Yazata, I know it looks like that, but that's what I actually think. Reasoning seems to have gone out of the window, and we're reduced to making statements, agreeing with other like minds and trashing anything that does not fit in. Who believes in the ''...Greek/Roman gods of Olympus: Zeus, Pluto, Appollo...''? Show me any religion that believes in these gods? Why would anyone cite these as gods that atheists believe in, or prefer? Could it be that they are taking the piss as in: what theists believe in is just a preference and the Roman gods are no different to the Supreme Being? Obviously it can be seen as tongue-in-cheek, and that being said, my comment could be seen as tongue-in-cheek. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Actually no, it doesn't include you. But I don't think you give strong reason for your lack of belief in God.'' Lack of evidence'' does not explain anything, which is probably why I sometimes question some of the things you say. But hey! This is a discussion forum. What you regard as an ''ego-battle'' (or what I think you're referring to) happens to be the very heart and soul of the meaning and reason behind God-conscious religions. So once you take that out, what are you left with? Threads like this, and the ones ''Saint'' posts. Personal in the form of seemingly factual statements which aren't supposed to be contradicted. The idea that pre-historic, pre-modern scientific man, doodled some ideas on cave walls to explain lightening, inventing gods and God in the process, is obviously not true, but it has to remain as a reason, out of necessity. Also, what is the point of sticking to the idea that though Jesus may have been a real man, all the miracles and stuff are gobbeldy-gook made up by people needed some material comfort? If that is an established point, then why keep coming back to reiterate it? Would you go on unicorn forums to drive home the fact that they're not real? I doubt it. This is what makes me suspect that some atheist may not be what they say they are, although they may have convinced themselves. So why post this in a ''Religion'' forum? What does it have to do with actual religion? The biggest polytheistic society (in India) still accept that there is a Supreme Being that controls the gods and their religion is based on it. It seems to me like some folk completely ignore and project what they want without any respect for actual subject matter, and I think this thread is guilty of that. It gives the impression that everything is just down to personal preference, and takes for granted the feet under the table culture, that it's just one big joke. If a (relative) thread was put in the ''Biology'' forum I dare say it wouldn't last a day before being relegated to the ''Cesspool'' I understand that's how you see it, but it's not religion, and has nothing to do with religion. You're kidding right? Tell me you're kidding. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! This is the very reason why I always bring scripture into discussions, so a robust comprehension of the ''monotheistic'' deity can be discussed instead of the nonsense like this thread. Sorry Dinosaur, but I don't think this shouldn't be in the ''Religion'' forum. jan.
What do you mean by ''my god''? And, if you are referring to God as in The Supreme Being, do you really need to ask that question? jan.
When speaking in interviews, Einstein oftentimes took the cushy, cuddly way out of the discussion by using the term god in a Panatheist sense so as to not offend the overwhelmingly American public. After pointing out that he didn't believe in any gods (an atheist), he received months of hate mail and threats. Simply put, Einstein knew the better part of valor. He was by every account an agnostic-atheist (I do not know, I don't think it's knowable, but I don't really think there are any gods). His only acquiescence was in stating that the universe, itself, was the master of life and would be more appropriately labeled "god". But even then, he didn't accept any form of supernatural powers. This then makes him an atheist.
