It is preposterous if you demand from primitive ideas and expressions a modernly contrived meaning. The religious texts in Judaism and Christianity achieved the status they did in large part on the basis of their malleability. It may seem nonsensical to you and me, but people just simply did not apply the same interpretive conventions to the things that they read as we demand today. The reason for "scripture"'s success is very much due to how its meaning changed—and continues to change—over time.
There is no "meaning" in any of the sacred texts of the big three religions that offers anything but an anthropological and geo-science related data set.
It's a catalog to primitive cultures and provides a contextual basis for human development. "Why don't orthodox Jews have tattoos?" "Because Leviticus 19.28 prohibits it." Cause and effect.
As a precept for decision making, policy and personal adherence, the old testament is meaningless. The construct of ecclesiastical fluidity only serves to further prove my point. Were there specific, non contextual meaning in ancient religious scripts, they wouldn't be fluid.
If the message was more important than the medium, the message wouldn't change. Clearly, it is the medium that is the significant apparatus of organized religion.
Fair enough. But isn't Zeus beyond your comprehension and knowledge too? Shouldn't you at least be agnostic towards the existence of Zeus?
(Its always difficult to have these conversations without feeling like I'm attacking your beliefs. I don't mean to. Or if that is what I'm doing, I'm trying to be as respectful about it as possible. I'm genuinely curious.)
Clearly you have misinterpreted my beliefs but I am not sure why. Perhaps the post by Mike F that flashpoint responded to was misinterpreted by me causing my response to him to be misinterpreted! In any case, I would like to answer your question anyway.
Zeus is defined. God is defined in various ways. We can logically progress to non-belief as a result of those definitions. However, our knowledge of the universe is woefully incomplete and for anyone to suggest with 100% certainty that there is nothing responsible for the universe is arrogant and /or naive.
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Actually that's the aspect I was most interested in, to see how many gnostic theists there were.
Because I think there's a contradiction there... typically in a discussion about the existence of god one will ask for evidence, the other will hand wave about free will therefore god cannot prove his existence.. so that would mean that all theists should be agnostic theists.
That is all very well and good, but it simply isn't the case. Almost every theist that I know believes in God with near-to-absolute certainty in the absence of what you or I would consider valid evidence. Again, it is impossible to minimize the influence of religious experience in this discussion: People believe because of the tangible impact that they perceive God to have in their daily lives. In the classical expression of evangelical Christianity, members are encouraged to share their experiences in the place of evidence for the reality of God; to talk about the things that "God is doing in my life".
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Atheism is not organized to do many of the things you mention yet, but it's getting there.
I think there's a bit of extenuating circumstances as well considering that atheism is kind of "coming out of the closet"... When a group has been marginalized and ostracized and finally starts to stand up and say it's ok to not believe, some push back and/or advocacy should be expected, if for no other reason than to let other non-believers know that they aren't alone and don't have to fear admitting their non-belief.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lobotroth
What if I was to say that I am 100% certain the St. Louis Blues will win the Stanley Cup? It's a possible outcome because they're still in the playoffs but it would be absurd for me to say that I know with absolute certainty that they will win it all. No one would ever seriously state something like that yet we have people in this thread saying that without a doubt in their mind that a God or Gods exist. Can certainty be backed up by nothing more than a belief?
They back it up with what qualifies as knowledge to them. As Textcritic mentions, many of these live lives that are filled with personal encounters with their god and other supernatural entities or effects that fit their beliefs.
And we know from studying such things that trying to dissuade them by presenting opposing evidence to undermine what they see as their knowledge actually makes their belief stronger, not weaker.
But what qualifies as knowledge to an individual may not actually be knowledge, since we also know that cognitive biases like confirmation bias make it relatively easy to deceive the mind. And a person from religion A will give mountains of support for their belief based on personal experience (how could event A have happened without god?), but a person from religion B will give the exact same mountain of support for themselves, but the two religions are mutually exclusive.
So basically it comes down to a person's definition of knowledge I think. A gnostic theist may say they're 100% convinced because of a bunch of reasons and that constitutes knowledge, I'd argue that knowledge is what you can unambiguously demonstrate to others as being true, and no religion I've encountered yet can do that.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
What a horribly facile response. This completely ignores or fails to consider the highly complex phenomena of religious experience, and the social and psychological mechanisms that people instinctively employ to explain numinous encounters.
What?
I didn't say anything about this.
Quite frankly, the bible is pretty cut and dried on this topic. You'd have to be mad to be certain of your faith.
Questioning ones faith is billed as one of the tenants of strengthening it.
Being completely assured of your position that something exists without any tangible evidence to prove or disprove is the result of a mental deficiency.
It doesn't make the person a bad person, necessarily, but that's what it is.
If I told you I was certain that 2 + 1 = 5, you'd look at me like a goof ball.
If I told you I was pretty sure that 2 + 1 = 5, but sometimes I'm just not sure, you'd probably think I was dumb rather than nuts.
"Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christanity looked terribly probable."
C.S. Lewis
That is all very well and good, but it simply isn't the case. Almost every theist that I know believes in God with near-to-absolute certainty in the absence of what you or I would consider valid evidence. Again, it is impossible to minimize the influence of religious experience in this discussion: People believe because of the tangible impact that they perceive God to have in their daily lives. In the classical expression of evangelical Christianity, members are encouraged to share their experiences in the place of evidence for the reality of God; to talk about the things that "God is doing in my life".
Agree, and I expand a bit on that in my reply to Lobotroth.
I just meant I was curious as to what the # of gnostic theist votes would be, as I know both the kind of theist you describe (who would classify themselves as gnostic theist but I would classify as agnostic theist due to the nature of their knowledge), but I also know others from more liberal Christian backgrounds who embrace their agnostic theism and freely admit to it and still believe that tangible impact is there.
