{"id":1744,"date":"2010-09-15T08:07:54","date_gmt":"2010-09-15T13:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=1744"},"modified":"2010-09-15T08:07:54","modified_gmt":"2010-09-15T13:07:54","slug":"vaguer-than-vague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=1744","title":{"rendered":"Vaguer Than Vague"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I recently had a conversation with a Christian whose concept of God is so vague that he couldn\u2019t define it. Now, I often talk about how Christianity has two main God concepts, the first being the character of God as portrayed in the Bible and the second being some sort of vague higher power concept. This third concept however, is vaguer than vague.<\/p>\n<p>When I talked about the Vague Higher Power concept of God, I usually use terms such as all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving. These are admittedly vague concepts hence my phrase \u201cVague Higher Power Entity.\u201d Nonetheless, my Christian friend saw this as too restricting of a definition.<\/p>\n<p>So how can one argue against a concept so vague that we can\u2019t even quantify it at all with words? I asked him to define what he means by God and he couldn\u2019t even answer. He asserts a proposition which has no substance at all by his own admission.<\/p>\n<p>I fear that this might become the new tactic of Christian <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Christian apologetics\" rel=\"wikipedia\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Christian_apologetics\">apologetics<\/a>. It views even Anselm\u2019s God as too restrictive because the greatest conceivable being would be one which could not even be conceived by flawed humans. So if we can\u2019t even conceive of a deity how can anyone argue against a being which cannot even be thought of or described in any way?<\/p>\n<p>Of course this is nonsense and we need to insist that if a Christian is going to introduce a proposition that some super vague being exists that they at least need to define that proposition. Otherwise there is nothing to discuss. We should also call them out when they make the leap from a vague or super vague higher power concept to the more particular character of God has he is portrayed in the Bible. That\u2019s bullshit and it is even intellectually dishonest.<br \/>\n<!-- AddThis Button BEGIN --><br \/>\n<a onclick=\"return addthis_sendto()\" onmouseover=\"return addthis_open(this, '', '[URL]', '[TITLE]')\" onmouseout=\"addthis_close()\" href=\"http:\/\/www.addthis.com\/bookmark.php?v=250&amp;pub=dangeroustalk\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: 0;\" src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/static\/btn\/lg-share-en.gif\" alt=\"Bookmark and Share\" width=\"125\" height=\"16\" \/><\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/s7.addthis.com\/js\/250\/addthis_widget.js?pub=dangeroustalk\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><br \/>\n <!-- AddThis Button END --><\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Related articles by Zemanta<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=1737\">No Holy Books Were Burned During This Celebration<\/a> (dangeroustalk.net)<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li\"><a href=\"http:\/\/zackfordblogs.com\/2010\/09\/the-problem-with-christianity\/\">The Problem With &#8220;Christianity&#8221;<\/a> (zackfordblogs.com)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: medium none; float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=34e05a4f-1c61-4ca3-8137-f71e8888bf44\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><span class=\"zem-script more-related pretty-attribution\"><script src=\"http:\/\/static.zemanta.com\/readside\/loader.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=1744\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently had a conversation with a Christian whose concept of God is so vague that he couldn\u2019t define it. Now, I often talk about how Christianity has two main God concepts, the first being the character of God as portrayed in the Bible and the second being some sort of vague higher power concept. [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[589,12,634,892],"tags":[278,43,1354,11,1336,2216,1355,1264,2301],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1745,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744\/revisions\/1745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}