But despite the prevalence of the judeo-christian-islamo white haired god with a personality who demands worship and picks winners and losers,
Despite those 3.8 billion people? I think my definition applies to the vast majority of theists in the world.
There are many people who believe in god who are not primarily interested in being an adoring slave. You can argue with me that they are irrational or aren't understanding the implications of their professed faith, but the point of a good definition is not to enable one side or the other to score rhetorical points without doing heavy lifting, the point is to actually mean the same thing to broad swaths of people on various sides of the debate.
Keep in mind that the theists were busy lumping deists like Thomas Paine in with atheists. My definition is based on what I consider not just the common feature, but the distinguishing feature of theists. Deists don't really have it.
It is common in arguments that the one side excuses its own poor choices and irrationalities by citing the similar poor choices and irrationalities of the other side. I don't think this is the best we can do, as rationalists.
p.s. I don't know why people had to downvote you. Your thoughtful reply was appreciated by me.
Well thank you! Of course, for me, a net downvote of 1 (my current status) is doing pretty well, but I definitely appreciate a kind word.
Cheers, Mike
I recently stumbled upon an article from early 2003 in Physics World outlining a bit of evidence that some of the constants in nature may change over time. In this particular case, researchers studying quasars noticed that the fine-structure constant (α) might have fluctuated a bit billions of years ago, in both directions (bigger and smaller) with significance 4.1 sigma. What intrigues me about this is that I’ve previously pondered if something like this might be found, albeit for very different reasons.
Back in the 90s I read a book that made a case for the universe as a computer simulation. That particular book wasn’t all that compelling to me, but I’ve never been completely satisfied with arguments against that model and tend to think of the universe generally in those terms anyway. Can I still call myself an atheist if I allow the possibility of a creator in this context? A non-practicing atheist maybe?
If this universe is a computer-generated simulation, programmed by another life form, perhaps the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) should be expanded to include life forms beyond our universe. It sounds nonsensical, but is it?
If I was to design and code an environment sophisticated enough to allow a species of life to evolve in that environment, I am not convinced that I would have many tools at my disposal to truly be able to understand and evaluate that species very well. Sure, I may be able to see them generating patterns that indicate intelligent life within my simulation, but this life form evolved and exists in an environment completely alien to me. I might have only limited methods at my disposal through which to communicate with them. They would exist in a place that to me is not exactly real and vice-versa.
I’ve always imagined it would be more like evaluating patterns and data readouts or viewing cells through a microscope more than say something like, The Sims. Having designed and implemented the very laws of their universe though, the fundamental constants of the universe could act as a sort of communication channel – one that allows me to at the very least let them know I existed (assuming they were intelligent and were looking). I could modify those constants in such a way over time in much the same manner that we might try to communicate with the more local and familiar concept of alien.
I realize this is all just rambling, but because the alpha is so closely related to those parts of nature that allow for our own existence, it made me take notice, and wonder if this could be some sort of alpha mail. The thought of being able to communicate with an external intelligence is thought provoking enough for me that I decided to write this as my first post here. Who knows? If it ever was confirmed, perhaps we could turn out to be the paper clip maximizer, and we should start looking for our ticket out of here.
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/astro/research/PWAPR03webb.pdf