I believe the idea of an omnipotent God to be problematic. — Michael McMahon

I believe the word 'omnipotent' to be too problematic already. Since if someone or something is claimed to be omnipotent, people tend to counter the claim with examples like "So he/she/it can do something that cannot be done" or a similar contradictio in terminis. though obviously the religious traditions never intended this to be the case when using the word. Mostly they mean with omnimpotent more potent than what a single human being could do on his own.

But that's all the more reason to specify your meaning in the current context, and not to just leave the meaning open to all interpretations. — Gnomon

You mean like when I happen to use the word 'literally' I also have to explain that the way I use the word is not intended as 'figuratively' since the dictionary added the opposite meaning of the old word to it's definition?
Apparently I have to, but I really hate that I have to do it as it takes a lot of time. I used to be able to use the single word 'literally' to refer to what I mean, now I have to add a whole sentence to exclude the opposite meaning of the word.
That is not progress, that is regression. And why? because too many people started to use it as a form of emphasis rather than learning the meaning of the word and using it as such. Just like how the abbreviation of desoxyribonucleinicacid got into the hands of those making commercials who now use it to mean something like the word 'characteristic' while it obviously doesn't have anything to do with the chemical compound it actually refers to since they even go as far as to claim that a certain model of cars "clearly have the DNA of Spyker", unless they chopped op Spyker and put a piece of him in every car produced in that line, it's obviously not a proper usage of the word. But alas we in the west exchanged our visiting church once a week to watching commercials throughout the day every day of the week.

So I partly agree with you. I agree one should be clear on ones intend, and if asked for elaboration it should be provided, but I cannot account for all possible other interpretations of my words that are based on peoples ignorance on how the dictionary of the language they claim to use defines the word. They can ask me for clarification or look it up in the dictionary, or both.
What if among the many people who read my comments there is someone who hasn't learned to count properly and when I mention the number 3 I have to mention that I don't mean any of the other natural numbers, and since the person doesn't know what natural numbers are, I have to list all of them? That would mean I would never get to the end of my sentence.

21st century polarized politics has taken Relativity to an extreme, undermining the ground under most of our traditional definitions — Gnomon

When definitions change at a certain point in time, there will by definition be multiple definitions in use as some people have picked up the new definition and others haven't (yet), hence I'd consider it to be even more important to provide the definition intended in such times. As long as there are multiple definitions possible, providing the intended definition strikes me as the only way to prevent mistaking what was intended by applying another definition when reading/listening than the writer/speaker intended in his/her statement.

What is worthy is contemplating why a creator god would intentionally create abominations of nature. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

What abominations of nature?

It is demonstrable that nature inadvertently creates for the best possible end to all life. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Then by all means, do demonstrate so.

It is demonstrable, biblically, to see that that good standard is not what the genocidal Yahweh uses. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Then by all means, do demonstrate so.

If your god is the Yahweh/Roman Jesus combo, you can do better. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Really, according to what standard of good? and what do you suggest to constitute as better?

I'm happy to be called out where an error exists and will correct/clarify as necessary — Kenosha Kid

You certainly didn't sound all that happy about it when I pointed it out, don't you think "maybe a little bit pedantic?" gives a rather different impression than 'I'm happy you called out my mistake'.

We act on what we think we know. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

What we think we know is not knowledge, it is called belief. Human beings need beliefs in order to act.

You may be right. I've spoken someone rejecting any form of rationality claiming that only strictly empirical science is valid. As if any of the empirical sciences could exist without the rational approach of logic as in math.

what do you think of the idea of the ability to view a thread sorted by "best posts" independent of any sort of rating system that does anything toward the poster. — Outlander

How do you suppose to determine what is 'best' without any sort of rating system?
As soon as some system proclaims one comment better than the other, it has it effects on its posters.

So, what did you mean by "philosophy" — Gnomon

Any serious attempt to answer the existential questions.

If your god is the Yahweh/Roman Jesus combo, you can do better. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

So you are here to preach rather than to philosophize?

What is worthy is contemplating why a creator god would intentionally create abominations of nature. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

What abominations of nature?

Maybe I am a bit thick, or maybe you were just so eager to emphasize your point that you started to exaggerate to the degree you were diminishing the validity of the point you were trying to make. Probably both.

