Tristan Vick
  • Books
  • Daughter of Wolves
  • Blog
  • Series
    • Chronicles of Jegra
    • Valandra
    • Bitten
    • Scarecrow & Lady Kingston
  • Design
  • Books
  • Daughter of Wolves
  • Blog
  • Series
    • Chronicles of Jegra
    • Valandra
    • Bitten
    • Scarecrow & Lady Kingston
  • Design

Writerly Things

The Official Blog of Author Tristan Vick

24 Hours Countdown Till DoW Launch!

9/30/2021

1 Comment

 
Picture
1 Comment
Edwin P McCravy
11/7/2021 02:54:20 pm

I am an ignostic because I know of no way to get my brain to conjure up any mental concept of "creator of the universe". That's the only purported definition I have ever heard any theist give for "God".

Theists do not believe in any god. They think they do, and say they do, and act as though they do. But they don't. They only believe that they believe in a god.

I just purchased a copy of your book "Ignosticism - a philosophical justification for atheism" from Amazon. It just came today. I have only read about a third of it. Why do you say, as does Theodore Drange (p. 17), that "God" has many definitions? Webster only lists this one purported definition, and to my knowledge it's universal:

"(in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being."

That contradicts Ted Drange's claim that there are many definitions. Incidentally I have corresponded steadily with Ted Drange since 1995, but he is still an atheist) It's straight from Genesis 1:1. I have never known of any Christian, Jew, or Muslim who would not agree that this is the one true definition of "God". I agree that one theist may say to another "God does X, not Y" followed by the other replying, "That's wrong, God does Y, not X". But they're not giving different definitions for "God". They still both agree that the dictionary definition above is the true definition of "God". So why do you say "God" has multiple definitions?

All theists I know of say "God is the creator of the universe". That says what Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning, God created the universe".

We weren't born knowing how to use and interpret any words. I claim that we could only have learned to use and interpret words by listening to other humans speak them, or by reading where other humans have written them, and figuring out for ourselves what usage rules they seemed to be following. This is true of the verb "create". We learned the word "create" entirely from listening to other people using it. We heard people say things like this "Edison created the light bulb". But Edison was one part of the already existing universe, and the light bulb was another separate part of the already existing universe. Or we may have heard "That bird created that nest". That bird was one part of the already existing universe and the nest was another separate part of the already existing universe.

To reiterate, all cases of usage by other people which could have contributed to our learning to use and interpret the word "create" were all cases of usage of "X created Y" when it was exactly synonymous with "The part of the already existing universe labeled X created another separate part of the universe labeled Y".

So when we hear somebody say "God created the universe", we can only attempted to interpret it as:

"The part of the already existing universe labeled "God" created another separate part of the already existing universe labeled "the universe",

which is nothing but gobbledygook. But that has never occurred to most people. But we ignostics (aka theological nocognitivists or ignostics, there's no difference. as you either believe 'creator of the universe" makes sense to you or not. Theists, agnostics, and atheists all believe it does, but the only reason they do is because they were indoctrinated that way in their early youth, and it has not occurred to them that it really makes no sense.

"God" is a sound which triggers emotions in theists due to their indoctrination in childhood. The emotions they feel makes them believe that some force is causing them to feel it. It never occurs to them that language is only a coding of human thoughts. Therefore if nobody can think of anything for a purported word or name (i.e., row of alphabet letters) to refer to, then that row of letters is not part of their vocabulary. "God" and "Allah" are such rows of letters. We should not label them "words" or "names" anymore than we would label "Twinkerschwetzle" as "a word" or "a name".

You say on p. 20 "That isn't to say that most definitions of God don't make sense. To the contrary, they make perfect sense to the person who believes in that particular conceptualization of God."

May I ask "What conceptualization?" Why assert that it makes any sense to them? All you can justify saying is that they CLAIM or THINK it makes sense to them.

Thank you for listening. Now I will go read the rest of your book.

Edwin McCravy, Columbia SC

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Tristan Vick

    By day I am an educator and a cultural ambassador. By night I entertain notions of being a literary master. In reality I am just a family man and ordinary guy who works hard and loves writing just about as much as I love my family. Just about.


    AVAILABLE NOW

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Picture

    NEWSLETTER
    SUBSCRIBE


    Categories

    All

    Archives

    September 2021
    August 2021
    March 2021
    November 2020
    September 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013

    RSS Feed

    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.