"Up your game"

antiskeptic

If I had a cent for every time an "atheist" trotted out the most simplistic of understandings. A frustration shared by this unbeliever..


http://www.theguardian.com/news/oliver-burkeman-s-blog/2014/jan/14/the-theology-book-atheists-should-read

robindch

antiskeptic wrote: »

[...] A frustration shared by this unbeliever [...]

I hadn't realized you'd joined the fold -- welcome!

Knasher

Sounds like he is trying to get atheists to argue against a more deistic god than a theistic one.

Calibos

The article merely shows that the author doesn't know much about the average atheist not that the average atheist doesn't know much about theologians opinion on the nature of God.

The author says what theological thinkers really believe is GOD as a creative force, as the thing that made the universe possible and sustains it from beginning to end.

according to the classical metaphysical traditions of both the East and West, God is the unconditioned cause of reality – of absolutely everything that is – from the beginning to the end of time. Understood in this way, one can’t even say that God "exists" in the sense that my car or Mount Everest or electrons exist. God is what grounds the existence of every contingent thing, making it possible, sustaining it through time, unifying it, giving it actuality. God is the condition of the possibility of anything existing at all

Sounds a lot like the quantum singularity that Hawking talked about where the big bang didn't need a cause, it was all to do with quantum uncertainty or somesuch. So God is the quantum uncertainty or something. Fine whatever. Isn't this why most of us are agnostic with regard to whether or not something one might as well call God created the universe but really only atheistic in the way believers understand the word to the classical human religions interpretation of God. The interventionist one.

Sure, critics argue, it might be intriguing, but only a handful of smartypants intellectual religious people take it seriously. The vast majority of ordinary folk believe in the other sort of God. As Hart points out, there are two problems with this dismissal. First, you'd actually need to prove the point with survey data about what people believe. But second, even if you could show that most believers believe in a superhero God, would that mean it's the only kind with which atheists need engage?.

When ex Presidents and Prime Ministers, Genome Project converts, RC Church Theologians and even Popes trot out the same simplistic reasons for belief as the man on the street to Richard Dawkins and others in interviews I think its fair to assume without need of a Poll or Survey that the average believer believes in thbe Super Hero BGod and not the nebulous notion espoused by the 'Smartypants Intellectual religious people'.

We need to engage with the believers of the 'SuperHero God' which is 99.99% of them because they are the ones affecting our lives. We don't need to engage with the theology of the 'Smartypants Intellectual religious people' because they are almost on the same FCUKING page as us!!! Quantum effects/Chance, Creative/Sustaining Force God....Tomato, Tomaato

Knasher

There is only one real objection to be made against the deistic god anyway; that it doesn't actually explain anything, it just moves the cause of the universe back a step and then labels it as god and claims it as a philosophical question.

Personally I prefer to just say it's currently unknown, and not decide that we can never deal with the question scientifically.

I like how the author whines about atheists not knowing enough or not being read enough to counter an argument and version of God taken down by Kant.

Also the second anyone posits that this other more complicated God has any sort of influence, will or communication ability, then it becomes the superhero god he talks about.

Peregrinus

Calibos wrote: »

When ex Presidents and Prime Ministers, Genome Project converts, RC Church Theologians and even Popes trot out the same simplistic reasons for belief as the man on the street to Richard Dawkins and others in interviews I think its fair to assume without need of a Poll or Survey that the average believer believes in thbe Super Hero BGod and not the nebulous notion espoused by the 'Smartypants Intellectual religious people'.

We need to engage with the believers of the 'SuperHero God' which is 99.99% of them because they are the ones affecting our lives. We don't need to engage with the theology of the 'Smartypants Intellectual religious people' because they are almost on the same FCUKING page as us!!! Quantum effects/Chance, Creative/Sustaining Force God....Tomato, Tomaato

Still, the English philosopher Anthony Kenny (who classes himself as an agnostic) makes the point that an atheist has to reject not just the common or dominant conception of God; unless you reject the existence of any God, you're not truly an atheist (or, alternatively, your atheism is incoherent or unjustified).

Of course, this comes back to the tired old argument about how exactly we define "atheist". But I don't think that a definition of "atheist" involving simply the rejection of the possiblity of God as commonly understood in your own culture is a useful definition. If an Irish person is an atheist simply because they reject the concept of God embraced by the majority of Irish religious believers, then Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Shintoists, Buddhists etc are also atheists, at least when they come to Ireland. So atheism, to be meaningul, needs to involve a bit more than that.

shruikan2553

Im not really too sure what he is trying to say but from what I understand he is more saying that we shouldnt be thinking of god as an all powerful being that can do anything. The issues is the abrahamic religions all show this "God" as being an all power, all knowing being that can do anything so it is the god that most atheists have rejected.

nozzferrahhtoo

Peregrinus wrote: »

But I don't think that a definition of "atheist" involving simply the rejection of the possiblity of God as commonly understood in your own culture is a useful definition.

