Atheists and agnostics don't realize what modern day theism is. They think it's like the ancient Greek and Roman theism who believed that big super-human material finite-sized gods lived on Mouth Olympus. The ancient Greeks had Zeus' picture on their coins. So "Zeus" is not a meaningless word. Zeus was not "an invisible infinite spirit". He was an easily imaginable parcel of matter, just like a unicorn or mermaid.

@EdwinMcCravy Painting whole groups with the same broad brush is almost never accurate, But hey, enjoy your thoughts.

They don't threaten me but they have accused me of being a troll.

"Love" is the abstract noun form of the verb "to love", a very real emotion that all us animals have and feel. We all love some people and some things. "Beauty" is the abstract noun form of the verb "beautiful". Sunsets are beautiful. Some women are beautiful. We all have vivid concepts of things we love and beautiful things. What we have no concept at all of are words like "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah".

@EdwinMcCravy "Love" is just a chemical reaction caused by a release of hormones and glandular secretions in the brain. It facilitates pair-bonding and helps in raising the next generation of the species. It falls apart when the male's drive to procreate seeks a new recipient for his seed. There's no such thing as "love".

Many people have made some version of the above argument. They see "love" as a human delusion that's entirely subjective. But to almost everyone, it also means something greater than that.

Likewise, the concept of "God" began as a personification of natural forces, and grew into the supernatural ruler of a tribe; this tribe, through military victories, became dominant in its region and their concept of "God" became more widely accepted. Even though this tribe was later conquered, the concept survived, and in a modified form was adopted by the conquerors and imposed throughout their empire centuries later, until it became one of the dominant forms of worship on the planet. Clearly billions of people do have a concept of the word "God" that is agreed upon and serves as a common point of reference, whether we agree on the objective meaning or not.

But you haven't even begun to describe any concept of "God" to me, so why should I believe that you can? I know you can say "Ultimate Reality" or "Creator of the universe" but that's just a bunch of words. You have to be able to THINK ABOUT or IMAGINE something for "God" to mean. But you can't. And like I told the other guy, if you are talking without thinking of anything you could be talking about, you aren't talking about anything.

@EdwinMcCravy no worries. I'm not giving the description or meaning, that's already been done. People think and imagine stuff all the time describing things . That's part of communication. It's all just convoluted words, whether you're describing the known or unknown.

@ownworstenemy Why do you think I should be able to believe that you yourself are able to have a mental concept for "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" any more than I can? All you did was say "I'm not giving the description or meaning, that's already been done." Sorry but your saying that is just not reason enough for me to believe that you are able to have a mental concept of anything for those words to refer to.

@EdwinMcCravy

By anecdote referencing a "god" is to idolize someone or something. "Lionel Mess is the "god" of football."

By definition god is a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship. "Only god knows."

God in Christianity is the eternal being who created and preserves all things. "There was no big bang before God created the universe."

Throughout history polytheistics attribute various qualities to their gods. From birth and death to compassion and war, men have devoted meaning to the term god and attributed qualities to specific gods. "May Hermes bless us as we undertake this arduous journey."

Disagreeing that these words have no meaning doesn't stop everyone else from understanding what they mean. Disagreeing that they have no power, doesn't stop people from giving them meaning. Believing that the words are meaningless is your right, but you can make up a nonsense word and no-one will know what you mean. You say "god" and people WILL know what you mean, and in that way, I contend, it's not meaningless.

What double/triple negatives? I think you're coming close to being hostile to me.

Why am I making an issue? Because atheists believe "God" (not "god" ), "Yahweh" and "Allah" are meaningful words. That takes a faith that they should not have. I lack that faith, and I am considered wrong because I don't have it. It's crazy.

@EdwinMcCravy Dear Edwin, you are not wrong to not have faith in any meaning of god, yahweh and allah. Others are not wrong to attach meaning to those words.All words have the meaning we ascribe to them and for them to even have that meaning there has to be consensus. You state that you are not involved in that consensus. It's okay. That does not make you wrong, you just don't agree. There will probably never be 100% agreement about anything. People who have called you wrong are themselves wrong. You seem to think that because you don't agree you are considered ill-suited to the site. On this site, we are used to disagreements. I suggest you read the 4 Agreements and take #2 to heart. I think most of us don't label you wrong, we are just somewhat offended at the aggressive way you state your beliefs as if daring us to berate you. Not going to happen here.

Yes, and it IS merely a Premise since NO-ONE, absolutely NO-ONE can prove conclusively, empirically and irrefutably that ANY Supreme Deity exists or has ever existed.

