Just A Question

[Ciabhán]

I am curious what do followers of the more modern religions, particularly the Abrahamic ones, think followers of older religions were. Were they correct in believing in Zeus, Thor, Anubis, Set, Loki, Ahura Mazda, Crom Cruach, Manannan, etc? Did these beings exist? Do you think they were just myths or something more? People were quite sure their gods, demigods, and fantastical creatures existed. How do you get away treating these as nothing more than myths yet believe in your own?

[Rich86]

Ciabhan - everyone is an atheist. Even Christians - atheists the lot of them.

The reason I say this, is they will tell you that those Gods you list are not real - they will pick holes in the Qu'ran and tell you how Jews have got it all wrong - they submit every other religion that ever has been, and ever will be to the same stringent scrutiny that we do. Except their own.

Zeus has just as much a chance of being 'real' as God.

[Ciabhán]

Ciabhan - everyone is an atheist. Even Christians - atheists the lot of them.

The reason I say this, is they will tell you that those Gods you list are not real - they will pick holes in the Qu'ran and tell you how Jews have got it all wrong - they submit every other religion that ever has been, and ever will be to the same stringent scrutiny that we do. Except their own.

Zeus has just as much a chance of being 'real' as God.

Yeah I know. I just wanted to see em try to justify it.

[C-Rob]

Ciabhan - everyone is an atheist. Even Christians - atheists the lot of them.

The reason I say this, is they will tell you that those Gods you list are not real - they will pick holes in the Qu'ran and tell you how Jews have got it all wrong - they submit every other religion that ever has been, and ever will be to the same stringent scrutiny that we do. Except their own.

Zeus has just as much a chance of being 'real' as God.

Atheists are unbeleiving of ANY god. The more I think about religion the more I just have to laugh at it and call myself a moron for wasting an hour every sunday morning.

[Ummon]

The everyone is an atheist thing is one of those moments (many moments) in which Dawkins succeeds in convincing through lack of thought.

In any case, I will give my rather unorthodox point of view.

If I were to meet you in the street and you greeted me, what would you think if I addressed as answer, your limbs, or your feet, instead of you? Believing in Zeus is exactly the same.

[Ciabhán]

The everyone is an atheist thing is one of those moments (many moments) in which Dawkins succeeds in convincing through lack of thought.

In any case, I will give my rather unorthodox point of view.

If I were to meet you in the street and you greeted me, what would you think if I addressed as answer, your limbs, or your feet, instead of you? Believing in Zeus is exactly the same.

I would think you were away in the head and depending on mood either cross to the other side of the street or kick your in.

I imagine were I to ask this question a few hundred years from now I would probably be able to get the same answer about the current incarnation of god.

[Amorphos]

the old gods still exist, and i would think it easier to understand them than the monotheistic deity. after all many of them were people that became gods so we can understand a god that is similar to the human dead [spirits], more than one which is not a person.

the universe is self contained and needs no creator and the biblical version of things is a nonsense. with paganism we imagine a ‘great spirit’ or awen and tao like nature of ultimate spirit, one that doesn’t interfere as such.

for me it makes more sense to think of myself as a being occupying a human vehicle, then that ‘being’ is not contained purely in the physical. if so then an ‘original self’ is far more likely than a god which is completely separate from us and existence.

[Dayman]

The everyone is an atheist thing is one of those moments (many moments) in which Dawkins succeeds in convincing through lack of thought.

He has a point, and you damn well know it.

[Ummon]

He has a point, and you damn well know it.

He has never had a point in his life, and I have already proven this with regard to memes. In the case of egoist genes the thing is surely more difficult: it is his field, after all. In the case of religion, no effort is even necessary.

[Ummon]

God is undefinable, what progresses is merely our limited understanding of the ununderstandable.

[aduellist]

God is undefinable, what progresses is merely our limited understanding of the ununderstandable.

Well said. Sums up my own thoughts nicely.

My own outlook is that the polytheistic religions were simply worshiping the various aspects/facets of the indefinable which we call God as separate deities.

IMHO, most "modern" monotheistic religions try to define God through anthropomorphism.

Sidetrack.

When I was in my sophomore year of high school (1971/72), I took a course in Ancient and Medieval History. On one late fall/early winter day we were discussing Greek and Roman mythology. It was one of those gray, chill days common that time of year in central New England, but no storms. Toward the end of the class, my teacher said "Of course, everyone knows these gods didn't exist".

