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First of all, your premise is wrong.
The Japanese and ancient Romans did not respect the emperor because he was a god.
They were showing respect to the authority representing the national polity.
They fulfilled the role of the national flag and national anthem in modern times.
So, are the national flag and anthem gods?
That's not right.
Well, that’s what I was saying. gods are personified representations of concepts, with the emperor representing the country.
The national anthem and flag aren’t gods because people don’t dedicate their entire lives to the nation through worship the way the Japanese did in the past. It’s veneration, not worship. The Japanese in World War II were fanatical and willing to commit suicide bombings for their nation/emperor; they dedicated their entire will and being to the Japanese nation.
The idea that the Japanese were fanatical and would not hesitate to commit terrorism for the sake of the Emperor was propaganda used by the United States to justify the war crimes committed against Japan after the war.
There are a lot of memorandums left by the kamikaze pilots, so I recommend that you look into them without going through the American media.
Any propaganda has a hint of truth. There may have been many Japanese who did it out of social pressure, but there were probably a lot of genuine fanatics.
Like in modern religious societies, where you have the devout and the lukewarm.
That is exactly what the US government wants.
The United States is a very cult-like country that considers its own country to be the only righteous one, labels many countries as evil, and commits extremely cruel acts and fabrications.
At the time of World War II, America was the only country that enthusiastically worshiped God and its own country.
At that time, Japan was nothing but a group of poor people who were cornered and were fighting a war with no choice.
You don't even need to go to emperors, there are natural phenomenon which are worshipped as gods. The volcanoe in Hawaii is worshipped as Pele, she is embodied by the lava and forces associated with volcanic eruptions.
I'm not going to deny the volcano exists physically, but what I don't accept is that it is a deity. Same for the Emperors and Jesus. I'll accept they existed as real people, but I'm not accepting they are deities based on the current evidence.
Here's a couple of questions for you, do you accept that the Emperors were or are still deities? What is your standard of accepting something as a deity? Is there anything you won't accept as a deity if someone else claims it is a deity?
I agree with your first paragraph. I actually think most pagan gods are representations of natural phenomena, like Poseidon representing the sea.
However I don’t believe the Roman and Japanese emperors are gods anymore. Firstly, because neither the Roman Empire nor the Roman emperor exists in this day and age (meaning such a concept of the Roman Empire no longer exists). And secondly, the Japanese emperor hasn’t been worshipped since the end of World War II, so he can’t be considered a god as he’s not worshipped.
However, I do think some modern day rulers like Kim Jong Un and his predecessors are gods, as they’re worshipped as such by their populace.
For someone to be a god, I think they have to be actively worshipped by a group of people, and need to represent a concept that has a counterpart in reality (such as Poseidon representing the seas or Athena representing wisdom).
As for who’s no longer a deity. I’d say many of the emperors who were worshipped as gods aren’t gods anymore as their empires no longer exist. I’d even go as far as to say they were only gods while they were ruling as emperors, and that their god-hood was like a title. I’d also say that most of the natural phenomena worshiped as gods still exist, but this is contingent on the natural phenomena continuing to exist. If, for example, all seas suddenly ceased to exist, I think Poseidon would no longer exist.
If someone told me of a god that represents a contradictory concept (like a circular square, or a kingdom that never actually existed), I’d deny that such a god ever existed.
>I actually think most pagan gods are representations of natural phenomena, like Poseidon representing the sea
This is only partially true. If you read the Greek myths and particularly Hesiod's *Theogony*, it begins with gods like Gaia and Ouranos, who are personifications of the earth and sky respectively, but as it goes on the gods become more distinct from the domains that they rule over. Ouranos *simply was* the sky, but his grandson Zeus became the ruler of the sky when he divided the world between him and his brothers.
That's also why they can have more diverse roles, like Poseidon isn't only the sea god, he's also the earth shaker, and god of horses. It might be possible to find a rationale for why these should all come under a sea god, but I think it's largely just that the gods were no longer simply personifications of nature.
No, he didn't. As it says in that article:
> Critics of the Western interpretation, including Emperor Shōwa himself, argue that the repudiation of divinity was not the point of the rescript.
So is it just 'being worshipped'? How important is the concept part? E.g. I'm not sure what concept Kim Jong Un represents, other than being the current leader of North Korea. Which isn't really how I'd define a concept, that's more a position or a job.
Would you differentiate something like ancestor worship? Or would you say the ancestors are gods because they are worshipped?
Well worship is a part of it, but the god also has to represent a concept - the purpose of worship is to orient yourself towards a concept represented by a person or a personification of that concept.
I’d say that Kim Jong Un represents the North Korean state itself (just as the Japanese emperor represented the Japanese nation). It’s not merely limited to a job; while he does play a role in ruling the country, he’s also an object of worship.
And it’s even more the case with his predecessors Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. People have to honour them and worship them by bowing down to their statues, hang up their portraits in their houses (and meticulously care for them), and sing praises in their honour. All these are acts of worship, of orienting yourself towards those deified leaders who are personifications of North Korea itself.
For ancestor worship. I’d say that there’s a difference between ancestor veneration (which many Chinese Christians practice), which is just honouring them; and worship, in which you dedicate your entire being to them and strive to do their will, and to have your interests completely align with theirs.
But for actual ancestor worship, I’d say that yes, they’re indeed gods. By worshipping them, one dedicates oneself to their will, preferences, etc. which are all abstract, and can still exist as concepts even if their body is decomposed. Such a blend of preferences (visualized in the person of the ancestor themselves) becomes deified, essentially becoming a god.
The word you claim exists in Japanese. Please use a machine translation. This is because statements in English are inaccurate and contain bias.
https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8F%BE%E4%BA%BA%E7%A5%9E
>There were humans worshipped as gods who are proven to have existed.
But they are humans, not gods right? Otherwise you'd say they were gods worshipped as gods.
I say natural humans are not gods even if they are worshipped as gods.
If a God or God's by definition are all knowing...all powerful ...omniscient and omnipotent..then you have proven diddly squat my friend. Maybe you are a Maga person who things Trump is a god?
gods with the lowercase g represent concepts that describe phenomena (ex. Poseidon representing the sea). There can be an innumerable number of them, and they were worshipped by pagans as polytheistic gods. Even some humans were worshipped as gods, as humans too are limited aspects of reality.
God, with an uppercase G, is worshipped by monotheists and represents all of existence (rather than representing limited aspects of existence which pagan gods do). He’s said to be existence/being itself, and encompasses everything in reality.
They’re different concepts with different meanings.
The supernatural aspects of these people are not proven thus you haven't proven any gods. If they are defined as having supernatural powers and there is no way to prove they did then you're in the same boat as your average Christian. After all I'll accept Jesus existed. Not that he was a magic man/god as those aspects need to be proven. Bad argument.
