Spin off thread: atheists that believe in God

[veinglory]

I could argue pretty much any position if motivated but here we are with how an atheist could believe in God.

If you believe that human belief acts directly on the world, you might think that human invention of and belief in a god could in effect create a being this literally is the 'god' the believers envisage. Thus this god would exist and would have all the powers ascribed to it in the current moment. Could not a bystander believe that god exists and is capable of all that its believers believe in--and still be an atheist in knowing the people created the god, not vice versa?

I can think of a few other possibilities but that is one hypothetical.

[SPMiller]

Heh, that's similar (but not identical) to the reality in one of my fantasy universes: the gods exist only because there are those who believe in them, and their power is directly proportional to the magnitude of that belief. I suppose you could say the text tackles the moral/religious quandary thereby posited.

[t0neg0d]

The belief in an undetermined god or gods but not having a formed opinion about it is Agnostic (no matter what the version of god or gods is). Wouldn't the entire concept switch one from being Atheist to Agnostic?

[veinglory]

In many cases it would not. For the sake of simplicity I started with one example. Where the entity exists and its actions and abilities are agreed by both parties, but the believer considers that set of actions and abilities god-like and the atheist does not. Thus this athiest does believe in that god. I would argue that merely believing a god exists does not make the atheist a theist because s/he does not 'believ' in its godliness in relation to themself.

[t0neg0d]

In many cases it would not. For the sake of simplicity I started with one example. Where the entity exists and its actions and abilities are agreed by both parties, but the believer considers that set of actions and abilities god-like and the atheist does not. Thus this athiest does believe in that god. I would argue that merely believing a god exists does not make the atheist a theist because s/he does not 'believ' in its godliness in relation to themself.

But that would mean that the Atheist believes in bunnies and coleslaw, not god/s. This is really a play on words, not a belief in god/s.

[veinglory]

I do not consider the subjective meaning of 'god' to be trivial. I think that two people could see and understand a being identically, but one worship it and one not, is more than a word game. It speaks to fundamentally different perspective being as important as the literal reality of the world. Even if we could agree on the literal reality of the world I doubt we would all share the same philosophy or faith.

[Ruv Draba]

There's a school of atheistic thought that says: gods don't exist, but it's beneficial to believe in them anyway. I dug it out of the Encyc. Britannica a while back.

My view is almost diametrically opposed: even if a magical creator of the universe existed and insisted on being our absolute moral authority, I wouldn't submit to it without some very impressive demonstration of superior moral bona fides. Or put another way: any god of the Universe must demonstrate through moral and ethical means that it is also the god of Man, and not of (say) Lovecraft.

[Lhun]

.

[Bartholomew]

I think that such an atheist could exist, but that he would no longer fit the word.

[DeleyanLee]

This is also making the assumption that worshippers have to believe in whatever god they are worshipping, which I don't happen to agree with.

In my religion (Asatru), no one needs to believe in the gods to do the rites, etc. In fact, my understanding that is the gods want you to believe in them, the onus is on THEM to make you believe. As long as you do the rites respectfully, you're a worshipper and reap whatever benefits the religion and gods can offer.

Thus, I have no problems with the concept there can be a atheist who's an active worshipper. Actually, I know many.

[Angelinity]

the one thing i do not doubt is the power of 'thought' as a primordial creative energy --as strange as it may sound to some, to me the creation of any reality (including ones featuring God or gods) starts with belief; hence i can easily accept that an endless number of them are as real as can be for as long as they are believed to exist.

God exists and rules in many such worlds, regardless of my acceptance or rejection of the possibility. He can desist only when his creators cease to empower him.

[veinglory]

Which seems to match my hypotheitic at least in relation to any gods you don;t personally give much credence or attention to. (Flying Spagetti Monster, Zeus...)

[Sarpedon]

I would consider a 'god' created by people, even if it had 'god-like' powers, as it goes against the traditional definition of a god, which would include some kind of association with the origin of the universe/mankind.

In short, a godlike being created by man would by definition NOT be a 'real' god, thus while I could certainly believe that such a being could exist, this belief would not nullify my atheism.

The proper term may be 'idol'-a created object worshipped as if it were a god.

And I have trouble with the concept of belief impacting reality in any way other than the physical efforts of real people that the beliefs inspire.

[Angelinity]

Which seems to match my hypotheitic at least in relation to any gods you don;t personally give much credence or attention to. (Flying Spagetti Monster, Zeus...)

not to belittle any god or credance... yes, any facet of the crystal can shine as brightly as the light shone upon it. I can believe that you (or he / she) believe -- therefore that it IS SO for you (or him or her).

[Ageless Stranger]

Very good point Veinglory. I suppose that in a sense, god is real. When you consider the acts commited everyday in the worship/defence/name of god, the power that comes with the title. While I do not believe in a god, I do believe in the power and conviction of it's followers, whose numbers are fairly large. Their belief and willingness to act in it's name, creates this god, at least on one level.

