Belief in Deity vs Belief in Fictional Four

So, you're arguing against all "theistic deities", not just the Fictional Four.

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-- Joseph Goebbels
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quote:

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I guess what I am saying is that the Universe itself is an idea.

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Really?Please explain.(I thought the universe consisted of matter, myself)

No.I detect the ghost here of a bad argument by C S Lewis, can anyone remember where the original is?

Huh? Why? Huh?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

There's nothing inherently illogical about it as a premise, no.
Nothing logically compels it as a conclusion, though, either. Well, there's Universe the Idea, and there's Universe the Reality.Universe the Reality is the most interesting of the two.
Universe the Idea is the only one we can ever really know.No Universe that exists as an idea is a real Universe.

AO,I do appreciate your occasional koan. I think they go largely missed in the western world.Sometimes they make me think, and sometimes they make me laugh.That's fine since I need to do more of both.I rarely see them answered and just wanted you to know someone was paying attention.

Thank you, petro, for your kindness. The appreciation is mutual.I'm sure you are familiar already with this one by Jack Kerouac:

If you have ice cream I will give you some.
If you have no ice cream I will take it away from you.

Known worldwide, of course, as The Ice Cream Kan...

Phat I will dispute Archer Opterix here since I would like to take the time to ask what logically constitutes existence when matter is not present?

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"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."Albert Einstein

Beingness/awarenessWhen matter is present.........Who perceives it?When matter is not present.....Who perceives it?If you can perceive the non existence of all matter, then your existence does not depend upon matter.You seem to be telling me in your post that without matter you do not exist or can not conceive of an existence.I see many reasons why someone would say this, I do not agree with it, but you must evaluate the world/universe by what you perceive and not by what I or anyone else tells you.Go and look, I'm interested in what you find.

I found this premise logically possible but not logically necessary. An immaterial existence.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I would say the fundamental difference between belief in a deity and belief in the Fictional Four is current social acceptance.It is currently socially acceptable for an adult to believe in a deity.It is currently not socially acceptable for an adult to believe in any of the Fictional Four.Other than this, I don't see any major differences. There are, of course, differences in each specific background story. But the core belief, that something exists in which we have no physical reason to believe, is the same in all 5 descriptions. The only difference is the degree that you're made fun of or accepted by others when professing the belief.

Hey. Zeus rocks.

The Fictional Four are, by their denition, ctional”i.e., not real. A deity, on the other hand, can be real without violation of the nature of its selfness.Let me put this another way. The concept of a deity is demonstrable”whether it has been demonstrated or not”inasmuch as we can make a statement: 'yes-deity'. Whereas the statement 'yes-ctionalFour' can be made and conceived, but cannot be based on demonstrable reality because the existence of something which is by its denition non-existent cannot be shown (within reality). If we pull this all outward, then we see precisely how it works:1 Restrict our understanding/rationale to objective reality.
2 Understand that ctional is implicative of non-existent, or 'no-existence'.
3 Realise that 'no-existence' is the opposite of 'yes-existence'.
4 So that when asked of something 'Is X?', the answer would be 'yes' for 'yes-existence' and 'no' for somethings of 'no-existence'.
5 'No-existence' is equivalent, therefore, to 'no'.
6 Conclude that the statement 'ctionalFour' is synonymous with 'no-Four'.
7 Realise that 'no-Four' is not a divisible, but instead accounts for the whole of the item”as is made evident by the capitalisation of the adjective”, and we can put it in () ’ (no-Four).
THEREFORE:
i We can form the following simplied statements: 'yes-demonstrable yes-deity' (in which it is true that the existence of the deity can be demonstrated because this simplies to ++=+); 'yes-demonstrable yes-(no-Four)' (in which it is true that when demonstrated the result is always non-existence because this simplies to ++-=-).
ii Deity Can, and (no-Four) Cannot.So, the true difference between them is thus: One Can, and the other Cannot. Whether they actually Are or Are not is not of much relevance at this point.Yeeha! Jon

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In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist... might come to the conclusion that each species had not been independently created, but had descended, like varieties, from other species. - Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species
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En el mundo hay multitud de idiomas, y cada uno tiene su propio significado. - I Corintios 14:10
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A devout people with its back to the wall can be pushed deeper and deeper into hardening religious nativism, in the end even preferring national suicide to religious compromise. - Colin Wells Sailing from Byzantium

petrophysics These are dependent upon matter for their existence so they cannot also exist when matter is not present. DO we percieve matter or do our minds merely construct a model sufficient for us to interact with that which we call matter? How can we answer if we first do not understand what constitutes matter? And then to further assume a perceiver is unnecessary having not even determined what constitutes a perception. I cannot perceive non existence I have difficulty enough making sense of the matter we perceive to begin with. Can you perceive the non-existence of matter? If so please explain as I am dull and not very bright. It is my understanding that ,yes, without matter{whatever that actually turns out to be} we do not exist. That is ,of course the point of discussion with others.That we might look at things in different ways and see if new arguements hold greater clarity or merely a skewed view of what we have already previously pondered.

Archer Opterix What does it mean to have an immaterial existence? Is that not like saying we can have a nothing-something?Edited by sidelined, : No reason given.