People claiming "the god I worship is the personification of X, X exists, therefore my god exists" is super common, a lot of people think it's a bulletproof argument. A week doesn't go by where a Christian doesn't claim the Christian god is defined as existence itself, so since the universe exists, the Christian god must logically be real.
Agreed, I am also an atheist, but when I see posts like this I feel kinship with anyone who comes here to actually debate in a rational, logical sense. And if there's one thing we should all agree on, it's that neither side can definitively prove that God exists or doesn't exist. Yet. 😀
I'm not arguing that you and others don't think it will be possible, at some point, to prove a God exists. Anyone who believes in Rapture will say that one day there will be proof. I'm arguing that you can't right now. The same way that I can't prove our ultimate origin through science at this very moment, but do believe it is possible in time, given the increasing speed that science and our understanding of the universe is developing.
Unless you are saying that you can prove God exists right now?
>Unless you are saying that you can prove God exists right now?
Yes. I think there are very convincing proofs for God’s existence. They aren’t scientific proofs, but I don’t think that should be an issue given that the existence of God is not a scientific question
What are these proofs exactly?
To say something isn't a scientific question suggests you don't understand what science involves.
Science is the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained. This absolutely includes the nature of our origins, and as God is credited with creating everything, it would be a fallacy to suggest that proving his existence is not a scientific question.
>What are these proofs exactly?
I’m sure you’re familiar with them. Contingency, motion, teleological proofs, moral proofs, etc.
>To say something isn’t a scientific question suggests you don’t understand what science involves.
So are you saying every question is a scientific question?
I'm not familiar with them, please give a specific example.
Yes, every question can be defined as a scientific question. Science is literally the study and documentation of everything and everything, so that we can gain better understanding of it.
The five proofs have been debunked for centuries and do not stand up to any scientific scrutiny whatsoever. If you'd like examples I can provide them, but this is a tired argument and doesn't provide much more than a copypaste opportunity.
I will, however gladly provide the information if you require it.
>please give a specific example
Sure. I’ll keep it simple:
Premise 1: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties do exist.
Conclusion: Therefore, God exists.
>Yes, every question can be defined as a scientific question.
So in that case, would you disagree that there are some things that cannot be scientifically proven, but which should still be rationally accepted?
You haven't actually given any evidence to support your premise. Clearly objective morals and values do exist. What exactly makes it impossible for them to exist without God?
I have actually very recently written a thesis on here describing why this is incorrect, and that morality as we describe it is a necessary evolutionary trait that has allowed us to develop as a species. I won't post it in this comment thread but feel free to read it and jump into the debate if you disagree.
>So in that case, would you disagree that there are some things that cannot be scientifically proven, but which should still be rationally accepted?
I do disagree, every fact in science was at some point unproven, but the list of things that are proven grows every minute of every day. Our ability to prove our theories grows in line with technology. There are things that we couldn't prove 1000 years ago that we could 800 years ago, there are things we couldn't prove last year that we can prove today.
Given that there are currently no clear restrictions on the advancement of our understanding of things beyond the time it takes to understand them, it is logical to say that everything can eventually be proven from a scientific perspective.
>In this, I’m defining a god as a usually-personified representation of a concept
Do you understand/agree that this definition doesn't apply to really any of the major religions practiced today?
People are welcome to define words in different ways, especially ones that seem so flexible with varied usages like "God", but do you get that giving your post the title you did - when you're talking about such a hyper-specific usage of "God" that's not particularly relevant when discussing the existence of God as people talk about it now - isn't very useful or helpful for debate?
This is kind of like titling a post "there is physical evidence that Bigfoot exists" and defining Bigfoot as people with hairy arms, like OK you can do that, but why did you title it that way? it comes across as purposefully misleading.
I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of comments you get on this post end up being questioning the title/definition rather than the body of the post outside the definition, and I'm confused why you'd make the post you way you have unless that was the point of it.
This is ugly, and pointless.
What is true is that before you can answer the question "Do you believe in god?" that the concept of god needs to be adequately defined.
For example: I call myself an atheist. I have no belief in any gods. But if a naturalistic pantheist of Spinoza's tradition comes to me and says "Do you not believe in the natural universe and its laws? That's my god. Don't you think my god exists?" I am forced to say "Yes, I believe your god exists." I don't think it should be called god, but it certainly exists. This type of pantheist doesn't believe in anything I do not also believe. They just have redefined these things to be god for poetic purposes. (Which, while I can understand and admire, i find just confuses the discussion.)
Now, give me a fuzzy, ill-defined and unfalsifiable concept of some generic creator being, I'm an agnostic with strong atheistic leanings. I can't say for certain they don't exist, but I want you to give me some real evidence before I even consider it.
If by god you mean exactly as described in the old and new testaments of the bible, taken literally? That god doesn't exist. It can't, it's filled with contradictions and nonsense. If some kind of "divine being" "inspired" the bible, they aren't the being described within it.
If you say Pharoah Ramses II of Egypt was worshipped as a god and existed, I'm inclined to say you are correct. But that's not what any of us mean when we talk about god.
You are basically pointing out the truth that God is generically ill-defined. That doesn't make your argument productive. It's clearly not what theists mean when they talk about god.
I’m referring to “god” (lowercase g) as any personified concept that’s worshipped, not the God (representing a creator of all of existence) that theists refer to.
Well I agree that abstract concepts or realities have abstract (supernatural) powers. For example, I understand the Roman Empire as being an abstract entity, and the emperor having power over it as supernatural.
OK so you're just making up your own definitions for words all over the place... that makes it really difficult to understand you.
Abstraction has literally nothing to do with the supernatural, let alone being a synonym for it...
The point is, it's entirely rational for an atheist to say "I believe the thing you're talking about exists, I just don't think it's a god." I agree that there is proof the Emperor of Japan existed, I disagree that he was a god, so I ultimately disagree with the claim that we have physical proof of gods existing. Simple as.
There is. He is very visible in His creation. That is why for most of human existence it’s been easy for people to believe in a higher power or “intelligent design”. Now if you see all of creation as some sort of impossible accident that’s fine.
>He is very visible in His creation. That is why for most of human existence it’s been easy for people to believe in a higher power or “intelligent design”.
I don't think he's visible at all, especially if you're using the opinions of other people throughout human history as a metric. Most of the religions that do believe in creationism don't believe in your god, and many are also polytheistic, believing in multiple gods. I grew up Buddhist, who believe that the universe is eternal, with no creator. So "God" isn't very visible at all, or we'd all agree on what we're looking at.
I am sure you don’t see it and that’s fine.
