BenJS is right. If you are saying faith requires theism, or always occurs with theism, you are using exceptionally nonstandard definitions of faith, theism, or both. It would be like saying vision only occurs with rectangular solids.
Theism is the belief in “god(s)”. But then a “god” is merely a principle or inherent law, something that controls the outcome of events. Science is entirely about principles and inherent laws (as is mathematics). They just don’t call them “gods”, but rather “theories” (although they used to call them “laws” until they learned that being divine wasn’t as easy as they had thought).
Science IS a Theism. And today goes the full route of having ;
prophets (“Einstein”, “Newton”, “Maxwell”, “Lorentz”,…)
monks (“scientists”),
priests (“professors of science”),
evangelists (“promoters of science to the masses”),
a Vatican (“the scientific community”),
morals (“the scientific method”),
faith (“we have proven it in our deeply hidden scientific experiments, so just believe it”),
indoctrination (“thou shall teach no other theological faith in schools but ours”),
condemnation (“we have no need for your religious nonsense in our world”), and
mysticism, (“quantum physics and relativity”).
Science = Religion, today. It’s newspeak. It’s the gradual or sudden change of label of a concept. Today “science” is the new religion, the new order. But it’s exactly the same as Catholicism was 1000 years ago. Science is today, what Catholicism was 1000 years ago, no difference whatsoever, except the change of names.
Does a rose by any other name still smell as sweet?
Antitheists really irk and rub me the wrong way. Because they want to keep the morals, keep the spirituality, keep the faith, keep the laws, keep the practices and traditions, but exclude god. They don’t like the idea of “god”. So you have this huge anti cultural movement today, that tries to keep all the old institutions, but just remove god from the picture. Nietzscheans use the excuse “god is dead” to justify this desire. Then you have the “scientists” who are really catholics, minus god, again.
Who do you people think created the first “Universities”??? What do you think this term means? What is a “Professor”???
There is a lapse of historical knowledge at work here, a blissful or chosen ignorance. The new generations of eternal children, want to look at the world as if there were no “Authority” greater than themselves. This is the “humanism” movement. Christianity - God = Humanity. These children want to pretend their parents are gone, absent, or dead. But are they? Can you imagine your parents are gone? If they die, do their memories die to? Does the death of your parents, make you forget everything?
Does it erase the past? No, but that’s what these “anti theists” want. They want to erase the past, pretend that gods are dead, or pretend gods don’t exist.
It stems from a child psychology, a phase in their young lives when they wanted to escape from their own parents’ authority, or memories.
It “stems from” much more influential people wanting to change what was by destroying it with semantics and replace it with the new world odor, a bigger version of the old.
Yeah, that would be an example of an extremely nonstandard definition. But under that definition, faith doesn’t require theism- though I haven’t heard the nonstandard definition of faith yet.
Of course he was. The reason people can’t tell is because folks say what he said in the tone he said it with all sincerity here on a regular basis.
Uncommon certainly. That isn’t what people normally think of when they hear the word “god” (after thousands of years of obfuscation), and yet it is an irrefutable fact.
“…faith doesn’t require theism”??
Faith is the insistence on keeping with the theory/theism, holding to what is believed to be the principle/god/God or “proper course of action” for whatever reason one may think it is “proper”.
I haven’t disagreed with the definitions they gave. Did you want to debate what constitutes a “god”?
No. I do not concede that.
I can see why it is confusing for you, but all that I said, despite its appearance to you as being contradictory, is actually coherent.
He is right.
I put that in quotes so as to indicate what is called “Theological Faith” despite that fact that all faith is actually theological.
What you are missing is that “theo-logical” and “theo-retical” are the same concept, merely applied differently in society. Neither the logic nor the observations can be totally ignored and must be sufficiently coherent, else the “theory” doesn’t apply to either party. Science emphasizes the “reticle” (the seen, observations). Religion or metaphysics emphasizes the logic (although after thousands of years, there is a whole lot of non-sense logic laying around that people call “religion” merely because it has some loose association with a religion. Religions tend to accept all adherents regardless of their lack of logical abilities. Today, Science does that too (quantum physics being the prime example).
