If theism stands and falls with theists ...

All but the last one are attributes most people would like to have (the last being a bit of a contradiction, unless you mean "self-sufficient" and "dependent" in a specific sense, such as being able to feed and house yourself, but relying on others for love and companionship), and can be achieved without any reference to a god or spiritual realm. I'm an atheist, for example, and I would love to say those things about myself, and at times I think I can. There is nothing supernatural about any of those things, nothing that relies on outside agency to achieve.

Unless you're looking to find a shortcut, and/or a way to be those things at all times, in which case you're chasing an illusion.

Well, why not? I'd least like to know what you found wrong about my assessment.

I've thumbed through it, but I don't see any explanation as to why the paradoxes are inherent to spirituality. I was hoping you could tell me, since I don't plan on buying the book.

You mean you wish to live a stress-free, sadness-free, suffering-free life? That's simply not possible. Even if you found religion tomorrow, unless you had designs on stealing off to some mountain temple in Asia to live among the Buddhists, no religion I know of offer you such a blissful existence (and I'd bet you'd find that even those monks claiming to be stress-free aren't really; just like those Scientologists who claim to be free from headaches and illness).

You can't escape being human. Sometimes life sucks, but it sucks for everybody sometimes. That's the human condition. And I'd say the bad times make the good times sweeter. Isn't it better to settle down for an afternoon with a good book when you've been hard at work all week?

Unless you mean something else. In which case, please share.

Attributing all things to a personal god can perhaps offer some consolation to the grieving and the troubled, just as running home to mommy and daddy is comforting to a child when things go bad, but as was the case when you were a child, nobody can make the bad go away. Nobody's going to miraculously (forgive the term) save you from suffering.

I wasn't asking what you think you're missing, or why you feel that way. I think we can all relate to a feeling of incompleteness. My question is why you think a belief in god is going to fill the void? How do you know it isn't simply an unhappiness with your career, or personal life? Boredom is a very real condition, and some people are more easily susceptible to it than others.

Have you tried therapy? I mean real therapy. Perhaps you can find answers there. Perhaps the biggest fallacy in all of this is that we have a god-shaped hole in our lives. Reason can be as transcendent and beautiful and meaningful as irrational belief, and the pursuit of knowledge--especially knowledge of oneself--is the noblest.

 

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But we're not talking about complex psychological issues here, we're talking about a reasonable prerequisite for engaging in theological/philosophical discussion, which is to learn the lingo and respect it.

You simply can not legitimately call deism a form of atheism, since deism is the belief in the existence of a deity, and atheism is the opposite.

 

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Yeah, sure, I think you're probably right about that.

 

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That pretty much assumes that we are to believe that whoever wrote the dictionary (and a particular dictionary at that) was nothing short of enlightened.

Another example: Is someone who hates God a theist?

You simply refuse to consider that some of the popular definitions of terms may be problematic.

 

Forget the dictionary (although I think you'll find they are all consistent anyway). My references are simply pretty much anything you can find written on the topic, by anyone.

There's nothing complicated about this. Deists are not atheists, because atheists don't believe in a deity. Deists are deists. There's already a word for them.

They would be a misotheist.

There isn't a problem except for the one you are creating. When you want to be specific, all you need to do is use the right term. And when that's not sufficient for accurately characterizing something, you employ some additional adjectives. And when even that is not sufficient, you simply attempt to highlight the subtleties through a further and more comprehensive use of language.

 

Wynn, seriously, stop it. I've been warming to this new, more open you lately, but you can't have your own definitions for words and then tell others they are wrong for going by the established definitions.

 

God isn't exactly an "outside agency."

From what I understood, the whole point of belief in God is to be able to behave differently, to act differently, to do things differently - and this is then conducive to greater happiness.

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You seem to be operating out of a considerably different notion of God than I do.
More below.