True but I would go further and say I do not think that rejection of the "possibility" of ANY type of god or gods is a useful definition of atheism. Not just the god of your own culture.

I do not know any atheists myself that reject the "possibility" of a god. At all. So I would not include the possibility of a god in any definition of atheism myself.

Rather all the atheists I know personally accept it is a _possibility_ that there is a god.... but there is not a shred of argument, evidence, data or reasoning on offer... much less so historically from our OP above here.... to suggest there is one or there is any reason to think or expect there to be one.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Of course, this comes back to the tired old argument about how exactly we define "atheist". But I don't think that a definition of "atheist" involving simply the rejection of the possiblity of God as commonly understood in your own culture is a useful definition. If an Irish person is an atheist simply because they reject the concept of God embraced by the majority of Irish religious believers, then Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Shintoists, Buddhists etc are also atheists, at least when they come to Ireland. So atheism, to be meaningul, needs to involve a bit more than that.

Not really. The dictionary definition that an atheist is 'a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods', goes well beyond the local God. They reject the local God because He is the first god that comes to hand, but would similarly reject other gods as and when they encounter them.

So believers typically subscribe to one or more of a set of possible faith systems, whereas atheists subscribe to none.

smacl

Calibos wrote: »

The article merely shows that the author doesn't know much about the average atheist not that the average atheist doesn't know much about theologians opinion on the nature of God.

So what exactly makes an atheist average in their atheism? What's the standard deviation, and for that matter what exactly are we measuring? I may well be a mean atheist, but I'm not an average one.

Peregrinus

Sure. I think it’s helpful to define atheism in negative terms; an atheist lacks any belief in the existence of God. That definition embraces both the person who is positively convinced that no god exists, and the person who simply sees no reason to believe that any god exists, and all the people whose position is somewhere between those two.

But the article mentioned in the OP, and the points raised by Anthony Kenny. raise a different issue. In Ireland at least, most atheists have had some degree of religious formation, or at least some degree of exposure to religious ideas or beliefs, and their self-identification as atheists is in some way connected with their rejection of those ideas. But Kenny argues that atheism requires more than that you should lack any belief in the existence of the particular version of god that you have been offered; it requires that you should lack any belief in the existence of any version of god.

So, if you reject the idea of god as an angry old man with a beard, who created the universe in the way that a carpenter creates a chair (except without requiring any raw materials), is that enough to make you an atheist? Kenny would say no; to call yourself an atheist you would have to consider, and reject as disproven or unsupported, the existence of anything that can meaningfully be called “god”. If somebody proposes a god defined as “the fundamental ground for the existence of all things that exist” - then to call yourself an atheist - in Kenny’s view - you need to consider and dismiss any belief in the existence of such a fundamental ground. (“Dismiss” in the sense not that you consider the existence of such a ground to be refuted, but simply that you see no reason to accept that such a ground exists.)

It’s a tall order, because of course there are numerous conceptions of god, and if you take Kenny’s position then probably not many people can justifiably call themselves atheists. For every person who has seriously explored diverse conceptions of god and rejected them all, there must be dozens who simply aren’t sufficiently interested in the question to do so. I suspect that your typical unbeliever is someone who has engaged with, and ultimately rejected, one conception of god (most probably the predominant one in his culture) and has simply seen no reason to take his enquiries further; the rejection of one particular version of god hasn’t left a hole in his life that he has needed to fill by looking at alternatives. Kenny might say that such a person should not really call himself an atheist.

Kenny, of course, is not a language pope who gets to decree infallibly what words mean. Such a person might call himself an atheist, and why not?

I think this only becomes an issue where somebody’s atheism moves on from a statement of his own position and become a critique of someone else’s position. Atheists who participate in discussions on the Christianity boards would be an example, but to be honest many of the discussions on the A&A board have this characteristic also. If you’re critiquing someone else’s position then your critique, to be taken seriously, really does have to be a critique of his position, and not just a critique of a position which you yourself formerly held, or at least considered. And if your critique extends to a critique of religious/theistic belief generally then, yes, you really do have to address the varieties of religious/theistic belief. An argument for secularism in the public square, for example, can’t succeed on the basis of a limited attack on a particular religious belief. In that context the points made by Kenny do bear thinking about.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

An argument for secularism in the public square, for example, can’t succeed on the basis of a limited attack on a particular religious belief. In that context the points made by Kenny do bear thinking about.

