The argument from the impossibility of intersubjective religious coherence

18AD

I'm not sure if this is an expilicit argument in the corpus of atheism, but I'll present it here as I've conceived it.

Excluding unquestioning acceptance/agreement, no two people will agree on what God (/Deity) is.

Therefore a religion, as a solidarity, is impossible.



Any two people will have a unique interpretation of what a deity is.
There is no way to coherently explain religion outside of the parameters of an anthropology.

Daftendirekt

Ever hear of ignosticism? Sounds a bit like what you're talking about.

Wiki wrote:

Ignosticism or igtheism is the theological position that every other theological position (including agnosticism) assumes too much about the concept of God and many other theological concepts. The word "ignosticism" was coined by Sherwin Wine, a rabbi and a founding figure of Humanistic Judaism.
It can be defined as encompassing two related views about the existence of God:

1. The view that a coherent definition of God must be presented before the question of the existence of god can be meaningfully discussed. Furthermore, if that definition is unfalsifiable, the ignostic takes the theological noncognitivist position that the question of the existence of God (per that definition) is meaningless. In this case, the concept of God is not considered meaningless; the term "God" is considered meaningless.
2. The second view is synonymous with theological noncognitivism, and skips the step of first asking "What is meant by 'God'?" before proclaiming the original question "Does God exist?" as meaningless.

Makes a lot of sense to me. Can't start talking about God until you know what God is.

philologos

It would be a good argument if it were true. The reality is that I know plenty of people with whom I'm in wholehearted agreement with as to who God is, and His amazing plan for each and everyone of us if we are willing to accept Him. In fact while I was at university I was on the committee of the Christian Union a part of an international fellowship in 150 countries all of whom agreed on the basic principles of the Gospel.

In the current church I attend in London, I agree wholeheartedly with the concept of the Christian Gospel that is preached there. The idea that Jesus - God made flesh came into the world to rescue sinners and usher in a new covenant agreement with mankind. In the last 4 months that I've been there, I find that the people in the congregation that I've become friends with agree with the Gospel wholeheartedly as it is Biblically.

The idea that different Christians talk about a wholly, entirely and completely different idea of God as far as I can tell couldn't be any further from the truth in practice or in theory.

I hope you all had an excellent Christmas at least in the sense of celebrating with family and friends!

Lucy8080

your a pessimist 18 a.d.

best thread title ever.

who says we wont get to an agreement on what god is.

we know what religion is...its sectarian in all its forms (political /science included)...and the god thing is supposedly not that.

lets look for not that.

robindch

18AD wrote: »

no two people will agree on what God (/Deity) is.

From the memetic perspective, it doesn't really matter whether all religious believers in any particular religious grouping actually agree what their deity's attributes are. What is important is that each group member believes that every other member believes the same thing.

The available evidence, which isn't much, suggests that the contrary and confused picture of the deities which populate the world's religious texts, simply operates as a pick-list from which believers can choose whatever attributes they wish, so that they can reinforce whatever respect/love/fear/adoration/etc they feel.

So, yes, if one were to take religion at its word, then number of contradictory beliefs held by members of any respectably-sized believer population would simply cause the religion to collapse under its own weight (the phrase "taking religion at its own word", though, is the one that should give one pause for thought).

Ickle Magoo

18AD wrote: »

There is no way to coherently explain religion outside of the parameters of an anthropology.

But surely personal belief in a god does not equate to any universal assumptions on any religion? And likewise, religion does not depend on having a universal and unequivocal view on any specific deity? In fact, barring the fundies, religion seems to have a fairly pick and mix approach on most things so I'd say beliefs around any given deity is open to the same "interpretations" and "metaphors" and whatever else that religion is. Perhaps it's a case of identifying with whatever fits closest?

yawha

philologos wrote: »

It would be a good argument if it were true. The reality is that I know plenty of people with whom I'm in wholehearted agreement with as to who God is, and His amazing plan for each and everyone of us if we are willing to accept Him. In fact while I was at university I was on the committee of the Christian Union a part of an international fellowship in 150 countries all of whom agreed on the basic principles of the Gospel.