SO the only possible conclusion is that one does not need the meaning of a word in order to be able to use it correctly. — Banno

Indeed, one could simply quote someone else without knowing anything about what is quoted means. Children tend to do so quite a lot. Education tends to start with reproduction before it can get to understanding. Human beings start with attempting to reproduce the language of their parents way before they actually understand what the words used in the language mean.

If you think some god gives life, then explain why he produced the poor souls you see in this link. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

If you have an argument or statement yourself, bring it forward. I'm not going to watch links you post on the odd chance there is something useful in it if you can't even point out or summarize what's worthy of looking at in the link you mention.

I E. If we think the road is icy, be it or not, we will likely slow down. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

You didn't ask whether knowledge of good and evil was good or evil in this particular situation, you asked it in general. All of a sudden narrowing it down to a specific situation as if the question in general no longer applies strikes me as attempting to argue a changing the goalpost fallacy.

Or merely Dutch bluntness combined with a low tolerance for vagueness or sloppiness.

I do not avoid it. All a religion is, is a tribe or group. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Well in that case, a bunch of kids gathered in a group to play with marbles also constitute as a religion, as they are a group.

I didn't ask for a youtube video about someone elses ideas, I asked for your definition.

I take it you meant 'also' rather than 'simply'.

Deities is defined without the need for atheism. — Kenosha Kid

Not if you insert words like 'simply' pretending that that's all there is to it.

Atheism is simply a lack of belief in deities. It isn't a question of being too strict with definitions of those deities: that is what the word means if it is to mean anything — Kenosha Kid

You may not have meant it this way, but it seems to me that this is what it effectively states.

That (atheism, defined as simply a lack of beliefs in deities) is what the word (atheism) means if it is to mean anything. Hence the word 'deities' also only means something as defined by 'that what atheists don't believe in". As by your choice of defining the word 'atheist' you also defined the word 'deities' to mean just 'that what is not believed by atheists". If there are additional meanings of the word, you should at least have left out the word 'simply', as obviously then it isn't as simple as you are proposing.

Actually it is, that's why they use the equals sign. It's the entire essence of calculus — Pantagruel

I'd disagree since I can express the outcome of the limit of 1 divided by x with x approaching zero, but I cannot simply divide by zero. Further more depending whether I approach zero with x from infinity or from minus infinity provides two vastly different outcomes. Saying that the limit of something equals the equal sign is effectively saying that minus infinity = infinity in the provided example. Hence in mathematics we say that 1 divided by zero is unsolvable rather than saying that it's both infinity and minus infinity.

Atheism is simply a lack of belief in deities. It isn't a question of being too strict with definitions of those deities: that is what the word means if it is to mean anything — Kenosha Kid

You mean to say that deities are defined as those things atheists don't believe in?
How odd, usually human beings tend to define concepts by the way in how they are believed rather than how they are disbelieved. If we go on that kind of logic a pear is an orange as neither is believed to be an apple.

Think of ideology as a fruit and you are there. Push your analogy just a touch further and look at the forest of fruit trees instead of just the one fruit tree. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Don't red herring me. We have a severe problem of recognition, I wasn't providing an analogy, I was providing a concrete example of how ridiculous your previous assertion turns out when applying the same logic on a more concrete example. But apparently you didn't get it so I'll try explain the problem some other way.

If we choose define something by having a certain set of properties, and we recognize that something as such by it's full set of properties, you cannot sensibly conclude that we are dealing with that something if it only has one of the properties rather than the entire set. Yet this is what you reasoned by stating:

Since following an ideology is a prerequisite of religion, atheism can be considered a religion — Gnostic Christian Bishop

So either you meant instead "Since following an ideology is the only prerequisite of religion, atheism can be considered a religion" or you left out crucial information pointing out that atheism also fulfils the other criteria to constitute as a religion.

So the real question you seem to be avoiding is: What do you consider to be the full list of prerequisites of religion?

God is well defined, to the Christians who wrote the U.S. judicial documents. I will not second guess them. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

That's a rather narrower definition than I had in mind. First of all it's narrowing down the word 'god' to only mean the Christian god, and then further narrowing it down by how it's applied by a legal institution within a single nation. As someone not living in the US I'm not even familiar with what you are referring to.

Only if I have what it takes to defend my right to life. That or an enforcement mechanism that I can call to my rescue.