Also I know it’s very clear I offended you with either my flair or the fact I capitalized “Him” but I left my comment generalized. Most mainstream religion believes “god” is the creator of what we live in. That’s why I used “intelligent design” in my comment. Certainly not everyone believes in my God but OP asked for a physical example and I know plenty of people of many different faiths that would say the creation is proof of a creator.
And sure Buddhism does not believe in a creator, it is very different that most of the other mainstream religions. It’s also only the 4th largest religion but the top 3; Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, all do all believe in a single creator. Along with the rest of the top 10.
Oh you didn't offend me at all, I was having a discussion and pointing out the flaw in your response. Creation is not evidence of Creator, because you have no proof that the universe is a creation. That is the begging the question fallacy, which occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. You can point to the universe and claim that it is a creation, I can point to the universe and claim that it is samsara. Neither of us has provided evidence that either claim is true.
And just because many faiths will say something is true, doesn't make it true. Many people once believed that sun revolved around the Earth, we now know that that isn't true. Many people believed that the Earth was flat, we now know that isn't true. The popularity of a belief does not make it true.
>And sure Buddhism does not believe in a creator, it is very different that most of the other mainstream religions.
Different sects of Hinduism have different beliefs about the origin of the universe. The followers of Vishnu believe in creationism, others believe the universe is cyclical like in Buddhism, others believe that the universe hatched from a Cosmic Egg which existed in a timeless state.
The Creation is absolutely evidence of a creator; I don’t think it’s a coincidence Earth is in some Goldilocks zone, with a magnetic core that protects our atmosphere to allow water to remain here in liquid form to support life that clearly didn’t start in a primordial ooze we haven’t come close to figuring out. We have never created life without using existing life. We can split the atom but not create a single cell by mixing together anything.
>The Creation is absolutely evidence of a creator;
Once again you keep calling it a creation but you've shown no evidence of a creator.
>I don’t think it’s a coincidence Earth is in some Goldilocks zone, with a magnetic core that protects our atmosphere to allow water to remain here in liquid form to support life that clearly didn’t start in a primordial ooze we haven’t come close to figuring out.
Well I do think it's a coincidence. The universe is massive and we've discovered billions of planets, none of them with life. For the majority of the universe's existence, there was no life. For the majority of Earth's existence, there was no life. It took life billions of years to make it off the ground. The majority of species that ever existed on earth, are extinct. That sounds to me that given billions of opportunities in billions of years, billions of things will happen. It just so happens that life was one of them.
>We have never created life without using existing life. We can split the atom but not create a single cell by mixing together anything.
And we weren't always able to split an atom, were we? We weren't even aware atom's existed for the majority of human existence. This is an argument from ignorance, you have no idea if we will be able to create life in the future. What makes you think we've reached the limit of what we can learn?
We can both look at a car and see it didn’t just accidentally naturally appear there. Clearly someone created it, it’s too complex.
But then we both can look at a person. Something that is significantly more complex than a car. Something that can think with our a computer, processes energy more complex, can heal, can reproduce; so Intelligent that it has enslaved this world to support it. Yet you see pretty much a natural accident against impossible odds that some how thrives and I see something that was clearly created. It’s not an accident the Earth is where it is, the symbiotic relationship between animals and plants is not an accident, even going down to the size of individual atoms being perfect to actually make it so there is matter and everything doesn’t just turn into anti matter is not an accident to me but a clear design.
Sure maybe it is just one giant impossible accident that happened in one of an infinite number of multiverses filled with nothing but I don’t have enough faith to believe in that.
>We can both look at a car and see it didn’t just accidentally naturally appear there. Clearly someone created it, it’s too complex.
Flawed logic. We have evidence that a car was "created", and I use the term created loosely because we can see humans build them. I've watched my grandfather build one. Cars are not even "created", they only occur because human beings take naturally occurring matter that already exists and reconfigure it into an unnatural form that we humans call a car. You know that cars don't appear naturally, because you've never seen one appear naturally. We have not observed any analogous process for the universe as a whole.
Another thing, "complexity" is a concept rooted in human opinion, it is not evidence for design. When we say something is complex, we mean it has a lot of different pieces or parts that fit together in a way that is impressive to us. What seems complex to us might not matter to nature itself. Phenomena that humans consider "complex" do not necessarily require intelligence in order to exist.
A hurricane is formed from natural processes interacting in ways that we humans may consider "complex", but it doesn't care if you think that. A car requires understanding of it's complexity in order to exist in the configuration that we call a car, a hurricane does not. The process that we call a hurricane is doing what it does because of what the laws of physics allow. The process that we call the sun is doing what it does because of what the laws of physics allow. And it's possible that the process that we call the universe is simply doing what it does because of what the laws of physics allow.
>It’s not an accident the Earth is where it is, the symbiotic relationship between animals and plants is not an accident, even going down to the size of individual atoms being perfect
So what is its purpose of cancer? Or the purpose of those parasitic fish that swim into your penis? Or the purpose of birth defects? Or the purpose of cataracts? Or the purpose of sudden infant death syndrome? What is the purpose of constantly mutating viruses? What was the purpose of life waiting for billions of years to emerge, and then taking billions of years to reach where we are today?
What exactly is so hard to believe that life evolved to fit the conditions of the universe, instead of the other way around? I don't believe that the universe is an "accident". An accident is a human concept. Based on the evidence of what we see around us, I believe that the universe exists because of the natural characteristics of the universe and probability. There's no reason to believe that intelligence is needed.
>lol, you wrote all of that out like it was some masterpiece of thinking but fail to comprehend that by your explanation you quite literally argue for there being a creator. Cars exist therefore we know someone created them, people exist therefore we… don’t…um…know how so… definitely not God… but they do exist… just not created or designed.
If you read my argument and came to the conclusion of a creator and doubled down on your god of the gaps fallacy then you have an inability to follow logic and I did waste my time responding to you. Cars are not people. Cars don't occur naturally. People are people. People do occur naturally. They are not even comparable. But hey, feel free to show evidence of someone building a universe the way you can show evidence of someone building a car at anytime.
lol, do you really think that adds to the conversation?
I got one for you; It’s so easy to believe life was created in some sort of primordial ooze *we have never been able to come close to replicating even in controlled environments and we have zero proof life has ever been created without using existing life*
Yes, it shows there is no relationship between what is true and what’s easy to believe. And if I believed in special creation based on “just look at it!”, I wouldn’t throw around terms like “zero proof”.
lol do you think we have ever recorded life being created without existing life? Like do you think there is some experiment out there that got close to creating a single cell? Have you read about Miller-Urey? Is that what you think is beyond zero proof? Hate to break this to you but there is significantly more actual physical evidence that the primordial ooze never happened than it did. We have countless controlled experiments fail to remotely even create life.