Look at the list I noted earlier -
how to be humble, yet ambitious,
how to know, yet continue to seek knowledge,
how to be kind, but not stupid,
how to be proud of one's attainment, but not vain,
how to be self-sufficient, and yet depend on others.

These are essentially paradoxical desires, given how each pair consists of desires that pull the person in opposite directions.

I think such paradoxes are common in life in general. But they find their sharpest articulation in spiritual pursuits, I think.

If you believe it is possible, or if you don't believe it's possible: you're probably right either way.

I'm sure this works - for some time. Eventually, it breaks down, though.
There comes a point when escapes and distractions don't work anymore.

It seems you are operating out of a notion of God that is foreign to me.
The Christian "Big Daddy" idea of God has always been foreign to me, I could never relate to it, and it made me feel helpless and stupid.

Like I said, I think it depends on who one thinks God is.
One's career or personal life are not separate from one's understanding of God.
I think "Big Daddy" can't really fill a personal void or make career problems and boredom go away.

However, there are forms of theism that explain "life, the Universe and everything" in such a way that makes a personal void, career problems, boredom etc. appear in a new way; it conceptualizes them differently.

But as my experience has shown, trying to take up that other form of theism has numerous accompanying problems - everything from not getting along with the proponents of that theism to that theism not fitting into Western society.

Standard Western psychotherapy implicitly requires strong atheism, and also an unquestioning acceptance of numerous other propositions (for which there is no empirical evidence, or which require an unscientific interpretation of the evidence).

 

No, it's you who are warming up.

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Okay. An "atheistic deist" then.

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You simply refuse to consider that some of the popular definitions of terms may be problematic.

 

You're labouring under the misconception that ''atheists'' don't worship God, therefore ''deism'' isn't an atheist religion, because it ''worships'' the universe.

To be an atheist means one does NOT believe in God, with an upper-case G.
The worship of gods (lower case) is not in the same category, these are worshiped with a materialistic goal. For example, if someone is superstitious, i.e. they always wear certain underwear while marking the lottery, because they believe it will bring them luck, are inadvertantly worshiping a god/goddess.

Deism is atheism, pure and simple, because it does not acknowledge God, or a trancendental supreme being. It instead replaces the word universe with the word God.

They deny God His Supremity.

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jan.

 

You're confusing deism with pantheism you nutbag.

 

So I am.
My bad.
Sorry.

''Nutbag''?
Is that really necessary?

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jan.

 

God can communicate with people independent of of His followers. But where He has true Followers who are giving His message, Then there is no need for Him to reveal His will to a person who has access to the knowledge from one of His followers.

If the message that a theist gives is true to the will of God then all the meaning is present to be considered.

Well if you are getting the Message from true followers of God and you don't like it then you're not going to get anything from God.

Atheists don't speak for God. So hostility, anger, impatience, and especially elitism (which is an consistent atheist trait if i have ever seen one) are not that much of a problem with true followers of God.

The meek shall inherit the earth. The proud don't like conviction and will not submit to the Word of God. Submission is weakness to the proud and they see it as being treated like shite.


Actually i have heard many reports of people experiencing direct contact from Jesus in nations where the preaching of the Word of God is activing persecuted and banned. In the Islamic world there are reports of a lot of people believing in Jesus from recurrent dreams. So even when there are no Christians around to give His message Jesus can get through on another level to those He knows will accept the Love of the Truth.



All Praise The Ancient Of Days



Something doesn't seem right here.

 

What I'm talking about!

I'm afraid that all theism eventually comes down to a stance like above.

 

God is an outside agent. His capacity to intervene is agency. And yes, this is the correct usages of the term, your particular misunderstanding or personal definition notwithstanding.

I've never heard that particular rationale before, but supposing those things were true--that behaving differently (which is the same as acting differently and doing things differently)--were truly conducive to happiness, why would you need a god to tell you to do so? Just do it on your own.

And it's interesting that someone who says they are unable to articulate exactly what they're missing in life seems to know exactly the remedy.