All the lights went out.

My teacher, a nutball in the finest and most admirable sense of the word, ran to the window. He opened it, stuck his head out, and said "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it and I'll never say it again!!". All the lights came back on.

We were never able to figure out how he pulled that one off.

I say "nutball" in the sense that he had a way of teaching things in such a way that I can still remember them (and much of the associated information) now. Examples:

"How did the Egyptians drive the Hittites out of Egypt? Two in the front, two in the back."

"And the Barbarians from the East came riding like the wind...ten to fifteen miles an hour, gusting up to thirty in low lying areas."

End of sidetrack.

Edit: Oh, no! My 666th post!

[Maverick]

God is undefinable, what progresses is merely our limited understanding of the ununderstandable.

So by your definition God is undefinable etc.

the old gods still exist, and i would think it easier to understand them than the monotheistic deity.

A Greek by the name of Niceratus said "my father in his anxiety to make me a good man made me learn the whole works of Homer; and I could now repeat by heart the entire Iliad and Odyssey". And Hesiod and Homer tell some conflicting stories and it's all proverbs and metaphors, I don't think any religion is easy to understand, at least not any of the interesting ones.

Well said. Sums up my own thoughts nicely.

His thoughts about God that you can't think about God?

My own outlook is that the polytheistic religions were simply worshiping the various aspects/facets of the indefinable which we call God as separate deities.

I disagree, the Saints have something in common with the old Gods but the hypothetical, unknowable divinity you call the "God" is nothing like them. The closest idea to God that the Greeks had was probably Chaos.

[Wilder]

My own outlook is that the polytheistic religions were simply worshiping the various aspects/facets of the indefinable which we call God as separate deities.

So the Hindus are right. What an interesting twist...

[Nietzsche]

God is undefinable, what progresses is merely our limited understanding of the ununderstandable.

It begs a question. Is God unknowable? Undefinable in the limits of vocabulary and human reason is one thing. Unknowable is entirely something else.

[Ummon]

It begs a question. Is God unknowable? Undefinable in the limits of vocabulary and human reason is one thing. Unknowable is entirely something else.

There is already a problem of knowability with regard to the universe in its entirety. Several instances of this are knowability as an epistemological problem, indetermination, errors in measure, randomness, chaos and unpredictability, cone of light limitations.

This can be extended to God if we consider God the enitirety of existence, and also if we assume a pantheist approach, saying God is the universe.

So by your definition God is undefinable etc..

This plays on an ambiguity of meaning. God is undefinable, according to all religions which considered the problem. This doesn't mean that each of the attributes of God is undefinable. Definability, as an attribute of God, may be definable. What we cannot do is to define all the attributes of God.

[Amorphos]

how can someone [like me] who has met/had visions of deities be an athiest? sure one can believe that what you see before your eyes is not real, but i thought dawkins idea was that no-one can know, so all are atheists?

[Ciabhán]

how can someone [like me] who has met/had visions of deities be an athiest? sure one can believe that what you see before your eyes is not real, but i thought dawkins idea was that no-one can know, so all are atheists?

Pass the peyote and mushrooms

[Moosferatu]

Bah, the 'old gods' make more sense than say, Christianity because they explain why life can be so ed up by having gods of evil, gods who get drunk all the time, gods who are giant birds, etc, instead of the ever loving benevolent god.

[Ummon]

Circular? Logic is always circular, outside its practical uses.

[eventhorizen]

Circular? Logic is always circular, outside its practical uses.

Your logic is always circular. We regress back to the "undefinable" God, which is a circle if I ever saw one.

The fact of the matter is that those who believe in God believe they have a superior answer to all their questions, an answer which is ultimately and always a distraction from their own failure and ignorence.

God changes his clothes more often than an American diva, always and only in response to the critique at hand.

How many "undefinable" yet "omnipotent", "omnipresent", "eternal", and "loving" Gods invade these forums? The number is precisely equal to the number of religious egotistical faux-philosopher theologians.

The more the religious speak, the more it is undeniable that their God is their hope, wish, dream, and daily whispered dellusion; dressed up in the ever changing, untouchable God-concept.

Well if it makes you happy.. is that not that fundamental issue here?