An observation…discussions such as these will generally not change mindsets of theists or atheists. Even new ideas arguing in either direction trying to break new ground has little effect. Usually when there is a conversion from either side, it stems from a life changing incident. Otherwise, it becomes an excercise of futility. Mostly we are products of our enviroment. Granted, when young adults go to a higher learning institution, their minds are more tractable and can be influenced by the professors. Then there is a possibility those young people will have their psyche altered. Personally, I would like the profs to keep their ideological ideas to themselves and stick to the curriculum. Since tenure is in place, that option is negated. But, I digress…getting people to see someone elses point of view concerning something as life changing as this won’t work, especially as dipolar of a subject this is.
It’s a temporally constrained idea. I don’t know how much better I can phrase it than I did in my opening post.
Theists = real god = god that makes sense.
Athesits = unreal god = god doesn’t have to make sense.
Since the atheist doesn’t have to imagine a god that makes sense/seems like it would be real, and they view god as a wish-fulfillment, why not have that god be the ultimate wish-fulfillment? For a theist, on the other hand, god isn’t a matter of wish-fulfillment but something that exists and has been defined by a tradition outside of themselves, and this tradition generally reaches back far enough that aspects of it may not jive terribly well with modern sensibilities.
But all of this is contingent on the idea of god being prima facie appealing to humans.
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You have to defend why your daydream would have certain characteristics and not others. If such daydreams are a projection of something you desire then you have something of yourself invested in your little project. I don’t think it’s asking too much to have you defend your own choices.
If atheists would never daydream about the Christian God then it’s hard to make the case that Christians are doing such. Unless, of course, you assume that Christains and atheists are fundementally different in some other way. But we already covered that you don’t accept this premise.
What do you mean by making sense? Why is a God who rises from the dead and offers eternal life any more sensible than anything an atheist would construct. It seems to me the opposite way round. The constucts of God that atheists develop actually make more sense than the God that most theists accept. Read what some atheists said in the other thread. I think there ideas are sensible, don’t you? The very fact that atheists would wish for a God who was good and helpful seems to argue against the case that theists have constructed a self-fulfilling God.
But as you implied before, maybe the real issue isn’t whether the God is sensible or not, but whether this God will actually demand anything from you. It seems like the main difference is that the Christian God is demanding, while any God an atheist would wish for is non-demanding. But you’d have to make the case that a demanding God is somehow preferable to a non-demanding God, at least for some individuals (those who become Christians). That seems logical but would lead to the conclusion that theists are just different people to atheists. Is that what you think?
I think a lot of it deals with engaging in the process. Do you like video games? I used to play a lot of video games. Most video games have different difficulty levels. Playing it on “easy” is fun, but ultimately unfulfilling. It is much more satisfying to successfully beat the game on the harder difficulty levels. I think a similar phenomenon is at work here.
Well, remember that this wish-fulfillment thing in it’s modern presentation got it’s start with Freud, who wasn’t exactly trying to defeat the idea of God, as much as presuming it’s falsehood and then going on to explain it as a phenomenon.
I think most wish-fulfillment arguments really can’t go a lot further than that. If the atheist says to the theist, “You believe in God because it fulfills your desire for…” all the theist has to say is “No I don’t”, and the atheist is squashed unless they have a deep personal relationship with the theist that justifies them in making these speculations about their character. The only other way for the atheist to salvage their point is for them to rely on the fact that they just know God doesn’t exist, and so they need a psychological explanation for the theist even if it flies in the face of what theists say about themselves.
For the theists’ part, we already know we don’t believe in God for wish-fulfillment (except the ones who do, of course), and so there’s no need of an internal apologetic either.
Simply put, I don’t think the theist has much to say about this argument- if it is taken for granted that God goesn’t exist, then the theist isn’t a part of the conversation, and if we don’t, the point never gets off the ground; it’s more of an attempt at character assassination than it is a argument for a position.
Isn’t this the same tired old discussion dressed in different clothes? Regardless theist or atheist, what is God (or the lack thereof) is ineffable. All the attributes posited are simply man-made constructs. As for wishing or not wishing, it is again a construct. Either you have an intuitive understanding not discussible, or you don’t. Defend all the constructs you wish, and it still comes back to faith, doesn’t it? Faust is right. This isn’t about personal revelation, this is just more political wrangling.
Ned - I don’t have to defend anything. If this god is a product of my imagination - haven’t you ever played make-believe?
Litenin - I have had no “life changing incident” that led to my atheism.
The topic here is my (an atheist’s) imagination. Not god, per se.
Xunzian - You don’t have to be a thiest to evaluate what theists say. Else I couldn’t evaluate much of anything. I can evaluate what a Republican says, can’t I? I’m not a Republican. I can evaluate what Christians say about their god. About how much sense it makes. If I think it makes no sense, then we are on a level playing field, and my imagined god is no different from theirs.
We were asked to make a wish. To accuse me now of “wish-fulfillment” is a bit circular. Tha’s what I was asked to do. Of course it’s wish-fulfillment. That’s the topic.
Have you all gone mad?