So you don’t think that a “person or thing” can constitute a “god” or a “doctrine”?
None of that is relevant.
Any “theism” is a theoretical ontology = “theory” = “a belief in a principle(s) concerning an ontology”. And that is exactly what Science is. Science inherently believes in the THEORY that “if we can see it, it is real. And if we cannot see it, it does not exist”. That is a THEORY (which happens to be false btw). But more deeply, Science is the THEORY that “if some theory is the only option for truth concerning an observation, it is the truth concerning that observation.” That is pretty simple logic (thus theological) and with which, I do not disagree.
The REAL problem is that Science was founded on the concept “Nullius in Verba”, “Take no one’s word”, yet today, does little but insist that everyone take only their word - because “in the dark recesses of some obscure laboratory, our story has been verified by honest, independent people who you will never get to meet. Thus take our word”.
And the REAL problem with that, despite being contrary to their motto, is the fact that I keep finding their “word” to be false. They depend on people not being able to tell the difference and living in such doubt that they will take anyone’s word who appears to be in authority = “religion”.
Pathologically, doubt represents biological fear, faith represents biological hope. Doubt and fear are the antithesis to faith and hope. Most people refer to faith and hope as “positive emotions”, positive moods, positive vibes, positive feelings, positive people, etc. A “positive person” has a certain atmosphere, persona, logic, thought process.
Why do I say faith is derived from theism?
James interpretation of theism to theory is correct.
But there’s something else as well. What is the source of all fear? It is fear of death. Without death, fear is impossible. So faith and hope are the catharsis of fear, specifically, from the fear of death. Faith and hope are intrinsically, biologically, and pathologically all related to the survival instinct. Your body is compelled to survive in the face of insurmountable odds. When confronting death, people can and do miraculous things. But the resistance against death, reflects the hopefulness intrinsic within all animal biology. To survive, is a representation of hope, therefore faith.
Ultimately, every form of faith is connected with a belief in life, as an extension beyond the threat of death.
Why do you believe that you will live tomorrow, or beyond a week from now? Why do you have faith in this belief? Admit to yourselves, right now, that you are convinced you’re going to live for…another month at least. You are operating from this premise. You have no real, true reason for believing it. Because you don’t know the future, do you? But your underlying faith and hope represents your will to life. You live and survive according to principles, laws, and spiritual beliefs.
To completely suppress the fear of death, the idea of immortality is required. Who and what is immortal? Except a god. God is the introduction to the idea of eternal life, or simply, life beyond death.
A life beyond now. A life beyond a week from now, a month, a year. You have faith that you’re going to live through another week.
Therefore, I’m right you’re wrong ha ha ha in yo face.
I have to disagree with the whole “fear of death is the fundamental drive” concept. It actually isn’t.
The guiding “force” for literally all conscious entities is PHT, “Perception of Hope and Threat”. And death is certainly a perceived threat (aka “fear”), but not always and not entirely. The more instinctive perception of threat is merely “Pain” or “serious discomfort”. The mind cannot imagine death and thus only fears it for being an unknown of possible harm and probable pain in getting to it. Most creatures willingly die when they sense that they are close to death because they sense it to be an end of their pain. People are encouraged into suicide by giving them discomfort, no perceived hope from it, and an easy way to either commit to it, or get setup to be suicided (by being isolated).
The base of religion and theology (also theism) is belief respectively faith. The German word for “belief” is “Glaube” (and “to believe” = “glauben”), and this has its roots in the the term “FÜR WAHR HALTEN” - HOLD FOR TRUE (ACCEPT AS TRUE) -, so that one can also say that philosophy, science, and something near have also their roots in what religion and theology have their roots; but science and philosophy are more elaborated and "higher than religion and theology. For belief there are also two sides and ways: (1.) a practical side and way and (2.) a theoretical side and way. (1.) The practical belief leads to religion and perhaps, if becoming an elaborated form, to science; (2.) the theoretical belief leads to theology and perhaps, if becoming a higher form, to philosophy. All cultures have this sides and gone this two ways but differently. When Westerners are saying that there is “a huge difference between religion and science and between theology and philosophy”, then they are saying more about themselves and their culture because that difference is not as huge as they always assume.
