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the blurry line between theism and atheism

mpg

mpg

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I'm convinced that there is no supreme being and I don't believe in organized religion, but I do believe in natural law and I consider myself a pantheist. I see no evidence of ghosts but I don't rule out the possibility of spirits who are less than supreme. Am I an atheist or a theist?
 
mpg said:
I'm convinced that there is no supreme being and I don't believe in organized religion, but I do believe in natural law and I consider myself a pantheist. I see no evidence of ghosts but I don't rule out the possibility of spirits who are less than supreme. Am I an atheist or a theist?
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Well, that's an interesting one you have there lol.

You don't rule out the possibility of spirits, which indicates to me that you think it's possible. To me, that puts you in the vicinity of an agnostic line of thinking. Some people (myself included) sort of have a continuous flux of thought and position. I have had period of time when I considered myself fully theist. I've also had times when I've considered myself as near to atheism as was possible, without fully committing to it. Overall, I tend to be somewhere between theism and agnosticism, and my concept of God is very personalized for me. Logically, I don't believe in spirits and/or ghosts, but direct experience has changed that over the years. I don't know what is "out there" or "in here", as the case may be, but I don't believe this is all there is.
 
I consider pantheists atheists. And being an atheist doesn't necessarily preclude a belief in the supernatural.
 
mpg said:
I'm convinced that there is no supreme being and I don't believe in organized religion, but I do believe in natural law and I consider myself a pantheist. I see no evidence of ghosts but I don't rule out the possibility of spirits who are less than supreme. Am I an atheist or a theist?
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Since you do not believe in a god, you cannot, by definition, be a theist.
 
BrewerBob said:
I consider pantheists atheists. And being an atheist doesn't necessarily preclude a belief in the supernatural.
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Pantheism is something that is not well understood by people in my experience. I agree that pantheism is all but atheism, but I also believe that as often as not, people mistakenly believe that it is some sort of finding God in nature as opposed to nature is God which is what it more or less technically is.
 
I've always believed nature represents god but that it only represents it, not that it actually "is" a god but that it being the supreme force on our planet and in the universe it represents god. In this way when I tell a girl "Yes, I do believe in god" I'm not technically lying because I do believe in a god, just not in the way a church does.


That said, I would always follow the maxim of "Never hurt yourself or cause yourself unnecessary suffering over organized religion".
 
So I guess the Holy spirit is out the question?
 
WCH said:
So I guess the Holy spirit is out the question?
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I personally feel that most churches have misinterpreted the Holy Spirit/Holy Ghost by personifying the concept in an effort to be literalistic, thereby robbing the faith of a sense of collective good will movement.
 
Declan said:
I personally feel that most churches have misinterpreted the Holy Spirit/Holy Ghost by personifying the concept in an effort to be literalistic, thereby robbing the faith of a sense of collective good will movement.
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My Wife describes this person as someone who whispers in your ear to give you the power, enthusiasm, confidence etc to do the right things in life. [just as Satan does in a nefarious way]
 
I'm not the authority, but acceptance of the supernatural is something I associate with theism, unless I'm missing the subtlety (which happens far too regularly).
 
An invisible persona whispering in your ear would come under the heading of the supernatural. Of course the voice could be only in one's head.
 
mpg said:
I'm convinced that there is no supreme being and I don't believe in organized religion, but I do believe in natural law and I consider myself a pantheist. I see no evidence of ghosts but I don't rule out the possibility of spirits who are less than supreme. Am I an atheist or a theist?
Click to expand...

Really an interesting OP! Although I don't believe that there is a supreme deity, I am aware that I cannot know what I cannot know, and there may indeed be forces in the universe beyond my understanding. That includes "supernatural" occurrences, which may simply be natural occurrences that humans have not evolved technologically enough to explain... kinda like a caveman seeing a bic lighter and believing it to be a miracle!

Most of us, myself certainly included, have had prophetic thoughts/dreams, etc., or have seen/heard/experienced something beyond our own realm of understanding. Humans need to understand what happens around us, console ourselves as it were, to quell our fears of the unknown... and death. I believe those fears are now and always have been the basis on which all religions for millennia have been founded; we need answers to questions that currently have none.

But I can't respond to your atheist or theist question. Your just a person, with your own questions, your own values, your own beliefs and lack of beliefs. You're human, like the rest of us... and like the rest of us, you are unique!
 
mpg said:
I'm convinced that there is no supreme being and I don't believe in organized religion, but I do believe in natural law and I consider myself a pantheist. I see no evidence of ghosts but I don't rule out the possibility of spirits who are less than supreme. Am I an atheist or a theist?
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Yes.



.
 
mpg said:
I'm convinced that there is no supreme being and I don't believe in organized religion, but I do believe in natural law and I consider myself a pantheist. I see no evidence of ghosts but I don't rule out the possibility of spirits who are less than supreme. Am I an atheist or a theist?
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You sound like a new ager.

And pantheism is indeed a type of theism just with a different type of god.
 
DiAnna said:
Really an interesting OP! Although I don't believe that there is a supreme deity, I am aware that I cannot know what I cannot know, and there may indeed be forces in the universe beyond my understanding. That includes "supernatural" occurrences, which may simply be natural occurrences that humans have not evolved technologically enough to explain... kinda like a caveman seeing a bic lighter and believing it to be a miracle!

