I'm not sure that there's any such thing as a "neutral" statement that someone's god doesn't exist. In any event, the kind of reaction I'm trying to unpack is not particularly dependent on the specific term "imaginary."
What does interest me is that the reply isn't, "Of course my gods are imaginary. Is that supposed to be news? So what?" It's interesting that the literal reality of this or that god matters so much. And my conjecture is that it matters because it is the basis for claiming authority of some sort, extending beyond the voluntary circle of co-believers
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That's a bit of a tautology, isn't it? If you believe in the literal reality of a god, you're a theist; if you're a theist obviously this belief is important or you wouldn't hold it.
At the semi-colon you appear to have switched from "all literal believers in God are theists" to "all theists are literal believers in God." Was that intentional?
It's not tautological because the condition of being in a category is not a cause of being in that category. If we ask why malnourished people are underfed, "because if they weren't underfed, they wouldn't be malnourished" is not a satisfactory answer. We want to know how they got into the category in the first place.
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What does interest me is that the reply isn't, "Of course my gods are imaginary. Is that supposed to be news? So what?" It's interesting that the literal reality of this or that god matters so much. And my conjecture is that it matters because it is the basis for claiming authority of some sort, extending beyond the voluntary circle of co-believers ( ... )
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At the semi-colon you appear to have switched from "all literal believers in God are theists" to "all theists are literal believers in God." Was that intentional?
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(The comment has been removed)
It's not tautological because the condition of being in a category is not a cause of being in that category. If we ask why malnourished people are underfed, "because if they weren't underfed, they wouldn't be malnourished" is not a satisfactory answer. We want to know how they got into the category in the first place.
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