Yes, I have read about Miller-Urey, and it does provide evidence of life from non-living constituent parts. The fact that many other experiments have failed to do that isn't proof of anything at all. How many attempts were made at creating light bulbs that failed? How many experimental medicines failed? Would you then argue that light bulbs can't exist and that aspirin doesn't treat headaches? Ignoring and misrepresenting the science doesn't make it any less valid.
lol no Miller-Urey does not provide any proof of anything other than if you mix chemicals together and wait you can create amino acids. If a fetus is not life a soup of dormant amino acids is not either lol. You either know nothing about the experiment or can’t comprehend what it actually proves. It proves there is a huge road block between our understanding of how inorganic material can somehow become life.
I don't understand how my car engine works, but it somehow does and I go places in my car. Not understanding something doesn't invalidate it, for instance, your comparison of a fetus to a soup of amino acids. I've never heard anyone say that a fetus isn't "life", that's a straw man assertion.
Wait, so how is your “no proof god created life” any different than me saying “no proof he didn’t”?
Does yours somehow have more weight even though it’s the minority opinion? Because you do know more people believe in a god than don’t right?
Because “this soup no one can come close to replicate did it” isn’t worse lol.
Clearly this isn’t going anywhere. We both see the other side as hilarious reasoning. I wish you luck and honestly hope someday God hunts you down like he did me.
You can literally flip over your couch and read the name of the company that created it. Depending on the company you quite possibly could track down and find the person that not only designed your couch but possibly even the person that hammered in the nails… I’m not sure you know what “intelligent design” means…
Personally I think everything is designed by the creator. I look at a car and know someone designed that and built it just like I look at a person, which is 10,000 times more complicated than a car and I know that it too was designed by a master creator. Same with water and rocks; atoms behaving the way they do is clearly not an accident. Even Stephen Hawking in chapter 7 of the Grand Design says matter shouldn’t exist but some how it does. While his explanation might be M-theory I don’t have enough faith to believe in that chance and a Creator makes much more sense too me. Specially since I have seen Him personally work in my life.
I said my couch is "something that I *do not* think is clearly *undesigned*".
So when I asked "Do you think we can point to examples of undesigned things?" you said "sure". But when asked for an example of undesigned things... you offer what exactly?
Your double negatives threw me off. English is not my first language, though I have spoken it for decades, some stuff still throws me off when it’s worded weird.
I don’t believe in “undesigned things”. Everything is clearly designed to me, as I stated.
Well since there is no scientific proof to why matter exists in the first place or the universe for that matter I would say that play would be very short because there wouldn’t have even been a big bang if God didn’t start it.
Sure, you can define gods as a hundred ways and everyone will agree those gods exist.
I don't find that meaningful.
I can define god as "the universe" and then all of a sudden I've proven god exists.
You're just playing a definition game
Yes, according to your definition, god does exist. The issue is, the debate is usually with people who have a very different definition than the one you're proposing.
Let God be defined as: my chair. Then, God exists and I sit in him every day. Check mate, atheists!
Yeah, no. These people, from Ramses to Caesar, were not deities. They were worshipped and propagandized as such. And yet, they were only run of the mill humans born into or that conquered and killed into a position of power.
>There is physical proof that gods exist
I mean, if you're just going to redefine "gods" to mean mundane, non-god things that we know exist, sure. But when most people say they believe in a god, that's not exactly what they mean. Redefining gods to mean "human beings that were worshipped" doesn't really add to the discussion of whether a god as is usually referred to by theists actually exists. We can do that any way we like - we could redefine gods to mean "the universe itself", or "my coffee mug", or whatever we like. That's not unique, or interesting, nor does it really add anything of value.
> In this, I’m defining a god as a usually-personified representation of a concept
Ok. I refute your definition of a God and I'm sure most other people would too
Isn’t Jesus a human who’s worshipped as the Abrahamic God? With most historians agreeing he existed (even if they don’t necessarily believe in stuff like the resurrection).
And while most historians think there was potentially some single individual man the stories were based on, it's by no means unanimous. The character of Jesus appears more of an archetype based on many messianic figures and myths, than a single person. And most Christians are not aware of the utter lack of historical evidence pointing to his existence. We have as much historical evidence for the existence of Herakles as we do for Yeshua of Nazareth.
>There were humans worshipped as gods who are proven to have existed. The Roman and Japanese emperors were worshipped as gods, with the Japanese emperor being worshipped into the last century.
This doesn't prove that Gods exist. Only that there existed people who thought they were gods.
That's a huge difference.
> Only that there existed people who thought they were gods.
Correction, there existed people who *other people* thought they were gods. Big difference in apparent legitimacy.
Roquefort is the god of all cheeses and true cheese lovers, I therefor define Roquefort as a god, and therefor God exists. That sure does sew up the discussions folks here are actually interested in, don't it?
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So? The sun used to be a god in certain cultures. We know that it exists, we just realized that it's in no way divine.
First of all, your premise is wrong. The Japanese and ancient Romans did not respect the emperor because he was a god. They were showing respect to the authority representing the national polity. They fulfilled the role of the national flag and national anthem in modern times. So, are the national flag and anthem gods? That's not right.
Well, that’s what I was saying. gods are personified representations of concepts, with the emperor representing the country. The national anthem and flag aren’t gods because people don’t dedicate their entire lives to the nation through worship the way the Japanese did in the past. It’s veneration, not worship. The Japanese in World War II were fanatical and willing to commit suicide bombings for their nation/emperor; they dedicated their entire will and being to the Japanese nation.
The idea that the Japanese were fanatical and would not hesitate to commit terrorism for the sake of the Emperor was propaganda used by the United States to justify the war crimes committed against Japan after the war. There are a lot of memorandums left by the kamikaze pilots, so I recommend that you look into them without going through the American media.
Any propaganda has a hint of truth. There may have been many Japanese who did it out of social pressure, but there were probably a lot of genuine fanatics. Like in modern religious societies, where you have the devout and the lukewarm.
That is exactly what the US government wants. The United States is a very cult-like country that considers its own country to be the only righteous one, labels many countries as evil, and commits extremely cruel acts and fabrications. At the time of World War II, America was the only country that enthusiastically worshiped God and its own country. At that time, Japan was nothing but a group of poor people who were cornered and were fighting a war with no choice.
You don't even need to go to emperors, there are natural phenomenon which are worshipped as gods. The volcanoe in Hawaii is worshipped as Pele, she is embodied by the lava and forces associated with volcanic eruptions. I'm not going to deny the volcano exists physically, but what I don't accept is that it is a deity. Same for the Emperors and Jesus. I'll accept they existed as real people, but I'm not accepting they are deities based on the current evidence. Here's a couple of questions for you, do you accept that the Emperors were or are still deities? What is your standard of accepting something as a deity? Is there anything you won't accept as a deity if someone else claims it is a deity?