I don't agree. Arguments for secularism for example can be made on a purely mundane and pragmatic basis. Many people have different often conflicting religious beliefs. Involving the rules of these arcane belief systems in the running of the state brings little if any benefit to the state, yet may be a source of conflict, division, and unfair treatment of minorities. Therefore church and state should be kept separate. If this becomes contentious, as a democracy we can ask the people.

The point here is that I don't have to be a theologian to promote secularism. I can simply point out the previous misdeeds of local church and say that it should be kept away from the running of the state on that basis.

Similarly, I don't have to be a theologian to be an atheist or enter into a debate in the A&A forum. It is simply a matter of limiting ones criticisms to the behaviour and actions of others as opposed to speculating on their motivations (i.e. religious beliefs). I don't presume to understand what makes a Catholic a Catholic, but I don't need to in order to comment on their churches stated position on matters such as contraception, homosexuality or abortion. Nor need I read the bible to comment on clerical abuse, or the dramatic decline in uptake of clerical vocations among the Irish population.

In a pluralist society, I would hope that we judge ourselves and others based on our actions rather than our stated beliefs or lack thereof.

pauldla

Dullard that I am, I'm not sure I'm getting this. Is there not a burden of proof? Should I be told that god is “the fundamental ground for the existence of all things that exist”, I would certainly ask my interlocutor what exactly they meant by that (because, begging induglence for my obtuseness, I have no idea what it's supposed to mean).

Turtwig

"Up your game" seems like a euphemism. :pac:

Obliq

Well now that you say it, it did occur to me to say "Up your's too" in reply to the OP, but I thought that could be taken two ways and one of those could be construed as against the charter..... :rolleyes:

nagirrac

It's a decent article, and one that is equally challenging to believers and non-believers. The "up your game" challenge comes from the article itself rather than the OP and I think could be applied to believers and non-believes alike. There are far too many who accept beliefs based on faith alone, and also far too many who scorn belief without understanding the actual source of the belief. This is the best point the author makes in my opinion, that the "God" that many and perhaps most believers believe in, whether historically or today, is conceptually quite different to the "superhero" God in for example a literal reading of the Abrahamic religious scriptures. I would argue that a very small percentage of people who self describe as religious actually believe in the concept of a "superhero" God, regardless of what is written in religious texts, although they also may not be able to express what they mean by "God".

In my opinion and experience atheists are largely opposed to religion rather than any specific concept of God, and for valid reasons given some of the history of organized religions. However, many atheists go overboard in this opposition and fail to see the individual and societal benefits of religion. At the individual level religion is what gives meaning to the lives of millions of its adherents, and at the societal level religion has been central to communal activities which may well be one of the central reasons we survived and developed as a species. At its core religion is spiritual, it encourages people to contemplate and reflect, to be compassionate and loving towards others, in many ways to overcome some of our "natural" selfish and violent tendencies. Organized religions it has to be said have by and large failed in this endeavor.

The God described in the article (the quote form Damon Linker) is very much the Panthiestic concept of God. While Pantheism is a relatively new term, the ideas of Pantheism are very ancient and permeate the writings of many of the great thinkers in Philosophy / Metaphysics. Most of the oldest religions are Pantheist in nature, all Shamanic cultures, and a significant aspect of Hinduism, Celtic "paganism", and Taoism. I think its important to distinguish the concept of God as the "answer to why there is existence at all" from the various inadequate attempts by humans to describe the attributes of what a God might be like, which inevitably fail due to these attributes being described in human terms.

According to modern Pantheism, there are two arguments for God, one is from philosophical reasoning and the other from experience. While individual religions and individual religious texts may be relatively easy targets to attack rationally, the Pantheist position is in my view rather more difficult. The problem many people have with Pantheism is that it frequently included the word "God", which automatically gets associated in their minds with "superhero" God. There is no evidence for "superhero" God, but there is significant evidence for a Pantheist "God" i.e. the evidence of existence itself, and the evidence of individual and communal "religious" experience.

Obliq

nagirrac wrote: »

In my opinion and experience atheists are largely opposed to religion rather than any specific concept of God, and for valid reasons given some of the history of organized religions. However, many atheists go overboard in this opposition and fail to see the individual and societal benefits of religion. At the individual level religion is what gives meaning to the lives of millions of its adherents, and at the societal level religion has been central to communal activities which may well one of the central reasons we survived and developed as a species. At its core religion is spiritual, it encourages people to contemplate and reflect, to be compassionate and loving towards others, in many ways to overcome some of our "natural" selfish and violent tendencies. Organized religions it has to be said have by and large failed in this endeavor.

Yup, yup....got all that, but who are these "many atheists" who go "overboard" of whom you speak? I haven't met them up here or anywhere, and have you heard me on the subject? I dare to say that at the individual level, I am not opposed to a concept of god - I just don't have one. I am not opposed to religion (or belief in an unproven supernatural power), except where people are negatively impacted by the rules of one, against their wishes. End of scary atheist rant. Woooo.