Terry Pratchett addresses this in Small Gods I believe.

[AMCrenshaw]

I'm imagining a bunny rabbit with a big long horn on its head.

It's real...isn't it? My imagination is real, but it does not itself possess Reality, but is possessed by Reality. A thing like God, then, if a product (rather than a source) of conviction, is something of the imagination, which makes it perfectly real. But not necessarily or ontologically Real.

What I want to stress now, though, is that people confuse perceptions of Reality with Reality itself. And the conviction in God certainly affects the perception of Reality, but the objective Reality still exists the way it actually exists.



AMC

[Ruv Draba]

Another possibility: that gods exist but do not have universal portfolios. E.g. Shiva exists, but is just a goddess of Hindus.

There's definitely a SF story lurking here.

[deathwizard]

I believe in the possibility of a being or beings so powerful that he/she or they may as well be a god or gods. But a being capable of creating and lording over a universe with a billion-billion suns? I kind of lose it there.

[AMCrenshaw]

In The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, Comte-Sponville says something very interesting:



"All" is by definition otherless. If Atheists believe in no God, or have a disbelief in God, it seems that in this statement alone there could be, if one so desired, a source of spirituality. And the sense I got from his latter passages was that mysticism is the 'natural' way, then, for an atheist with spiritual sensibilities. He objects to the reduction of mysticism to mystification by saying that the mystery is in what we know, and cannot deny, which is being itself. That there is something rather than nothing.



One of my concerns, however, is whether or not elevating the All to an object of worship (even if not practically; by this I mean that by worshipping All there is still an understanding that the All is not, in fact, an object) is somehow making the All into a God-figure.



He opens up avenues for the discussion of Heidegger, Spinoza, and Wittgenstein; he strips Spinoza's nature of its will and delocalizes it so that there is no central Creator. I'm paraphrasing, in short, when I say that the All he describes includes nature, the sum of all relations (universe) and all the actual and possible points of view (truth).



But the mystery of our existence is our existence itself and the meaning of our existence is perhaps in its mystery. And from this mystery, from this inherent, ontological agnosticism gives rise to what I call "kommein," that which is shared by all. And from this [non]realization, he argues, must rise love and communion (which includes, because of the mystic aspect, solidarity with all humans) and prayer and intellectual awareness of being itself.



Not that I am surprised, but the foundations of his philosophy are nearly theological if what he calls being I were to call God. The main point I will make, however, is that no matter the language used, what he describes as being requires no belief, and not one iota of faith to worship.




AMC

[rwam]

Cool post...thanks!

On a related note, what about the 'believer', who, deep down at his subconscious, does not believe? Instead, he just thinks he believes (or wants to believe). Same goes for the opposite: the non-believer, who doesn't think he believes, but really does at the subconscious?

How does someone really really really know what it is they truly believe at the core of his or her being?

:)

[Shadow_Ferret]

If you believe in a god, you are not an athiest.

And if men CREATED the god, then it exists. There'd be no question that a god exists. Doesn't matter if man created god or vice versa. If you believe, you're not an athiest.

[ccarver30]

Go to richarddawkins.net/forum
Us atheists will school you on what we think. LOL

By the way- I was overjoyed to see the different listing of the genre. Yay for atheism getting some notice!

[Higgins]

If you believe in a god, you are not an athiest.

And if men CREATED the god, then it exists. There'd be no question that a god exists. Doesn't matter if man created god or vice versa. If you believe, you're not an athiest.

So if I go out and light some sweet-smelling candles to a life-sized, sexy effigy I cast last week out of pale blue glass and called "Bouncy Nancy"... and if I "believe" in "Bouncy Nancy"...then I'm a "believer" and I can run for President of the US without being called an atheist?

[Sarpedon]

I disagree, ferret, if man created a godlike being, it would be just that, a godlike being. I have no problem with believing in a godlike being, if it existed.

Man can't create God, as generally understood for two reasons;

One is that it has mutually contradictory attributes, as previously noted,
and
By definition God created man, not vice versa. A godlike being created by man would fail the basic definition of God.

[Higgins]

I disagree, ferret, if man created a godlike being, it would be just that, a godlike being. I have no problem with believing in a godlike being, if it existed.

Man can't create God, as generally understood for two reasons;

One is that it has mutually contradictory attributes, as previously noted,
and
By definition God created man, not vice versa. A godlike being created by man would fail the basic definition of God.

Actually the complete confusion in the basic terms when it comes to what is or is not a god or a godlike being should be enough to suggest that when people say they are atheists and they believe in gods or god or God or Bouncy Nancy they should be believed.