Faust I wasn’t addressing anyone in particular. I was making a blanket statement for the viewing participants. I’m aware of the topic’s agenda. My intent was to head off a possible circular discussion of “is and is not”, but apparently this may not happen.
Since you brought up the “life changing incident”, I did say ‘usually’ just for clarification. I won’t ask you how your decision came about because that is your business. In regard to my saneness, well that is another matter altogether. I’ll need to consult my psychiatrist for my 54 year checkup.
Faust:
You mean…recently?
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to post this earlier …
Hi Xun.,
This is also my observation. But also what Faust is talking about. I think that the big problem is that both sides can’t get away from the “superman†and bring another perspective into the discussion because this has been driven home with a brain-washing strategy that makes it almost impossible for people to stand back and have another look. Christians are often existentially committed to this idea because they would be at odds to their whole social network if they were not. Group dynamics.
Hi Faust,
Personality has to do with the visible aspect of a character as it affects others. In fact, if you look at the way God is described in the Bible or with the names given to God, it has more to do with his effect on his people than really with any of his real attributes. The “Fathership†of God has more to do with the “insemination†of life than it has to do with personality, but also with the image suggested by Aaron’s or the “priestly blessingâ€, which envisages a figure looking down on a child and smiling in a friendly way.
This is psychology in a very primordial sense. It is about what the soul needs and I believe that this is deeply rooted in all human beings – its just that we cope with it in various ways and our coping has various degrees of wellbeing about it. Of course Man was made in the image of God, it is in man that God is at home, God is the root of his existence, is the reason for being and the objective of all purpose. Animals don’t have gods, they don’t need them, they have instincts which they follow.
Shalom
Ucci - maybe not.
Bob - fair enough. But that’s like arguing for the subconscious. It’s something we’re not conscious of. But “real” is a tricky term for a materialist, in this context. And you, or Ned, may be asking materialists to do the imagining here. We are what we are.
In any event, my imagined god may certainly have only visible characteristics. That doesn’t make it less a god - it’s still only an imagined one.
Which is the supposed topic, once again. As Bob seems to know, at least.
Hi Faust,
Oops, that “real†slipped in unintentionally. That should have read “any such attributes that we could recogniseâ€. However, it does show up a dilemma. When we start speaking about an ineffable impulse in our lives, we use the language and the images we have (“we are what we areâ€) and the best images are of course the archetypes which are common to us all (there can be a lot said for comparative studies), the imagination has then already been done millenniums ago.
For me the biblical analogies and myths are extremely expressive in that way, for others there are numerous other sources. Christianity’s greatest problems lie in the dark ages, when the development of the book religions really went backwards and created the foundation for what we now call fundamentalism. Since then the expressiveness of the OT was restricted to excusing all kinds of brutality. That is why I think that religions have phases of inspiration and phases in which people try to follow that inspiration, in which they are very dependent upon language. A failure to understand what lies between the lines can have terrible consequences – as we have seen.
The ideal situation is that of perpetual inspiration, which has no need for images and languages to communicate between followers, because they all “know†what can be known. In my mind, this is what Judaism and Christianity and before that the contemplative teachings of the east were pointing to. Then there would be no need for imaginations, whether materialist or not, and the inspired would inspire others. As it is, the term “God†invokes whatever we have inside us and generally causes havoc.
That is what is unsatisfactory about the “Christian Godâ€.
Shalom
Okay, Bob, but now you seem to be admitting two elements that a perspectivist (which I basically am) would call, broadly, psychological.
The first is this “ineffable impulse” in our lives". It is in our lives, in people’s lives. I understand metaphor, and that it perhaps is necessary or at least desirable to use it - perspectivists do this on a regular basis. I understand the limits of language - a language that was invented for more mundane matters. My problem, more here as a logical positivist than a perspectivist (and I believe that the former are descendants of the latter, to a degree) is that analogies must still refer to something. So, my imagined god will have only those attributes that can be discerned. The Christian God seems then to be described according to effects, at least in part.
And this is the nub, then. These effects have no discernable cause. They just happen, and are then attributed to God - by means of our “ineffable impulse”? The psychological element in humans is the only discernable cause of these effects of “God”. Do you see room for me to accuse the Godly of projection? Have I missed your argument against this?
This is not my main thesis here, to be sure. I thought I was being asked to imagine a God, which is a separate issue.
But you also seem to allow for interpretation, of the OT, what a Christian would call the word of God, and what I would call a collection of books. You seem to claim that some interpretations are better than others. Interpretation is a human activity. Guided by the word of God. See a problem?
But then there is inspiration. A direct relationship to God. That is a better guide.
But who, or what, is to inspire the atheist when called upon to invent a god? How can ned know what that is? If I can’t know what inspires him? If we are both just guessing, there is little to talk about, no?
That might be my main thesis - it usually is.
Ucci - Freud didn’t invent wish-fulfillment. Nor did he first discover it. It goes way back - Nietzsche (who was not way back, but who preceded Freud) spoke of it many times. Within this very context.
