This of course assumes I live an honest and positive life, and don’t go around stepping on other people’s toes.
May I suggest that, much as the left-right political map has been critically modified by the 2-dimensional political plane (the one with economic and authoritarian axes crossing at right angles), the spiritual/religious one would similarly benefit?
GNOSTIC
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THEISTIC -------------------|-------------------ATHEISTIC
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AGNOSTIC
One could believe in God based on faith; or just finding oneself inclined to believe, or based on having been brought up religiously without having given it speculative thought. This would make one theistic and agnostic, which aren’t contradictory terms at all.
One could believe in God because God had personally made direct communication or walked into the laboratory to demonstrate His Existence empirically. This would make one theistic and gnostic.
One could believe in the absence of a God without claiming to have any specific information, just being uninclined to harbor a belief in God, and would be atheistic and agnostic.
One could believe in the absence of any God as a consequence of having devised the perfect Accurate Divinometer and found a reading of “No God”, or perhaps by believing that Occam’s Razor and a careful perusal of the history of human claims about God’s existence make a compelling case for concluding that beliefs in God are spurious and wrong, and would be atheistic and gnostic.
To add depth, let’s posit a third axis running at right angles to the other two, running from INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED with the existing religious/spiritual belief systems of others of our species to TOTALLY IGNORANT of same.
Thus, if, as some people have occasionally suggested, it is innate to our nature to harbor a belief in something akin to that which we call God, we could have a person who has experienced neither a burning bush nor a Bible — someone who is AGNOSTIC and who is TOTALLY IGNORANT of theological teachings, yet who still believes of his or her own accord in something we’d recognize as God, as meaning what we mean when we say “God”, if they described what they believe.
And we could describe the difference between Skeptical Joe, who is AGNOSTIC but INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED with the belief-systems of the various organized religions and who is an ATHEIST having decided those belief-systems are explained by things other than the existence of a God, and Hypothetical Harry, who is AGNOSTIC, TOTALLY IGNORANT of any such thing as religious, and who is also an ATHEIST, harboring absolutely no trace of any belief in God.
Moses (per description at any rate): GNOSTIC, THEIST, INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED.
Linda Faithful: AGNOSTIC, THEISTIC, INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED.
Classical Agnostic: AGNOSTIC, midway between THEISTIC and ATHEISTIC, INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED.
etc.
Agree Commasence. Religion to me is very obviously a method of social control - if you don’t do this then you will be damned to hell - the classic ‘putting the fear of god’ in you.
I once spent 10 hours with my ‘born again’ friends in a car trip talking religion. At the end of it, I came away with the bottom line thinking: why in the world would a supreme being put people on earth to strive to live their lives for him/her/it, so they could die and go to heaven. It just doesn’t make sense to me. But I was raised without religion or the belief in a supreme being.
I can’t believe that a mass murderer who seeks forgiveness will go to heaven whereas, me, a relatively good and humane person will go to hell.
This is most definitely to quieten people who have shitty lives and who see unethical bastards getting all they want out of life.
commasense:
Nothing, if you end the sentence there.
What is disingenuous is to believe that , if god exists, he is forgiving of the particular sin of which you, specifically, are guilty.
After all, acknowleging the possibility of G-d and heaven also implies that of Hell and of unforgivable sins as well.
And heresy is pretty high up on that list in most organized religions.
Check out this link, http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/ath/blathq_what.htm
About.com has a full set of well-written articles on this topic, and I’m sure you can find the answer there.
I would say you are agnostic and possibly an atheist under certain definitions.
About.com used to have an article which I can’t find now, dividing agnosticism and atheism into four groups, strong and weak atheists and strong and weak agnostics. (“strong” and “weak” are descriptors and not value judgements) It went like this:
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a “strong” atheist actively believes a god or gods do not exist. (kind of the same way a christian actively believes god does exist)
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a “weak” atheist lacks belief in a god or gods.
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a “strong” agnostic asserts that knowledge in god or gods is not ever possible by anyone. (“we cannot know”)
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a “weak” agnostic lacks personal knowledge in a god or gods. (“I do not know”)
Thus, you could be agnostic and an atheist of different combinations at the same time. Belief and knowledge of god are two different things.
You’re right, Dr. Rieux, it was the state comptroller and I read in today’s paper that she reversed that ruling so UUs will still be tax exempt.
I acknowledge the possibilty of a god or gods only on the smallest, most minute scale. Almost entirely for the sake of argument and the fact that I don’t like absolutes.
Now let’s take my acknowledgement of the possibility of a god or gods and represent it with a number. How about a trillion. That’s
1,000,000,000,000
Pretty big number.
Now let’s take my acknowledgement of the possibility of satan and hell, and let’s represent that with a number. That number would be one. That’s
1
See what I mean?
I never said I acknowledged the possibility of the christian gods, I just said “a god or gods.”
Wow. God implies hell? Pretty limited and petty god, IMO.
Or could it be the organized religions (i.e., humans, and not god) that require hell, unforgiveable sins, and heresy?
Absolutely not. There’s no particular reason to assume that a god will punish people who didn’t believe in him, except if you belong to a religion which teach so.
Of course , there’s no particular reason to beleive that said god will grant any passage to any heaven to anybody, either. It’s as much arbitrary. He could as well punish everybody, not caring at all and let people dead, reincarnate them as mushrooms, grant pasage to heaven only to a race of intelligent cabbages living on the seventh planet of Orion, etc…
Absolutely not. There could be a heaven without hell, everybody going to heaven. Or people who aren’t deserving would just stay dead. Or they would be reincarnated until they get it.
