Do theists disbelieve the same God as atheists? Topic open for everyone

[Rick O'Shez]

I just meditate and experience what I experience, and try to describe it using the words my culture gave me. I don't "believe" anything, I experience. I fit no one's "articles of faith".

Fair enough, but I do think that these cultural words carry a lot of baggage, and that it might be better to be more creative with the language we use. Words like "Transcendent" and "Infinite" don't carry those obvious religious connotations.

 

[Windwalker]

Interesting change of approach. Before, you were claiming that atheists actually accept your worldview without realizing it. Now it's so different that it causes us discomfort to thinj about changing?

I haven't changed my approach at all. I was simply remarking on why it is people in discussions like this descend into imagining all sort of things about my motives, put me down personally as in essence, lying, making stuff up, full of baloney, "head up my ***" etc., all of which has been said in this thread. It's a side observation that speaks more about why the one side has to resort to these things in a discussion like that, whereas it is wholly absent in my responses. Why is it present at all? Why the need to assign all manner of motivations to me? What does that have to do with the quality of the argument?

For this analogy to work, the people who disagree with you would have to be factually wrong (like a flat-earther). Do you have any justification for this?

Factually wrong? Again, I do not think in terms like this. I am talking about having a different perception of the same thing. You see a tree, and a rock. I see the manifestation of the divine. Am I factually wrong? Does that even apply? What is is, is you do not appear comfortable at all with someone seeing the world differently than you. And when I say I have an experience you have not, I must be "making it up", or something like this.

Why must this be the case? So you can sleep comfortably at night knowing the world is as you imagine it to be. That was the point of his metaphor about the flat earth. It was a metaphor about a mentality. I am pointing a finger here, and throughout this whole thread at the mentality, not what are the "facts". This seems to escape you each time. Does it make sense now?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think this thread has made it clear that not all who are being called theist believe in the Sunday School fundamentalist God that most atheists assume they do. So no, theists and atheists don't always disbelieve the same God, to paraphrase the OP.

If this thread has made anything clear to me, it's this: there are many non-traditional theists who are sensitive to having their positions misconstrued or interpreted in cartoonish ways but are - bizarrely and hypocritically - very quick to misconstrue the positions of others or portray them in cartoonish ways.

Do you think that the only way to have a nuanced viewpoint is to be a theist?

 

[Orbit]

If this thread has made anything clear to me, it's this: there are many non-traditional theists who are sensitive to having their positions misconstrued or interpreted in cartoonish ways but are - bizarrely and hypocritically - very quick to misconstrue the positions of others or portray them in cartoonish ways.

Do you think that the only way to have a nuanced viewpoint is to be a theist?

I've noticed how nuanced the atheists have been with their insults in this thread...I suppose that is what you're counting as nuance?

 

[Windwalker]

Do you think that the only way to have a nuanced viewpoint is to be a theist?

Absolutely not. I embrace it with joy whenever I see it!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I haven't changed my approach at all. I was simply remarking on why it is people in discussions like this descend into imagining all sort of things about my motives, put me down personally as in essence, lying, making stuff up, full of baloney, "head up my ***" etc., all of which has been said in this thread. It's a side observation that speaks more about why the one side has to resort to these things in a discussion like that, whereas it is wholly absent in my responses.

Your responses have often been very insulting toward atheists... insults that you haven't backed up so far with anything substantial. This sort of behaviour tends to elicit negative reactions.

Factually wrong? Again, I do not think in terms like this.

My mistake. I mistakenly assumed that the analogy was supposed to be relevant.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Well, if they are denying that he experiences what he experiences, then yes, they are factually wrong.

Who's denying anyone's experiences? Please be specific.

 

[Orbit]

Your responses have often been very insulting toward atheists... insults that you haven't backed up so far with anything substantial. This sort of behaviour tends to elicit negative reactions.

There has not been a single instance of name-calling from Windwalker, but he has been called names and you called the mystic traditions of all religions "navel gazing".

My mistake. I mistakenly assumed that the analogy was supposed to be relevant.

Eh, I think you just want to argue.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Absolutely not. I embrace it with joy whenever I see it!

Despite having shown no room for this possibility in any of your posts in this thread?

 

[Windwalker]

Your responses have often been very insulting toward atheists... insults that you haven't backed up so far with anything substantial. This sort of behaviour tends to elicit negative reactions.

Insulting? Where? Post numbers please. Where I have ever said you are full of baloney, making things up, trying to obfuscate conversation deliberating, have your head up your ***, called you arrogant or assuming, and so forth? Nowhere.

