post theism

Many people treat atheism as if it were itself a belief system. It is as if so called atheists were always in a state of actively denying the existence of god. For many people though I think that this is not the way that they view their own disbelief. Perhaps a better way to put it would be lack of belief rather than disbelief.

When you say that you do not believe in the god of Abraham people call you an atheist, but when you lack belief in Thor people don't typically refer to that as atheistic. If you press me in conversation I will admit that I do not think that Yahweh exists, but for me the question of whether Yahweh exists is the same as asking whether Thor exists. I am rarely in a state of actively denying Yahweh's or Thor's existence. Does anyone feel this way as well?

 

I have always been an atheist. I would have lived a lifetime without any thought of the subject of god if it wasn't for so many rude pushy people, and I couldn't care less what other people believe.

I think you will find that a true atheist is much like you describe yourself. That's why you don't see atheist churches or people carrying signs saying "you will not be judged."

 

I dunno. I can't imagine how anyone who is intellectually curious can go through life without a sense of wonder about the experience of being alive and conscious and wondering how we got here. Most atheists I know (and I know quite a few of them) either accept naturalistic/scientific explanations of how it came to be or are reacting to those "rude pushy people' who are difficult to escape. As for Yahweh and Thor, I'm skeptical. As I understand it, Yahweh is the name we give to the letters YHVH, which was supposed to be a word ordinary folks weren't supposed to pronounce, to underscore the point that the name gives us a false sense of understanding about the ineffable. Humans give names to things like "electrons", quarks, quanta, etc., and then form pictures in our minds of billiard ball-like entities, thinking we now know about these things, when in fact we don't know shit from shinola. The same is true of the bearded dude in the sky many think of when the word "God" is mentioned, or the muscle man with the hammer who comes to mind when we say "Thor". This is a process known as reification, which is another word for idolatry.

Not that this isn't sometimes tempting. Recently, some of my friends were trying to help Friend X who was trying to cope with the problem of cutting himself without understanding why. Most of us offered armchair psychology, or advised psychological counseling. But Friend Y suggested something more intriguing: prayer. And not to Yaweh or Thor, but to an image of the bodhisattva Kwan Yin. This might seem particularly odd, considering that Friend Y is a Baptist (as well as a Buddhist), but we all understood why he suggested it, and Friend X thought it was worth considering. Friend Y explained that if one of our other friends, a devout Christian, had a similar problem, he would have suggested Christian prayer in Christ's name, but Friend X doesn't respond to Christian appeals. Friend Y, who is also a Jungian, thinks that trying to solve such problems through rational thought alone is futile. He thought it would be intuitively useful to invoke a non-rational belief in a Higher Power, and that a concrete image of one would make that more vivid. He came up with Kwan Yin, because she personifies positive traits. Traditional Christians, Muslims, and Jews (as well as some Buddhists) might be appalled at this idolatry, but as long as we were all aware of what we're doing (that there is no supernatural entity called KwanYin who is going to intervene in Friend X's behalf, and that this is simply a form of guided imagery to focus the mind), my friends saw no harm in it.

But I think there's a major spiritual danger with this. Once we latch on to a mental image of KwanYin or any other reified concept, we risk closing ourselves off to further encounters with the ineffable. Hence the taboo against idolatry, which I think is well-founded and central to the Abrahamic religious traditions.

 

Secular models of good are no different than religious models of good.

 

I don't see how a sense of wonder about being alive and curiosity about how we got here should lead one to consider the existence of god. The idea of god explains nothing, and anyone who is deeply curious about the world should be totally unsatisfied with the concept of god. If I take everything I know and believe about the universe and add to that the concept of god, that addition in fact adds nothing to my understanding. To postulate god to explain phenomena is to shrug one's shoulders.

 

The word god comes from an Indo- European root meaning, that which is invoked. Invoke, to call upon, to create or arouse an idea, emotion or image.

 

I've been curious enough to spend a lifetime studying Psychology, Sociology, and and some Philosophy, Science and Biology which included 6 years in 3 colleges. I've developed my own model of Social Psychology and have very clear ideas of how I think all of this may have happened. I don't think we can ever know for sure how the universe began, or if it ever had a beginning. I like Steven Hawking, but the time to learn physics is more than I think it's worth. So, I read his conclusions. My primary interests lie in why we are the way we are.