In the current church I attend in London, I agree wholeheartedly with the concept of the Christian Gospel that is preached there. The idea that Jesus - God made flesh came into the world to rescue sinners and usher in a new covenant agreement with mankind. In the last 4 months that I've been there, I find that the people in the congregation that I've become friends with agree with the Gospel wholeheartedly as it is Biblically.

The idea that different Christians talk about a wholly, entirely and completely different idea of God as far as I can tell couldn't be any further from the truth in practice or in theory.

That you agree on certain thing in relation to "god" is pretty irrelevant to the topic, I think.

Generally, when it comes to the actual nature of God, I've found that there's a lot of handwaving over certain aspects of him like he exists outside time, and has always existed, and doesn't need a creator, and is the most simple thing possible, but can beget immensely complex things, and is all knowing, and is too complicated for humans to truly understand being so flawed and pathetic that we are and all we can do is kneel and pray and hope that he can forgive us for our sins, which, for some reason we just naturally have, because God designed us that way, well not actually, it's because he designed us to have free will, and Adam and Eve sinned, and by proxy we're all sinners, or something, but that's ok, because Jesus died for our sins, well actually, not all our sins, we still have to behave lest we be tortured for eternity by Satan, who for some reason is a sadist, I don't know why exactly, you'd think he'd just give us a load of coke and let us indulge in some massive orgy or something, since I think that would maximize the sins committed per square metre of hell, otherwise it would just be him torturing a load of people doing nothing wrong, which wouldn't really be fitting, I mean come on, one person (and maybe a few henchmen) committing sins, when a ****ton of people could be? Surely hell wants to maximize its sin output?

Undergod

18AD wrote: »

I'm not sure if this is an expilicit argument in the corpus of atheism, but I'll present it here as I've conceived it.

Excluding unquestioning acceptance/agreement, no two people will agree on what God (/Deity) is.

Therefore a religion, as a solidarity, is impossible.



Any two people will have a unique interpretation of what a deity is.
There is no way to coherently explain religion outside of the parameters of an anthropology.

Putting aside philologos's post, which I think settles the matter, I think it's empirically demonstrated that religions do exist.

I'd be inclined either to think of Robin's suggestion, that people thinking other people share their precise beliefs is enough, or to suggest that maybe your definition of religion is too specific; people CAN differ and still be considered a religion.

philologos

yawha: Not just certain things. Essentially we agreed as to what God's nature was, who He was, what God did for mankind and so on. The idea that 2 people can't agree as to who God is essentially as the OP made out is false even on an experiential basis. Even on much of the technical stuff where you say there is "handwaving" there is very little disagreement on.

As for much of the stuff you wrote, I wouldn't say it's the most accurate. It's probably better to focus on the OP's claim and what evidence there is against it.

18AD

With regards to ignosticism, my argument is stronger, in that I don't think people do have a coherent belief structure, even if it varies in a tiny way.

Lucy8080 wrote:

best thread title ever.

Thanks. I enjoy the big words.

Undergod wrote:

I'd be inclined either to think of Robin's suggestion, that people thinking other people share their precise beliefs is enough, or to suggest that maybe your definition of religion is too specific; people CAN differ and still be considered a religion.

On the memetic account it would be feasable for a satanist to be a christian as long as everyone thought he was a christian. That seems wrong to me.

One of my conclusions was precisely that, that it is simply an anthropological matter.

Of course my assumption is that for there to be a religion everyone must share the exact same beliefs. And as philologos has pointed out, that may very well be the case.

But even so, on that account the huge (or tiny) number of people he admits to not believing in the exact same thing shouldn't be considered the same religion at all. What do you think?

Also, if you allow for variation, there must be some parameters of variation, be they very fuzzy or broad, that define a specific religion. The fuzzier the boandaries the more likely you could have someone who falls into more than one category of religion. Someone could be a Buddhist-Christian or something like that. Does that even exist or anything similar?

Also, I'm not saying that they don't exist.

18AD

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

But surely personal belief in a god does not equate to any universal assumptions on any religion? And likewise, religion does not depend on having a universal and unequivocal view on any specific deity? In fact, barring the fundies, religion seems to have a fairly pick and mix approach on most things so I'd say beliefs around any given deity is open to the same "interpretations" and "metaphors" and whatever else that religion is. Perhaps it's a case of identifying with whatever fits closest?