If what I say about the way certain atheists think is limited, and you are insulted by that, well, that's just simply being insulted by a challege to your beliefs. that's not an insult. I would assume you can tell the difference.

So anyway, let's see if those who disagree with my points of view can try to rise above personal attacks against me. You may challenge my views all you wish, as I will challenge yours. I have not, nor will insult you personally. I feel no reason to.

 

[Windwalker]

Despite having shown no room for this possibility in any of your posts in this thread?

I haven't seen it. I have only seen true/false, cause and effect, only ways of determining truth and reality. I don't think in these terms. There's nothing nuanced at all about this.

 

[Orbit]

Despite having shown no room for this possibility in any of your posts in this thread?

Show it? He's an example of it!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Insulting? Where? Post numbers please.

The insults started in post 2 and continued from there:

To say one is an atheist, is to start and end with that imagining of God as the great being in the sky who looks down up his creation, who acts upon it with either grace and compassion or disciplines and judgments, the way a parent would with a child.

 

[Jumi]

it's all olives and no salad !

I do like me some olives!

 

[Windwalker]

The insults started in post 2 and continued from there:

Oh please. That you don't like what I am saying, is not the same as insulting you personally.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Oh please. That you don't like what I am saying, is not the same as insulting you personally.

Ah - so because it was a broad-brush caricature of an entire group to which I belong and not a special insult only for me, I shouldn't be offended by it.

When have I insulted you, generally or personally?

 

[Shad]

And I'm saying it's on both sides to ensure an understanding by both sides.

Only if the other side is willing to entertain the proponent as they struggle to provide details they could have provided before putting forward a claim. No one is obligated to do so. If you wish to do so you are free to. I will wait until an actually coherent detailed argument is provided.

This stance is due to my education. This is the standard of work I am held accountable to. In literature classes evaluation of ambiguous work produces all sorts of conclusion. However poetry and literature allows this ambiguity while ideas in philosophy and science do not. Applying the correct standard goes a long way in saving the time and effort the proponents should of invested themselves rather than in a post hoc response to criticism.

When an atheist presents a rejection of a God that the theist doesn't believe in, it's up to the atheist to explain it. It's not the theist's fault that the atheist is trying to debunk a non-theist version of God.

Only true if outside a dialogue as per Dawkin's work.

We could easily turn the story around and have the agnomist start the argument, and it then it becomes the agnomist's responsibility to explain what he's debunking.

As per Dawkins hence why I do not consider his work as having any merit since he takse arguments from various groups of theists which at times are exclusive or not agreed upon. However this was not the example you provided.

 

[lovemuffin]

Ah - so because it was a broad-brush caricature of an entire group to which I belong

I can't speak for windwalker, and I can understand how you read his post as pejorative, but I expect he was trying to be more descriptive than critical in that post, along the same lines as gsa's post a bit later on that page. That is, it's just to say that western atheist tends to be a response to the most common Abrahamic monotheistic theologies since those are the most prevalent.

It seems to me that both "sides" in this debate feel that the other side is sometimes prone to broad-brush caricatures, and get irritated by that. I have no doubt that atheists run into very shallow stereotypes all the time, speaking with religious people. I've witnessed plenty of it firsthand, and I'm sympathetic. It is possible that sometimes both theists and atheists are presented with caricatures of their views by others, whether intended maliciously or not. I think dialogue between religious worldviews and atheistic worldviews is important and necessary, not least because I think religion needs the criticism that it receives, if I also believe that theistic traditions have some element of wisdom to offer the modern secular world. I hope it's possible to talk about those topics in a productive way. I think there have probably been comments on both sides of the debate in this thread that serve to create more heat than light, or that seem to exhibit more of the baggage of the poster's past experiences than a direct reaction to the thread, but I also think this is somewhat inevitable. I think it would be unfortunate if the conversation devolved into an attempt to place blame or accusers others of bad faith. I hope we can all try to hear what the others are saying in the assumption of the best possible intentions, that we are all motivated by similar concerns, at a general level, about understanding the world and ourselves.

 

[Jumi]

Well I've enjoyed the discussion. Learned some things so far, especially about myself and how others see these terms. I agree with @Spiny Norman that words like God and Divine have too much baggage if one does not believe in a conscious being controlling or otherwise interacting with the universe. It would need some kind of revolution inside theism to change that. I still do like the idea of pantheism, in a non-theistic way.

 

[Orbit]

Ah - so because it was a broad-brush caricature of an entire group to which I belong and not a special insult only for me, I shouldn't be offended by it.

When have I insulted you, generally or personally?

Actually that wasn't an insult, it was a generally accurate description of how atheists react to theists. I know this from experience.