Atheist Philosphers and logic of made up gods?

[science4ever]

Michael Martin is one of the most famous atheist philosophers

and he ahs written books and articles and texts on atheism.

 

I refer now to his book "Atheism - a philosophical Justification"

google books made it possible to do searches within it without owning it.

 

I searched several keywords like " pretend faith in God" imaginary belief in God

made up gods make believe gods and so on. Trying to find him making logic of made up gods.

 

I failed the only similar text I found was an example he took from Louis P Pojman and

his essay Faith Hope Doubt from a book on "Philosophy of Religion" Martin not impressed

with Pojman assertion that a believer could base his believe on hope that god may exist.

 

Unwarranted Martin concluded.

 

This make me curious on you how read this text. A famous atheist philosopher write a whole book

on atheism and nowhere does he say that almost every known atheist realize that all gods are made up.

 

The whole book seems to ignore that all of us know that that atheist view is one of the most held view

among atheists? Almost no atheist would claim that some God would not be made by us humans.

 

So could it be that him being a renown philosopher somehow could not mention the obvious

because he would risk to get ridiculed for taking up space in his book on trivial truth that everybody know?

 

Is it such a well known fact that it is logically irrelevant and therefor the logic prevent him

from sharing all possible logic on made up gods and what one logically can say about such gods

or what was going on in that book? And I have not found other atheist books on it either?

 

The only book that comes near are Pascal Boyer now very old book "Religion explained"

but he does not write from philosophy he write from social psychology perspective.

Is that the explanation. Michael Martin not being a psychologist had to keep silent

on all psychological aspects of being theist and atheist?

 

When I google now today I find other ahteists that even set up sites with times like

http://www.godisimaginary.com/ or http://www.squidoo.com/god-is-just-pretend

 

God is imaginary or God is just pretend. Was such views too trivial for him or what is that about?

 

I trust that all gods are made up by humans. Even if there would exist a real God humans would

have to interpret and guess what that God is like. By definition we would have no way to measure

that God and it would still be a made up god pointing to the real god.

 

Could you help me sort this out. I am not that bright obviously.

Edited July 14, 2013 by science4ever

[dimreepr]

"God is imaginary or God is just pretend. Was such views too trivial for him or what is that about?"

 

There is no difference they're synonyms.

[science4ever]

My poor English misled you. Neither Michael Martin nor I

nor you say they are different. We all agree they are synonyms.

 

What I failed to find in Martin's text was that he at all tried to sort out the logic

of the fact that almost every atheists that have written books or texts on internet

know that all gods are made up gods. Regardless of what term we use for that knowledge.

 

What surprised me was that I failed to find that he at all anywhere mention it

so I speculated that maybe it was some kind of philosophers agreement

that some trivial facts are so trivial that it is below them to comment on it.

 

To me the fact that humans make up gods are what is most interesting about gods.

 

That means that humans can control what features their gods have.

If all gods are made up then logically we have total control over our gods.

We can make them to the best of our knowledge and improve them each time we feel the need to.

Edited July 14, 2013 by science4ever

[dimreepr]

Please forgive me if I have misunderstood again, but it seems to me that every true atheist must acknowledge the fact that, whilst the null hypothesis holds true, there is an infinitesimal chance that “A God” may show his/her/it's face, if we’re intellectually honest.

Edited July 14, 2013 by dimreepr

[Phi for All]

What surprised me was that I failed to find that he at all anywhere mention it

so I speculated that maybe it was some kind of philosophers agreement

that some trivial facts are so trivial that it is below them to comment on it.

 

It could be that it's just not a very effective argument. The believers you might discuss this with didn't make up the god they worship, they're following what they believe to be a very well-known, historically abundant religion which tells them that they must have unswerving faith in the God they all worship. Pointing out that it was all most likely made-up is hardly a sound tactic, unless you're only talking to other atheists, and then you're kind of preaching to the choir, as it were.