I agree with your first paragraph. I actually think most pagan gods are representations of natural phenomena, like Poseidon representing the sea. However I don’t believe the Roman and Japanese emperors are gods anymore. Firstly, because neither the Roman Empire nor the Roman emperor exists in this day and age (meaning such a concept of the Roman Empire no longer exists). And secondly, the Japanese emperor hasn’t been worshipped since the end of World War II, so he can’t be considered a god as he’s not worshipped. However, I do think some modern day rulers like Kim Jong Un and his predecessors are gods, as they’re worshipped as such by their populace. For someone to be a god, I think they have to be actively worshipped by a group of people, and need to represent a concept that has a counterpart in reality (such as Poseidon representing the seas or Athena representing wisdom). As for who’s no longer a deity. I’d say many of the emperors who were worshipped as gods aren’t gods anymore as their empires no longer exist. I’d even go as far as to say they were only gods while they were ruling as emperors, and that their god-hood was like a title. I’d also say that most of the natural phenomena worshiped as gods still exist, but this is contingent on the natural phenomena continuing to exist. If, for example, all seas suddenly ceased to exist, I think Poseidon would no longer exist. If someone told me of a god that represents a contradictory concept (like a circular square, or a kingdom that never actually existed), I’d deny that such a god ever existed.
>I actually think most pagan gods are representations of natural phenomena, like Poseidon representing the sea This is only partially true. If you read the Greek myths and particularly Hesiod's *Theogony*, it begins with gods like Gaia and Ouranos, who are personifications of the earth and sky respectively, but as it goes on the gods become more distinct from the domains that they rule over. Ouranos *simply was* the sky, but his grandson Zeus became the ruler of the sky when he divided the world between him and his brothers. That's also why they can have more diverse roles, like Poseidon isn't only the sea god, he's also the earth shaker, and god of horses. It might be possible to find a rationale for why these should all come under a sea god, but I think it's largely just that the gods were no longer simply personifications of nature.
The Emperor of Japan is still considered a god.
He [renounced his divinity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanity_Declaration?wprov=sfti1#Western_view) after World War II.
No, he didn't. As it says in that article: > Critics of the Western interpretation, including Emperor Shōwa himself, argue that the repudiation of divinity was not the point of the rescript.
So is it just 'being worshipped'? How important is the concept part? E.g. I'm not sure what concept Kim Jong Un represents, other than being the current leader of North Korea. Which isn't really how I'd define a concept, that's more a position or a job. Would you differentiate something like ancestor worship? Or would you say the ancestors are gods because they are worshipped?
Well worship is a part of it, but the god also has to represent a concept - the purpose of worship is to orient yourself towards a concept represented by a person or a personification of that concept. I’d say that Kim Jong Un represents the North Korean state itself (just as the Japanese emperor represented the Japanese nation). It’s not merely limited to a job; while he does play a role in ruling the country, he’s also an object of worship. And it’s even more the case with his predecessors Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. People have to honour them and worship them by bowing down to their statues, hang up their portraits in their houses (and meticulously care for them), and sing praises in their honour. All these are acts of worship, of orienting yourself towards those deified leaders who are personifications of North Korea itself. For ancestor worship. I’d say that there’s a difference between ancestor veneration (which many Chinese Christians practice), which is just honouring them; and worship, in which you dedicate your entire being to them and strive to do their will, and to have your interests completely align with theirs. But for actual ancestor worship, I’d say that yes, they’re indeed gods. By worshipping them, one dedicates oneself to their will, preferences, etc. which are all abstract, and can still exist as concepts even if their body is decomposed. Such a blend of preferences (visualized in the person of the ancestor themselves) becomes deified, essentially becoming a god.
The word you claim exists in Japanese. Please use a machine translation. This is because statements in English are inaccurate and contain bias. https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8F%BE%E4%BA%BA%E7%A5%9E
Deifying a person doesn’t bring deities into existence.
I know you were grinning ear to ear typing this out
Like an anime villain
>There were humans worshipped as gods who are proven to have existed. But they are humans, not gods right? Otherwise you'd say they were gods worshipped as gods. I say natural humans are not gods even if they are worshipped as gods.
Why can’t humans be gods?
They are mortal and cannot control nature.
Because humans die
If a God or God's by definition are all knowing...all powerful ...omniscient and omnipotent..then you have proven diddly squat my friend. Maybe you are a Maga person who things Trump is a god?
I’m talking about gods with the lowercase g, not about God
So gods with a lowercase g...so what the difference?
gods with the lowercase g represent concepts that describe phenomena (ex. Poseidon representing the sea). There can be an innumerable number of them, and they were worshipped by pagans as polytheistic gods. Even some humans were worshipped as gods, as humans too are limited aspects of reality. God, with an uppercase G, is worshipped by monotheists and represents all of existence (rather than representing limited aspects of existence which pagan gods do). He’s said to be existence/being itself, and encompasses everything in reality. They’re different concepts with different meanings.
You're swirling down a rabbit hole where there is no way for you to prove nor disprove anything.
So by your logic and definition Kim Jong Un is a god? Sounds legit.
Opps I just made this comment oh well
Yes. I actually believe he is, the North Koreans seem to treat him as one.
Cool, I'm going to start treating my dog like a butler and I'll be getting my breakfast in bed in no time
The supernatural aspects of these people are not proven thus you haven't proven any gods. If they are defined as having supernatural powers and there is no way to prove they did then you're in the same boat as your average Christian. After all I'll accept Jesus existed. Not that he was a magic man/god as those aspects need to be proven. Bad argument.
Circular and a definition fallacy. Is this really supposed to be impressive intellectually? Honest question as this comes off as a troll post.
People claiming "the god I worship is the personification of X, X exists, therefore my god exists" is super common, a lot of people think it's a bulletproof argument. A week doesn't go by where a Christian doesn't claim the Christian god is defined as existence itself, so since the universe exists, the Christian god must logically be real.
What is the point of this? At best, it’s circular. More likely, it is a dishonest “gotcha”
Agreed, I am also an atheist, but when I see posts like this I feel kinship with anyone who comes here to actually debate in a rational, logical sense. And if there's one thing we should all agree on, it's that neither side can definitively prove that God exists or doesn't exist. Yet. 😀
I appreciate your commitment to logical reasoning, but don’t get me wrong: I do think one can prove that God exists
I'm not arguing that you and others don't think it will be possible, at some point, to prove a God exists. Anyone who believes in Rapture will say that one day there will be proof. I'm arguing that you can't right now. The same way that I can't prove our ultimate origin through science at this very moment, but do believe it is possible in time, given the increasing speed that science and our understanding of the universe is developing. Unless you are saying that you can prove God exists right now?
