Tell me what a deity is and I'll let you know.

The thing which got me started on philosophy forums was the emergence of the 'new atheist' books in about 2006-7. I felt they were pathetic books and joined the then Dawkins Forum to sound off about it. Then I found my way to other forums and finally this one. Insofar as Dawkins' aim was to convert people from theists to atheists, I'm afraid his book had rather the opposite effect on me.

My general attitude is that while I've never been atheist, I've also never been oriented Church or biblical Christianity. I'm not at all hostile to it, but growing up in the 60's, the main influences in my teenage spiritual formation was popular Eastern mysticism books - Alan Watts, D T Suzuki, Krishnamurti and the like. I studied Comparative Religion as a mature-aged university student and tried to join the dots between various forms of religious and spiritual culture. Then much later in life, I came to realise the profound spirituality of Christianity, which I now appreciate from a very different perspective to how it was presented to me as a child. But I'm still not inclined to return to a Biblically-oriented faith.

On forums I generally argue against scientific materialism. By that I'm not necessarily referring fully worked-out and conscientious philosophical position, but a lot of the folk wisdom that circulates that believes it is grounded in science as opposed to religion. The focal point for a lot of that is indeed the contentious issue of evolutionary materialism - the view that Darwin somehow dissolves the entire previous corpus of the Western tradition in the acid of the realisation that we're really just hominids. In fact while I fully accept the material facts of evolutionary biology, I don't at all accept the meaning that is generally attributed to it. As I never believed that the Biblical creation myth was literally true, the fact that it's NOT literally true doesn't strike me as particularly important. But an astounding number of people believe that 'life began by chance' and that the Universe is essentially devoid of meaning, as if they are established scientific theories, when they're not at all.

So now I see the various religious and spiritual traditions as chronicles of the human encounter with the divine. This means, obviously, that I believe in the reality of the divine, but technically I remain agnostic, which I think is a sound position.

A few beliefs of mine:

-The existence of a deity can't be proved or disproved via reasoning at all.

-Any knowledge of God has to be direct, experiential knowledge in the same way that other inner knowledge is direct; the experience of the aesthetic, for instance. So any reasoning about God that isn't predicated upon experiential knowledge is useless, in the same way that any reasoning about the aesthetic without direct experience of the aesthetic is also useless.

Panpsychism is one philosophical route to a kind of theism. I consider myself a theist but I don't follow any particular religion in a recognisable way. I think substance is personal, aware, wilful,intentional and demonstrably so, not that many agree with me. That's close enough to a god to merit calling it theism, perhaps.

Panpsychism is one philosophical route to a kind of theism.

Panpsychism is not a kind of Theism at all, and I'm not sure what route one would take to go from Panpsychism to Theism.

'Theism' as it is used in Philosophy of Religion is the view that there is one supreme, perfect being who exists separately from the world, who is the creator and sustainor of the universe, who is conscious to the degree of being all-knowing; who is all-powerful, all and ever present, eternal, unchanging, existing necessarily, dependent of nothing else. In addition, Theism maintains that this being, who is called "God", loves and is concerned about humanity. It is claimed that Theism, as here understood, stands at the core of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

So, the question that arises is "Are there any good reasons for thinking that such a being is real?" Depending on what you mean by "good reason", most Theists answer that question with a "Yes there are". The question then morphs into "Just what are these reasons and do they consititute "good" reasons?"

I maintain that there are no good reasons for thnking Theism is true and some plausible reasons for thinking it is false. If I am right, then most forms of Judaism, Chistianity, and Islam are wrong.

I maintain that there are no good reasons for thnking Theism is true and some plausible reasons for thinking it is false. If I am right, then most forms of Judaism, Chistianity, and Islam are wrong. — Mitchell

What reasons against theism do you find to be particularly strong?

The distribution of suffering and evil. And I find the "Free Will Defense" particularly unconvincing. In fact, I think it creates more problems for Theism than it is supposed to solve.

There are two "Arguments from Evil": a logical one and an evidential one. The Logical Argument from Evil in one form is invalid; in its valid form, it begs the question. The Evidential Argument from Evil is, I think, a serious problem for Theism.

The Evidential Argument from Evil is, I think, a serious problem for Theism. — Mitchell

What is the evidential argument, that one that says that because of the amount of suffering in the world, the best explanation is that there is no God? That is, the probability of there being a God is low?

Yes.

The Evidential Argument in effect asks "Which is more reasonable: (1) the amount and distribution of evil and suffering is all necessary (for God's plans) OR (2) There is no God.?"