For example, if I construct a nice silicon-filled goddess and keep her in the back yard and believe in her powers and devise fetishistic rituals and yet insist that -- by the definition of those who have defined terms such as believer and God and faith so that these terms exclude me and my faith in Bouncy Nancy -- I am an atheist, this seems to be no more than exactly true by the definition of those whose God cannot be put in the backyard and admired by strangers and friends alike for her life-like feel.

[Sarpedon]

One religion's pious devotion is another's idolatry.

[Higgins]

I would say that a worshipper of Bouncy Nancy would not be an atheist, but an idol worshipper.

Or at least I would say that if the worship was sincere. If it was a stunt to get on Jerry Springer, then no. ;)



You raise some interesting points. If "sincerity of worship" has to be validated somehow then all religions and all atheists may be in trouble....which is why it seems to me that if an atheist says he believes in God you either believe him or have a sincerity test that will cover all purely mental behaviors since without some validation of the meaning of "sincerely worship" you pretty much have to take people's word for what they think they are doing.

And then...idol worshipper...yes you are technically correct, but I think denouncing somebody in 2008 as an idol worshipper just doesn't have the punch people are looking for when they say somebody is an atheist. If I say "Godless, Communist idol worshipper"....I get a definite comic effect...if I say "Godless, Communist, atheist" then it has the ring of a ripe old condemnation that no denunciation of idol worship seems to have these days.

[Higgins]

One religion's pious devotion is another's idolatry.

And vice-versa. My devotional feelings for Bouncy Nancy almost certainly surpass the feelings of the faithful for God, if we use strict physiological measures to confirm the sweet passions of my pious idol worship of Bouncy Nancy versus the suspicion that some higher being is out there somewhere loving me with his love.

[Sarpedon]

There's no way to tell whether anyone sincerely believes. If someone were to invent a faith o meter, I think religion would be in deep trouble. (I guess the scientologists purport to have such a device, but who listens to them?)

And the greek gods certainly did have a role in the origin of mankind. I suppose it depends on which myth you take as the standard. Even if they didn't, there are plenty of beings in the greek mythos that predated humanity. the idea that the divine came before mundane world is universal, so far as I know. Whether there was another class of divine beings before the current batch is neither here nor there.

[StephanieFox]

As a Polyatheist (I don't believe in many gods), I do not believe in conscious powerful beings, but I do recognize that there are powers in nature (storms, tides, seasons, the Earth, the Moon) and I can give these powers deity names. I can even worship them. However, I do not think that if I would pray to them, that there would be anyone there to hear or answer those prayers.

That face, of course, may not keep me from those prayers. Prayers are between my conscious and unconscious minds. I hear me, even if the gods don't.

[Ruv Draba]

I find it bizarre that posters capitalise 'god' in a discussion of atheism. If you capitalise it, then it's a proper noun - the name of a person. Which presupposes that it's not any old god, but a particular one - and that presupposes that such a name is meaningful and holds some possible existence. (Of course which one it is that belongs to that proper noun is open to interpretation. :tongue)

If you write it that way then you can lead observers to the conclusion that atheists don't dismiss 'gods', but hate 'God'. And moreover, that atheists acknowledge the possible existence of such a being. (This is the difference between saying 'dragons don't exist' and obsessing about the nonexistence of Puff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puff,_the_Magic_Dragon)).

And anyone who uses that proper noun for their deity will assume that you're hating theirs.

And readers may form the conclusion that you believe that a false or meaningless monotheism is somehow superior to an equally false or meaningless paganism or animism...

So my advice: just don't.

[AMCrenshaw]

Ruv, don't get worked up. It seems that a lot of people are stuck thinking there is one type, one concept of god, whom they call God. Either way, I don't think it's entirely reasonable to say this naming can lead observers to the conclusion that atheists don't dismiss 'gods', but hate 'God'. Or at least I hope it's not reasonable.

And moreover, that atheists acknowledge the possible existence of such a being. (This is the difference between saying 'dragons don't exist' and obsessing about the nonexistence of Puff).

And what the theists are saying is that dragons do exist, therefore Puff could exist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komodo_dragon

...? :)

[Ruv Draba]

I just realized that I was taking something as being directed at me personally, when it may not have been. Ooops!

No, it's a general comment and it only pertains to discussions of atheism (as opposed to discussions of agnosticism or other variants of non-theism.)

I'm not worked up about it either. It's just making my logic-circuits fizzle.

It's the problem of referent vs the thing referred, see.

If a Christian or Muslim or Jew says 'atheists don't believe in God', they're really saying 'atheists don't believe in my god'. The meaning of the sentence is clear as long as you know their religion.

Anyone can say 'atheists don't believe in gods, (or in YHWH/Allah/Shiva/Loki etc...)' and the meaning of that is pretty clear regardless of the religion of the utterer.

But what happens if an atheist or agnostic says 'atheists don't believe in God'? Is that statement even meaningful? If it is meaningful, then what does it mean and how do we know it means that?