Theism is merely the ideologised form of theology. Antitheism is just another theism. Theology is the theoretical side and way (=> 2.) of belief, the belief in God (“θεός”, “theós” «» “God”). And if you don’t want to belief in God, then you can call yourself “disbeliever” but not “antitheist” because an antitheist is just another theist, although or because of the attempt to become a disbeliever. Because of the fact that antitheism refers to theism and although both fighting against each other both a parts of Hegel’s dialectic process and have to bow to it, thus became a synthesis, and in the case of theism there can merely be theism as the thesis, antitheism as the antithesis, and syntheism as the synthesis. And one can easily guess what syntheism is.
He was being approximately as sarcastic as I was being (here).
Anti theist isn’t just another theist, just like atheist (obviously) isn’t just another theist. Anti theist is simply a person who opposes the position of theism for whatever reasons and holds it do be detrimental for society/individual/whatever.
Isn’t it interesting how there are 2 threads now, one named Antitheism and the other Anti Atheism and both are actually in favor of theism? And yet I hear some theists complain about the prevalence of atheists here… yea, right
This is getting kind of funny and a bit like trying to define “love” in French - twenty nuances for the same basic concept.
Yes a “deity” is a “god”, is a “principle”, is a “law” (or many combined into one).
Realize that “a being” merely means “an existence”, often assumed to be a living entity by the ignorant masses.
And “super-natural” merely means “above nature”, as in a principle that rules nature, such as entropy or gravity.
So a supernatural being is an entity that governs nature - a principle that governs events, a “deity”.
A “theory” (the root concept in all of this) is the idea of a ruling principle, an explanation concerning why or how something occurs(ed).
“Theo-retical” refers to an either mentally or physically seen theory or “as far as I can see, it would work like this…”
“Logic” refers to the use of its root “log” (the immovable/indisputable). Logic is the famous “immovable object”, “what is, is what is” and what Moses explained as “The One God” above all “theories”, the “god of gods”. And Aristotle called it “the Law of Identity”, “A is A”. The process of Logic is merely a process of identifying equalities or similar identities.
“Theo-logical” refers to theories that pertain to and utilize the principle(s) of Logic. Logic is the “God” of the theologian (some of them actually know that). A Logician and a Theologian are the same thing except for common social usage. One is used to refer to those religious people and the other for those less religious but thinking people. I think the “Third Law of Logic” was “If A = B and B = C, then A = B”. The science teacher uses the theory of Logic in saying "these are these and those are those and if they are the same, then these are those". Thus in reality, the science teachers and scientists are theo-logians.
The original Science was to independently test theories against independent observations. And it presumes logic to do that. But that doesn’t happen any more except in rare heretical cases (such as me). Science became testing theories against only its already accepted theories. And if you do not accept the prior theories, you are not allowed to speak in their churches (the schools and internet science forums). They dispense their accepted theories to professors and teachers in the schools and universities so that they can “spread the gospel” (without heretical interference).
Theism tests its theories against Logic maintaining doubt in what is observed to avoid mis-perception and the use of magical tricks. They hold logic as a higher concern than observation, whereas science holds observation higher than logic (thinking). Other than that, they are identical in every respect.
In a logic based debate, a scientist cannot contend with a theologian or logician. In a observation based debate, a theologian or logician would not contend with a scientist other than to tell him that he isn’t thinking, but presuming and fooling himself (aka “sinning”).
Both theoretical science and theological religion are theism.
The only distinction between them is the names and nuances.
And neither of them tell the whole truth to the masses - You.