On Truth, On God, and On Faith (religious (obviously)) (Atheist material for believers instead of other atheists/ attempted use of a spoonful of sugar)

Bound_up

I am not talking about coddling anyone. I am talking about caring about the truth rather than about what words people use.

It is usually a mistake to "just admit when they're wrong," because even people who are wrong usually saw some truth as well, so if they abandon everything, they will be abandoning the true part of what they believed together with the false part.

It is not a "dishonest comfort" to use the word "God" for something different from what other people use it for, as long as you know what you are using it for.

My basic objection to your proposal is this: it comes across as "Abandon your tribe and come over to mine! Your tribe is bad and mine is good!" I object to that proposal because there are not "good" and "bad" tribes. Tribes are just people, made up of a mixture of good and bad, in every case.

And the fact that you are so interested in people not using the word "God," even to refer to something that exists, suggests that it not only comes across in that way, but it is in fact what you are doing. If you simply cared about the truth, you would not care what words people used to express it, as long as they believed the truth.

entirelyuseless10y00

Bound_up10y00

Have you read "A Human's Guide to Words" from the sequences? I recommend it highly, and I think it clears up our disagreement.

If we were computers, or perfect philosophers, you would be completely correct. As it stands, you're still mostly correct. Unfortunately, humans have certain defects which require us to take certain precautions, including caring about connotations as well as denotations, as also history of usage and so on.