Of course, it’s also possible that “deserving” doesn’t mean what we expect in the eyes of this god, and that you assume is good behavior is actually totally irrelevant to him.
Technically, you are an atheist. Lack of belief in a deity signifies an atheist. More specifically, you’re an implicit/weak atheist. About.com do a good job of defining these terms. Your problem of defintion is nothing new, however; I recall Bertrand Russell’s article Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?:
Still, there is a lot of confusion as to the term “Agnostic” and Atheist". An agnostic is so often seen as a “half-way” between theism and atheism, but that is certainly not the case. There is no contradiction with being an agnostic-atheist or an agnostic-theist. An agnostic can also be defined as someone who thinks that it is (i) impossible [in our lifetime ]to have a proof or disproof of the existence of a deity, or (ii) that there exists no proof or disproof of the existence of God, at the moment.
An example of an agnostic-theist would be Immanuel Kant, certainly in his earlier days. He rejected all the classical proofs of the existence of God, and rather, Kant’s God was a far-off transcendental entity. A palpable example of an atheist-agnostic would be Russell, here. Just make sure you don’t see his arguments against Christianity ;).
P.S. Your religious status is, non-religious ;).Theism is no more of a religion than atheism is.; the same goes for agnosticism.
commasense:
Hardly. What’s so limited about a concept of G-d that involves justice as well as mercy?
But that’s beside the point. Since my words have not adequately conveyed the point I was trying to make, allow me to parse this tenet of Cisco’s theological suppositions:
So, presupposing a deity (“If there is a g-d”)…
He will…grant me passage into heaven Implied: passage to heaven must be granted. Thus implying: there must be some less-pleasant alternative for non-grantees.
he will understand why I didn’t believe him and grant… Implied: granting of passage is contingent upon understanding and/or forgiving of wrongs. Implied: non-belief is a wrong requiring such understanding. Implied: those whose non-belief (and possibly other acts that are wrong in the sights of said deity) is based on motives not understandable will not be granted passage.
clairobscur has posited two possible alternatives to heaven that do not involve the existence of a Hell, and I am willing to accept that those are possiblities allowable in Cisco’s statement. Nonetheless, I maintain that the above statement does not leave room for a world-view in which everyone unconditionally gets heaven.
There’s also no particular reason to think that G-d will grant favor to someone who during his or her life has refused to take so fundamental a fact as his existence on faith.
I’m not saying, mind you, that G-d is not forgiving. I’m not even saying that G-d is definitely not forgiving of atheism/agnosticism. For all I know, G-d might be. What I am saying, though, is that if one acknowledges that non-belief might well be a wrong in G-d’s eyes that requires understanding, it’s comfortable and convenient but not necessarily theologically sound to believe that he would, if he exists, be forgiving of that vice that so coincidentally happens to be yours.
Chaim Mattis Keller
What’s the deal with the “G-d” thing?
“God” is not the One True Name of God. It’s an arbitrary set of symbols used to represent a series of sounds in a certain language that didn’t exist when most of these religious texts were made up. “G-d” is no more or less effective written representation of the god concept than “God”. If by convention people start pronouncing - as the O in “odd” in this situation, would you have to start using G*d, or what?
As to the OP. I’d say you’re an atheist and an agnostic, and other people have covered the fact that one deals with belief in god(s) and the with belief about the possibility of knowledge about them, so I’m not going to go on about.
I agree, and it’s not only the idea of a punishment of eternal torment. I find the idea of a superior being that demands belief repulsive. I find the idea of a superior being that demands belief based only on faith repulsive. I find the idea of a superior being that demands worship repulsive. I find find the idea of a superior being that would impose punishment for failure to comply with any or all of these demands repulsive. I cannot see how a god that has any of these characteristics can be good in my worldview.
I’m a little late to this aspect of the conversation, but it amuses me to refer to UU as the “Church of Secular Humanism.”
Carry on.
I know there are polytheistic religions that have gods that are “evil”, but in general the god of such pantheons are pretty human in the sense of having their own foibles, some are just better or worse than other. OR, it’s just a huge pantheon, with a god for everything, beneficial or detrimental.
However, I’m not familiar with any monotheistic religions where the god is an right bastard, and the followers of this religion don’t worhsip the god so much as blame him for everything that’s wrong with the world and do what they can to work against it. Where’d this idea come from that if a single god exists, it’s benvolent… or at the very least indifferent?
In what possible sense of the word “justice” can it be fair or just to condemn someone to ETERNAL torment and punishment for any act, belief, or omission that occurs in the blink of eye that comprises our life on earth? It’s grotesque to imagine that a supposedly omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent being could be so infinitely cruel. Only a human could imagine a god so horrible. But some people think better of their god.
Not me, of course. As far as I can see, we know absolutely nothing, and *can know *absolutely nothing, about god. So this entire conversation, and all conversations about the nature of god, add up to exactly nothing.
commasense:
That’s a different subject entirely. We could debate the nature or justness of divine reward/punishment in a different thread if you want to go in that direction. My point is that you refer to a diety who has its own independent sense of right and wrong and punishes as well as rewards human behavior as more “limited” than a diety who, from the sound of your posts, acts as either a rubber-stamp od approval or turns a blind eye entirely to all human behavior.
Chaim Mattis Keller