@Antifred Yes I AM fully aware of those LEGENDARY Heroes of American Folklore BECAUSE ( and this may shock you) We, here in Australia, have HAD Libraries, Cinemas, Television, Radio, Newspapers, etc, etc, and, Yes, even electricity wired into our homes, FLUSHING toilets and all those mod-cons for numerous decades.
We also have our own Heroes, such as the Kingsford -Smith Brothers and Charles Ulm, John Flynn ( Founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service btw), Ned Kelly, the Aussie Soldiers who fought at Gallipoli, the Aussie Soldiers who fought on the Kokoda Track in New Guinea, etc, etc, BUT we DO NOT proclaim them as being Deities or Semi-Deities as you appear to do. we simply see them as Brave people who defied the odds or the oppressive ways of the Government, etc, at the time BECAUSE it WAS the right thing to do.

@Triphid why do you have to be such a twat? The above post was not only condescending, nasty, spiteful & unnecessary, but also reveals the Huge self-made chip on your shoulder. Too bad, so sad...oh, wait, nobody cares.....

@Gwendolyn2018 Until I was 10 years old we still had an outhouse from which a bloke driving a Sewage Truck would remove the full toilet pan ( big metal bucket) and replace it with an empty one whether you were sitting on the seat or not.
We also had a water boiler fired up with chips of wood so we, all 7 in the family ( 2 Adults, 5 children) could have a hot bath on Saturday Nights.
Actual toilet paper was a Luxury, we used squares of newspaper instead and ALL & of us shared a 3 Bedroomed house, yes we had electricity, but my Father was an Underground Miner in the Silver, Lead and Zinc Mines here in Broken Hill and money was bloody tough to come by and we never knew for certain IF Dad was going to home after his shift or be dead and buried in a rock fall a thousand feet underground.

@AnneWimsey No 'chips on my shoulders ' here Lady, none at all, just setting things right as per 'Antifred's' disparaging, imho, comment.

@Triphid rigggghhhtttttt, "buddy"

@AnneWimsey Definitely No Chips on my shoulders here Ma'am, but I've numerous 'run-ins' with this 'Antifred' character before where I seem to get the impression that he considers us Australians as some kind of Country Hick Yokel Colonials and he also keeps citing the same bible verse/passage over and over repeatedly as well.

@Gwendolyn2018 Nope, 'uptown' in mining town like Broken Hill meant that you had a sewage system, hot and cold running water on tap, REAL toilet paper and your father would come home safe and sound every evening.

Also, you may wish to see IF you can find the Broken Hill Miners Memorial and its lists of men killed in the Mines online.
Well worth the read and quite an eye-opener I might add.

Well, I'd like to be "pushy" enough to "push" atheists into give up their faith that there is any mental concept for the words "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" to refer to I'm opposed to belief on faith, and I'd like to "push" people to give it up, whether it's faith that "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" refer to something existent or something nonexistent. The truth is that "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" do not refer period -- not to anything existent, and not to anything nonexistent.

Then how should I present it? Do you think I should pretend that I don't think it takes blind faith to believe that "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" are meaningful words? But I do and I'm against blind faith.

@Triphid What "Supreme God" do you think Christians, Jews and Muslims believe in and worship? Can you describe any such "supreme god"? Or can you just assert that they believe in one and talk as if they believed in one? I don't think you know of any mental concept of any "Supreme God" that Christians, Jews and Muslims believe in or worship, any more that I do.

@EdwinMcCravy They, in my educated opinion as a Psychologist, BELIEVE in what they are told they MUST believe in from childhood, whereas, those like myself for example started questioning at an early age, found the 'answers' either somewhat vague or completely unacceptable and discarded the entire belief system in favour of Rationality, Reasoning and Logic Thought.

Great, Zeuser! You see it just like I do. There is no concept for "God", "Yahweh" or "Allah". They are just wordplay.

Why do you say I speak nonsense? What have I said that you think is nonsense?

piphirho "God" doesn't refer to an imaginary thing. "Unicorn" and "mermaid" refer to imaginary things. If you claim you can imagine something that Christians would label "God", please tell me what to imagine so I'll be able to imagine it too. I don't believe you can describe any concept for "God". If you can, then please do it and shut me up, OK?

@EdwinMcCravy wait..."god" is Completely an imaginary thing, exactly lie unicorns or Santa.......wth is wrong with you?!?

@AnneWimsey For something to be IMAGINary, you have to be able to IMAGINE it. If you can IMAGINE, i.e., have a mental concept of anything for "God", "Jehovah" and "Allah" to refer to, then either describe your mental concept to me or admit that you're just like me in that you don't really have one either.