I suppose the counterargument is that, if the existence of God can be demonstrated by another means (such as a cosmological or teleological argument), then this makes the evidential argument against God fail. It would be silly to say, I recognize this proof for God's existence is sound, but nevertheless think God does not exist because of the evil in the world.

The evidential argument from evil requires that other proofs haven't worked to demonstrate God's existence. The logical argument from evil is the only thing that could counter a successful demonstration of God's existence by showing that this ends up positing a being that is incompatible with the empirical reality of evil.

In effect, then, if a proof is successful in demonstrating the existence of an omnibenevolent, omniscient, omnipotent being, then the problem goes from a defense (the logical compatibility between God and evil) to a theodicy (an actual explanation or story for why God allows evil, such as the free will suggestion).

Exactly. The only problem with this stategy is that both the Cosmological and the Teleological Arguments fail. (Despite the contortions of Edward Feser in his Five Proofs of the Existence of God.)

I'm of mixed and conflicting mind about God. On the one hand, theism (in it's American/Mainline Protestant form) is very familiar to me, is a belief system I was immersed in, and is also a belief system that has been troublesome. Catholicism wouldn't have been that much different, had I been raised Catholic instead of Methodist.

I am also a "thin ice atheist" -- that is, I don't feel a lot of security in not believing in God. I've taken that position and haven't broken through the ice yet, so... we'll see what happens.

The compromise I have tried is more like Unitarianism: drop the trinity (maybe keep God the Father); keep Jesus and skip Paul; avoid thinking in literal terms about God; keep the Crucifixion, drop the Resurrection; keep the Bible; drop large chunks of theology. But then, that isn't quite enough. God the Father is still something of a problem. So, I end up with something in-between wishy-washy Unitarianism (which is kind of lukewarm to start with) and thin-ice atheism.

My moral compass still works pretty well -- or maybe more accurately, as well as it ever did, for what that is worth. I behave about the same as an Atheist and as a Christian, for better or worse.

One thing I do believe in is the value/goodness/utility/benefit/etc. of belief. It seems to do most people much more good than harm, unless, of course, it is one of several "off the deep-end" belief that one should go on crusades or jihads to square up the world with one's peculiar beliefs. Bad practice. Fundamentalism, regardless of which religion it appears in, is nothing but trouble.

As a Christian I didn't find any problem with the Big Bang, Darwin, or technology.

Panpsychism is one philosophical route to a kind of theism. I consider myself a theist but I don't follow any particular religion in a recognisable way. I think substance is personal, aware, wilful,intentional and demonstrably so, not that many agree with me. That's close enough to a god to merit calling it theism, perhaps.

I find my self drawn to a type of plurality pantheism, I am highly skeptical of any humanoid deity. Part of my conviction is that life and man arose from matter, which logically entails that matter in itself must have the potentiality to become spirit. So kind of a panpsychism.

Haha! Have you talked about this on the thread about Feser's arguments? I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say about his arguments.

I highly recommend reading Spinoza's concept of God in Ethics.

I am also a "thin ice atheist" -- that is, I don't feel a lot of security in not believing in God. I've taken that position and haven't broken through the ice yet, so... we'll see what happens. — Bitter Crank

I would also recommend Spinoza for you. Believe it or not, I was in the exact same place you seem to be in now about ten years ago. I had been an uncertain/unsatisfied atheist ever since studying philosophy in college. I had never been very religious, and on examination of myself I learned that I was agnostic, and that (for the time being) I could not bring myself to believe in even any sort of God concept I knew of. Then I read Spinoza and it was really a life-changing experience. Everything he said just made so much sense to me, as if I had felt it all along but never knew how to describe it on my own. I won't try to summarize his views because I wouldn't do it justice, but his concept of "God" just made sense to me. No guarantee any of you will feel the same about it, but definitely worth a read either way.

One thing I will say is that Spinoza's works got him excommunicated from both the Catholic Church and the Jewish community, and his books were banned for over a hundred years after his death. If that doesn't make you want to read him, I don't know what will.



You would probably enjoy Spinoza's concept of God, as well. It's funny, you and I have had somewhat similar paths. As I said, in college I became an uncertain atheist, but I never actually called myself one precisely because of the "new atheism" movement. I couldn't stand Dawkins and wanted no association with him (I've grown to appreciate him more now, but still disagree with a lot of what he does and says).
Also, I discovered Alan Watts just a few years ago and immediately fell in love. He also helped me to see the profound spirituality of Christianity just as you say you did, but just as you I haven't returned to the Church and don't plan to. I appreciate it much more than I used to, but the Christianity of today is nothing like what it was originally, and even the beginnings of the church strayed too much from what Jesus' messages actually were (or what I believe them to have been, since none of us can say for certain).

