RE: Theism, Agnosticism, or Atheism: Which one describes you?

RE: Theism, Agnosticism, or Atheism: Which one describes you? (Full Version)

All Forums >> [Community Discussions] >> Dungeon of Political and Religious Discussion

Message

xssve -> RE: Theism, Agnosticism, or Atheism: Which one describes you? (5/9/2011 6:29:22 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: WantsOfTheFlesh quote: ORIGINAL: xssve quote: ORIGINAL: MissImmortalPain Deism I noticed that was conspicuously missing. I reckon deism would come under one of the theist headings because it is still a belief in some sort of divinity. The categorisation is probably put in a Western monotheistic way since thats how philosophy wrestled with the issue traditionally. If you were to substitute God with gods or divinity it would probably cover all or almost all forms of religious belief. Then you would be wrong, the critical distinction between Theism and Deism concerns to what extent the deity involves him (or her) self in earthly affairs - i.e., the deist believes the godhead to be a remote entity who does not answer prayers or punish sinners with natural disasters, it does not attribute natural phenomena, including luck, to magical processes, and as such is much more compatible with the scientific method, as it requires no proof of divine intervention in order to explain natural phenomena. Theism, on the other hand, involves much more extensive forms of magical thinking, ranging from partial Deism, i.e., god only intervenes when necessary, to attributing virtually all phenomena to god's will, to the point of predestination, and it nearly always centers around a teleological narrative model. Many of these people are constantly seeking proof of gods existence in order to justify their unshakable certainty, and have a big problem with scientific methodology, in that it very much challenges a subjective teleological model of reality since it deals typically with cause and effect rather than "purpose".

ChatteParfaitt -> RE: Theism, Agnosticism, or Atheism: Which one describes you? (5/9/2011 7:00:35 AM)
I agree you have to define your terms. These are mine: The theist's definition of God would lean toward a being who is creator and supreme ruler of the world. The deist may admit to God creating the world, but now he's lost interest. The agnostic doesn't know if this supreme ruler and creator exists or not; the atheist is sure he does not exist. I personally do not see God as the creator and supreme ruler of the world. God, to me, is a spiritual power higher than myself, which means (in my world) there can be many Gods. I also see God as the spiritual manifestation of all of our collective consciousness, which means my Gods are capable of being positive or negative, or both.

Hippiekinkster -> RE: Theism, Agnosticism, or Atheism: Which one describes you? (5/9/2011 7:12:43 AM)
Somebody's been reading Dawkins. Strong Atheist here.

lusciouslips19 -> RE: Theism, Agnosticism, or Atheism: Which one describes you? (5/9/2011 7:14:34 AM)
I would say none of the above!

WantsOfTheFlesh -> RE: Theism, Agnosticism, or Atheism: Which one describes you? (5/9/2011 7:57:57 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: xssve quote: ORIGINAL: WantsOfTheFlesh quote: ORIGINAL: xssve quote: ORIGINAL: MissImmortalPain Deism I noticed that was conspicuously missing. I reckon deism would come under one of the theist headings because it is still a belief in some sort of divinity. The categorisation is probably put in a Western monotheistic way since thats how philosophy wrestled with the issue traditionally. If you were to substitute God with gods or divinity it would probably cover all or almost all forms of religious belief. Then you would be wrong, the critical distinction between Theism and Deism concerns to what extent the deity involves him (or her) self in earthly affairs - i.e., the deist believes the godhead to be a remote entity who does not answer prayers or punish sinners with natural disasters, it does not attribute natural phenomena, including luck, to magical processes, and as such is much more compatible with the scientific method, as it requires no proof of divine intervention in order to explain natural phenomena. Theism, on the other hand, involves much more extensive forms of magical thinking, ranging from partial Deism, i.e., god only intervenes when necessary, to attributing virtually all phenomena to god's will, to the point of predestination, and it nearly always centers around a teleological narrative model. Many of these people are constantly seeking proof of gods existence in order to justify their unshakable certainty, and have a big problem with scientific methodology, in that it very much challenges a subjective teleological model of reality since it deals typically with cause and effect rather than "purpose". You would be wrong as you didn't read my short post properly. I was talking about broadening out the definition to all divinity as we understand it. Secondly there are varying definitions of theism. One is the more specialised theological defintion as you describe but broadly theism means a belief in a god or gods regardless of additional theological qualifications such as deism. I assume this is the common definition that the OP was referring to because it would be unhelpful to narrow religious belief excessively where certain common theological variations would be excluded.

LaTigresse -> RE: Theism, Agnosticism, or Atheism: Which one describes you? (5/9/2011 8:08:56 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tazzygirl None of the above. This.

Page: << < prev 1 [2]

Collarchat.com © 2025

Terms of Service

0.046875