is to tell him he does not have to feel the pain or the emotion and let him go through it. This is very bad dianetics because it is a positive suggestion and every safeguard must be taken to keep from giving suggestions to the patient, for he may be very suggestible even when he pretends not to be. But there is the valence shift and this permits the patient to escape the pain and still remain in the engram until he can recount it." (Dianetics)
Satanic Claims:
>by Anton Szandor LaVey
The Nine Satanic Statements originally appeared in The Satanic Bible, © 1969
- Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence!
- Satan represents vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams!
- Satan represents undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deceit!
- Satan represents kindness to those who deserve it instead of love wasted on ingrates!
- Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek!
- Satan represents responsibility to the responsible instead of concern for psychic vampires!
- Satan represents man as just another animal, sometimes better, more often worse than those that walk on all-fours, who, because of his “divine spiritual and intellectual development,” has become the most vicious animal of all!
- Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical, mental, or emotional gratification!
- Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years!
Christian Claims:
>Intelligent Agent (IA). Intelligent Designer (ID-er). In the science of the new Intelligent Design <id>, God is simply the "Source of existence" or simply called as the "Intelligent Agent (IA) who had intelligently designed (intellen) everything that we know of and we don't know of". This Source of existence is parallel to the Christian God who had claimed through the Bible this claim:
Exodus 3:14 - And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you. - King James Version (KJV)
John 8:58 - Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. - King James Version (KJV)
"I Am That I Am" simply means "I am the existence and I am existing". Thus, the new Intelligent Design <id> had made this Intelligent Agent (IA), aka God (Jesus Christ), as the Candidate for the Designer of everything/existence. - from MrIntelligentDesign
Hindu Claims:
> 1000 Names of Sri Vishnu (Slokas 1-20)
viśvaṁ viṣṇurvaṣaṭkārō bhūtabhavyabhavatprabhuḥ | bhūtakṛdbhūtabhṛdbhāvō bhūtātmā bhūtabhāvanaḥ || 1 ||
- Viśvaṁ: The all or the Universe.
- Viṣṇuḥ: He who pervades everything.
- Vaṣaṭkāraḥ: For whom the sacrificial versus are uttered in the yajnas.
- Bhūta-bhavya-bhavat-prabhuḥ: The one who is the master and beyond the past, present and the future.
- Bhūtakṛd: The creator and destroyer of all existences in the universe.
- Būtabhṛd: One who supports or sustains or governs the universe.
- Bhāvaḥ: Pure existence.
- Bhūtātmā: The essence of all beings.
- Bhūta-bhāvanaḥ: He who originates and develops all Elements.
(to be continued...)
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