I was being a bit cheeky I guess, it's just a pet peeve of mine, but I realize that convincing someone who things their gnostic that they're actually agnostic would be about as likely as converting them to another religion or de-converting them entirely.
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I find most Atheists to be quite intelligent, this is generally because their Atheism is a result of intellectual curiosity. The desire to learn leads to questions about their faith, and when they find the inevitable holes in their religion, it often leads to atheism... in other situations like mine, it can lead to a completely different (and fringe/unacceptable) interpretation of the religion, rather than complete abandonment.
Those that chose Atheism due to their intellectual curiosity are great to be around, those that are doing it because it's the 'in' thing can get annoying.
Troutman's explanation basically means what I suspected him to mean: that he rejects the notion of a "personal" god. However, this post of your has brought to my attention another issue in this whole discussion: the precise definition of "god" is becoming more and more fluid to the point that it becomes unintelligible to speak of it/him in a fairly general context. I seriously doubt that there is a single person in the Western world who does believe in "'god' as comprehended in ancient cultures," and this is in the same sense that no one in the developed world comprehends the cosmos, climate, or the mind in even remotely similar terms as in the ancient world.
I think that this explanation renders the whole question practically meaningless, since among theists the idea of "god" has experienced substantial development.
Uggh can't find this article but there is evidence that while more people are leaving organized religion in the US, they are not necessarily going the way of agnostic/atheism, but more "spiritualism" where they define God and their faith how they see fit.
Think, more Deepak Chopra followers.
I honestly think if thats the alternative I hope more people go back to organized religion, my loathing of new agers and especially Chopra knows no bounds
Of all the hundreds (if not thousands) of religions that exist, a large percentage of them don't evangelize at all...
This is a great falsehood. Firstly the "vocal atheists" are still very very quiet in comparison to the numbers they hold worldwide. The recent decade of people speaking out is in reaction to religious pushing more into politics and especially 9/11 which for many was a wake up call to let people know we are fed up with this.
Atheism is now like the gay movement back in the 60s/70s in where in order to be no longer hated and distrusted as we currently are by speaking out and letting people know we are normal, decent folk, your neighbors, doctors, lawyers, etc..
There are places in the world where just being atheist can get you imprisoned, killed, shunned, even in the US you can lose your job, friends, and be run out of town if you come out as an atheist.
The "noise" coming from religious worldwide is an overwhelming one, in daily life, media and to suggest atheism is anything even remotely close to the power, influence of religion is utterly laughable.
Uggh can't find this article but there is evidence that while more people are leaving organized religion in the US, they are not necessarily going the way of agnostic/atheism, but more "spiritualism" where they define God and their faith how they see fit.
Think, more Deepak Chopra followers.
I honestly think if thats the alternative I hope more people go back to organized religion, my loathing of new agers and especially Chopra knows no bounds
Is it possible to be spiritual without following something or someone? Do we need confirmation from others in order to be satisfied with our own beliefs?
Zeus is defined. God is defined in various ways. We can logically progress to non-belief as a result of those definitions. However, our knowledge of the universe is woefully incomplete and for anyone to suggest with 100% certainty that there is nothing responsible for the universe is arrogant and /or naive.
Not sure what happened earlier. I blame my pea-sized brain for the entire misunderstandign. In any event, I understand what you're saying now and agree with you. What a boring end to a debate.
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Is it possible to be spiritual without following something or someone? Do we need confirmation from others in order to be satisfied with our own beliefs?
Certainly you can be spiritual, and I have no problem with that.
What I do have a problem with is new agers (dawn of aquarious, telepathic dolphin groups, healing crystals, etc..) and the worst of the bunch Deepak followers and people who believe in nonsense like "The Secret"
I call this group lazy spiritualists, they are not going through some deep spiritual journey (well they can be, but lets still mock them) and instead of dealing with tough questions about their faith they can just say "im spiritual" and stop there.
Thats what bugs me, Textcritic and others have deeply considered all this and you can talk to him and have intelligent discussions, most "spiritual" people I meet I find painful to talk to about this stuff, and thats why this video was made:
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If we were a different crowd, I'd suggest that some were religious gnostic atheists (Ex - Buddhist) (We could go a bit into semantics, but I think that by definition of god/no god, Buddism is atheist). I suspect something else though.
I don't think Buddhism is atheist, though I suppose traditionally the understanding of what a God is might be different than what others are thinking of, and lies closer to a polytheistic version of gods, as Buddhism doesn't exclude gods nor is it mandatory to include them and if you were to take gods into account they would be finite (my interpretation of it is that in Buddhism that gods, if real, are merely highly evolved beings that are still stuck in the cycle of Samsara).
...Being completely assured of your position that something exists without any tangible evidence to prove or disprove is the result of a mental deficiency.
It doesn't make the person a bad person, necessarily, but that's what it is.
I understand what you are saying, but I take great umbrage with the classification. The failure to apply canons of evidence, or the mistaken interpretation of correlation does not stem from a "mental deficiency". As a matter of fact, we intuitively make these sorts of errors quite regularly and primarily subconsciously in day-to-day life. The appeal to religious experience as a measure of ones certainty is a product of one's ability to construct a cohesive narrative of cause and effect to make sense of his or her own life. This is not a deficiency. If anything, it is a well honed, well developed survival instinct.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Have you ever seen the debate between Michael Shermer and Chopra, I want to say at MIT. At the end they go to the audience and a Theoretical Physicist stands up and tells him how wrong he is and that he is doing the whole field a huge disservice. It's fantastic.
edit: found it, was on Nightline apparently, starts at 7:00
Last edited by Hanni; 04-25-2012 at 03:12 PM.
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