Brian Shanahan

antiskeptic wrote: »

If I had a cent for every time an "atheist" trotted out the most simplistic of understandings. A frustration shared by this unbeliever..


http://www.theguardian.com/news/oliver-burkeman-s-blog/2014/jan/14/the-theology-book-atheists-should-read

Well given from the article that the "god" being talked about is a pantheistic god (a situation which in practical terms is essentially admitting "yeah, there is no god but I have problems with this fact, so I'm going to call the sum of reality god"), I can't see how the position taken by the book (if the article is correct) can be seen to be anything other than an effective capitulation by a believer, while trying to spin said capitulation as a victory.

What the author has appeared to have done is looked at god, decided that any characteristic of said god can be used to disprove his existence, decided to remove all characteristics and then said to atheists "yeah, prove he doesn't exist now", while forgetting that what he has just done was to put up nothing and claimed that it had an existence.

Sarky

You have post #19 in an antiskeptic thread. I do hope people bother to read it this time.

nagirrac

Obliq wrote: »

Yup, yup....got all that, but who are these "many atheists" who go "overboard" of whom you speak? I haven't met them up here or anywhere, and have you heard me on the subject?

I was not referring specifically to A&A, as by and large A&A is a very reasonable forum. However, there are some posters on here who will acknowledge no value or "good" in religion, when this is clearly an absurd position. If you look one post below your own you will see an example, the infamous post #19.

If the poster had done even 30 seconds of research they would know that the author of the book referenced in the article is a leading theologian of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the second largest Christian church, so his work hardly represents a "capitulation".

Frito

King Mob wrote: »

Also the second anyone posits that this other more complicated God has any sort of influence, will or communication ability, then it becomes the superhero god he talks about.

Agreed. I would also suggest that this god-as-creative-force requires very little of believers - there is no agent to please through worship and moral actions. It's a bit like gravity in a sense that I acknowledge it's presence in my life but I do not need to accommodate it, it's just there.

Should I ever go into space though, I will need to make some adjustments. Perhaps I should read the book.

Frito

Frito wrote: »

Agreed. I would also suggest that this god-as-creative-force requires very little of believers - there is no agent to please through worship and moral actions. It's a bit like gravity in a sense that I acknowledge it's presence in my life but I do not need to accommodate it, it's just there.

Should I ever go into space though, I will need to make some adjustments. Perhaps I should read the book.

I'm with George Carlin on this. If you are going to worship an unintelligent physical thing, you may as well go with the Sun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPOfurmrjxo

smacl

nagirrac wrote: »

There is no evidence for "superhero" God, but there is significant evidence for a Pantheist "God" i.e. the evidence of existence itself, and the evidence of individual and communal "religious" experience.

The problem here is not that the term 'God' doesn't correlate to a super hero god, so much that it can take on such a breadth of meaning that it has no clear definition. For example, if you take Taoism as being a pantheistic religion based on the Tao as a pantheist "God", the god in question simply becomes the nature of the universe, or just nature. The religion in turn becomes a philosophy that seeks to understand nature by harmonizing with it and learning through observation and experience. Taking on this philosophy does not demand accepting anything supernatural. The god in question is omnipresent only insofar as it is a term that is largely interchangeable with the universe we occupy, and doesn't correspond to a being or any dictionary definition of God.

To say that there is evidence of Pantheistic "God" you need to unambiguously define exactly what you mean by "God" in this context. Similarly for communal religious experience, e.g. how rapture for Pantheistic "God" significantly differs from the rapture experienced by teenage girls at a One Direction concert.

FWIW, I've found many ideas and practices from Taoism to be very beneficial, not least a couple of decades of tai chi chuan practice. I just don't see any correspondences with the notion of a God or evidence of anything supernatural.

Blowfish

Peregrinus wrote: »

But the article mentioned in the OP, and the points raised by Anthony Kenny. raise a different issue. In Ireland at least, most atheists have had some degree of religious formation, or at least some degree of exposure to religious ideas or beliefs, and their self-identification as atheists is in some way connected with their rejection of those ideas. But Kenny argues that atheism requires more than that you should lack any belief in the existence of the particular version of god that you have been offered; it requires that you should lack any belief in the existence of any version of god.

In essence, what he is trying to do is to water down the word Atheism as to make it utterly meaningless in order to make it impossible for anyone to declare themselves as an Atheist.

For example, the ancient Egyptians considered the Pharoah's to be Gods, same with certain Chinese emperors, Roman emperors etc and as alluded to above, various nations and tribes worshiped the sun as God. If you remove the 'superhero' element from the definition of God and rely solely on the existence of a phenomenon/being, then it is impossible to be Atheist as there is certainly ample evidence for the existance of pharoah's and the sun.

