Negative Theology and Worthless God Debates

[seeds]

I’m a fan of the idea that anything that resides on the opposite side of absolute nothingness can be considered as existing – especially an “actual” God.

Have you ever looked up the fallacy of question begging?

If you are referring to my use of the term - “actual God” - as if I assume it is some sort of universally accepted premise upon which my argument is then based, then you need to understand that I was merely using your words taken from the following quote:

OK, so prove that existence is an appropriate term for God? How so? A person may exist, or not, but how could you possibly know that such a word would even be applicable to an actual God?

The point is that if there is an “actual” God (again, your words) then the word “existence” is indeed applicable to such a Being.

I can only respond to what you “actually” write, so please be careful in how you phrase things, lest you invite confusion.

(Continued in next post)
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[seeds]

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(Continued from prior post)

Don’t get me wrong here, Science Fan, because there is much in your OP that I completely agree with, especially this part:

...Literally, the writings of people like Hitchens, Dawkins, and Sam Harris are every bit the nonsense that the writings of a Ken Ham are, when it comes to the issue of whether a God exists. And for the exact same reason --- they both start off with the same bogus assumption that a God would be like a person.

Now that (the issue you have highlighted) is indeed a good example of question begging and circular reasoning on the part of the debaters.

I’ve used this analogy before, but it’s as if they are all hermetically sealed within a “thought bubble” that is created from the phantasmagorical blatherings of humans who believed (generally speaking) that if you walked too far in one direction, you would fall off the edge of the earth.

I’m talking about a thought bubble whose unverifiable premise (the existence of a “humanoid-like” God, along with its various mythological accoutrements) is blindly taken for granted for the sake of debate – which I believe is the nonsense you seem to be referencing. Right?

It is a situation where the Ken Hams of the world are just too naïve to realize how foolish they are; while Hitchens (RIP), Dawkins, and Harris think they are demonstrating some sort of advanced intellectual prowess by taking on and demolishing the “child-like” beliefs of their opponents.

The problem is that Hitchens, Dawkins, and Harris are so fixated on ridding the world of religion that they forget (or simply just don’t care) that they have absolutely nothing to offer in its stead...

...(except for pure materialism – which is a non-starter for most humans).

So you are absolutely correct in your critique of the problem.

However, my main beef with your assessment is directed toward this one particular statement here:

Are people ever going to admit that issues regarding God are a waste of time?

And that brings me right back to my earlier rebuttal to that statement:

...if we are not allowed to debate whether or not a higher intelligence might be responsible for the unthinkable level of order laid-out before our senses, then we are stuck with the incredulous assumption that chance and serendipity are responsible.

Again, to some of us, the idea that the unfathomable order of the universe had no teleological impetus or intelligent guidance is utter nonsense - hence the crux and reason for debates wherein nothing is left off the table of possibilities.
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[Greta]

Seeds, I think you will find that neither Dawkins nor Harris have ever advocated removal of religion. Often each has made clear (usually lost in reporting) that everyone has the right to believe what they will. For the most part, all they want is for religion to stop naively interfering with the conduct of science and science education.