Part Two:
"There are some theists who are so eager to make atheism out like another religion, though I really don’t know why. As Bill Maher has said, calling atheism a religion is like calling abstinence a sex position. The two aren’t even in the same ballpark."
I could recount the arguments of the atheist philosopher John Grey to dismantle that argument.
"In any case, the term “atheist fundamentalist”, redundant though it may be, arguably seems more suited ..."
Oh, good grief, make your mind up!
Though if I may return to the topic at hand,"
Please do.
"defining God will be no easy task."
Fear not, all the heavy lifting's been done for you.
"One that might not even be performed in a single conversation."
Oh, it can be.
"Part of the reason is that the attributes often ascribed to “God”, such as omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and omniscience, are metaphysical concepts that are hard to fully understand."
For you, perhaps. You can't make that claim for everybody.
"From our experience, we only know limited benevolence, what does omnibenevolence mean?"
Simple. If one is limited benevolence, the other is unlimited. What does that mean? That involves 'thinking'. We can extrapolate a meaning, in the same way we can talk about 'infinite numbers' or 'infinite universe'. Or 'undying love'.
"We may even disagree on what benevolence is, and how a conceptual God may express it."
We may, but that does not render the dialogue meaningless. It's through the dialogue we arrive at an understanding, an insight, perhaps even an advancement of knowledge. Ignosticism just stops the conversation dead.
"For example, it is usually said that God is “goodness”. Well, defining just what it means to be “good” is an issue philosophers have wrestled with since the beginning of human thought."
So is the idea of 'goodness' an incoherent proposition? You've got no concept of it?
"So it’s little wonder that people can have radically different ideas of God based on their ideas of “goodness”.
Politicians will have radically different ideas about what is 'good' for the population – does that render these ideas incoherent?
Radical difference is not the issue – what is important is the ignostic position would silence the debate. There can be no consensus, just ignorance.
Imagine that two Catholic priests ...
Er, not the Catholic position. Not even a Christian position. Luke 13:1-5.
"It’ll be impossible to get everyone to agree on the same conception of God."
But it is possible to get everyone, theists, agnostics and atheists, to agree the same definition, to be in the same ballpark – they might assent to it, abstain from it, or reject it, but that 'it' can be common to them all.
"The matter is just so personal. You’ll find yourself confronted with various versions of God, and you may hold varying degrees of agnosticism on them. You may be a weak agnostic over Krishna and an agnostic atheist over the Abrahamic God. This is the ignostic method."
This is the point where this method becomes irrational. It simply asks for a more precise definition, and every time it is met, it repeats the question, ad infinitum. It can be applied to almost anything. What is consciousness? What is love? What is 'red' when there are so many different terms for the colour?
All of this being said ... In the long run, however, I think that a person’s view on ethics and morality is far more important than whether or not they believe in God"
But ... and it's a big but ... apply your rule of ignosticism, and a discussion of ethics or morality becomes cognitively meaningless.