Atheism does not suppress the basic human desire to know, to the contrary, it only heightens curiosity. After all, we don't have the answers given to us in church on Sunday morning from a preacher who thinks a black hole is a place where food exits the body and tells us it's a sin open our minds to knowledge.

I do have a question: How does one become a Baptist and a Buddhist? It's an oxymoron.

 

Re your comments about atheism and curiosity, I couldn't agree more. I know that there are lots of curious atheists, many in the sciences, who are atheists because they are uncomfortable with the pat answers suggested by traditional religions. I was responding to a post by a particular atheist who seemed to be suggesting that he could get along nicely without ever considering the possibility of a God, which to me is similar to the True Believers in religion who think they can get along nicely without ever considering the possibility that there isn't one.

As for how one can be a Baptist and a Buddhist at the same time, it depends on what kind of Baptist and what kind of Buddhist you're talking about. A Bible believing fundamentalist (making up the bulk of Baptists, especially the Southern Baptist kind) would probably have no truck with Buddhism. But I think that would involve a misunderstanding. Buddhism, unlike the Abrahamic religions is not exclusivistic, and since it does not invovle a belief in God, can be taken as a useful set of spiritual disciplines centered on the eightfold path: right views, right intent, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. All of these are, in my and my friend's opinion, compatible with Christianity. It's true that fundamentalist Theravadans reject the notions of gods and spiritual help, while fundamentalist Mahayanans allow belief in supernatural entities such as Kwan Yin, which would be incompatible with Christian monotheism. My friend accepts the disciplines of the dharma without rejecting the Judeo- Christian God. The Dali Lama wouldn't approve, but that's his opinion. Baptist Bible thumpers wouldn't approve, but that's their opinion.

 

Here we're getting into conceptualizations of "God". I think that for many Christians, the term can provide the comforting illusion that they know the answers to life's mysteries, or will soon enough. The group I take fellowship with uses instead the term "Great Mystery" in place of God. What does that add to our understanding of the universe? A reminder of the fact that it is a "Great Mystery", as a corrective to fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist atheism (Scientism, as opposed to science), which deny that reality. I find it mind blowing that I'm a conscious being capable of asking questions about my existence, when evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould tells me that the existence of intelligent life forms is a result of a succession of chance developments. One can accept our existence as a lucky accident or a sign of something more. I agree that the term "God" can be unhelpful, by explaining the unknown by the unknown. I prefer "Great Mystery" or SBOT (Something Big Out There).

I think the concept of "God" has other uses besides explaining phenomena. I find Tillich's term "Ground of Being" to be a useful referent for Ultimate Meaning or my subjective understanding of it, the (ultimately futile) quest for which is what I think my life is all about. It's an attitude of reverence and awe toward reality which has behavioral consequences. And it's exemplified by some atheists, like Carl Sagan. Fundamental to Tillich's theology is the idea that God is not a being, but instead the ground of all being. I can live with Dewey's concept of God as the summation of human idealism. Did I say that God is "nothing but" and abstraction? No way, but it wouldn't shake my faith much if I found out that that is the case, just as I wouldn't find it devastating as a Christian to learn that the historical Jesus never existed. Intuitively, I'm convinced there's more to it than that, but intuitions can be unreliable. I'm willing to bet my life on the possibility of something more, realizing it's just a gamble.

I know that this way of thinking is maddening to religious fundamentalists and atheists alike, which is admittedly part of its appeal. Freud and others found it fundamentally dishonest to accept a concept of God that's poles apart from traditional anthropomorphic conceptions. I'm sorry, but that's the way God has evolved, and I don't think we need to choose between superstition and brute materialism. Progressive Christianity has a following in mainline churches, and I'm comfortable in the rationality and values it upholds.

 

I've never given any real thought to the possibility that any god exists, but I have spent much time exploring the reasons why people believe. On this issue, I take the stance that believe in god is not a choice that is consciously made either way, environment, experiences and culture are the primary determining factors. A Christian cannot make an independent decision to stop believing in god any more than I can choose to believe.

As to Buddhism, I don't claim to be an expert, but I would have to take the side of The Buddha, who stated very clearly that one should worship nothing and any deviation from this would not be authentic Buddhism. But then, individuals tend to pick and choose what they believe based on past experiences, not pure doctrines.