Interestingly enough though, if you were to use that definition of God, it would also mean that there is no such thing as a monotheistic religion as again, it would be impossible for any religious person to deny the existance of other gods than their own.

Philope

The definition of atheist has also changed over time, nowadays it apparently involves being an "agnostic" with strong views towards atheism and anti religion.

smacl

Philope wrote: »

The definition of atheist has also changed over time, nowadays it apparently involves being an "agnostic" with strong views towards atheism and anti religion.

If it has, perhaps you could quote a dictionary or formal reference for such a definition. I've searched and drawn a blank. AFAIK, the definition of the word atheist has not changed in recent centuries, and capitalising it such that it becomes a proper noun, e.g. in the same way as Catholic is a proper noun, is simply incorrect. There are no accepted world views, philosophies or social attitudes that form any part of atheism. Atheism begins and ends with not believing in a God or gods. Anything beyond that refers to a different, rather poorly defined, demographic.

pauldla

Philope wrote: »

The definition of atheist has also changed over time, nowadays it apparently involves being an "agnostic" with strong views towards atheism and anti religion.

Atheism involves strong views towards atheism? Is this not a 'blue is a colour that is blue' definition?

Philope

pauldla wrote: »

Atheism involves strong views towards atheism? Is this not a 'blue is a colour that is blue' definition?

I would have thought so as well but, it seems many atheists now define themselves in terms of level of agnosticism.

pauldla

Philope wrote: »

I would have thought so as well but, it seems many atheists now define themselves in terms of level of agnosticism.

Perhaps you miss my point. Your definition of atheism above is not terribly clear, at least to my jaded eyes (and I'll admit I've been marking exam papers all day). In particular, could you elaborate on what you mean by atheism 'involving strong views towards atheism'?

Philope

Sorry, maybe I didn't put it very well, don't be too hard marking those poor students

It seems it has to be defined nowadays in terms of being agnostic about atheism, rather than plain old atheism. Maybe it's to avoid making any claims.

pauldla

Philope wrote: »

Sorry, maybe I didn't put it very well, don't be too hard marking those poor students

It seems it has to be defined nowadays in terms of being agnostic about atheism, rather than plain old atheism. Maybe it's to avoid making any claims.

It's not the students I'll be hard on, it's their teachers!

I see (said Pooh, who didn't). If agnosticism can be summed up as 'don't know', and atheism as 'don't believe', does that mean that atheists are not sure what they don't believe?

Sorry, Philope, I hope I'm not coming across as a bore, but I'm just not getting what you mean. But if I have to read one more student essay this evening I'll most likely go mad, so perhaps the old grey matter isn't fully-functioning right now...

smacl

We see pictures like this posted with regards to atheism versus agnosticism;



I remain a plain ol' atheist. I'm undecided about agnosticism

Philope

pauldla wrote: »

It's not the students I'll be hard on, it's their teachers!

I see (said Pooh, who didn't). If agnosticism can be summed up as 'don't know', and atheism as 'don't believe', does that mean that atheists are not sure what they don't believe?

Sorry, Philope, I hope I'm not coming across as a bore, but I'm just not getting what you mean. But if I have to read one more student essay this evening I'll most likely go mad, so perhaps the old grey matter isn't fully-functioning right now...

I know what you mean Pauldla. Alice and Humpty had good discussion about words as well I suppose it's really up to the individual. One size rarely fits all. Sometimes that in itself makes discussion difficult as one can misunderstand / assume the other parties individual position / brand of / belief / non belief / agnosticism / atheism etc. English / Any language is not always as precise as we might like it to be.

Brian Shanahan

Sarky wrote: »

You have post #19 in an antiskeptic thread. I do hope people bother to read it this time.

Writing it at midnight when I needed to be in bed, stat, I hope people will forgive my lack of clarity and leadaranachiness.

Piliger

smacl wrote: »

If it has, perhaps you could quote a dictionary or formal reference for such a definition. I've searched and drawn a blank. AFAIK, the definition of the word atheist has not changed in recent centuries, and capitalising it such that it becomes a proper noun, e.g. in the same way as Catholic is a proper noun, is simply incorrect. There are no accepted world views, philosophies or social attitudes that form any part of atheism. Atheism begins and ends with not believing in a God or gods. Anything beyond that refers to a different, rather poorly defined, demographic.

Well said. This article of the OP is just a typical click baite from Burkeman who looks for different angles to insult and demean atheism. He isn't smart enough to achieve that. All you have to read is one of his staments to laugh all your way home:
" If you think this God-as-the-condition-of-existence argument is rubbish, you need to say why. And unlike for the superhero version, scientific evidence won't clinch the deal. The question isn't a scientific one, about which things exist. It's a philosophical one, about what existence is and on what it depends."