Einstein's thinking about religion seems to have remained fairly consistent throughout, whether he was speaking in public, in private, or writing in private correspondence. Yeah, I pretty much agree with that part. Einstein spoke favorably on several occasions about what he termed "Spinoza's God" and seems to have read and been influenced by Spinoza. Einstein was first and foremost a physicist, not a philosopher of religion, and he took 'Spinoza's God' to refer to the unchanging intelligible mathematical order that seemingly underlies all physical events. But this idea of a hidden intelligible cosmic order does seem to have inspired an emotional response in Einstein, and he appears to have thought of it as mankind's hint of the transcendent. That being said, Einstein didn't believe in a personal God, dismissing that idea as "childish". He didn't believe in life after death. He didn't believe in the literal truth of any of humanity's traditional religions. (He did identify with Judaism for ethnic reasons.) Einstein would sometimes refer to himself as an atheist in correspondence with religious believers. He'd qualify it by saying something like, "You would probably consider me an atheist..." On other occasions he could be quite scathing towards atheists and distinguished himself from them by calling himself an agnostic. He didn't like the angry attitude that many atheists wore on their sleeves, and attributed it (probably correctly in my opinion) to their continuing inner battles against the religious faith of their youth. He also criticized atheists for what he seems to have thought of as their blindness towards the transcendent. So I'd say that Einstein did feel some kind of religiosity. He did have some intuition of transcendence, and perhaps very strongly at times. But with him it was an impersonal and highly cerebral kind of religiosity, a Platonic sense of an underlying intelligible order in the universe, largely hidden from human eyes. Perhaps to Einstein, his physics was a religious quest. In a way, it reminds me of the obvious awe that Carl Sagan (a stout atheist) used to communicate on his old TV show, when he would say so reverently, "Billions and Billions...", as he described the scope of a universe far greater than most human beings can conceive.
Wrong. There is no requirement in the Old Testament that God have supernatural powers. I believe in God and I strictly follow the Old Testament, but I do not believe that God is supernatural. I am not an atheist.
'Preferred' needn't mean 'ideal'. I'm something of an atheist and I don't believe that any of the various deities literally exist. So in a way, it seems meaningless to talk about which non-existent being is preferrable to another. But having said that, descriptions, stories, tales and myths obviously exist about no end of deities, from traditions both historical and contemporary. In other words, even if I think that the deities don't literally exist, they obviously do exist in the way that fictional characters exist in literature. So I'm inclined to prefer some of them over others for much the same reasons that I'm inclined to prefer some characterizations in literature over others. I tend to like more fully-developed characters, characters with psychological depth and motivation, and perhaps a hint of a flaw or two. The polytheistic deities seem to me to be more sophisticated than the monotheistic deities in this literary sense. They can be more fully-developed persons, since they have the opportunity to interact with others and aren't imagined as existing in an absolutely splendid isolation. Since they are imagined as gods and patrons of a particular aspect of reality, as opposed to being the personification of all of it, it's possible for them to come into conflict with other gods and to possess flaws. A storm god's wrath might destroy crops and interfere with the work of a fertility goddess. There's a dichotomy between rationalistic Apollo and orgaistic Dionysius. With the polytheistic deities the purposes, exaggerations, flaws and motivations that give the characters interest are already kind of built into what they are imagined as being, and the fascination of the myths often revolves around how the various gods and goddesses interact, wielding their unique interests and attributes so as to finally achieve some kind of harmony. In human life, it really does seem at times that one aspect of reality is working at cross-purposes with another.
Gods have always represented the ideals of the people who espouse them. Vengeful gods idealized by the weak, libidinous gods by the hedonist, etc.. It seems consistent that people who prefer more humanized gods have no ideal beyond human, as is apparent in atheism and some agnostics. Some do idealize aliens as those who "seeded" life on Earth, but that falls in the same god-spectrum. That is the essential meaning of Supreme Being. The nth degree of idealization of being. Some are just more provincial than others. Ideals do not necessarily exist, though perhaps they do require some degree of belief in their possibility. Hence a preference for gods with more human foibles.
There is no way that Einstein was an atheist, so you can scratch that one. Sure he didn't believe in God like how a Christian proffeses to believe in God, but anyone who has any understand of eastern philosophy would recognise how he saw and believed in God. ''Pantheism'' may be the best way for western understanding of his position, but again, anyone who has an understanding of eastern philosophy will know that it is better explained under that umbrella. jan.
Jan Ardena: From your Post #31. I have read a lot that was written by & about Einstein. I never saw any indication that he was a theist in the ordinary sense of the word. I do not think he could even be called an agnostic.
EXODUS 16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. 17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. 19 As the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.[c] Volcano.