Most of us, myself certainly included, have had prophetic thoughts/dreams, etc., or have seen/heard/experienced something beyond our own realm of understanding. Humans need to understand what happens around us, console ourselves as it were, to quell our fears of the unknown... and death. I believe those fears are now and always have been the basis on which all religions for millennia have been founded; we need answers to questions that currently have none.

But I can't respond to your atheist or theist question. Your just a person, with your own questions, your own values, your own beliefs and lack of beliefs. You're human, like the rest of us... and like the rest of us, you are unique!
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I agree with your point about the word "supernatural. I think everything is natural, even if it hasn't been explained by science. I prefer the word "paranormal".
 
mpg said:
I agree with your point about the word "supernatural. I think everything is natural, even if it hasn't been explained by science. I prefer the word "paranormal".
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In order for science to explain it then it has to exist. Telepathy is "paranormal" but has never been shown to exist. It comes under the heading of imaginary.
 
mpg said:
...but I do believe in natural law and I consider myself a pantheist...
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All belief denotes religion. What you consider yourself is irrelevant to reality.
 
mpg said:
I'm convinced that there is no supreme being and I don't believe in organized religion, but I do believe in natural law and I consider myself a pantheist. I see no evidence of ghosts but I don't rule out the possibility of spirits who are less than supreme. Am I an atheist or a theist?
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To be honest it comes down to semantics, your definition of god.

If you define god as an anthopomorphic being with qualities x, y and z (e.g. cares about us, sent his son to earth, has a beard) then you could consider yourself atheist if you didn't believe in that.

If you define god as some kind of spiritual entity, then you can consider yourself atheist if you don't believe in that.

If you define god as the universe itself, then if you believed that, then you would be a theist. Just a very different kind of theist to the examples above.

Also what do you mean by you believe in 'natural law'???
 
Nilly said:
Also what do you mean by you believe in 'natural law'???
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I may have chosen the wrong term, so let me be more specific. I don't believe in organized religion or a supreme being, so I don't believe in sin. I also don't believe that something can become immoral merely because a government passed a law. However, I do believe that some things are immoral, and that morality isn't just a false concept.
 
mpg said:
I may have chosen the wrong term, so let me be more specific. I don't believe in organized religion or a supreme being, so I don't believe in sin. I also don't believe that something can become immoral merely because a government passed a law. However, I do believe that some things are immoral, and that morality isn't just a false concept.
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Well this is moving the conversation in a slightly different direction, but just because someone thinks morality is subjective, does not mean that it is false. For example:

Say that you stumble across an amazonian tribe, and in that tribe making green paintings is punishable by banishment (which would most likely lead to death). You witness this happening, and of course, that seems deeply immoral to you. But now imagine that you are told by the chief that the only source of green paint for the tribe is from an incredibly rare plant which has healing properties for a fatal disease commonly suffered by infants in the tribe. The plants ability to save their children is taught to all the tribespeople and is the reason green paintings are illegal.

Suddenly, their once immoral law is not so immoral after all. The accumulation of knowledge has changed whether a certain act is viewed as immoral or not. It is still morally wrong to punish people for painting green paintings in our society, yet it is not morally wrong in the framework of their society. So despite the morals of the decision being subjective, those morals are not necessarily false.
 
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mpg said:
I'm convinced that there is no supreme being and I don't believe in organized religion, but I do believe in natural law and I consider myself a pantheist. I see no evidence of ghosts but I don't rule out the possibility of spirits who are less than supreme. Am I an atheist or a theist?
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Why does it matter? You're mpg. You've described your position on the subject without identifying with either term so I don't see why you need to worry about either.
 
mpg said:
I'm convinced that there is no supreme being and I don't believe in organized religion, but I do believe in natural law and I consider myself a pantheist. I see no evidence of ghosts but I don't rule out the possibility of spirits who are less than supreme. Am I an atheist or a theist?
Click to expand...

If you're a pantheist wouldn't you technically be believing in a god? Is it material whether the god is universal or has a personality/anthropomorphic quality?
 
mpg said:
I'm convinced that there is no supreme being and I don't believe in organized religion, but I do believe in natural law and I consider myself a pantheist. I see no evidence of ghosts but I don't rule out the possibility of spirits who are less than supreme. Am I an atheist or a theist?
Click to expand...
I'd say that if you believe in the supernatural, by default you are a theist.

"Pantheism" typically means that you believe the entire universe is what makes up an imminent deity. E.g. it's not that God is somehow separate from and observing the universe (like a scientist looking at a body's cells in a microscope), but that he is the universe (e.g. we are the cells, God is the total body).

Perhaps you mean some other term? E.g. panpsychism, in which you believe everything that exists has consciousness?
 
Pretty much if you say anything along the lines of "I believe in the existence of _____" and you aren't discussing probability and facts, you're going the theist route. Whether it's a god or a higher consciousness or vampires or whatever, you're doing the believer thing. You're not doing the atheist thing, because atheism is not believing. Even if it's not a major religion you're not believing in, it's still about not believing.
 
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