I think it's not meaningful. I think it has no truth-value and can be very misleading, especially for people who don't know atheism well.

Well, if you follow that logic then we have a statement that is only meaningful for monotheists, syncretists and the like to utter, being used as the canonical definition of atheism. If that doesn't bug other atheists, then I don't know what will. :)

This isn't a jab at anyone. There are dictionaries that use this definition; it's been bothering me for a couple of months now. It's cropped up in this discussion, but in others too. I blurted a response here cos here was the last place I read it, is all.

[Mac H.]

Where the entity exists and its actions and abilities are agreed by both parties, but the believer considers that set of actions and abilities god-like and the atheist does not. Thus this atheist does believe in that god. I would argue that merely believing a god exists does not make the atheist a theist because s/he does not 'believe' in its godliness in relation to themself.By that argument:

1. I believe that my cat exists.

2. I do not believe that my cat has god like powers.

3. I agree that the mad woman next door worships my cat.

So, I DO believe that the mad-woman's 'god' exists ... but do not believe that the 'god' really has any 'god-like' powers.

So logically I can believe that her 'god' exists, and yet still be an atheist.

No argument there.

However, let's look at a practical example:

1. I could believe that our planet was created 6,000 years ago by an alien creature.

2. I could believe that the alien creature installed a running-backup system on our domain so that in the event of an individual hardware unit failing, the snapshot of software running at the instance of failure would be transferred over to a newly created hardware unit running on a different Domain.

3. Perhaps there could be a couple of different Domains that the backups could be transferred to ... and the decision as to which backup Domain is chosen could even be whether the embedded software on that hardware unit had reached certain decision points in the currently running program.

---

So, in other words, I could have a world view IDENTICAL to Evangelical Christians with just a tweak of terminology.

But if I believe that simply being a system admin for this Domain doesn't count as 'godlike' ... would that be enough for me to still be technically an atheist?

Mac

[Ruv Draba]

But if I believe that simply being a system admin for this Domain doesn't count as 'godlike' ... would that be enough for me to still be technically an atheist?

I don't know that there's any agreement on what a 'god' is, but in the broad they seem to be imputed to have magical powers and some manifest authority over humanity. I'd argue that if they lack the first then they're not gods but some other sort of authority; if they lack the second then they're faeries or spirits and not gods.

What's interesting about this is that both seem to be highly subjective. Even if a candidate being appeared, I don't believe that there would be immediate or eventual agreement on either of these properties.

[Reilly616]

If it was created by people it is not a god. Atheists can NOT believe in a god. If they did, they wouldn't be atheists.

[Dommo]

I don't agree Reilly. It could be possible to "make" a god.

Suppose an AI gets sufficiently advanced to where it has complete understanding on how to control time and space. With that knowledge it might be able to do godlike things. Create worlds, life, possibly other realities.

I'd say Atheists can't believe in a supernatural god. However with a Natural/constructed God I don't see the problem.

[Sarpedon]

I use the capitalized G-od to refer to the generic super-deity worshipped by many religions these days; the transcendant, omnipotent, omniscient and so forth fellow.

More limited deities, like, say, Apollo or Stab-Master, get the little g-od.

[Mac H.]

eg: Frederic Brown's short short: "Answer" (http://www.alteich.com/oldsite/answer.htm)

[Higgins]

Why?



Why would I "have to" always take people at their word? Woudn't that in itself be a kind of blind faith -- in this case, one that believes that every word ever spoken by anyone must be true? Seems both counter-intuitive and counter-factual.

I'm not sure I'm following your overall argument. Are you saying that you want to (hypothetically) define yourself both as someone who worships a Goddess and as an atheist? I don't see how that could be possible, unless you define atheist to mean "someone who doesn't follow the religion of the majority," but that seems like an awfully broad definition to me.

If sincerity is a criteria for assigning religious value to an activity, then you have to have some way of deciding if a person is "really thinking" what they say they think. You probably could manage to measure intensity and relate it directly say to a vigorous session with Bouncy Nancy, but if somebody said, "I am thinking of God's Infinite Love for a very special person who just happens to be me for my sake and my salvation Via his only Holy Ghost as proceedeth from the Father and Son together since the beginning of the Universe"...it seems like there could be problems in the sincerity department. Moreover, no less a Holy Agency than the Inquisition seems to accept a certain amount of possible problems in the sincerity department since by the 17th century, a heresy investigation had to be started by the attestation of a person of simple child-like faith rather than by a professional heresy-hunter who may not be operating in that environment of sincerity that we tend to assume in matters of the heart or Bouncy Nancy.
Anyway, paradoxically, sincerity is assumed to occur in matters that pertain to such things as personal experiences with Bouncy Nancy, but there seems to be no way to validate or confirm that sincerity.

