on sofa cushions

An exchange on sofa cushions at the atheists meetup message board:

JD: Anne, what would you say about the position taken by the fictional character of 'Nicky' in this fictional dialogue?

Nicky: I think you should know that I'm sitting on God.
Jerry: What do you mean?
Nicky: This sofa cushion. It's God.
Jerry: But God isn't a sofa cushion!
Nicky: I'm telling you that this sofa cushion is God.
Jerry: You're not telling me that that sofa cushion created the Universe!
Nicky: No, of course not.
Jerry: But you just said that that sofa cushion is God!
Nicky: That's right. It is.
Jerry: But God created the Universe!
Nicky: Don't be silly. How could a sofa cushion create the Universe?
Jerry: You're not making any sense!

full post

anne: I would say that he (or she) has his (or her) buttocks positioned on a sofa cushion.

If I were in Jerry's place I would simply accept that the sofa cushion is God and leave it at that.

Where Nicky says "Don't be silly. How could a sofa cushion create the Universe?" I think he (or she) is the one being silly for surely a sofa cushion can indeed create the Universe. That being said, Nicky is entitled to his (or her) opinion on the matter and again, if I were in Jerry's place I would leave it at that.

from this page

Ansgar: The interesting question is, why so much value is attached to the word "God". Anne said in another thread, that the "word god is god". If you look at the link that Anne provided to process theism, it is mentions explicitly that it disagrees in almost every aspects with how theists view god.But for some reason they are able let go of the every aspect that defines the word "god", but not of the word "god", itself. That is to say the least interesting.

anne:

Some scientists when canvassing these issues of philosophical theology may prefer to call themselves 'agnostics' rather than 'atheists' because they have been over impressed by a generalised philosophical scepticism or by a too simple understanding of Popper's dictum that we can never verify a theory but only refute it. Such a view would preclude us from saying quite reasonably that we know that the Sun consists largely of hydrogen and helium. When we say 'I know' we are saying something defeasible. If later we discover that though what we said was at the time justified, it nevertheless turned out to be false, we would say 'I thought I knew but I now see that I didn't know'. Never or hardly ever to say 'I know' would be to deprive these words of their usefulness, just as the fact that some promises have to be broken does not deprive the institution of promising of its legitimacy.

source: Atheism and Agnosticism @ Stanford

The one thing binding atheists to theists is the word "God". Neither group can get enough of this word.

I love God. I am God. I know God. I love the word "God" like Romeo loves the word "Juliet".

But as Rumi put it:

Believer, unbeliever, cynic, lover,
all combine in the spirit-form we are,

but no one yet is awake like Shams.

So it's also true that ...

I hate God. I reject God. I place my buttocks firmly onto God. I insist that I and God are separate and apart. And while I, my buttocks and my sofa cushion all quite clearly exist, poor God is not so blessed. Though given that life is such shit, perhaps God is the fortunate one after all.

---

the bit of us that made God

The tragedy of modern atheism is to have ignored just how many aspects of religion continue to be interesting even when the central tenets of the great faiths are discovered to be entirely implausible. Indeed, it’s precisely when we stop believing in the idea that gods made religions that things become interesting, for it is then that we can focus on the human imagination which dreamt these creeds up. We can recognise that the needs which led people to do so must still in some way be active, albeit dormant, in modern secular man. God may be dead, but the bit of us that made God continues to stir.

from Alain de Botton: A Religion For Atheists

liberté, égalité, fraternité

A posting at the Sydney Atheists message board:

Hi Ansgar

Thanks for your thoughts on that article. I posted it in resources as the original article seemed a good summing up and I also thought German-speaking people might enjoy the original in German.

A couple of days ago and out of curiosity, I attended a church service at the Anglican cathedral. I was brought up Roman Catholic and had never attended Protestant church services, so I'm curious to see how it is there. I was appalled. It was like nothing had changed since I was 16 and walked out of my own church. The people there seemed to me to be alien, as if coming from another planet.

When I read accounts of, for example, an atheist's encounter with a Jehovah's Witness person, I get a similar impression. It's like talking to an alien.

My apologies for giving a wrong impression of the article but Habermas gives quite a bit of space to what needs to be done from the religious side. He points out the liberal developments in the Christian churches and expects that, in time, something similar will happen for Islam. Patience is needed for coercion would likely slow things down rather than speed things up.

He seems to me to be a European secularist writing to other European secularists, so it makes sense that his main message urges a change in consciousness on their part.

I fully agree with his conclusion as an ideal - and it matters not what label is attached to that ideal. I just can't see it in myself and nor, in your own post, can I see it in you. Talk of deity makes sense for you when translated into secular language. This is a kind of reductionism, closely akin to material reductionism: oh, the soul and consciousness make perfect sense once you see them as ("mere") epiphenomena of brain functioning. How often do you hesitate and wonder how secular language makes sense in or can be likewise translated into metaphysical language?

It sounds to me like a German speaker talking to an English speaker and showing off how well he can translate the English into German (while the English speaker is slyly doing the same in reverse, of course). The German is confident that one day only German will be needed as the English will become obsolete (this because German is clear and precise while English is thoroughly bastardized). Likewise, the Englishman expects the German language to die out (this because it is now a minority language soon to be taken over, in any case, by Turkish or Arabic).

Seriously, Ansgar, do you see any real future for the religious mindset and its language? Do you have any real sense of égalité with theists?

Sure, you would uphold liberté by defending theists' rights to self-expression (except when lapsing into attempts at disrupting a Pope's visit). Sure, you would uphold fraternité by acknowledging that you feel hunger, thirst, lust, drowsiness, ambition, self-loathing, wonder, hope, despair, etc, etc, just like any other human being, religious or otherwise. But honestly, can you make a claim for égalité? Can any of us make such a claim?

Doesn't the future lie with those who will know how to survive the next holocaust (planetoid impact, flood, plague, earthquake, war, cold war, whatever) while the past will become the dustbin for the dinosaurs who cannot? Don't we, each and every one of us, believe we are privileged to belong to the future?

source

nothing

[Islam] makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or "surrender" as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing—absolutely nothing—in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.

from Christopher Hitchens: Was Muhammad Epileptic?

source