From: Paul Turner (paul@turnerbc.co.uk)
Date: Tue Aug 16 2005 - 09:45:41 BST
Sam,
>What I'm denying is the _existence_ of God, because a) God is not an
>entity,
>so b) God doesn't "exist" in any way in which we can give the words much
>sense. God is not a member of a class, so he's not a member of the class of
>existing things.
Paul: Then you have to also state that God does not not-exist, otherwise it
belongs to a class of non-existent things.
>The trouble comes with people who think they know what the word God means,
>when they don't. (And the division between religious and non-religious is
>irrelevant, the misconceptions abound everywhere).
Paul: I find this an odd statement coming from a Wittgensteinian. How can
"people think they know what God means, when they don't"? Surely most
people know how they use the term, usually in the same way that their
religious community does, as led by their local church. So, following
Wittgenstein, doesn't their collective usage of the term define it so that
they definitely *do* know what it means? Or is it that many clergymen
literally do not know what they are talking about?
So what I think you are really saying is that "the trouble comes with people
using the word 'God' differently to the way I and others use it." Of course
there is nothing wrong with this statement but it is, in your own words, a
more philosophically honest position.
Regards
Paul
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