[Higgins]

I use the capitalized G-od to refer to the generic super-deity worshipped by many religions these days; the transcendant, omnipotent, omniscient and so forth fellow.

More limited deities, like, say, Apollo or Stab-Master, get the little g-od.

That's my usage as well. And sometimes it saves repeating "Big god" or "Big God"...though I know size means nothing to the Big Guy.

[Higgins]

I don't agree Reilly. It could be possible to "make" a god.

Suppose an AI gets sufficiently advanced to where it has complete understanding on how to control time and space. With that knowledge it might be able to do godlike things. Create worlds, life, possibly other realities.

I'd say Atheists can't believe in a supernatural god. However with a Natural/constructed God I don't see the problem.

It kind of depends on what the all-powerful AI wants to be called. It might find being called 'God' smacked of flippant impoliteness and vaporize you on the spot. Of course if Mr. AI just wants to love you with his infinite love, maybe you could call him "Mister Infinitely Nice Guy"...that is until you die and he revives you to torture you for a gazillion years. You might have other names for him then.

[Reilly616]

I don't agree Reilly. It could be possible to "make" a god.

Suppose an AI gets sufficiently advanced to where it has complete understanding on how to control time and space. With that knowledge it might be able to do godlike things. Create worlds, life, possibly other realities.

I'd say Atheists can't believe in a supernatural god. However with a Natural/constructed God I don't see the problem.

The disagreement here is a semantic one. You would consider a godlike race to be "gods". I would consider them to be... a godlike race. They wouldn't be gods. They would have natural origins, they would be reducible. By definition, a god is not natural or constructed.

[Higgins]

But what happens if an atheist or agnostic says 'atheists don't believe in God'? Is that statement even meaningful? If it is meaningful, then what does it mean and how do we know it means that?

I think it's not meaningful. I think it has no truth-value and can be very misleading, especially for people who don't know atheism well.



The statement "Atheists don't believe in God" doesn't have any verifiable implications about how reality operates, but it is a performative command along the lines of "Burn the witches". Obviously there are no "real" witches, but somebody could still get burned.
And what if I wanted to rescue "witches"? I couldn't pretend that I don't know that "Burn the witches" doesn't command some people to undertake some specific behavior (and indeed, each of them may be selecting a different witch), though I still might be at a loss as to which persons the witches might turn out to be.

[Higgins]

The disagreement here is a semantic one. You would consider a godlike race to be "gods". I would consider them to be... a godlike race. They wouldn't be gods. They would have natural origins, they would be reducible. By definition, a god is not natural or constructed.

If the all-powerful AI commanded you to call him, God, you might have to do what he said.

[Dawnstorm]

If a Christian or Muslim or Jew says 'atheists don't believe in God', they're really saying 'atheists don't believe in my god'. The meaning of the sentence is clear as long as you know their religion.

Anyone can say 'atheists don't believe in gods, (or in YHWH/Allah/Shiva/Loki etc...)' and the meaning of that is pretty clear regardless of the religion of the utterer.

But what happens if an atheist or agnostic says 'atheists don't believe in God'? Is that statement even meaningful? If it is meaningful, then what does it mean and how do we know it means that?

I think it's not meaningful. I think it has no truth-value and can be very misleading, especially for people who don't know atheism well.

Heh, you've just instilled the notion in me of monotheists as stochastic atheists: there are more gods they don't believe in than gods they do. It's misleading to say that monotheists don't believe in Zeus; what they don't believe in is a plurality of gods.

To my mind, you're looking for a logical meaning in a pragmatical concept. Atheism isn't a logically unified position, IMO; it's a catchall-phrase for many beliefsystems that do without the concept of god (naturalism, secular humanism...), plus to people who don't really subscribe to any beliefsystem (which happens to include belief systems classifiable as "theistic").

Atheism vs. Theism is a situation of assymetric power relations from the get go. As soon as you call yourself "atheist" you concede the power to dictate the discourse to the theist. Try calling theists "anaturalists" for a change, and see how far you get.

I think there may be a fundamental communication problem; I may not be able to imagine the concept of theism, whereas others may not be able to imagine a world devoid of that concept. Flying Spaghetti Monsters and Invisible Pink Unicorns are interesting case studies in that respect. (I've read in an article, once, that an atheist muttered under his breath at a car engine that refused to start "Come on, Spaghetti Monster!" // I've seen theists attacking the concept of the Invisible Pink Unicorn as poor satire on the grounds that "invisible" precludes "pink", not getting that that's the point.)

I wonder how much of this is language games, and how much of it is incompatible imaginations. I, for one, have no idea what atheism is, or agnosticism for that matter, but I don't hesitate to use either term when talking to theists - as a means of crude social positioning.

[Reilly616]

If the all-powerful AI commanded you to call him, God, you might have to do what he said.