[science4ever]

Please forgive me if I have misunderstood again, but it seems to me that every true atheist must acknowledge the fact that, whilst the null hypothesis holds true, there is an infinitesimal chance that “A God” may show his/her/it's face, if we’re intellectually honest.

Yes Richard Dawkins made a scale where 7 was absolute sureness there is no God

and he placed himself at 6.9 so close to being very sure so he saw himself fornally as agnostic

agreeign with you there but my argument is that even if such god would exist

 

the only think you could say about that god would be made up stories that you and other humans made up.

 

You would have no reliable knowledge about such a god, all words would be pure speculations = made up stories.

 

It could be that it's just not a very effective argument. The believers you might discuss this with didn't make up the god they worship, they're following what they believe to be a very well-known, historically abundant religion which tells them that they must have unswerving faith in the God they all worship. Pointing out that it was all most likely made-up is hardly a sound tactic, unless you're only talking to other atheists, and then you're kind of preaching to the choir, as it were.

Yes but Michael Martin's book was from one atheist to all the other atheists and also to those theists

that like to read atheists books. So maybe he felt embarrassed then to preach to the home team public?

 

But why then all the other argument he had a whole book of them. Would the other atheists not be familiar with them too?

 

Maybe he is a very formal guy and only keep within the boundary of logica and the fact that all gods are made up

is not about formal logic but a kind of social description of human behavior.

 

What I really wonder about is the logic of made up gods. Okay I am bad at logic but where do I go wrong?

 

Here is my naive take on the logic of made up gods. A made up god can have any kind of feature.

Be strong or wimp or bold or shy or extrovert or introvert and expressive or silent and shiny or dark

and so on. Being made up such a god can be what the believers want it to be.

 

So the only reason for a made up god to be supernatural and really existing is that only those gods are effective.

 

Does all of you see the logical implications. Atheists complain about the claims that believers do.

Atheists and also Michael Martin tell the believers there is no evidence for that God is supernatural

or that God even exist or that God is Omnipotent or Omnifriendly or Omninice whatever.

 

But if all gods are made up and only those gods that are supernatural and existing

are those gods that works for to believe in then to complain about them having

these features is like moot the God where designed that way to be effective as God.

 

All other kinds of gods would lose out in the competion and gain no supporters. Do you not see the logic?

Edited July 14, 2013 by science4ever

[dimreepr]

Essentially, if I have a handle on this, you’re asking about the evolution of gods, which, mirrors the cultural evolution of humanity inversely, in that gods become less complicated as the society, that spawned them, increases in complexity. A very good book by Terry Pratchett called ‘Small Gods’ loosely studies this phenomenon.

[science4ever]

Thanks but if God has become that easy to grasp

then Michael Martin would not have had any need for

to write that many books what have so abstract words

 

My current take is that even totally made up gods

needs to be alive and real and supernatural for to be effective

or else the believer turn to these other gods that have those features.

 

Made up gods compete with each other. Some features seems by default

to be part of the very definition or else them are seen as mock up false gods.

 

Dictionary seems to retell it right. God - the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe.

or God from the Free Dictionary

 

 

a. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.

b. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.

2. A being of supernatural powers or attributes, believed in and worshiped by a people, especially a male deity thought to control some part of nature or reality.

That seems to be what people expect from a god.

 

So even consciously made up gods seems to be bound by logic to have those features.

 

That is what my question is about. Why does it not work with a consciously made up natural God.

Why does it not work with an openly made up God.

 

As Phi for All point out above

 

The believers you might discuss this with didn't make up the god they worship, they're following what they believe to be a very well-known, historically abundant religion which tells them that they must have unswerving faith in the God they all worship. Pointing out that it was all most likely made-up is hardly a sound tactic, unless you're only talking to other atheists, and then you're kind of preaching to the choir, as it were.

Believers can not cope with knowing that God is made up. But all atheists know that that is the case.

So this contradiction that all known gods are made up but the way it is made has to hide that it is made up.

 

Do you see what I am trying to point out. when they make up gods they have to hide that that is what they do.

So there is logic about it. or consistency requirement. To hide that one made it up and still make it up?