Anyway, I appreciate hearing your stories. I love getting glimpses into people's journeys and experiences, especially when the topic is something so personal.

drop the trinity (maybe keep God the Father); keep Jesus and skip Paul; avoid thinking in literal terms about God; keep the Crucifixion, drop the Resurrection; keep the Bible; drop large chunks of theology. — Bitter Crank

Not to derail, but I'd be fascinated to hear more about your reasoning here. As I read that sentence, I keep going "Yes! Wait, no! what? yes! No!"

The problem of evil looms over any attempt to paint God in perfect white. So, my God is a ''bit'' bloodthirsty. We can't ignore facts - there's evil in our world. We can't ignore our intuition - there's more to this world than meets the eye.

the Christianity of today is nothing like what it was originally, and even the beginnings of the church strayed too much from what Jesus' messages actually were (or what I believe them to have been, since none of us can say for certain). — JustSomeGuy

One of the subjects I studied was the suppression of the gnostics in the early Christian Christian era. There was a large cache of ancient manuscripts found, called the Nag Hammadi scrolls, which contained many lost scriptures, including many gnostic writings that were previously unknown.

The problem of evil — TheMadFool

It seems abundantly obvious to me that about the most, or even only, evil acts are committed by humans. I won’t give examples but it wouldn’t be difficult to. Of course there are immense catastrophes, and also epidemics and the like. But whether they’re evil is another matter. Personally I feel many of the depictions of God as evil rely on the image of a celestial film director, or dictator or oriental potentate - which is exactly what God is not, although the Church has plainly depicted God in such terms, much to their discredit.

No (did you guess?), because I started out not believing in one and no one has told me otherwise who I haven't found very good reason to doubt.

which is exactly what God is not, although the Church has plainly depicted God in such terms, much to their discredit. — Wayfarer

I didn't realise you knew God personally, you should really speak to the hundreds of theologians who been trying to find out what God is for the last 2000 years, I can't believe you've kept it to yourself for all this time you mischievous devil.

I didn't realise you knew God personally, you should really speak to the hundreds of theologians who been trying to find out what God is for the last 2000 years, I can't believe you've kept it to yourself for all this time you mischievous devil. — Inter Alia

Yeah, if you bothered to read like 5 of those theologians, you'd realise that their understanding of God was actually quite close in most regards. Of course, when things get mystical, you have to drop your dualistic mind, you may find that hard to do.

'Theism' as it is used in Philosophy of Religion is the view that there is one supreme, perfect being who exists separately from the world, who is the creator and sustainor of the universe, who is conscious to the degree of being all-knowing; who is all-powerful, all and ever present, eternal, unchanging, existing necessarily, dependent of nothing else. In addition, Theism maintains that this being, who is called "God", loves and is concerned about humanity. — Mitchell

Panpsychism can result in more or less this view. Substance, if sentient (as some versions of panpsychism hold) entails a kind of omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. Substance, in so far as it is not its modes, is unchanging and eternal and dependent on nothing else. The trouble is then separating this view from all the nasty baggage that unfortunately often comes with a religious view. Sprigge said he wanted to take the superstition out of religion and I concur.

EDIT: The big difference, of course, is that substance obviously is not separate from the world. If theism has that in its definition then I'm not a theist.

I find 4 of Feser's arguments unconvincing because they rely so heavily on Thomistic metaphysics, which I find also unconvincing. His fifth argument, the Argument from PSR, holds most promise, but his dismissal of the Objection from Brute Facts seems to me to beg the question. I have posted on the first thread on Feser and started the thread on the 3rd Argument.

How would you distinguish Pantheism, e.g. Spinoza or Hegel, from Panpsychism?

BTW: Theism holds that God is separate from the world because God created the world.

Yeah, if you bothered to read like 5 of those theologians, you'd realise that their understanding of God was actually quite close in most regards. — Agustino

Have you ever seen that trick where one person goes out into the street and points up at something, soon they have all the passers-by looking up to the same place, but there's nothing there?

Sure, certain behaviour attracts attention. So what's your point? Someone looking to attract attention can successfully pull it off?

The point is we're an easily led species who generally tend to converge on similar notions, doesn't make them any more right.