I might. But it would still just be a word. We are the masters of language, not the other way around. If a man with a gun to my head comands me to call him Santa, I very well might do it. But it doesn't make him Santa. So these ultra powerful beings are not gods, just highly evolved.

[Higgins]

To my mind, you're looking for a logical meaning in a pragmatical concept. Atheism isn't a logically unified position, IMO; it's a catchall-phrase for many beliefsystems that do without the concept of god (naturalism, secular humanism...), plus to people who don't really subscribe to any beliefsystem (which happens to include belief systems classifiable as "theistic").

Atheism vs. Theism is a situation of assymetric power relations from the get go. As soon as you call yourself "atheist" you concede the power to dictate the discourse to the theist. Try calling theists "anaturalists" for a change, and see how far you get.

I think there may be a fundamental communication problem; I may not be able to imagine the concept of theism, whereas others may not be able to imagine a world devoid of that concept. Flying Spaghetti Monsters and Invisible Pink Unicorns are interesting case studies in that respect. (I've read in an article, once, that an atheist muttered under his breath at a car engine that refused to start "Come on, Spaghetti Monster!" // I've seen theists attacking the concept of the Invisible Pink Unicorn as poor satire on the grounds that "invisible" precludes "pink", not getting that that's the point.)

I wonder how much of this is language games, and how much of it is incompatible imaginations. I, for one, have no idea what atheism is, or agnosticism for that matter, but I don't hesitate to use either term when talking to theists - as a means of crude social positioning.

And it is definitely possible that more than simple linguistic problems are happening. Theists may have a very different basic idea of causality, and a totally different imaginary world to go with it much like participants in a cargo cult:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

[Higgins]

I might. But it would still just be a word. We are the masters of language, not the other way around. If a man with a gun to my head comands me to call him Santa, I very well might do it. But it doesn't make him Santa. So these ultra powerful beings are not gods, just highly evolved.

What would they have to do to convince you they were Gods?

[Reilly616]

What would they have to do to convince you they were Gods?

They couldn't. If they are products of the universe they cannot be gods. A god is an irriducible creator.

[Higgins]

They couldn't. If they are products of the universe they cannot be gods. A god is an irriducible creator.

That works in your metaphysics, but not in most of the metaphysics of
most religions. For example, in Aztec metaphysics, the gods need human sacrifices to help them run the world in a way the favors the Aztecs.

[Reilly616]

That works in your metaphysics, but not in most of the metaphysics of
most religions. For example, in Aztec metaphysics, the gods need human sacrifices to help them run the world in a way the favors the Aztecs.


That has nothing to do with the point. The aztec gods didn't evolve by natural means.

[Higgins]

That has nothing to do with the point. The aztec gods didn't evolve by natural means.

So they are valid gods?

[AMCrenshaw]

Isn't a god an object of worship? OK, don't break out the dictionary on me, but thinking about gods this way would have slowed this conversation down. I think I saw a few posters saying the same thing, albeit in a more humorous way.

Eeek, don't panic. Calm down. Don't....panic.


AMC

[Reilly616]

So they are valid gods?

No.

EDIT: wait, you mean just the definition of gods? Yeah they are. I thought by valid you meant existing.

[Higgins]

No.

If the Aztec gods had evolved by natural means they would be valid gods in your metaphysical system?

[AMCrenshaw]

Can a god be transcendent and immanent at once!?

[Reilly616]

If the Aztec gods had evolved by natural means they would be valid gods in your metaphysical system?

See my edit. By the way, I don't have a "metaphysical system". My statements are based solely on facts.

[Reilly616]

Can a god be transcendent and immanent at once!?

In theory yes. That would just mean that he is both inside and outside of this universe.

[Higgins]

See my edit. By the way, I don't have a "metaphysical system". My statements are based solely on facts.

Got it. So the Aztec gods are gods from the Aztec point of view, but not in view of the facts, which pretty definitely exclude old men in a magic canoe paddling up the Milky Way to help the Corn God bring fertility to our world.

[Reilly616]

Got it. So the Aztec gods are gods from the Aztec point of view, but not in view of the facts, which pretty definitely exclude old men in a magic canoe paddling up the Milky Way to help the Corn God bring fertility to our world.

:D Agreed.

[Shadow_Ferret]

More limited deities, like, say, Apollo or Stab-Master, get the little g-od.
I dare you to say limited dieties to Apollo's face.

[Sarpedon]

Sure, if you'd be so kind to introduce me to him.

I'd be more reluctant to say it to Stab-Master. At least Apollo is purported to be reasonable.

[Sarpedon]

The very fact that we are having trouble defining 'god' shows how nebulous and nonsensical the concept is.

[Higgins]

(Ack, looks like I did over-react yesterday. Sorry!)

Well, onward ...

-------------------


Almost every interaction with another person involves a take on their sincerity.