So speaking to the various characters like Abraham, Noah, Cain, Joshua, David etc is not a sign of anything supernatural??
Sure, he was certainly against western organised religion, and agnostic with regard personal Gods. I wouldn't describe it as eastern philosophy, either, but merely a personal philosophy with elements of agnosticism, deism, Panentheism etc. And who better to tell us what he thought than his own words: "From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist... I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being." - Albert Einstein, from "Skeptic" vol.5, no.2, 1997. "My position concerning God is that of an agnostic. I am convinced that a vivid consciousness of the primary importance of moral principles for the betterment and ennoble meant of life does not need the idea of a law-giver, especially a law-giver who works on the basis of reward and punishment." - Albert Einstein, from a letter to M. Berkowitz, 1950. "I do not believe in the fear of life, in the fear of death, or blind faith. I can not prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws." He was not an atheist (in as much as he saw an atheist as someone who argued God does not exist, rather than the broader sense), and was fascinated by Spinoza's God... which has been called "Classical pantheism" or even "Panentheism". From what I have read he did believe that there was a creator, that this god created the universal laws, but that god is so far beyond our understanding that he (Einstein) satisfied himself with just trying to unravel even a part of the mysteries presented within/by our universe. He also disliked being quoted by atheists (those who believed in the non-existence of god) as somehow supporting their position. He was almost certainly agnostic beyond there actually being a god (which I would think he saw the universe itself as evidence of). Perhaps a deist. Beyond that I'm not sure he had any clear, defined notion. At least that's how i see his views. If you want to see this as being eastern philosophy, feel free.
Not necessarily. Some gods espoused by people represent the dark side of the cosmic spectrum. Kali Ma. Hades. Loki. Set. Tiamat. Molech. Representations of destruction and chaos and death.
I'm inclined to agree. Some gods and goddesses were personifications of natural things like the sky, the sea, storms or the sun. Others personified more abstract processes like birth/fecundity and death/destruction. There were gods and goddesses associated with dispassionate reason and others associated with orgaistic pleasure. There were deities both of war and of love. Gods and goddesses might be associated with particular places and as the heavenly patrons of ethnic groups (Yahweh apparently got his start that way). Even if we agree that some of them did personify ideals, and I'm sure that some did, the ideals that they represented weren't always entirely consistent with one another. Apollo and Dionysius. I think that one advantage of a polytheistic pantheon might be that there isn't any built in assumption that all cosmic processes, functions, ideals and virtues must somehow be consistent with one another, such that everything can simultaneously be rolled into one and maximized. It's possible that over-emphasizing one ideal goal might make it more difficult or even impossible to realize another. We see those kind of conflicts illustrated in the Greek tragedies and perhaps underlying Aristotle's doctrine of the mean, in which the goal isn't so much maximizing all virtues as finding a harmonious balance among them.
In spite of her seemingly terrible form, Kali Ma is often considered the kindest and most loving of all the Hindu goddesses, as she is regarded by her devotees as the Mother of the whole Universe. And because of her terrible form, she is also often seen as a great protector. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali#Iconography Despite modern connotations of death as evil, Hades was actually more altruistically inclined in mythology. Hades was often portrayed as passive rather than evil; his role was often maintaining relative balance. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hades#God_of_the_underworld Loki's relation with the gods varies by source. Loki sometimes assists the gods and sometimes causes problems for them. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki Set is not however a god to be ignored or avoided, he has a positive role where he is employed by Ra on his solar boat to repel the serpent of Chaos Apep.[3] Set had a vital role as a reconciled combatant.[4] He was lord of the red (desert) land where he was the balance to Horus' role as lord of the black (soil) land. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(mythology) It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos, the first in which Tiamat is 'creatrix', through a "Sacred marriage" between salt and fresh water, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiamat Molech's mythology is the most muddied, often seeming to be a reference to a sacrificing altar or type of sacrifice rather than a god at all. As you can see, most of these are not solely evil, but reflect the vagaries of human nature. Humans do have darker impulses equally open to idealization.