This is what he thinks passes as debate about religion and atheism and the level of 'thinking' that eh operates at.

Peregrinus

Piliger wrote: »

Well said. This article of the OP is just a typical click baite from Burkeman who looks for different angles to insult and demean atheism. He isn't smart enough to achieve that. All you have to read is one of his staments to laugh all your way home:
" If you think this God-as-the-condition-of-existence argument is rubbish, you need to say why. And unlike for the superhero version, scientific evidence won't clinch the deal. The question isn't a scientific one, about which things exist. It's a philosophical one, about what existence is and on what it depends."

This is what he thinks passes as debate about religion and atheism and the level of 'thinking' that eh operates at.

There’s a certain irony here, Piliger. Is what you say here in response to his points what you think passes as debate about religion and atheism and the level of “thinking” that you operate at? ‘Cause, you know, deriding his argument is not a substitute for refuting it.

Piliger

Peregrinus wrote: »

There’s a certain irony here, Piliger. Is what you say here in response to his points what you think passes as debate about religion and atheism and the level of “thinking” that you operate at? ‘Cause, you know, deriding his argument is not a substitute for refuting it.

Oh I think it does. Comprehensively.

Peregrinus

Piliger wrote: »

Oh I think it does. Comprehensively.

This is what you think passes as debate about religion and atheism and the level of thinking that you operate at?

Piliger

Peregrinus wrote: »

This is what you think passes as debate about religion and atheism and the level of thinking that you operate at?

This is what you think passes as debate about religion and atheism and the level of thinking that you operate at?

nagirrac

smacl wrote: »

The problem here is not that the term 'God' doesn't correlate to a super hero god, so much that it can take on such a breadth of meaning that it has no clear definition. For example, if you take Taoism as being a pantheistic religion based on the Tao as a pantheist "God", the god in question simply becomes the nature of the universe, or just nature. The religion in turn becomes a philosophy that seeks to understand nature by harmonizing with it and learning through observation and experience. Taking on this philosophy does not demand accepting anything supernatural. The god in question is omnipresent only insofar as it is a term that is largely interchangeable with the universe we occupy, and doesn't correspond to a being or any dictionary definition of God.

That's a pretty good generic definition of pantheism. While there are many strands of pantheism, what they all share is a deep reverence and respect for nature, and the belief that nothing exists outside the totality of nature. There is nothing supernatural, as there is the total universe, and there is the subset of the universe we are aware of. As we go along we discover more and more of the incredible scale, wonder and mystery of the universe, but we may never quite grasping its essence. "At its core the universe is not just stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can ever imagine."

smacl wrote: »

To say that there is evidence of Pantheistic "God" you need to unambiguously define exactly what you mean by "God" in this context.

In the context of God as the totality of nature, the evidence is the subset of the universe we observe, and our ability to observe it.

smacl wrote: »

Similarly for communal religious experience, e.g. how rapture for Pantheistic "God" significantly differs from the rapture experienced by teenage girls at a One Direction concert.

I wouldn't associate Pantheism with rapture. The religious experiences for those that involve themselves in them are deeply contemplative, and depending on the tradition and practices may be associated with altered states of awareness. Some of them are very hard to rationalize, and are nothing like the teenage mania you compared to.

smacl wrote: »

FWIW, I've found many ideas and practices from Taoism to be very beneficial, not least a couple of decades of tai chi chuan practice. I just don't see any correspondences with the notion of a God or evidence of anything supernatural.

Agreed, no evidence of anything supernatural. There is however a very strong correspondence between the concept of a pantheist God that is undefinable and the Tao. "The Tao that can be named is not the Tao", from Tao Te Ching. Taoists regard the concept of God as individual and personal, a wise philosophy.

smacl

nagirrac wrote: »

Agreed, no evidence of anything supernatural. There is however a very strong correspondence between the concept of a pantheist God that is undefinable and the Tao. "The Tao that can be named is not the Tao", from Tao Te Ching. Taoists regard the concept of God as individual and personal, a wise philosophy.

In my somewhat limited experience of Taoism, I'm not convinced that the term God is appropriate, nor have I ever heard it used as an interchangeable term for the Tao. Taoism is very personal insofar as it deals with the individual more so than society, and many Chinese that are Taoists are simultaneously also Confucian, Buddhists and even Christians. While the self-disciplined Confucian is working hard, the Taoist is speculating.

Much of the supernatural baggage that is attached to Taoism, such as qi being a type of energy that doesn't stick to the laws of physics, doesn't bear close scrutiny and either comes from Chinese folk religion, or as often as not, mis-interpretation of ancient texts by Star Wars fan boys. Like anything in this life, if looks like bullshít and smells like bullshít, don't go eating a mouthful just because some holy man tells you its chocolate. That caveat aside, I find the rewards in learning some Taoism, and practising taiqiquan and qigong far outweigh the effort put in.