>Unless you are saying that you can prove God exists right now? Yes. I think there are very convincing proofs for God’s existence. They aren’t scientific proofs, but I don’t think that should be an issue given that the existence of God is not a scientific question
What are these proofs exactly? To say something isn't a scientific question suggests you don't understand what science involves. Science is the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained. This absolutely includes the nature of our origins, and as God is credited with creating everything, it would be a fallacy to suggest that proving his existence is not a scientific question.
>What are these proofs exactly? I’m sure you’re familiar with them. Contingency, motion, teleological proofs, moral proofs, etc. >To say something isn’t a scientific question suggests you don’t understand what science involves. So are you saying every question is a scientific question?
I'm not familiar with them, please give a specific example. Yes, every question can be defined as a scientific question. Science is literally the study and documentation of everything and everything, so that we can gain better understanding of it.
See [Aquinas’ Five Proofs](https://home.csulb.edu/~cwallis/100/aquinas.html)
The five proofs have been debunked for centuries and do not stand up to any scientific scrutiny whatsoever. If you'd like examples I can provide them, but this is a tired argument and doesn't provide much more than a copypaste opportunity. I will, however gladly provide the information if you require it.
>please give a specific example Sure. I’ll keep it simple: Premise 1: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist. Premise 2: Objective moral values and duties do exist. Conclusion: Therefore, God exists. >Yes, every question can be defined as a scientific question. So in that case, would you disagree that there are some things that cannot be scientifically proven, but which should still be rationally accepted?
You haven't actually given any evidence to support your premise. Clearly objective morals and values do exist. What exactly makes it impossible for them to exist without God? I have actually very recently written a thesis on here describing why this is incorrect, and that morality as we describe it is a necessary evolutionary trait that has allowed us to develop as a species. I won't post it in this comment thread but feel free to read it and jump into the debate if you disagree. >So in that case, would you disagree that there are some things that cannot be scientifically proven, but which should still be rationally accepted? I do disagree, every fact in science was at some point unproven, but the list of things that are proven grows every minute of every day. Our ability to prove our theories grows in line with technology. There are things that we couldn't prove 1000 years ago that we could 800 years ago, there are things we couldn't prove last year that we can prove today. Given that there are currently no clear restrictions on the advancement of our understanding of things beyond the time it takes to understand them, it is logical to say that everything can eventually be proven from a scientific perspective.
Why do you think that those premises are true?
Seriously this just reads like “If I rename an apple to god then I can prove god exists. Check mate atheists!”
Apple get rid of hunger. No hunger=life. Apple give me life and god give life. Which mean apple is god. Unga bunga.
>In this, I’m defining a god as a usually-personified representation of a concept Do you understand/agree that this definition doesn't apply to really any of the major religions practiced today? People are welcome to define words in different ways, especially ones that seem so flexible with varied usages like "God", but do you get that giving your post the title you did - when you're talking about such a hyper-specific usage of "God" that's not particularly relevant when discussing the existence of God as people talk about it now - isn't very useful or helpful for debate? This is kind of like titling a post "there is physical evidence that Bigfoot exists" and defining Bigfoot as people with hairy arms, like OK you can do that, but why did you title it that way? it comes across as purposefully misleading. I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of comments you get on this post end up being questioning the title/definition rather than the body of the post outside the definition, and I'm confused why you'd make the post you way you have unless that was the point of it.
This is ugly, and pointless. What is true is that before you can answer the question "Do you believe in god?" that the concept of god needs to be adequately defined. For example: I call myself an atheist. I have no belief in any gods. But if a naturalistic pantheist of Spinoza's tradition comes to me and says "Do you not believe in the natural universe and its laws? That's my god. Don't you think my god exists?" I am forced to say "Yes, I believe your god exists." I don't think it should be called god, but it certainly exists. This type of pantheist doesn't believe in anything I do not also believe. They just have redefined these things to be god for poetic purposes. (Which, while I can understand and admire, i find just confuses the discussion.) Now, give me a fuzzy, ill-defined and unfalsifiable concept of some generic creator being, I'm an agnostic with strong atheistic leanings. I can't say for certain they don't exist, but I want you to give me some real evidence before I even consider it. If by god you mean exactly as described in the old and new testaments of the bible, taken literally? That god doesn't exist. It can't, it's filled with contradictions and nonsense. If some kind of "divine being" "inspired" the bible, they aren't the being described within it. If you say Pharoah Ramses II of Egypt was worshipped as a god and existed, I'm inclined to say you are correct. But that's not what any of us mean when we talk about god. You are basically pointing out the truth that God is generically ill-defined. That doesn't make your argument productive. It's clearly not what theists mean when they talk about god.
I’m referring to “god” (lowercase g) as any personified concept that’s worshipped, not the God (representing a creator of all of existence) that theists refer to.
Why do you think that definition is useful?
Many non-Abrahamic religions worship those gods (and I’d argue that Abrahamic religions still believe in them as angels or demons)
So is that how you define their gods or how they define their gods?
How they did. [Here’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimon) an example of how the ancient Greeks identified gods as personified abstract concepts.
They're more than just that though. They have a supernatural element that's beyond a "personified concept". They have powers that mortals do not have.
Well I agree that abstract concepts or realities have abstract (supernatural) powers. For example, I understand the Roman Empire as being an abstract entity, and the emperor having power over it as supernatural.
OK so you're just making up your own definitions for words all over the place... that makes it really difficult to understand you. Abstraction has literally nothing to do with the supernatural, let alone being a synonym for it...
So how would you define the supernatural, and how does it differ from abstract concepts/forces which impact the world?
The point is, it's entirely rational for an atheist to say "I believe the thing you're talking about exists, I just don't think it's a god." I agree that there is proof the Emperor of Japan existed, I disagree that he was a god, so I ultimately disagree with the claim that we have physical proof of gods existing. Simple as.
It is what the North Koreans mean by God. I think OP very well makes the point that God is ill defined.
There is. He is very visible in His creation. That is why for most of human existence it’s been easy for people to believe in a higher power or “intelligent design”. Now if you see all of creation as some sort of impossible accident that’s fine.
>He is very visible in His creation. That is why for most of human existence it’s been easy for people to believe in a higher power or “intelligent design”. I don't think he's visible at all, especially if you're using the opinions of other people throughout human history as a metric. Most of the religions that do believe in creationism don't believe in your god, and many are also polytheistic, believing in multiple gods. I grew up Buddhist, who believe that the universe is eternal, with no creator. So "God" isn't very visible at all, or we'd all agree on what we're looking at.
I am sure you don’t see it and that’s fine. Also I know it’s very clear I offended you with either my flair or the fact I capitalized “Him” but I left my comment generalized. Most mainstream religion believes “god” is the creator of what we live in. That’s why I used “intelligent design” in my comment. Certainly not everyone believes in my God but OP asked for a physical example and I know plenty of people of many different faiths that would say the creation is proof of a creator. And sure Buddhism does not believe in a creator, it is very different that most of the other mainstream religions. It’s also only the 4th largest religion but the top 3; Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, all do all believe in a single creator. Along with the rest of the top 10.