@EdwinMcCravy nope, sorry, do not/cannot/will not waste my mind on useless junk, certainly not describe it for you.....

@AnneWimsey Since you think it is useless junk to speak of whether "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" are meaningless words or whether they meaningful words for something for which a mental concept can be had, then why waste your time posting that you think it is useless junk?

@AnneWimsey I don't believe that you have any mental concept for "God", "Yahweh" or "Allah" when spoken by Christians, Jews, or Muslims. I call your bluff. Either describe the mental concept for them which you claim to have or be woman enough to admit that you're just like me in that you don't have any mental concept for them either.

@AnneWimsey Do you actually think that saying "nope, sorry, do not/cannot/will not waste my mind on useless junk, certainly not describe it for you....." should make me believe that you have a mental concept for "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah"? All you want to do is diss me for not having your blind faith that "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" are meaningful words.

Wallace, you have hit the nail on the head! There is no reason whatever to believe that "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" are meaningful. No theist, atheist or agnostic can do anything but diss the theological noncognitivist -- but diss them they surely do! But they can't even begin to refute them.
Atheists think they need to have a god to claim that they don't believe in.

No, you have to go by the bullshit that theists speak. They say "God is the creator of the unjiverse" or "God is the ultimate reality". But you can't think of anything that could be. All you can do is say the words. If you're talking but can't imagine anything you could be talking about, then you're not talking about anything.

But I didn't USE them. I typed them between quotation marks. If you call typing the letters "God", "Yahweh", and "Allah" between quotation marks "USING them", then you'd have to call "Qkjlgzxm" USING "Qkjlgzxm". lol

@EdwinMcCravy your reasoning is weak. Yes, you did use themyou didn't come up with "yahweh," "god," and "allah" by randomly punching letters on your keyboard. You chose them because they do have meaning. To some people the meaning is some magical creature that they truly believe is critical to all existence. To others, myself included, they're more like mythological figures such as Odin, Zeus, Tiamat, etc.

It's like the word fairy. It has a meaning whether I believe it represents a living being or a fictional character, is irrelevant because no matter which of those it means, it means something.

Thanks for being humorous and not hostile to me like the others.

AnneWimsey, Do you believe there is a mental concept for "God", "Yahweh" and Allah"? If so, why not show that you do by describing the mental concept?

Then if I am 'willfully ignorant' of concepts for "God", "Yahweh", or "Allah", then why don't you 'willfully educate' me by describing the concept that you claim to have for "God", "Yahweh" or "Allah"? Then I won't be able to be "willfully ignorant" anymore. Come on, now. Let's hear your description of the concept you claim to have for "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah".

I capitalize those meaningless symbols because "god" is a perfectly meaningful word. It is perfectly meaningful to say "Money is his god". It's also meaningful to say that ancient Greeks worshiped the god Zeus, as they drew pictures and made statues of him. It's the capitalized row of alphabet letters "God" with a capitalized "G" that theists write that is meaningless, not "god" with a little "g". I certainly don't want to get the meaningful word "god" missed up with the meaningless row of alphabet letters "God".

What concepts?

Why didn't you give a description of the mental concept you claim to have for "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" if you believe you know of one? I am not gullible enough to believe that you know of a mental concept for them just because you imply that you can? Sorry, there is no evidence that you know of any concept for them. You're just like me in that respect. You just haven't admitted it to yourself yet.

It's OK if you don't give "two hoots" about whether I don't have any concept of "God", "Yahweh" or "Allah", but if you think you have such a concept, why won't you describe it to me so I could have it too? Surely you see that your not describing the concept you claim to have for "God" for me only makes me strongly suspect that you are exactly like me and have no such concept yourself. You just don't want to admit it to yourself. Isn't that right?

@EdwinMcCravy I don’t have a concept for god. I have no interest in a concept of god in the same way as I have no interest in who is the greatest rugby player

@Geoffrey51 If you have no interest in what is being discussed in a forum, then why post to tell us that you don't? Anyway it's easy to have a concept of a god. Google "Zeus" and you'll see pictures of the god Zeus which the ancient Greeks who worshiped Zeus drew of him. They put Zeus' picture on their coins. So it's not "god" with a small "g" that is meaningless for "god" is very meaningful. FI, it's not meaningless to say "His god is money". It's the capitalized "God" (not "god" ), "Yahweh" and "Allah" that are meaningless.

@Geoffrey51 Of course there is a concept for a god. Zeus was a nonexistent god. They drew pictures and make statues of him. They described him very well as a superhuman that lived on Mount Olympus. So there is a concept for the word "god". It's "God" (capitalized), "Yahweh" and "Allah" that are meaningless.