 

Could one compare with a Stage Magician? Amazing Randy or what name such have.

They make things disappear or magically appear from nowhere. slight of hand.

 

Here there is a kind of logical slight of words or rhetoric spin or what to name it .

I want to understand the logic behind it. How is it done technically?

 

Edit. Correction I am interested in both the person that make up such a god

and the person that believe in such made up gods.

 

1. the person that make up the God most likely is aware in some way they make it up?

Or are they too totally unaware of that they made it up?

 

2. The believer seems by default to have to be totally unaware of that it is a made up god.

How do they fail to get aware of that it is made up. To the atheists it is so obvious that faith

is ridiculed as something a child could see through so what is technically going on?

 

Logically it should be impossible to come to faith in something one know is not true. Help me sort it out.

Edited July 15, 2013 by science4ever

[pwagen]

My current take is that even totally made up gods

needs to be alive and real and supernatural for to be effective

or else the believer turn to these other gods that have those features.

This is false. There are a myriad of different gods which obviously don't work as prescribed, yet that won't stop people from believing in them.

 

An example would be"prayer heals X". When prayer fails to heal X, believers don't stop believing. Instead, they come up with silly excuses like "God works in mysterious ways" or "you didn't pray hard enough". Very rarely, the believer admits there's nothing there, and change their belief.

[science4ever]

The important part of my thread is that atheist philosophers since about 1973 has written

many books about the logic of how Christians fail to prove that God exist or is alive or real

or supernatural.

 

My claim is that one should take what almost every atheist know seriously.

Every known God is made up by humans but the way it is made up is hidden

to the believer and maybe even to those that made up the God.

 

The logic of a made up god is what is important. How they set it up so it works for them.

 

Michael Martin and all the other philosphers concentrate on the logic of finding proof for God

outside of the made up construct that the believers set up. That is to take the made up construct

in a too literal way. For to work those that construct a religious tradition with a god need to live up

to a certain standard expectation on what to expect from a real alive supernatural God that is creator.

 

It is a logical constraint that seems built into logic itself or at least how our brain is built.

 

For to work logically for the believer the God need by logic necessity to be real and alive

and supernatural and creator of the world a maybe some other features that by tradition

has become known as something all real gods have.

So when a philosopher try to argue with a believer on the logic of if a god is real and alive and supernatural

then they go into the made up logic is set up for to be takeing as granted as true. It is by logic necessity set up

to be that way for to work. I fail to find better words for it. It is very easy to grasp but difficult to find words for.

 

Could one compare with the illusion that is reflected in everyday speech. The Sun goes up at xx AM today.

Everybody know that that is just a saying. In reality it is the Earth that turn and turn and turn once each

24 hours so it looks like if the Sun goes up. Everybody knows this except maybe small children but

the language fail to say like that because the natural way to talk about the Sunrise is to say the Sun goes up.

 

It is a illusion and God is an illusion too. The language of religious tradition is not set up to admit

that God is an illusion so the religious words are that God is real and alive and supernatural.

 

Edited to place the important part first. older text below

 

To PWagen

I don't think you are right. When a god fail to heal or do the miracle

that the believer expect then they try to find some explanation to the failure

but they still believe as I wrote.

 

"My current take is that even totally made up gods
needs to be alive and real and supernatural for to be effective
or else the believer turn to these other gods that have those features."

 

Even if a god fail the believer still trust it to be real and supernatural and to really exist.

So you have to show that that god fails for every believer that hear about the failure.

 

Take pentecostals or Word of Life believers or Vineyard or some other Christian church.

 

They have such failures each Sunday but does not stop believing that their god exists

and are real and supernatural and sometimes do what they expect of God. They list such

successes all the time and the failures they try to not pay too much attention to so

 

either I fail to get what you say or something in my text mislead you to misunderstand me.

 

With reservation my poor English is so confusing that it totally mislead every reader

this is the best logic I can found about the functional aspect of religious traditions and the believers.