 

personally i like the idea of a god existing.

the god i like the idea of existing though, owes nothing to the preconceptions of 'abrahimic' religions and their dominance in western thought.

i'm not convinced anything HAS to exist in order to.

for the simple reason there is no inherent need for our own human species to exist, and yet we do. there is nothing in this universe or even on this planet that couldn't get along just fine without our own existing.

i'm not suggesting this as proof of anything, though perhaps somewhat to illustrate how pointless arguing over so called proofs, either way, really is.

as for thor, tara, hecate or anyone else, all the names people have invented are names people have invented for what they don't know. just as are god, jahova and so on.

i don't call myself an athiest because i don't believe it makes me one to believe that something can exist without organized beliefs having to have the slightest idea what they're talking about for it to do so.

i like to believe there are a lot of friendly invisible things because i feel myself hugged affectionately by them frequently. and that of these, there is simply one more powerful then all the others, and is thus, therefore, the same true god of all beliefs that refer to one, and quite possibly, even as well, the origin of those that do not.

 

Jackflash I agree completely with your statement that people are not free to choose to believe or not to believe. One must be compelled to believe, and one cannot choose whether or not one is compelled. It's like trying to choose to like or dislike a song. When you hear a song you either like it or you don't.

Whenever Christians tell me that I will go to hell for not accepting Yahweh I counter by saying that even if Yahweh is real he cannot condemn me for rejecting him, because I do not have a choice as to whether I believe.

 

Can you tell me how you pierced "the illusion of free choice" at such a young age? Most 20 somethings are flexing their freedom muscle and proclaiming their individuality, something I noticed in the Hippie Movement. Humans are compelled by biology to "follow the leader." As long as you follow in the footsteps of another you don't get eaten. The nature of the real world rewards conformity and punishes individuality, so nature is constantly weeding out individualists.

 

Personally it was education that purged the illusion of free will from my mind. As I studied things like sensation and perception, conditioning and learning, cognitive processes, and physiological psychology I was forced to face facts that ruled out free will.

I think that the field of psychology rules out free will, but the funny thing is that many psychologists do believe in free will. The reason, I suspect, is that most of them never fully consider the subject and they fail to follow the implications of their research. Psychology reveals that a genotype plus an environment produces a phenotype. All psychologists would accept that statement, it is non-controversial. However that very statement rules out free will: It is not up to me what my genotype is, and it is not up to me what my environment is, therefor it is not up to me which traits and behaviors are expressed in me.

 

The sad fact is that in this day and age people calling themselves "atheist" usually profess a belief that there is no god.

A defined atheist sees no reason to believe in god, but is opened to new data on the subject-- but we are few. Like the word "gay", the label has been pre-empted and the pragmatic meaning has changed. so I'm not an atheist, I'm just not a believer.

 

Although your point has some merit, it's merely an argument of semantics. It's only the theists who want to pigeon hole me into a belief system for their own sake. I've argue with many of them over the years and most cannot understand how someone does not believe. Their indoctrination is so ingrained that the idea of not believing does not exist to them.

 

You might change that opinion if you hang around here for awhile.

this place is crawling with so-called atheist that profess a knowledge on the subject of god that they adhere to as dogmatically as the worst muslim. And they try harder to convert the believers to thier POV that the belivers try to convert them.

 

I consider myself atheist but I truly believe there is some sort of process or force at work beyond our comprehension. I'm hesitant to call it God because I infer from that it necessarily is all encompassing and a force or entity.

I get really troubled by what i'll call 'pop christianity' though. Things like believing you will go to heaven and meet all your ancestors and be in pure bliss and contentment. I don't know it just seems like these people actually believe they will have the exact same consciousness into the afterlife. There are plenty of babies that have died, people with brain injuries, and just the fact you can see deterioration of the person as they get very old to make that assertion absurd.

Jesus returning is another one. It's just like I think about it if he were to go back to Israel at noon, I would be asleep most likely, we would need to get CNN and Fox News out to Israel to get some footage of him, maybe we could convince him to post on youtube or he could setup a facebook, it just gets really ridiculous when you really think about these claims.

 

What you're talking about is not atheism, it's a dogmatic religion. Atheism is merely an opinion, it's not something that my life revolves around.

 

By definition you're an agnostic.