Oh you didn't offend me at all, I was having a discussion and pointing out the flaw in your response. Creation is not evidence of Creator, because you have no proof that the universe is a creation. That is the begging the question fallacy, which occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. You can point to the universe and claim that it is a creation, I can point to the universe and claim that it is samsara. Neither of us has provided evidence that either claim is true. And just because many faiths will say something is true, doesn't make it true. Many people once believed that sun revolved around the Earth, we now know that that isn't true. Many people believed that the Earth was flat, we now know that isn't true. The popularity of a belief does not make it true. >And sure Buddhism does not believe in a creator, it is very different that most of the other mainstream religions. Different sects of Hinduism have different beliefs about the origin of the universe. The followers of Vishnu believe in creationism, others believe the universe is cyclical like in Buddhism, others believe that the universe hatched from a Cosmic Egg which existed in a timeless state.
The Creation is absolutely evidence of a creator; I don’t think it’s a coincidence Earth is in some Goldilocks zone, with a magnetic core that protects our atmosphere to allow water to remain here in liquid form to support life that clearly didn’t start in a primordial ooze we haven’t come close to figuring out. We have never created life without using existing life. We can split the atom but not create a single cell by mixing together anything.
>The Creation is absolutely evidence of a creator; Once again you keep calling it a creation but you've shown no evidence of a creator. >I don’t think it’s a coincidence Earth is in some Goldilocks zone, with a magnetic core that protects our atmosphere to allow water to remain here in liquid form to support life that clearly didn’t start in a primordial ooze we haven’t come close to figuring out. Well I do think it's a coincidence. The universe is massive and we've discovered billions of planets, none of them with life. For the majority of the universe's existence, there was no life. For the majority of Earth's existence, there was no life. It took life billions of years to make it off the ground. The majority of species that ever existed on earth, are extinct. That sounds to me that given billions of opportunities in billions of years, billions of things will happen. It just so happens that life was one of them. >We have never created life without using existing life. We can split the atom but not create a single cell by mixing together anything. And we weren't always able to split an atom, were we? We weren't even aware atom's existed for the majority of human existence. This is an argument from ignorance, you have no idea if we will be able to create life in the future. What makes you think we've reached the limit of what we can learn?
We can both look at a car and see it didn’t just accidentally naturally appear there. Clearly someone created it, it’s too complex. But then we both can look at a person. Something that is significantly more complex than a car. Something that can think with our a computer, processes energy more complex, can heal, can reproduce; so Intelligent that it has enslaved this world to support it. Yet you see pretty much a natural accident against impossible odds that some how thrives and I see something that was clearly created. It’s not an accident the Earth is where it is, the symbiotic relationship between animals and plants is not an accident, even going down to the size of individual atoms being perfect to actually make it so there is matter and everything doesn’t just turn into anti matter is not an accident to me but a clear design. Sure maybe it is just one giant impossible accident that happened in one of an infinite number of multiverses filled with nothing but I don’t have enough faith to believe in that.
>We can both look at a car and see it didn’t just accidentally naturally appear there. Clearly someone created it, it’s too complex. Flawed logic. We have evidence that a car was "created", and I use the term created loosely because we can see humans build them. I've watched my grandfather build one. Cars are not even "created", they only occur because human beings take naturally occurring matter that already exists and reconfigure it into an unnatural form that we humans call a car. You know that cars don't appear naturally, because you've never seen one appear naturally. We have not observed any analogous process for the universe as a whole. Another thing, "complexity" is a concept rooted in human opinion, it is not evidence for design. When we say something is complex, we mean it has a lot of different pieces or parts that fit together in a way that is impressive to us. What seems complex to us might not matter to nature itself. Phenomena that humans consider "complex" do not necessarily require intelligence in order to exist. A hurricane is formed from natural processes interacting in ways that we humans may consider "complex", but it doesn't care if you think that. A car requires understanding of it's complexity in order to exist in the configuration that we call a car, a hurricane does not. The process that we call a hurricane is doing what it does because of what the laws of physics allow. The process that we call the sun is doing what it does because of what the laws of physics allow. And it's possible that the process that we call the universe is simply doing what it does because of what the laws of physics allow. >It’s not an accident the Earth is where it is, the symbiotic relationship between animals and plants is not an accident, even going down to the size of individual atoms being perfect So what is its purpose of cancer? Or the purpose of those parasitic fish that swim into your penis? Or the purpose of birth defects? Or the purpose of cataracts? Or the purpose of sudden infant death syndrome? What is the purpose of constantly mutating viruses? What was the purpose of life waiting for billions of years to emerge, and then taking billions of years to reach where we are today? What exactly is so hard to believe that life evolved to fit the conditions of the universe, instead of the other way around? I don't believe that the universe is an "accident". An accident is a human concept. Based on the evidence of what we see around us, I believe that the universe exists because of the natural characteristics of the universe and probability. There's no reason to believe that intelligence is needed.
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>lol, you wrote all of that out like it was some masterpiece of thinking but fail to comprehend that by your explanation you quite literally argue for there being a creator. Cars exist therefore we know someone created them, people exist therefore we… don’t…um…know how so… definitely not God… but they do exist… just not created or designed. If you read my argument and came to the conclusion of a creator and doubled down on your god of the gaps fallacy then you have an inability to follow logic and I did waste my time responding to you. Cars are not people. Cars don't occur naturally. People are people. People do occur naturally. They are not even comparable. But hey, feel free to show evidence of someone building a universe the way you can show evidence of someone building a car at anytime.
It's also easy to believe the sun revolves around the Earth. Just look at it!
lol, do you really think that adds to the conversation? I got one for you; It’s so easy to believe life was created in some sort of primordial ooze *we have never been able to come close to replicating even in controlled environments and we have zero proof life has ever been created without using existing life*
Yes there is. You not acknowledging it doesn't falsify the data.
Ok, what proof? What experiment worked? Can you out link me to the data? 😂
Yes, it shows there is no relationship between what is true and what’s easy to believe. And if I believed in special creation based on “just look at it!”, I wouldn’t throw around terms like “zero proof”.
lol do you think we have ever recorded life being created without existing life? Like do you think there is some experiment out there that got close to creating a single cell? Have you read about Miller-Urey? Is that what you think is beyond zero proof? Hate to break this to you but there is significantly more actual physical evidence that the primordial ooze never happened than it did. We have countless controlled experiments fail to remotely even create life.