Edited July 15, 2013 by science4ever

[dimreepr]

“Thanks but if God has become that easy to grasp then Michael Martin would not have had any need for to write that many books what have so abstract words.”

 

Is Michael Martin writing these books purely on philanthropic bases, simply to enhance our knowledge on the subject? Or maybe it’s because they sell well.

[EdEarl]

God logic is an oxymoron. People seem to need a parental figure to keep them safe, especially one that can eliminate the terror of death. And, they obscure this simple explanation by making intricate stories about their deity.

 

Maybe the singularity and supremely powerful robots will lead people to worship them. Or, perhaps people will hand over power, as the movie "The Day The Earth Stood Still" hypothesized.

[pwagen]

This quote:

 

I don't think you are right. When a god fail to heal or do the miracle

that the believer expect then they try to find some explanation to the failure

but they still believe as I wrote.

 

"My current take is that even totally made up gods

needs to be alive and real and supernatural for to be effective

or else the believer turn to these other gods that have those features."

...is in direct conflict with this quote, which follows it:

 

 

Even if a god fail the believer still trust it to be real and supernatural and to really exist.

 

 

They have such failures each Sunday but does not stop believing that their god exists

and are real and supernatural and sometimes do what they expect of God. They list such

successes all the time and the failures they try to not pay too much attention to so

The first quote seems to say that when a believer experiences a failed miracle (or whatever), they turn to other explanations. The second quote says that when a believer experiences this, they still believe in their diety.

 

Which is it? If I'm misinterpreting you, maybe consider K.I.S.S. in regards to language.

 

Edit: Fixed quote tags.

Edited July 15, 2013 by pwagen

[science4ever]

EdEarl thanks. I thought of going to see that movie when it was actual

on our local movie show theater but the traffic and finding a parking lot.

So I wait until our commercial TV afford to show it.

 

pwagen. Your logic and my mogic seems to be not on speaking terms.

 

I have not idea what you talk about. AFAIK my logic is not dependent

on what a believer do when they find that their God don't live up to their expectations.

 

The logic I talk about is what is necessary for a god to be functional enough

to be one of the world religions.

 

So if you trust your logical capacity tell me in what way what I wrote is not compatible with their gods?

Here is my main logical theme about gods.

 

 

It is a logical constraint that seems built into logic itself or at least how our brain is built.

 

For to work logically for the believer the God need by logic necessity to be real and alive

and supernatural and creator of the world and maybe some other features that by tradition

has become known as something all real gods have.

 

What about that logic is wrong? What would need to be added for it to work?

Edited July 15, 2013 by science4ever

[pwagen]

It is a logical constraint that seems built into logic itself or at least how our brain is built.

 

For to work logically for the believer the God need by logic necessity to be real and alive

and supernatural and creator of the world and maybe some other features that by tradition

has become known as something all real gods have.

Sure. The way that I read this, and you might stop me right here if this isn't what you mean, is that for a believer to logically believe in a god, it needs to be real, and provide real evidence of its existence. If the god does not provide such evidence, the believer will realize this and change his or her view of the world. Is this interpretation correct? This interpretation seems strengthened by the following quote:

 

My current take is that even totally made up gods

needs to be alive and real and supernatural for to be effective

or else the believer turn to these other gods that have those features.

So again, are you saying that if a believer does not receive adequate evidence, they stop believing in the god they subscribed to?

 

If so, I disagree. In itself, what you're saying makes sense. After all, if you think all cars are red, and are shown a blue car, you would realize you've made a mistake and change your view of cars. However, experience tells us that this isn't what happens, in general.

 

I've given an example above, where people pray for their god to heal X, and them still believing (but finding excuses for) the same god. Another example could be a congregation praying for their god to heal "aunt Mathilda, who's dying from cancer". Prayer is an alleged working practice in Christianity. However, if the prayer fails and Mathilda dies, do the believers stop believing, since the god does not provide evidence of its existence?

 

Further, you seem to be saying the complete opposite of what you've already said:

 

Even if a god fail the believer still trust it to be real and supernatural and to really exist.