There's no perfect test. You can never tell for sure if someone is thinking what they say they are thinking. But you have to make judgment calls. You do the best you can, with what you can glean from what you observe and from your store of knowledge of the individual involved and of how people act in general.

So I don't see judging the sincerity of someone's religious declarations as a special case.

With Bouncy Nancy, it seemed like an easy call. My take was the obvious one that you had made that all up on the spot, as an example meant to be absurd, for the sake of demonstrating a point in a discussion. So it seemed like a no-brainer to me to deem your professed worship of Bouncy Nancy as not sincere.

But ... say I had been wrong about that. Say that you really did have a shrine to Bouncy Nancy in your back yard, and it had been there for years, and your, um, activities with this shrine were ones that you sincerely believed were worship.

If I understood correctly what you were saying earlier, then you would still call yourself an atheist even if you really sincerely worshipped Bouncy Nancy. Which seems like you would be giving too much deference to the incorrect opinions of me and others who shared my incorrect opinions. If you knew that you believed in Bouncy Nancy, why call yourself an atheist?



I don't think it's about intensity. Intensity doesn't really say anything about sincerity, one way or the other.



But again, everyday kinds of judgments come into play here. If documents are found in a televangelist's office showing he had detailed plans for fleecing his flock and that he laughed at their gullibility, I would judge that person less sincere in his belief than someone who quietly goes to church every Sunday without asking for anything in return.

On the level of ideas, the notion of the Trinity is as unreal to me, personally, as the notion of a Bouncy Nancy. But I do think there are people who ARE sincere in their belief in the Trinity in a way that is different, in a meaningful way, from a belief posed as a hypothetical example.

If sincerity and intensity in some sense don't matter when it comes to religious beliefs, then I can insincerely say "I'm an atheist and I believe in God." Who can prove otherwise? Especially if I really am completely insincere. In that case I can validate my insincerity (I hope) just by saying "I'm an atheist and I insincerely believe in Bouncy Nancy, who is a goddess." On the other hand, if intensity and sincerity are important aspects of religious belief, I suspect my possible lack of sincerity in believing in Bouncy Nancy would be compensated for with a contra-variant and completely verifiable, physiological measure of intensity with which anyone's professions of religious piety could justifiably be challenged in toto or even ex voto.

[AMCrenshaw]

I think he's saying that intensity has physiological implications that are testable, while sincerity does .... not?


But I have no idea.

[Higgins]

I think sincerity matters. I just don't think that intensity has much, or any, relation to sincerity. (If anything there might be a negative correlation, such as when people reveal their insincerity, or at least their insecurity, by trying too hard.)



But you would know (assuming you're not deluding yourself).

And, again, the "proof," for an observer, would be the same as in any circumstances when someone is lying. There usually isn't hard proof, but there are cues that you use -- that you HAVE to use, to navigate the world -- to make pretty good judgment calls.



???

Well...I think you are onto something significant about judgements and behaviors: there is an enormous cultural context that can be used to cast doubt on the sincerity of anyone who "believes" anything that has not been enshrined for thousands of years in a seemingly non-cultural set of special interpretive boundaries. Of course these interpretive boundaries are in fact just as much cultural creations as anything else that has meaning and significance.

I think part of one's job as a writer is to at least occasionally to try and bounce things off those interpretive boundaries, or even take parts of those boundaries and use them to construct some pseudo-cultural objects such as the fiction of Bouncy Nancy.

So it is easy to have one's believe in the Trinity judged as sincere (if not very intense) and it is correspondingly easy to have one's belief in Bouncy Nancy judged as insincere (if verifiably intense). I think this just suggests that the interpretive boundaries around the Trinity have been around longer than the interpretive boundaries around Bouncy Nancy and it also suggests that atheists who believe in things are going to encounter these interpretive boundaries quite often.

[Ruv Draba]

The statement "Atheists don't believe in God" doesn't have any verifiable implications about how reality operates, but it is a performative command along the lines of "Burn the witches".You mean it's in the imperative? Wouldn't it need a colon: Atheists: Don't believe in God! This makes the presumption of existence even stronger doesn't it? :D


And what if I wanted to rescuev(and indeed, each of them may be selecting a different witch), though I still might be at a loss as to which persons the witches might turn out to be.Once you adopt nouns for things that don't exist (or more particularly, nouns that are only meaningful in myth, but you start using the noun outside its fictional context), you lose key virtues in language: that each part of speech has its own specific meaning; that the sense of the utterance is construable without a great deal of context; that the meaning is preserved regardless of the listener. Languages don't exhibit these virtues all the time, but the more they do, the easier it is to make sense to one another. The more we want our language to work between cultures, I'd argue, the more that it must exhibit these virtues.

"Save the witch" is a case in point. It's not a slogan that would've made any sense in 17th century Salem. Why? Because there's nothing about their mythic 'witch' worth saving. To get the slogan right, you must state it in a physical context: "This is a woman, not a witch. Save your women!" Then it makes perfect sense.