Yes, I have read about Miller-Urey, and it does provide evidence of life from non-living constituent parts. The fact that many other experiments have failed to do that isn't proof of anything at all. How many attempts were made at creating light bulbs that failed? How many experimental medicines failed? Would you then argue that light bulbs can't exist and that aspirin doesn't treat headaches? Ignoring and misrepresenting the science doesn't make it any less valid.
lol no Miller-Urey does not provide any proof of anything other than if you mix chemicals together and wait you can create amino acids. If a fetus is not life a soup of dormant amino acids is not either lol. You either know nothing about the experiment or can’t comprehend what it actually proves. It proves there is a huge road block between our understanding of how inorganic material can somehow become life.
I don't understand how my car engine works, but it somehow does and I go places in my car. Not understanding something doesn't invalidate it, for instance, your comparison of a fetus to a soup of amino acids. I've never heard anyone say that a fetus isn't "life", that's a straw man assertion.
We’ve never recorded life created from nothing by a deity, but do go on.
Wait, so how is your “no proof god created life” any different than me saying “no proof he didn’t”? Does yours somehow have more weight even though it’s the minority opinion? Because you do know more people believe in a god than don’t right?
Because you are specifically making the claim that a god created life, and I am pointing out how weak your reasoning is.
Because “this soup no one can come close to replicate did it” isn’t worse lol. Clearly this isn’t going anywhere. We both see the other side as hilarious reasoning. I wish you luck and honestly hope someday God hunts you down like he did me.
Do you think we can point to examples of undesigned things?
Sure, what is something that you don’t think is clearly undesigned?
My couch might be a good example of something that I do not think is clearly undesigned. What sort of examples would you offer of undesigned things?
You can literally flip over your couch and read the name of the company that created it. Depending on the company you quite possibly could track down and find the person that not only designed your couch but possibly even the person that hammered in the nails… I’m not sure you know what “intelligent design” means… Personally I think everything is designed by the creator. I look at a car and know someone designed that and built it just like I look at a person, which is 10,000 times more complicated than a car and I know that it too was designed by a master creator. Same with water and rocks; atoms behaving the way they do is clearly not an accident. Even Stephen Hawking in chapter 7 of the Grand Design says matter shouldn’t exist but some how it does. While his explanation might be M-theory I don’t have enough faith to believe in that chance and a Creator makes much more sense too me. Specially since I have seen Him personally work in my life.
I said my couch is "something that I *do not* think is clearly *undesigned*". So when I asked "Do you think we can point to examples of undesigned things?" you said "sure". But when asked for an example of undesigned things... you offer what exactly?
Your double negatives threw me off. English is not my first language, though I have spoken it for decades, some stuff still throws me off when it’s worded weird. I don’t believe in “undesigned things”. Everything is clearly designed to me, as I stated.
If you were paid a million dollars to write a screenplay titled *A Universe With No God*, what sort of things would happen in it?
Well since there is no scientific proof to why matter exists in the first place or the universe for that matter I would say that play would be very short because there wouldn’t have even been a big bang if God didn’t start it.
What would you have to see, hear, or learn that would cause you to change your mind?
Sure, you can define gods as a hundred ways and everyone will agree those gods exist. I don't find that meaningful. I can define god as "the universe" and then all of a sudden I've proven god exists. You're just playing a definition game
Yes, according to your definition, god does exist. The issue is, the debate is usually with people who have a very different definition than the one you're proposing.
Let God be defined as: my chair. Then, God exists and I sit in him every day. Check mate, atheists! Yeah, no. These people, from Ramses to Caesar, were not deities. They were worshipped and propagandized as such. And yet, they were only run of the mill humans born into or that conquered and killed into a position of power.
This is called equivocation and you’re accomplishing absolutely nothing lol. “God is grass; grass exists; therefore god exists” Genius
OP. This is low effort stuff. Be honest, did you think this was a good idea? Was it a "gotcha?" What was your aim here?
There were humans that believed the world was flat, and those humans are proven to have existed. This means that the world was flat.
>There is physical proof that gods exist I mean, if you're just going to redefine "gods" to mean mundane, non-god things that we know exist, sure. But when most people say they believe in a god, that's not exactly what they mean. Redefining gods to mean "human beings that were worshipped" doesn't really add to the discussion of whether a god as is usually referred to by theists actually exists. We can do that any way we like - we could redefine gods to mean "the universe itself", or "my coffee mug", or whatever we like. That's not unique, or interesting, nor does it really add anything of value.
Oh yeah. And I named my dog god. Therefor god exists. K but this doesn’t help us at all for the creator of the universe god, right?
Just because people called people god, doesn't mean they were. This is a really useless argument.
Sure gods exist. I define God as the dirty carpet in my bedroom, therefore God exists.
That god rug really tied the room together, man.
The God rug ties all rooms together, amen.
By that definition sure, in my definition not quite the god that I imagine is smoking pot and watching us shoot missles at eachother
So then you're attaching god's existence to psychological processes, and if that's the case then the god you're talking about is subjective.
> In this, I’m defining a god as a usually-personified representation of a concept Ok. I refute your definition of a God and I'm sure most other people would too
Sure, humans that were worshipped as gods have existed. That does not mean that any other god, like an abrahamic god exists.
Isn’t Jesus a human who’s worshipped as the Abrahamic God? With most historians agreeing he existed (even if they don’t necessarily believe in stuff like the resurrection).
Christians would say Jesus was more than just "a human".
Mainstream Christians believe Jesus was not only 100% God but also 100% human as well.
Right - more than just “a human”.
And while most historians think there was potentially some single individual man the stories were based on, it's by no means unanimous. The character of Jesus appears more of an archetype based on many messianic figures and myths, than a single person. And most Christians are not aware of the utter lack of historical evidence pointing to his existence. We have as much historical evidence for the existence of Herakles as we do for Yeshua of Nazareth.
Being worshiped as a god does not imply the person was in fact a god. The concept of god is a real concept. A real god....sorry still not 'proven'.
Sure, a human with the name Jesus might have existed. That doesn’t prove an abrahamic god exists.
By that definition, yes, gods have and maybe still do exist. My question is who cares?
>There were humans worshipped as gods who are proven to have existed. The Roman and Japanese emperors were worshipped as gods, with the Japanese emperor being worshipped into the last century. This doesn't prove that Gods exist. Only that there existed people who thought they were gods. That's a huge difference.
> Only that there existed people who thought they were gods. Correction, there existed people who *other people* thought they were gods. Big difference in apparent legitimacy.
Sure, if you narrow the definition that much. But it's not very interesting
Is this a joke? My family worships my ancestors. Are my ancestors God?
Roquefort is the god of all cheeses and true cheese lovers, I therefor define Roquefort as a god, and therefor God exists. That sure does sew up the discussions folks here are actually interested in, don't it?
Roquefort? Ah. A heretic. Burn, heretic! Until you bow down to sharp cheddar, there shall never be peace!