I don't know much about any other pantheistic notions of God, but I'd be very wary of fantasy creeping in, i.e. believing something to be true because we want it to be true and some self appointed guru saying it is true. IMHO, there's plenty to wonder at and learn from without this, with human knowledge growing all the time, and anything that a person finds interesting deserves investigation.

smacl

Blowfish wrote: »

If you remove the 'superhero' element from the definition of God and rely solely on the existence of a phenomenon/being, then it is impossible to be Atheist as there is certainly ample evidence for the existence of pharoah's and the sun.

True, but things can exist and not be Gods, as was discussed at some length a few months back on the historicity of Jesus thread. My take on much early religion is that the Gods that correspond to physical phenomena, e.g. the sun rising in the sky each morning, are simply proxies for gaps in humankind's knowledge at that point in time. Taking the simplest available explanation for something that is clearly observable until such time as a better explanation shows up. The case of self appointed human Gods has more to do with social control; easier for a God to get the peasants to build some pyramids than a man. I think this extends onto the Abrahamic religions, in that once you have a omnipresent super-being watching you at all times, you are less likely to step out of line. Similarly, if you're going to enjoy everlasting bliss in the next life, you're less likely to rebel in this one no matter how miserable your lot. These carrot and stick tactics worked as well for the Pharaohs as they did for the Christians and Muslims.

All speculation of course, but none of it points to anything supernatural to me. As for the pantheistic God, I think the word 'being' needs qualification. Is it a reference to anything that exists? Does it equate in some way to a life form? Does it confer sentience? etc... We can't begin to prove or disprove anything without giving it some definition.

nozzferrahhtoo

nagirrac wrote: »

However, there are some posters on here who will acknowledge no value or "good" in religion

Many of us do not have the ability to acknowledge what has not been shown. How can we? I am one of the ones that struggle to find any good in religion. Or, more specifically, any good that actually has anything to actually do with religion.

The only "good" I can find in religion is the "good" one would find in any social cohesive group. As such the only "good" I think of are nothing really to do with religion, but things people assign to religion in a kind of "Argumentum ad proxy" way.

And that is before one starts looking at the negatives and costs and damage caused by religion.... and do a comparison to see whether religion is in negative or positive equity of usefulness or "good" there.

What I tend to find is that any "good" imagined on behalf of religion has nothing to do with religion at all.... religion is superfluous to requirements in actually attaining that good.... and the harms and damage of religion outweigh any imagined positives.

nagirrac wrote: »

In the context of God as the totality of nature, the evidence is the subset of the universe we observe, and our ability to observe it.

Another line that actually says nothing at all. The whole "God is the totality of nature" argument is nothing more than a linguistic relabeling of the "totality of nature". It adds nor removes anything to any conversation at all. You are just saying nothing, but using as many words as possible to say it.

pauldla

I was about to reply to Philope when I noticed that he/she has been banned. The OP hasn't contributed a great deal either. Which, I suppose, makes this thread sadly ironic. Oh well.

smacl

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Another line that actually says nothing at all. The whole "God is the totality of nature" argument is nothing more than a linguistic relabeling of the "totality of nature". It adds nor removes anything to any conversation at all.

I think there is a lot of ambiguous language running through this thread, some of it purposeful. It strikes me as a commonly used new age religious mechanism to bring in a wider audience; much like cold reading, the vaguer you are about what you say, the fewer people you risk excluding from the outset.

While it is pedantic, I think the onus is on anyone to provide definitions for terms where their usage of those terms goes beyond the accepted and unambiguous dictionary definition. Specifically, in this thread, I for one don't know what exactly is being alluded to with the use of the term Atheist or God.

nozzferrahhtoo

smacl wrote: »

It strikes me as a commonly used new age religious mechanism to bring in a wider audience; the vaguer you are about what you say, the fewer people you risk excluding from the outset.

Indeed and I do not think this is limited to "new age" things either. It can be quite mainstream. I wrote some time ago about the science experiments I performed on "consecrated" and "normal" Catholics Bread bites. The goal was to test, in every measurable way I could, the difference between the two types. I found none.

During this however I found that catholics I met, spoke to, read or emailed or whatever fell into three groups. Those that believed in a spiritual change in the bread, those that believed in a literal physical change, and those that believed it was all just a symbolic ceremony loaded with meaning but with no actual magic or change involved.

Clearly catholic doctrine only supports ONE of those groups.... so I wondered for awhile in my then naivety and innocence why they aren't striving to educate their own "flock" on the matter. I was thinking maybe a simple pamphlet in the entrance area of the church.... the Narthex or whatever it is called, someone will have to correct my terminology there.... would achieve this.