In the same vein, which of the following sentences are true, which are false, and which are only meaningful in a mythic context, or have no truth value at all?

1. "Atheists don't believe in the Big Invisible Magic Guy that I'm adamant exists"
2. "Atheists don't believe in gods"
3. "Atheists don't believe in Allah"
4. "Atheists don't believe in YHWH"
5. "Atheists don't believe in Joshua ben Joseph of Nazareth"
6. "Atheists don't believe in Mohammad ibn 'Abdullāh of Mecca"
7. "Atheists don't believe in the Virgin Mary of Nazareth"
8. "Atheists don't believe in God"

Of these, the very safe ones seem to me to be 1, 5, and 6, which I give the values True, False and False respectively. 1) is safe because it acknowledges its own mythic context. 5,6 refer to objects defined in a physical world. We may differ over whether they existed - but we can agree at least on what tests would demonstrate their existence.

The moderately safe ones are 2,3,4. These are terms that are well-defined in a mythic context and really they're only defined there. We may or may not be able to test for them in the physical world, but we can at least agree on the context in which they're defined. In that regard I can say 'True' to all three statements, because I do not believe that those myths are real. Your question makes sense to me and my answer makes sense to you because we agree that the context is mythic - and we agree on the relevant myths.

7. seems quite bizarre to me. 'Virgin Mary' is defined in a myth, but we appear to be trying to relocate her into the non-fictional context of ancient Nazareth. Is the context mythic or non-fictional? On the one hand, I believe that Mary of Nazareth existed. On the other, I don't believe that it's likely she was a virgin mother. I don't believe that the statement has a truth-value as it stands. It would need to be qualified further into a mythic or physical context before I could answer it.

8. is even worse. 'God' is described in multiple, competing myths from different cultures, but then relocated into the non-fictional context of our world by this statement. How could I possibly say whether that statement was true or false? To do so would be to bind myself to a particular myth - and why would I do that as an atheist?

You might say that 'true' is a safe bet for 8, even sight unseen. 'God' must be 'a god', right? So the method for 2) should apply for 8) as well...

Well, not necessarily, as the following tongue-in-cheek example shows.

Suppose that for some animist Papua New Guinea tribe, 'God' is the name of a thick, heavy bible given to them by a missionary "This is God! Brought to us by a white man in the time of my grandfather's father." For them, God is a person who happens to inhabit the body of this book. For me it's just the name they call the book. We agree on the referrent, even if we don't agree on the properties, so we can converse: "Where's God?" "He's in the shaman's hut, under a palm leaf." No problems, so far.

But now, let's look at a statement like "God has the power to cure cysts." It's not a statement I'd normally subscribe to - except that in PNG I might. A 19th century medical practice was to smack (superficial) cysts with a heavy bible - a practice that was used even into the early 20th century. If my PNG hosts used this practice it would presumably work - the cysts would burst. I'd have to agree that yes, "God has the power to cure cysts". :D Again, my hosts and I might differ as to the process, but we agree functionally on the statement.

This perhaps highlights my point: "Atheists don't believe in God" is a statement contextualised by both its culture and its myth. I don't believe that it belongs in a pluralistic dictionary, or in any pluralistic discussion about atheism.

(It may make perfect sense in a discussion about agnosticism though, Eeek, since your agnosticism may sit in a preferred mythic/cultural context. My atheism can't do that though - it has to sit outside those contexts.)

[Niniva]

Remember: Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.

I don't believe in God. I don't care about the definitions or implications or other denotations and connotations. It doesn't matter which definition you use, whatever god it is, I do not believe in it. I merely capitalize the singular non-qualified out of habit, a cultural hiccup, if you will, from being raised in a believing atmosphere.

Here's my contribution: If 75% of Americans are Christian and 50% of Americans do not believe in God, then a full third of American Christians are lying. (Albeit, 90% of statistics are just made up, like this one.) That makes me wonder at exactly how ostracized are the non-religious - that a full quarter of Americans would lie just to be part of the "in" crowd.

Back to the original question: No, if an atheist developed a belief in God, then the atheist would become a theist by definition.

If, for example, I believed that life originated in abiotic oil floes under the ocean, and everyone's definition of God merely meant "the origin of life," then I suddenly become a theist.

However, the definition of God is greater than just the origin of life, as attested by the arguments over the definition, therefore, I am still, in reality, an atheist, even if someone were to believe me a theist for meeting their definition for belief.

Conversely, if I suddenly found Faith on the sidewalk one day, I would no longer be an atheist, regardless of what religion Faith belongs to or what definition Faith uses for God. I suddenly believe in something for no reason but Faith. Faith could be a liar and a cheat for all I know, but I put my trust in her. It isn't likely, since I despise Faith, but if I did, then I'd be a theist. (The personification was merely for my own amusement.)