# God as a Spirit - a question for theists **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 9, 2009, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256 "2009-10-09T23:53:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/41 "2009-10-10T22:39:23Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Lots of Dopers seem to believe in this kind of god. My question for those who do: did you come to this from first principles, or did you come to it by discarding parts of more traditional religion which you realize were counterfactual nonsensical? Please describe the god or spirit which you do believe in, since I’m not interested in constructing strawman deities. This is not a request for evidence or justification, just an attempt to learn the process by which someone begins to believe in something for which there are no precedents or cultural anchors, which is the purpose served by the several Bibles of customary religions. I really didn’t find God, He found me. Yes it was getting rid of the impersonal ‘BS’ that we all have been taught, actually this too was a act of God, as all that stuff was ‘shattered’ one day, and I had to learn all over again. The God I believe in is the always loving Father of all of us, waiting for us, as described in the parable of the prodigal son. Along with Jesus, the Son of God, which is God living and acting in humans today, along with the Holy Spirit, which is spiritual form of God which gives us, God’s children, insight as to the truth. All 3 are the one and only God and fully so, and we all are to be part of that. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/42 "2009-10-10T22:59:31Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Thanks for actually responding. Theists should take comfort that atheists who start a thread like this get no more respect than you do. 🙂 You’re welcome. BTW, I am a she. I find it fascinating how many Reform and less traditional Jews responded to my post. In the U.S., religion and God are so often defined purely in terms of Christian beliefs that the sometimes very different approach of Judaism gets ignored. > [@](#): > > Do you believe that God never talked to Mose and Abraham, and has always been a presence only, or that he interacted in the past and now withdrew? To be clear, by spirit I meant only spirit, not spirit and infinite yet directly interacting with us or having kids like those silly goyim believe. Frankly, I’m not at all sure that Moses and Abraham existed. I’m well aware that there is very little evidence that the Exodus ever took place in a strictly historical sense, and Abraham far preceeds that. Of course that doesn’t stop me from trying to understand God’s role in the world through my interpretation of the stories of Moses and Abraham. The story of the burning bush resonates with me, as does the “still, small voice” of God. I have definitely heard the voice of God, the way that **AHunter3** describes it, as something in my own head. Just the firing of neurons, or whatever? Possibly. It makes sense to me as God, and it makes sense to me that the ancient Israelite peoples understood it that way and wrote about it that way, using their own experiences and myths to describe it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/43 "2009-10-10T23:32:28Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > How about this? I believe the universe to be sentient, and benign. I call this massive and essentially incomprehensible intelligence “God”. I have no proof for this. > > (Incidentally, I come from basically the same background as **SpoilerVirgin** and **Voyager**. I believe that God intervened with humanity more in the past, but now that we’ve grown up a bit, He/She is leaving us alone to find our own way). I used to believe that. Now I believe they were all stories, some compiled legends and some made up. The thing that really got me was the “history” I learned in Hebrew school was treated as every much a set of facts as the history I read in Landmark books. It wasn’t until much later did I learn that the first part was purely bull, and the Biblical archeology books even later showed that even the latter part - David and Solomon - were bull also. My Hebrew School history, by the way, started with Abram, and didn’t even pretend that Adam and Eve and Noah were factual. That might have been one reason they were so insidious. ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/44 "2009-10-11T00:30:38Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I guess I didn’t really see an answer contained in **SpoilerVirgin’s** post. > > “Fundamental essence of life” doesn’t mean anything. “Spirit of creation” doesn’t mean anything. It’s nice, abstract poetry (and believe me, I understand it), but ultimately, it doesn’t actually say anything about reality. It’s not even true. Life doesn’'t have an “essence.” There isn’t any “creation.” That last sentence looks alot like witnessing to me. The good news is that you’re in the right forum for it. But that’s not the reason for my post. What is “something”? (or is it “some thing”?) And…What is “reality”? ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/45 "2009-10-11T00:34:17Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Your belief is just as valid as any other religious belief. And if The Big Kahuna God actually existed, would this still be true? ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/46 "2009-10-11T02:08:28Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Only if you assume that the material world is all there is. “But of course it’s true!” one might object. Mere assertion is not the same as proof, though. > > “But we have never observed anything other than what is material” some of the more stubborn objectors might say. Even if we grant that to be true though, it takes a certain amount of hubris to say that if we’ve never perceived something, then it cannot possibly exist. You need a firmer argument than that. > > Earlier, a certain somebody said that a spirit must be defined “in scientific terms” before we consider its existence. And yet here, we have the blanket (and scientifically unproven) claim that nothing outside the material world can possibly exist. That strikes me as a rather severe double standard. Exactly as I would have put it myself. If **Diogenes** wants to maintain that non-material means non-existent, then he needs to argue that with the editors of dictionaries, because they don’t agree with him. It’s been a widely-known fact for thousands of years that the essence of a human being is invisible. (Also inaudible, unsmellable, &c…) That is to say, a human being could live next to me for years or even decades, and I could see them, talk with them, spend almost every waking minute with them, yet not truly know them. They could still hide all or part of their nature, mislead about some of their true feelings and thoughts, or simply keep their innermost being a mystery. Hence human beings are not purely physical beings, because the reductionist view that takes humans down to animals–and eventually down to chemicals–is not a full description. So if human begins are invisible in their essence, then there’s nothing illogical about the possibility of a being that’s entirely invisible (from the material standpoint). Indeed, reasoning from what we know about humans points us towards just such a possibility. A human being at a high level of development–one who is self-controlled, careful, thoughtful, and philosophical–has an essential nature much less visible than a human being at a low level–hedonistic, selfish and impulsive. Hence if beings at a level higher than humanity did exist, we’d logically expect that even less of their essence would be describable in the materialist and reductionist sense. Lastly, since human beings can choose if and when to reveal certain aspects of themselves, we’d expect higher beings to have the same ability. Since I do believe that God has revealed Himself in human history, both supremely in the person of Jesus Christ and at other times by the workings of the Holy Spirit, I obviously do not believe that God in non-existent. Let me offer a story that my priest told me: When he was younger, he was working in a parish in Miami when a woman came up to him with a panicked look on her face. The woman claimed that her four-year-old daughter was going insane and hearing voices in her head. The priest asked to see the daughter. When they were together, he asked the girl, “What are the the voices saying?” The girl answered: “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory, hosanna in the highest.” The priest then asked, “Are they saying anything else?” The girl then turned to her mother and said, “They say that both you and the baby inside you will almost die, but that everything will be all right in the end.” At this point, only the women, her husband, and her doctor knew that she was pregnant. Near the end of the pregnancy, she suffered placental abruption and had extremely heavy blood loss. The baby was born very prematurely and had to have surgery to repair a heart defect just hours after birth. But both mother and baby survived and fully recovered. So while events like that aren’t a necessary part of my faith, they do occur. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/47 "2009-10-11T02:55:54Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The very concept of “God” implies that there is One True God who must be followed; monotheism always turns to coercion when it can. And religion is controlling by nature. And without that 3000 year old book, it inevitably starts to prey on the believer’s minds that they have nothing at all to support their beliefs. One of the reasons the request for us to disprove god is invalid is because there are many, many, definitions of god. You have correctly objected to people defining those they don’t like out of Christianity, so how can you define proposed gods out of godhood? In any case, the One True God version is fairly recent - Zeus hardly was the One True God. > [@](#): > > God as a vague non-intervening spirit isn’t ever going to satisfy most believers, because it lacks most of the attractions of being a believer at all. It’s not really a stable position; it’s generally more of a last gasp of people who aren’t willing to accept agnosticism or atheism. Or the last gasp of rationality before they just give up on rationality and embrace something more fundamentalistic. I have no idea what is going to satisfy believers. I do think you are right that this spirit stuff is a stop just before atheism, since it attracts none of the scorn we get from being atheist. But it is more than that. My wife has retreated to a very vague deism, because she is very uncomfortable with there being nothing at all. My kids have no problem, so I suppose they got my non-religion gene. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/48 "2009-10-11T03:00:32Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I don’t know whether I’m the sort of person you’re asking about here. Whenever some atheist suggests to me that religious people have staged a general retreat from physical gods to a vaguely-defined spiritual god because the evidence has forced us to do so, it never makes any sense to me. I believe in one God, Jesus Christ, who was born as a human being and lived at a known place and time. Therefore I believe in a much more definite and well-defined God than people did in the times before Christ. I wasn’t saying all or even most believers believe in a spirit only, but it seems popular among the set of intellectuals responding to Dawkins. I think the Holy Spirt (Casper the Holy Ghost?) is part of that infinity associated with the God who visits and chats with us. The God who is actually the universe doesn’t visit and show us his bum, as I understand it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/49 "2009-10-11T03:03:02Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Non-material is another word for non-existent. Careful, you’ll bring out the “does love exist” crowd. Non-material things such as processes certainly exist - but they are all tied to material things. Something strictly non-material (and photons are material) doesn’t exist, true. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/50 "2009-10-11T03:31:20Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Well here is how I see it. Religion as it was, was an attempt to understand the reality around us. It uses similitudes to come up with ideas. I think the modern analytical mind is too quick to blow these off as useless superstition, though I think that the process of the mind learning to consider things grew up through these various ideas, and that formal logic ultimately grew out of our ability to imagine. > > Biologically, we have created categories that separate one organism from another. But all organisms live in a larger ecosystem, the life of which depends upon the organisms that inhabit it. > The human body as such is an ecosystem. We could consider our cells to be individual organisms, but we don’t, because the hierarchy we have created in order to understand biology is anthro-centric, IE, we view creatures by their relationship to human beings. Ultimately though, all creatures are protein compounds that bring elemental matter into different forms. Beware the trap of saying something or things is a system and thinking you have said something interesting about it. I doubt that many biologists actually believe in the fallacy you’ve stated. Evolution tells us we are not special, as does DNA. Those who believe in a God who created us are much more likely to think animals are here for us, and to doubt that animals did just fine for hundreds of millions of years before we bothered to show up. > [@](#): > > We believe the human being to be sentient, either the only sentient creature in the universe or the MOST sentient. For instance bioethicists such as Peter Singer have developed the idea of sentience as the ability to form preferences, and as such his morality is based upon this preference system. This makes a lot more sense to me than anything else. Especially as we move toward a possible transhumanism, our literature is rife with the ethical questions regarding the possibility of our creation of a sentient species that is distinctly not human. The very fact that we believe it proves it to be true. As for being the only or most sentient being, I don’t know of any scientist who thinks this. Singer’s morality cleverly defines those species he wants to protect as sentient. But, how many of the preferences an animal - or a human - makes is from being sentient, and how many are a product of genes and environment. If you define preference broadly enough you can bring it down to the single celled animal level, after all. > [@](#): > > I subscribe to a collectivist view of sentience. We like to think of ourselves as sentient, but we aren’t. A lone human cannot survive in the wild like other mammals can. Kit Carson and Grizzly Adams might have a bone to pick with this statement. They did a lot better than a single zebra would. > [@](#): > > We have a long nurturing process whereby the architecture of human sentience is imparted to us by our cultural collectives. This process was largely formed by religious institutions in the past. We have taken the same sorts of inculcation processes and stripped them of the language of similitude as we have found ourselves capable of doing so. Oh, nonsense. The cultural collective (two bit phrase for tribe?) was there long before religion. Since we are a social species, we have lots of social groupings, and religion is only one, though a successful one. \ > [@](#): > > We sprang from the universe by some process that is as of yet opaque to us. How does conciousness arise from the valences of atoms? How did the universe’s matter go from element to molecule, from molecule to protein, and from protein to self-aware being? I see it as folly to assume that consciousness is a process that emerges solely from the human being. The human being is dependent upon too many external factors. We are not separate and distinct from our environment, we are an integral part of it. The Nature vs Artifice argument is one of the grandest category errors in the history of mankind. We are a part of nature. As such, we are the matter of the universe experiencing itself. Even if we are the only fully conscious beings anywhere in the universe, then we are God’s brain. We are able to know the universe through the act of cognition, but the act of cognition is a collective process. No, I think we are a fluke of the universe. We have no right to be here. If you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind our backs. 😛 If I understand this correctly, God is equivalent to the Universe and the Universe is sentient to the extent that there are sentient beings in it (almost certainly more than just us.) Now, how does the ability of these beings affect anything. At the moment we are stuck on one world pretty much. If all sentient species are like us, the universe god is kind of in a coma, with some mental processes running but not any which can affect its essence. Do we have to get to the throwing stars around point to be interesting? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/51 "2009-10-11T03:44:41Z")
**Diogenes the Cynic** does not exist. I see where you are pointing but there’s nothing there but a bunch of subatomic particles interacting with each other. Attributing the behavior of those subatomic particles to this illusory **Diogenes the Cynic** does not add anything to our understanding of those events as far as I can see. While it is true that some of the more complex epiphenomena cannot _as of yet_ be explained with full rigor as the outcome of equations that we have _now_ governing the location mass and momentum and charge of those particles, no one here doubts that if we did have sufficiently comprehensive information, more complete understanding of some of the finer points of particle behavior, and more raw computing power to address the enormous volume of variables, we would be able to do so. No one is seriously proposing that some of those behaviors is actually due to this “ **Diogenes the Cynic** ” exerting its will and overriding the laws of physics as they apply to those particles. There is no such thing as **Diogenes the Cynic** and it’s rather embarrassing to have conversations this day and age with folk who apparently believe that there is. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/52 "2009-10-11T04:02:05Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > One of the reasons the request for us to disprove god is invalid is because there are many, many, definitions of god. You have correctly objected to people defining those they don’t like out of Christianity, so how can you define proposed gods out of godhood? In any case, the One True God version is fairly recent - Zeus hardly was the One True God. He also wasn’t called “God”; he was called Zeus. “God” is simply a means of referring to the Judeo-Christian monotheist God, with all the baggage of intolerance and control that involves. > [@AHunter3](#): > > **Diogenes the Cynic** does not exist. > > I see where you are pointing but there’s nothing there but a bunch of subatomic particles interacting with each other. Attributing the behavior of those subatomic particles to this illusory **Diogenes the Cynic** does not add anything to our understanding of those events as far as I can see. While it is true that some of the more complex epiphenomena cannot _as of yet_ be explained with full rigor as the outcome of equations that we have _now_ governing the location mass and momentum and charge of those particles, no one here doubts that if we did have sufficiently comprehensive information, more complete understanding of some of the finer points of particle behavior, and more raw computing power to address the enormous volume of variables, we would be able to do so. No one is seriously proposing that some of those behaviors is actually due to this “ **Diogenes the Cynic** ” exerting its will and overriding the laws of physics as they apply to those particles. > > There is no such thing as **Diogenes the Cynic** and it’s rather embarrassing to have conversations this day and age with folk who apparently believe that there is. False comparison; there’s plenty of evidence that **Diogenes** exists, and his existence violates no physical laws. He can be talked to be anyone on the board, and respond in a way anyone can see without appealing to mystic revelation. The opposite of claims that God exists. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/53 "2009-10-11T04:10:14Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > False comparison; there’s plenty of evidence that **Diogenes** exists, and his existence violates no physical laws. He can be talked to be anyone on the board, and respond in a way anyone can see without appealing to mystic revelation. The opposite of claims that God exists. There is NO evidence that **Diogenes the Cynic** exists that can’t be explained away as actually evidence of the subatomic particles whose behavior is ENTIRELY responsible for everything you attribute to “ **Diogenes the Cynic** ”. If you believe otherwise by all means provide some _evidence_. Of course “his” existence violates no physical laws. Did I say that there cannot be a “ **Diogenes the Cynic** ” because you are asserting that “he” has impossible characteristics? I most certainly did not! (There may BE silly people who make such claims but not in THIS thread, oh no). What I said was that positing the existence of a “ **Diogenes the Cynic** ” adds nothing to our understanding of what we already comprehend as subatomic particles and their predictable, quantifiable, physics-obeying behavior. So why use the construct “ **Diogenes the Cynic** ”? What does this formulation bring to the table? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/54 "2009-10-11T04:20:20Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > What I said was that positing the existence of a “ **Diogenes the Cynic** ” adds nothing to our understanding of what we already comprehend as subatomic particles and their predictable, quantifiable, physics-obeying behavior. So why use the construct “ **Diogenes the Cynic** ”? What does this formulation bring to the table? It’s what the collection of subatomic particles in question calls itself on this message board. It’s easier to deal with him as a unit and not on the level of particles. All you are doing is engaging in an old, bad parody of scientific reductionism. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/55 "2009-10-11T04:30:53Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Mere assertation isn’t even evidence-and that seems to be all you’ve got. Are you addressing me or **Diogenes** , sir? If you’re addressing me, I’d like to point out that I have asserted nothing except to point out that **Diogenes** ’s claim is a mere assertion. In this thread, I have not argued for or against the existence of a spirit or anything immaterial. Rather, I have pointed out that **Diogenes** needs to substantiate his assertion. I trust that everyone can see this distinction. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/56 "2009-10-11T04:38:44Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > If you’re addressing me, I’d like to point out that I have asserted nothing except to point out that **Diogenes** ’s claim is a mere assertion. No, it’s not. We can perceive the material world, and there’s no evidence for anything else. It is the\*\*\* logical default\*\*\*, not an assertion to assume that there is nothing else unless and until evidence comes in otherwise. It is the obligation of those who claim that something else exists to provide evidence; not \*\*Diogenes’\*\*s to prove a negative. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/57 "2009-10-11T05:16:23Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No, it’s not. We can perceive the material world, and there’s no evidence for anything else. It is the\*\*\* logical default\*\*\*, … No, it isn’t. Even if we do grant the claim that we do not yet have any evidence for the non-material, the logical default is to withhold judgment – NOT to adamantly insist that nothing immaterial can possibly exist. For pity’s sake, we can’t even begin to perceive everything with our own galaxy, much less the entire universe. To declare that something cannot possibly exist simply because we haven’t perceived it (again, if we grant that claim) is hubris in the extreme. You need to have a firmer argument than that – especially since you’re trying to rule out ANY immaterial thing of ANY kind or nature whatsoever. Again, it’s interesting how certain people here will demand some sort of scientific test for the existence of a spirit, and yet resort to unscientific assertions that absolutely nothing immaterial can possibly exist anywhere or at any time. This demand for scientific proof is apparently discarded when it gets in the way of materialist assumptions. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/58 "2009-10-11T05:55:28Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I believe I might be wrong. I believe all useful theological understanding, just like all useful scientific understanding, starts with that. With NOT believing things you do not know and then refusing to question or reconsider them. I believe that all userful social structures must incorporate the holy sanctity of our human fallibility and hence not judge as if one could judge from certainty and not coerce or boss or decide on others’ behalf as if one could do that with absolute knowledge. > > I believe that truth can be described in theological terms but that those same truths can be described in deliberately nontheological terms. Words are just words. If they do not communicate they are perhaps poorly chosen. Thanks for the response, which was just the kind of thing I was looking for. If I can test my understanding, your revelation convinced you that the universe had purpose in some sense, right? And it sounds like you went from a more or less standard belief, which was unsatisfactory, to less of a belief, because of those problems, to your present belief. I wonder how many others rebound like that. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/59 "2009-10-11T05:58:03Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > Sorry to get in here as an atheist, but: > > You seem to be describing deism. As far as I can see, deism is probably closer to atheism than theism, at least as far as the conclusions you can derive from it regarding morals, science etc - you know, the practical stuff. Deism is a subset of the kind of thing I’m describing, which is more pantheism. In deism the god does not interact with his creation, in this the god more or less is his creation. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256/60 "2009-10-11T06:04:46Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > The very act of animism itself is an useful tool. Think of an Android. That is an animistic concept. It is imputing the idea of intelligence upon a machine. Now, an Android is theoretically plausible in some senses. Regardless we know for a fact that we can create robots and that this machines can be animated to perform a particular function, a car is no less animism than an Android. Animism at its root is the ability to imagine something as having an animating spirit. You have since then changed your vocabulary to reflect the scientific/rational environment in which you live. Animism assumes intelligence in something. The construction of an android involves placing intelligence into something, totally different. Imputing malice to your computer is a type of animism, which is clearly something wired into us. > [@](#): > > **Der Trihs** used the term, ‘imaginary’ as a dismissal. The implication is that they are imagining something that is not there. But the problem here is that imagination is an integral part of cognition. This is a problem I have with getting into Spinoza, apparently from commentary I’ve read he was very derisive of the imaginary and wanted to achieve a life of pure intellect. It seems to fit based upon his philosophy which is a very step by step and logical approach to the formulation of the universe as God. What he did, is what **Der Trihs** has done, and put the ‘imaginary’ in the category of the ‘not real’, which is a mistake. Just because something is imaginary doesn’t mean that it’s not real. You are now sitting in a building that was originally imaginary, and then an architect sat down with sheets of reconstituted paper pulp, a wooden tube filled with a soft metal, a metal 90 degree angle with lines and numbers written on it, and two metal spikes attached to a metal hinge. > > Superstition is when one insists the imaginary exists in a way in which it does not. Imagination is indeed an essential part of cognition, yet **DerTrihs** is correct since the imaginary is not real by definition. The creative process is the thing that transforms the imaginary into the real. It might be done by being captured in fiction, or the imaginary might be an idea for a program which becomes a real program. You are confusing the idea with the reality. As anyone who has done anything creative knows full well, the limitations of our skill and natural law makes the real and the imaginary mismatch. Which is often very frustrating. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-as-a-spirit-a-question-for-theists/513256.md?page=4)