But then I realized with age and some modicum of wisdom that keeping things vague is likely in their interest as, were they to be TOO specific about what their claims and beliefs actually are, they would risk "excluding from the outset" those of the other two groups.

It has been said numerous times on many threads but it is important enough to bear repeating on almost every one..... some words can be vague and anyone coming in here espousing the idea a god exists.... it is incumbent upon them to define exactly what THEY mean by "god". I have given my definition, numerous times, but I do not assume at any point that my definition matches the one of the person I am speaking with.

For me when I discuss "god" I am talking about a non-human intelligence responsible for the creation and/or ongoing maintenance of our universe. That definition, I find, at least matches the type of god normally associated with... say.... the Abrahamic religions.... which I would imagine the majority of theists on this forum subscribe to.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

While it is pedantic, I think the onus is on anyone to provide definitions for terms where their usage of those terms goes beyond the accepted and unambiguous dictionary definition. Specifically, in this thread, I for one don't know what exactly is being alluded to with the use of the term Atheist or God.

Well, go back to the OP and have a read of the linked article, which invites consideration of God in the sense of "the unconditioned cause of reality . . . the condition of the possibility of anything existing at all". That definition may be a tricky concept to wrap your mind around but, as the article says, it's not a novel notion of God; it;s absolutely mainstream in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and has been since at least the patristic period.

Piliger may choose to sneer at this definition rather than bother to articulate his objections to it, but in doing so he illustrates the very problem that the article linked in the OP talks about. The new atheism is characterised by applying the method and techniques of science to the question of God. Dawkins, famously, insists that "god exists" is a scientific proposition. But this definition, and the theological tradition generally, makes claims about God which are metaphysical in nature, not scientific, and those claims aren't capable of meaningful examination by the techniques of natural science.

A common reaction to this is to dismiss metaphysical claims because they are metaphysical; that's basically what Piliger is doing. But there is, and can be, no scientific argument, for doing so; the assertion that metaphysical arguments are either meaningless or untrue is, ironically, a faith-based position. Furthermore, this stance does not attract or engage people who are actually interested in or engaged by metaphysical questions.

The net point is this; in order to use the techniques of science to critique claims about god, we must first of all formulate those claims a scientific claims. The new atheism fails entirely to address claims not so framed. Mainstream theology in western religions (and not just in western religions) does not frame its fundamental propositions in scientific terms; hence, as most theologians and philosophers (including atheist and agnostic philosophers) are concerned, the new atheims largely misses the point; it simply doesn't address the central propositions of western religion.

nozzferrahhtoo

Peregrinus wrote: »

it simply doesn't address the central propositions of western religion.

I do not know what this "new atheism" you are going on about actually is.... as it seems to me identical to the "old atheism". But for me the "central proposition" of western religions is that our universe was created by a non human intentional and intelligent agent.

I do do not need the labels atheism or science, "new" or "old", to simply point out that this proposition is not just slightly but ENTIRELY unsubstantiated by any arguments, evidence, data or reasoning. Much less so by our OP on these fora.

So what aspect of the proposition you feel is "not addressed" is entirely opaque to me.

If someone is simply applying the label "god" on a probability... as you describe above... then they are... as I said in an earlier post.... simply saying nothing at all but using a lot of words to say it.

Peregrinus

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I do not know what this "new atheism" you are going on about actually is.... as it seems to me identical to the "old atheism". But for me the "central proposition" of western religions is that our universe was created by a non human intentional and intelligent agent.

I do do not need the labels atheism or science, "new" or "old", to simply point out that this proposition is not just slightly but ENTIRELY unsubstantiated by any arguments, evidence, data or reasoning . . .

What do you understand by the term "created", though? If you think of creation as something analogous to the Big Bang, or the emergence of mass-energy from quantum "soup", such that the lattter processes can substitute for creation in an account of existence, then you are understanding the term in a radically different way from the sense in which theologians use it. If you understand it in a metaphysical sense, then I can't see the point of your objection that there is no evidence or data; what evidence or data do you expect for metaphysical claims?

Turtwig

One thing that's always bugged me about the claims of the metaphysical is that science or whatever you want to call the process by which we find stuff out can't investigate it. Surely if the thing is real we have a means of analysing and investigating it? Where does the concept of something being beyond science come from? Because if anyone takes a look a history anything that was believed beyond human understanding turned out to be naivety. Now, I'm not saying this trend will continue for ever, but there was a trend, so it seems a fair assumption to make. Shouldn't we at least try? Even if it is futile. What's so special about the metaphysical, if it exists, that says we shouldn't investigate it. Seems to me nothing. Futile or not, we should try.