Here, can you really be saying anything other than that a believer would still believe even though they receive no evidence?

 

So, in short:

Are you saying that a believer would lose their faith if, for example, their prayers don't work or they are shown certain errors in their scriptures? Basically, when their god fails them.

 

Do you say the complete opposite when you say a believer still trusts it to be real, even though the god fails them?

[EdEarl]

IMO the 1951 film was better.

[science4ever]

pwagen, I fail to follow you. I wrote the thread to get help with how it works

because that is what is a fact. Enough people have faith in it for them to survive as churches.

 

Sure it goes down in for them alarming numbers but seems to stay on a 20% or 15% or 5%

of the population so they adjust to that number of potential believers and in some countries

the potential believers is much much higher. Politicians act on the statistics.

 

None of the big candidates for presidency in US where atheist so statistically it is working.

 

What you point out is individual failure but that does not seem to have a huge impact on the other believers.

 

Compare with marriage. Statistics say that a huge amoung of all marriages do break up.

Still new marriages continue to trust theirs will be for a long long time so getting together

is something people do despite the evidence against it to work out is slim. And many marry again

soon after they fail and then they fail again and marry again even three or four times.

 

Sure a few realize that it is not easy to get it to work so they say enough is enough.

 

Faith in being a couple and faith in belonging to a religious tradition and being loyal to it

seems to be a delusion that enough people have for it to be a noticeable trend.

 

Sure you would answer with the examples of marriages that fail and faith in god that fail.

 

What I ask about and suggest reason for is when it works. That it sometimes fail is not part of the suggestion.

 

That is interesting too and should be part of the suggestion but it is too early to deal with now.

 

Compare with flying. A lot of people failed to trust that it would ever work too.

They saw all those flawed experiments of people trying to fly downhill and they ended up crippled or dead

and so they pointed out that it would fail.

 

Then the Wright Brothers show it was possible and others tested too and succeeded.

 

pwagen tell me. For those that it works what exactly is it they do to keep faith in god?

[pwagen]

You're trying to change the subject. You said that believers who see their faith fail them will stop believe in that faith. I disagreed. You later said the complete opposite, that the believers who see their faith fail them will still believe. Both examples quoted above. I asked for clarification.

 

Which is it?

 

pwagen tell me. For those that it works what exactly is it they do to keep faith in god?

The appearance of a working belief. That can't be a serious question.

[EdEarl]

4ever your posts aren't making sense to either pwagen or me, but pwagen makes sense to me. Marriage is completely off topic, with different motivations. So is fear of flying.

[science4ever]

You're trying to change the subject. You said that believers who see their faith fail them will stop believe in that faith. I disagreed. You later said the complete opposite, that the believers who see their faith fail them will still believe. Both examples quoted above. I asked for clarification.

 

Which is it?

 

The appearance of a working belief. That can't be a serious question.

But as I get it you take up a minor remark and make a huge problem out of it.

Had I know you would make such criticism of that part then I would not had included it.

 

It has very little to do with the way it works. The failure comes in when it fails and not when it works.

the whole thread is about the mechanism for why it works. When it fails then it fails.

 

I talk about when it works and the logic for that. To take up for when it fails was a mistake on my part.

That is more about risk management or how to deal with the cases when it breaks down.

 

Sure such needs to be addressed too. Compare with Car crashes. Very few refuse to use cars

because there is many crashes each year. They trust in the chance that when they take a ride

it will go without a crash and get rather surprised if it crash. They had no expected it.

 

Some people actually refuse to fly and they take car or boat or stay at home.

Every action can fail. Even walking over the street. Fast car can hit you.

 

could we agree that I should not have mention when it fails. the thread is about the logic for when it works .

To get bogged down in when it fails is to misunderstand the whole thing. that is a later much later conseration.

[EdEarl]

I have never heard of someone who had an amputated limb, pray to god to have it regrow and that god answered the prayer.