That's interesting. One line of thought I was lead to was that it just depends on which scripture or tradition you choose to orient yourself towards. So if someone is involved with Christianity, that is they engage with the culture and belief systems, even if they disagree with some of it will be part of that group, at the decree of the established members.

philologos

You claim that any two people will have a different idea of a deity. I've shown you some examples as to where that isn't true in practice or in theory. How is this argument still strong in your opinion?

18AD

philologos wrote: »

You claim that any two people will have a different idea of a deity. I've shown you some examples as to where that isn't true in practice or in theory. How is this argument still strong in your opinion?

I'll concede that. But it still applies to groups and minorities and those who don't believe the same things but are considered to actually do so. (see previous posts)


If I keep the strong thesis of two individuals.

Regarding your list, in the link you provided, what if someone doesn't believe in one of those things?

I'd still think that in each case everyone would have a unique interpretation of each of those things.
So if I asked two people what they understood by "the indwelling and work of the Holy Spirit in the believer" they would give a different answer.

philologos

My point was that for the most part, there can be consistency within groups of believers, whether that be at church or through the Christian Union movement across the world. Yes, it's true that people can attend a church or a CU at university without believing everything in the fundamental belief system. However, in a number of such cases I've seen people come to believe through being involved with particular churches or through their Christian Union.

In fact a large amount of the congregants at my church came to a personal belief in Jesus through university. It could be argued that this isn't the case in all churches, but certainly it can be the case, it is far from impossible for a large number of people to share the same core beliefs. Also you could argue that this tends to be the case in churches which are more evangelical. The Christian Union movement itself is fundamentally an evangelical one worldwide. Perhaps you're right that in other expressions of church this isn't the case, but my point is that it isn't impossible for groups of people to share beliefs as you implied.

Does the concept of God differ wildly between two Christians? - As far as I can tell no. Most Christians will believe 90% the same thing regarding God's plan for humanity. If it did, I might understand your point.

18AD

I'll grant that there is coherence between different subjects of a religion. I'll take your word for it.

Are these beliefs based on an experience of God? Or is agreement with the core beliefs somewhat empty without direct experience of God? And can you only verify an other's experience of God through their agreement with the core beliefs you listed? Uber-scepticism ensues!

unfortunately

Many believers of a religion may agree on a few of the big dogmas (i.e. Jesus was the son of God) but once you start looking beyond that there are a plethora of contradictory viewpoints.

Isn't it funny that God always has the same politics as you? He's either a hippy, love one and all kinda bloke, or help-those-who-help-themselves man, or a vengeful dictator, or a not really involved do what you want but don't be a dick about it deity, or he's gets really ticked off about penises and vaginas on TV but doesn't seem too bothered about all the wars going on. If you hates gays, so does he. If your a rich investment banker you don't dwell on God's view of the poor, etc.

I'd say there is as about as many different concepts of god as there are permutations of different theological positions.

philologos

18AD wrote: »

Are these beliefs based on an experience of God? Or is agreement with the core beliefs somewhat empty without direct experience of God? And can you only verify an other's experience of God through their agreement with the core beliefs you listed? Uber-scepticism ensues!

A mixture of a number of factors. For me it was largely down to the fact that I found God's existence to be profoundly reasonable and logical given the nature of reality. I'm a hybrid, I have a number of reasons, some down to experience, others down to the simple idea that the Bible seems to correspond well with reality where many other ideologies don't.

I don't verify experiences at all. Rather if I hear anyone, including preachers at my church say anything that doesn't seem to line up Biblically, I'll ask them to show me chapter and verse where they got it from. That tends not to happen much because my church preaches in an expository manner. Meaning that they look systematically at a particular passage and preach on it specifically. I've come to know a lot about what people in my congregation believe through small groups. On a weekly basis I meet up with about 7 other people to look at the Bible. Likewise, a friend and I read a different section of the Bible before church. Through this I can find out an awful lot about what other people believe. Simply put, the only litmus test I have is whether or not something is Biblical.