I do not see rights as being something given. They are something that we can only accept or take. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

So your life was not given to you by God?
How can you even accept something that wasn't given to you to begin with? You seem to apply a vastly different definition of the word 'accept' as well.

Since following an ideology is a prerequisite of religion, atheism can be considered a religion — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Not if there are other prerequisites for religion atheism does not fulfill.
Concrete example perhaps:
Having apples is a prerequisite for being an apple tree, a fruit scale may have apples, but if it does that doesn't mean that thus a fruit scale is an apple tree.

Atheists tend not to be loose enough with their definitions. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I'm not sure that is what causes it. I see some other probable causations. Though generally several atheists arguments seem to apply the following kind of logic: "some people claiming to be mathematicians told me pi is 5, I tried it with a circle and it doesn't make sense, this proves pi does not exist, so we should get rid of all math."

Not saying that in general non atheist logic is any better though.

The naturals aren't densely ordered like the rationals and the reals. — jorndoe

Depends on how one looks at it, the collection of any of those three are all infinite. I don't see a difference in the applied logic, no matter how densely ordered the collection of number is, the logic applied remains the same.

Indeed, if that argument was taken to be valid in mathematics, I could also argue that since there is no natural number between 9 and 10 to be found, that means that 9=10.

Besides a notation like 1.000 isn't a mathematical notation if it doesn't differ from 1. If there is no difference the preferred and obliged notation is 1 not 1.000.

1.000 is a valid notation in applied sciences like physics and chemistry as in applied sciences there is something like numbers of significance. 1.000 in physics or chemistry refers to any number in the collection [0.9995,1,0005>, while in mathematics 1.000 just means 1.

I think the main issue is whether someone is familiar with the notation conventions within mathematics.

Do you have any real god given rights — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Without a definition on what you mean by god, this question is impossible to answer. Since you take the word 'right' out of the juridical context, you would also need to define what you mean by it as well. All we can know is that we exist (Descartes 'cogito ergo sum'), does that mean we have the right to exist?

There is no larger box. — Bitter Crank

The fact we can't perceive a larger box doesn't mean there isn't one. It just means that even if there would be one, we can't say anything sensibly about it.

Is the knowledge of good and evil, good or evil? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

knowledge is power, power can be wielded for good and for evil. So it's neither and it's both, not necessarily one or the other. Good and evil are not determined by what we know or think we know, but instead by how we choose to act.

Time is one of the four dimensions of spacetime.

Another way to look at it is to conclude that atheists aren't godless, they merely refuse to call what they worship 'god'.

Are you asking if others agree with this mathematical tautology?

There's obvious there's more to us than a bunch of atoms — Eugen

Obvious to you perhaps. Why assume this must be obvious to everyone else as well?

It's obviously both. What do you think the science degree phd stands for? hence when it comes to the branch of philosophy we address as science, it's highly institutionalized. Yet there are various other branches of philosophy that are not institutionalized.

Everyone seriously attempting to answer existential questions is moving within the realm of philosophy.

If I have 3 marbles in 3d space connected by sticks so they form a triangle, I can move 1 marble, while the other two remain stationary (they merely rotate but do not move in the 3d coordinates), I can move 1 marble so one of the others has to move as well, but the 3th remains stationary, and I can move one so the other two have to move as well.

Your question presupposes only the latter of the 3 possibilities is a real possibility.

too late here, I'm brabbling nonsense. Need sleep first.

Robber implies American, means if robber then American, thus all robbers are American though not nessesarily all americans are robbers.
quoted from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mathematical_symbols
A ⇒ B means if A is true then B is also true; if A is false then nothing is said about B.
(→ may mean the same as ⇒, or it may have the meaning for functions given below.)
(⊃ may mean the same as ⇒,[12] or it may have the meaning for superset given below.)

hence if you state R => A you are excluding the possibility of a Robber to be not American. Perhaps you didn't intend it to mean this, but that is the mathematical convention. As you noted Rx ⊃ Ax, that means that if for person x R is true, then for that person x A is true as well. Excluding the possibility that if for person x R is true A is not true.

Not to be confused with the subset usage of the symbol ⊃ :
A ⊇ B means every element of B is also an element of A.
A ⊃ B means A ⊇ B but A ≠ B.