[science4ever]

Had I known that anything in my text would give you or other that impression

then I would have warned that nothing in my text are intended to give that impression.

 

Can you point out what in my text that let you draw that conclusion? Quote

and what post of mine.

 

I am surprized taht this is so difficult. I know that I am a confused thinker

but in my mind this is really easy logic that almost everybody should be able to grasp.

 

Atheists have asserted that almost every atheist see gods as something humans have made up.

 

What I ask is how does the religious traditions set it up logically so it works for the believers that it works for.

that it fails for atheists is obvious and that it fails for a lot of the believers too at times is known since the Bible.

Doubting Thomas is even used as an example of such doubt. I talk about those times when it actually work

and what is it about it logically that allow that to happen.

 

One of my guesses is taht they just act as if it is the truth about reality.

 

Phi for All wrote that the believers trust in the religious tradition that they commit to.

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/77523-atheist-philosphers-and-logic-of-made-up-gods/#entry756268

 

The believers you might discuss this with didn't make up the god they worship, they're following what they believe to be a very well-known, historically abundant religion which tells them that they must have unswerving faith in the God they all worship. Pointing out that it was all most likely made-up is hardly a sound tactic, unless you're only talking to other atheists, and then you're kind of preaching to the choir, as it were.

Much appreciated that you wrote this Phi for All. Right on the money. That is most likely the best explanation

but how do epress that logically?

 

If a very well-known, historically abundant religion

tells the potential believer that they must have

unswerving faith in the God that particular religious tradition worship

then most likely some of these potential believers just trust it on faith.

 

That is my wild guess how one can retell what Phi for All wrote so it has somewhat

similar struture as other formal definitions?

Edited July 16, 2013 by science4ever

[dimreepr]

“Much appreciated that you wrote this Phi for All. Right on the money. That is most likely the best explanation but how do epress that logically?”

 

It’s called ‘cognitive dissonance’ and it is absolutely necessary to uphold the local societal infrastructure, I believe religion is just a by-product.

[EdEarl]

I answered why I think people believe in God, which was:

 

People seem to need a parental figure to keep them safe, especially one that can eliminate the terror of death. And, they obscure this simple explanation by making intricate stories about their deity.

They ignore the fact that praying to regrow an amputated limb never works. They see proof whenever they pray for something that can occur randomly does happen, for example they may pray for someone with cancer to get well. When the person gets well, they attribute it to their diety; although, the person would have gotten well without prayer...at least a percentage of people do have spontaneous remission from cancer. Proving a particular person got well from cancer is impossible, and double blind studies are always questioned by one side or the other as not conclusive.

 

People also follow strong leaders, some good and some bad. Consider what happened at Jonestown, when people followed Jim Jones. They want someone who makes them feel safe, and believe in the image of a benevolent heaven where everything is fairytale nice. And Jim Jones lead them to commit suicide, or had them murdered if they would not.

 

I find it disturbing that so many people believe in religion. But, my family believes I am an agent of the devil for not believing. I am Buddhist ignostic, less violent and less bigoted than they. People have nutty beliefs, imo.

Edited July 16, 2013 by EdEarl

[science4ever]

“Much appreciated that you wrote this Phi for All. Right on the money. That is most likely the best explanation but how do epress that logically?”

 

It’s called ‘cognitive dissonance’ and it is absolutely necessary to uphold the local societal infrastructure, I believe religion is just a by-product.

I loved cognitive dissonance from day one I heard about it.

Leon Festinger was one of my favored scientist

 

But this many years later science has come up with more refined variation of cognitive dissonance.

I have not followed the progress from cognitive dissonance to the more recent suggestion

but sure I agree 100% that cognitive dissonance is part of the explanation but how do you

 

make a formal short to the point text about that fact?

 

If you just say. Believers believe in god due to them doing cognitive dissonance

that maybe works for those that have read a lot about what these words refers to.

 

How do you do a logical definition of how faith in god works using the idea of cognitive dissonance?

 

What exactly is it that the believer do logically to be in cognitive dissonance?

How does it work logically.