I'm only challenging the nonsense "Ultimate Reality" and "Creator of the universe". Again, if you can't imagine anything you could be talking about then you aren't talking about anything.

Do you claim that you have a concept of something that Christians call "God"? If you really think you do, I'd appreciate it if you would please describe it to me so I could know what concept you have that I don't. I really can't think of anything that I believe Christians would call "God".

Hey, that's great that you also do not share the belief with Christians, Jews and Muslims that "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" are meaningful words. Does it bother you, as it does me, that atheists hold the belief that those words are meaningful? I think it takes almost as much faith to believe that "God" refers to something nonexistent as it does to believe that "God" refers to something existent.

I would say theological noncognitivism and ignosticism are identical. Unlike atheists, who claim that "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" stand for something that does not exist, we don't claim that it means anything at all -- nothing existent (like a horse), and also nothing nonexistent (like a unicorn). We say that "God", "Yahweh", and "Allah" don't mean anything at all. They are just sounds that trigger emotions of awe, fear and reverence in properly indoctrinated people (theists) that make them think they refer to something that's causing them to have those emotions.

@EdwinMcCravy I wouldn't say that it bothers me. I just see it as some hard atheists are trapped in rebellion and don't see past it. Other (soft) atheists do express ignostic thoughts but primarily think of themselves as atheists first and ignostics second...if they are even familiar with the term. One atheist told me he considered ignosticism a form of atheism.

@Heraclitus But it can't be right to say that "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah" are meaningful words for something nonexistent. I consider that a faith that needs to be gotten rid of, don't you?

@EdwinMcCravy I don't think they are meaningful words. And I think that all faith in the irrational should be gotten rid of.

I put this in the philosophy section. You don't like to discuss philosophy? OK. But there are still no concepts for "God", "Yahweh" or "Allah", whether you like philosophy or not.

@EdwinMcCravy I love to discuss philosophy. Let’s do it! We need to unpack your argument and take it from there point by point.

Please respond thoughtfully with a counter argument or pass with regard to a response

1). Meaningless words
All words are meaningless unless they are framed within a consensual context. For example technical occupations can speak in concepts using discipline specific words which sound alien to the untrained.

2. God, Allah, Yahweh are meaningless words
   They have a meaning in your reference frame as if they didn’t you would have no means to express them in a conceptual context as you do hear. We can discuss what they mean to you which is likely to be different to others. Therefore, we need to construct a conceptual framework which has ‘common-ness’ rather like the intersections of a Venn diagram.

@Geoffrey51 go get him! You seem to have an actual understanding of what he is trying to sell, with astounding egotism!

@Geoffrey51 You say that "God", "Yahweh", and "Allah" have a meaning in my "reference frame". I think you're trying to pulling a funny by equivocating between meanings in metalanguage and meanings in object language. You're pulling the funny trick of saying is that capitalized "God" is meaningful because it means a row of three letters, the capital letter "G" followed by a little "o" in the middle with a little "d" bringing up the end. "Yahweh" and "Allah" mean just the rows of letters "Y-a-h-w-e-h" and "A-l-l-a-h". Are you, Geoffrey51, just the row of alphabet letters and two numerals "G-e-o-f-f-r-e-y-5-1" or are you a human being? LOL If you want to make jokes like that, fine. But learn the difference between a metalinguistic meaning and an object language meaning, OK? And while you're at it, please describe your mental concepts you imply that you have for "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah", not the mental concepts of the rows of alphabet letters that spell them. Thanks.

@EdwinMcCravy Please educate me. Please inform me of the difference between a metalinguistic meaning and an object language meaning. Assume I am five years old and explain in simple terms. Thanks.

@Geoffrey51 Please educate me as to your mental concepts of "God", "Yahweh" and "Allah", as I know of no mental concepts for them. Then after your having doing that, I will gladly inform you of the difference between a metalinguistic meaning and an object language meaning.

@EdwinMcCravy As already explained, I don’t have a concept for god. I suspect you have no idea of the difference between a metalinguistic meaning and an object language meaning.

@Geoffrey51 I assume you mean that you don't have a concept for anything Christians write "God" for. (BTW, Christians do not write "god", they write "God". Jews do not write "Yahweh", they write "Yahweh". Muslims do not write "allah", they write "Allah" ). If you think you are downplaying something by spelling them with a little letter, then please describe the mental concept of what you think you're downplaying, OK?

Sorry, I didn't mean that ALL atheists and agnostics are hostile to TNs. Just most are. I suppose it's because they have a need for "God" to refer to something that they can say 'doesn't exist'. They don't like "God" to be just a meaningless word like "Zop" -- but that's all it is. I can't help it.