...?

Those comments were based on your writing, not any particular notion of god.

None of them are paradoxes, Wynn. Most of them are even on the same side of the coin. For example, being vain is simply having an excess of pride, not pride itself.

Another example: I can know my own name, yet continue to seek out other names. I can know my multiplication tables, yet continue to seek out higher maths.

"Kind" and "stupid" are not even related terms. And one can only be humble in the context of success, so ambition is not the opposite of it, but a prerequisite for it.

You haven't offered any paradoxes here, but I do agree that life is a struggle to balance ideals and concessions, work and play, family and career, etc.. But again, simply saying that they "find their sharpest articulation in spiritual pursuits" is no help to the discussion unless you can show how they are sharpest, and what exactly these spiritual pursuits are. None of the things you've listed above are spiritual in nature.

Um, no. It's not possible, and if you think it is, you're wrong.

It depends on the problem, but I can agree with that.

I'm only going by what you write, Wynn. You said yourself you were looking for salvation from suffering. Whether that's in the form of an anthropomorphic God figure, or simply a "spiritual enlightenment" you're still looking for an impossible solution.

So then from your own experience, there is no such thing a stress-free existence. You're never going to find that golden egg. But if you're really set on being a theist (which you clearly are) then just bastardize that faith for your own purposes. After all, that faith is already a bastardization of a previous faith, so there should be nothing preventing you from putting your own spin on it. It still won't solve your problems, but at least you can eliminate the issues pertaining to that particular faith.

That's absolute nonsense. You haven't the first clue as to what you're talking about here. I'm literally embarrassed for you. Wow.

 

No so, they simply think that God's role in creating the universe is long over, and he doesn't involve himself in the petty lives of human beings.

 

I'm late coming to this thread (already 55 posts long), so I'll post my response to the first post, then skim through the thread and post comments where it seems appropriate.

I certainly don't know how to distinguish the experience of a god from inexplicable transcendent experiences generally. But on the other hand, while I've never really had one to speak of, I don't want to flatly dismiss the possibility of veridicial self-autheniticating religious experiences.

Maybe.

I'm a seeker, though I'm not really seeking God. (I don't believe in God.) And even if I was, I'd be more interested in contacting God directly than in hearing about God through some endless game of theological 'telephone'. (I heard it from --, and she heard it from --, and... endlessly. Things get... distorted.)

You keep saying that, insisting that theists are in an infinitely superior position to non-theists, while insistng (falsely in my opinion) not to be a theist yourself. (I think that you're still a theist, just one who feels lost somehow, cut off or estranged from something that you assume that the others have.)

Many of my closest friends and companions are or have been theists. We communicate very well. Perhaps we can't communicate in such a way that their words would make me suddenly become a theist myself. They can't transmit their faith with their words. But as I said, I don't seek that. If I am going to ever have faith in anything, it has to be my faith, not theirs. Nevertheless, we can and do talk about everything else, including religion and philosophy.

In Christian terms, maybe you need to be directly touched by the holy spirit yourself. Isn't that how Christian tradition addresses that point?

If somebody is a non-theist, then why would he or she be trying to "come to God" in the first place? Wouldn't he or she have to already believe in God in order to want to do that?

I get the impression that to you, 'theist' means somebody touched by God or something, or perhaps somebody comfortably settled into her faith, as opposed to defining 'theist' as somebody who believes in God's existence, even if God is inexplicably silent and the person feels lost and abandoned.

I don't believe in God, so God's silence doesn't surprise me in the least. I'd be tremendously surprised if God suddenly wasn't silent.

 

Yes. Faith would dictate that he has both faith in God's existence, and ability to be supreme. If you have faith not in his God's ultimate ability to play the right hand for the better of all then you are atheist, because you don't believe in God.

 

Thats fair. Things would be no different if God granted divinity on earth. A flying pig is just a pig to a flying man...