Atheism 10 - Words, Words, Words

Now that I've figured out how to open up comments, most of what folks have asked me about centers on my post of August 21, "Does God Exist?"  Obviously, I need to do a bit of fleshing out here.

In my post, I do not approach the question as a theological one, nor even a scientific one, but rather a grammatical one.  In a freshman creative writing class lecture, the professor reminded us students that words have two meanings; the definition and the connotation.  The definition is the meaning assigned the word by a dictionary, the connotation is what we think the word means, or, more often, how we feel about the word.  In this lecture, the professor stated that authors are responsible to know a word's definition, but not necessarily responsible for knowing or even guessing at any given reader's connotation for that word.

By way of example, let us consider the word "chauvinism."  The word is derived from Nicholas Chauvin, a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, and means to have an absurdly inflated pride in one's nation and a corresponding disdain for other nations.  However, since the word was used by Billie Jean King to describe Bobby Riggs as a "male chauvinist pig" in the early 1970's, it has been almost universally used to connote a synonym for "sexism."

As another example, many years ago my children were pestering me to open a Facebook account, a concept to which I was vehemently opposed.  One evening, I asked them, "I am neither a voyeur nor an exhibitionist.  What else would Facebook do for me?"  Understanding both the definitions of those words and Dad's propensity for preferring definitions over connotations, my son grinned and said, "That's about it. That's pretty much what Facebook is."  My daughter just stared at me in confusion, apparently unable to get beyond her sexual connotations for those two words. (By the way, in the intervening years, I have been required to have a Facebook account for my job.  It turns out my son was right.)

In the August 21 post, I assign the word "god" as broad and general a definition as I can, attempting to encompass all beliefs, including disbelief.  I invite the reader, then, to detach him/herself from any further connotations for the word, accepting this broad definition as the only meaning acceptable to the discussion.  (As a reminder, the definition in question is "that which created and is actively re-creating the universe and all that is within it.")  My thesis is that we accept this definition - and only this definition - as the meaning of the word "god" and sufficient to prove the existence of god.  Any further meaning - any connotation - attached to the word is distinguished as pertaining to god's nature rather than god's existence.

This is difficult for people to do.  We are enormously attached to words, and especially the connotations we apply to them.  Yet, this is precisely what the author invites the reader to do.  Perhaps you think of the creator of the universe as an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Supreme Being.  Perhaps you think of the creator of the universe as an infinitely large ball of compressed hydrogen that spontaneously combusted 13.8 billion years ago.  Perhaps, like my dear friend mentioned in my post, you think the creator of the universe was a cosmic bowl of Jell-O salad.  All of these explanations can still fit neatly into our definition of god, as they are various ways of expressing god's nature and are, within the confines of our definition, equally acceptable ways of expressing god's existence.

To put this another way round, no one has yet objected to my rather empirical statement that if we are to believe in the universe's existence then we must believe in the universe's creation.  Something must have started it.  The objections I've received involve my use of the word "god" to label the Something.  There is a slight affirmation to that objection, but only if we fail to understand the purpose of labels.  Labels describe a thing's nature, not its existence.  Many call me Jeff as a means by which to distinguish my unique nature from that of others.  Someone who doesn't know my nature, but still has need to single me out might not call me Jeff but instead call me "that man over there."  Yet this, too, says more about my nature than my existence; a way of distinguishing me as a man from an ox or a turnip.  In either case, the label says nothing about my existence.  As a point of fact, if I didn't exist, there would be no need for a label of any sort.  If using the label "god" for the Something that exists is offensive, then by all means select any of the other preceding labels that better suits your fancy.  I am still miles away from the point at which the label becomes important.  I choose it simply as a way to ease into subjects yet to come.

Perhaps a simpler explanation: no matter one's system of belief, if we are to look at our existence scientifically, we must, at some point, deal with the Uncaused Cause (not my term).  Science is essentially a study of cause and effect.  One makes an observation, labels it "an effect" and wonders as to its cause.  By way of example, 350 years ago, Isaac Newton noticed apples falling from trees (the effect).  Pondering the possible causes, he ultimately proved the existence of gravity.  Gravity then became the effect, and scientists began to question what caused that.  In 1907, Einstein showed that gravity was caused by the bending of time and space.  Relativity, in turn, became the effect, and scientists began to wonder what caused the existence of time and space.

However one goes about it, this study of a reverse timeline will ultimately lead to the questions "What was the first cause?  Where did this chain reaction of cause-and-effect begin?"  Even when we get all the way back to the Big Bang, the imagination doesn't stop.  Where did the hydrogen for the Big Bang come from?  What caused it to explode in the first place?  At some point we need a first cause, and for anything to even fit the definition, it must not be an effect of something prior.  It must remain an Uncaused Cause.  We can speculate on the nature of this Uncaused Cause ad nauseam, but in order to do so effectively we must give it a name.  In this treatise, we have simply chosen to name the Uncaused Cause "god," because that is the essential definition of the word.

Bottom line - if we can agree on the above definition of the word "god" while detaching ourselves of any further connotations for the word, then in a grammatical sense, god must exist because the universe exists.  As for those further connotations currently floating in your head, well, that's what all the subsequent posts are for.  😊

Pax