But I am not claiming to know why a theist believes in God. But to claim a reason that a given person holds a belief that is self-contradictory or incorrect, despite the protestations of that person to the contrary is not unusual - every political argument treads upon that ground, or could. To point out such errors is Socratic - it is of the tradition of philosophy. To question basic assumptions is to philosophise. This is no different. It’s not necessarily character assassination, although it is so frequently on this board. But philsophical arguments (discussions, dialogs) are usually of this very nature. Two parties stake out their positions and battle it out. Christians needn’t be hypersensitive to this. It’s not about knowledge - it’s about defending a position.
Christians, among others, assume knowledge. Perspectivists don’t.
I want to get back to one of Ned’s premises here - that atheists would not wish for the Christian God - lest we lose sight of this. I agree, for my own part, but I am not trying to speak for anyone else, atheist or not.
Bob (and not Ned) has brough up the “ineffable” aspect of this god. And this idea is found thoughout Christian thinking. I wish to exclude mysticism, for several reasons. One is that mystics from different religions have more in common with each other than they have differences, and the another is that there are no mystics present on the board. The third is that mystics are difficult to argue with - they don’t have much to say - except about their psychological state. I think thatv puts the cart before the horse, for my purposes here.
I am a materialist. I accept as evidence what I can sense, or at least what can be sensed, even theoretically. The ineffable cannot be sensed, nor even understood - by definition. Why would I wish for a God that is ineffable? Why would that be the one excpetion that I make, even in my imagination? I could, of course, but why should I?
My point is that Ned is objecting to a prediliction of mine that I possess almost definitionally. It is virtually axiomatic that I would not desire such a god. He might as well say - those atheists are atheists!
So, it looks to me that Ned is merely trying to pick a fight.
The interesting thing about these theist/atheist pissing matches is that each is trying to, from the start, get the other on the defensive. Well, we defend our positions here, yes. But neither side wants to ackowledge any positive statement by the other.
Atheist are constantly being told that they don’t know that they are correct, that atheism is a belief, and even a religion! And so psychology is overtly ignored, but utilised as a rhetorical weapon. Christians here seem never to admit that they need or want their god. That they love him, yes. But not that they actually want him.
And this exercise is about want. What an atheist would want. Why is “want” to be excluded? Don’t you want this god?
“To love me is to want me to be.” – St. Augustine.
Well said Ned!
Ned
Is this argument a form of fideism. Wasn’t it Ignatius who said he believed because it is absurd? I don’t think the argument is decidible on its own merits.
Hi Faust,
I know, it’s my job that pushes me that way. Applying psychology to a large range of activities in my working life does lead me down that road when looking at religious experience – something that was the main thing that had me separate from conservative Christianity. However, there is another part of psychology, the “study of the soul†as Melanchthon expressed it, that has me realising that much of what spirituality is about is in fact study of the soul in a religious perspective.
I appreciate this question, which is something that I have concerned with in the past. The question is really whether God is a “something†that we can grasp in any sense of the word, or is God no “thingâ€. We must disappoint the call for something material, even if it means that materialists lack the joy of the realisation of what God is. However, there is also a materialist belief in God at a number of levels of morality, hopefully moving on as they grow up and gain experience.
There is a very basic superstitious level, at which God is seen as being external, magical, unpredictable and dangerous. The relationship at this level is reduced to some kind of penance, seen to be a magical diverting of God’s anger at our disobedience or transgressing of his taboos through reparation in some way.
Then there are those who see God as one who will make a deal. If I sacrifice this or give that I can gain points. If my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds, I may make it to heaven. If Jesus pays it all, then that is even better. The person at this level loves the story of the Prodigal Son and Jesus’ forgiveness of the thief on the cross. There are those who suggest that God, being just, cannot overlook sin, must punish it, as otherwise no one would take justice or law seriously. They feel the whole fabric of morality would collapse if those who break God’s laws are let go free. That is why, in their minds, God takes on himself the burden, sacrifices his own son, and so gains the moral leverage to forgive the sins of those who repent, but only if they really repent – as though we could know the difference.
There is a turning point at the level of confusion and skepticism, in which one finds previous theories inadequate. At this level a person finds comfort in the theory of a reality larger than any of the particular word pictures used – however without being more specific than that. Strangely religious people at this level still seem to be deeply afraid of social anarchy and believe that an external God who punishes is somehow necessary to keep people in line and to prevent society from disintegrating. The next step can take years to be taken – or it is never taken at all …
Finally, if we do take that step, we become aware, from experience rather than meditation, intuitively rather than by reason, that every alienation from life, everything we do that is inappropriate or improper, every hurt to ourselves or to another is inevitably punished – but we don’t need a God that does the punishing. We bear the hell and suffering we cause within ourselves. Every time we hurt others, every time we turn our backs on the needs of others, every cruelty through lies and deception, only causes fragmentation of what we truly are and alienates us further from our potential, burying our own “living soul†(nephesh), our centre of being, deeper within a tangle of contradictions and hypocrisy, anxiety and agitation, irritation and provocation. Once we come to understand instinctively that what Jesus did, in his life, death and resurrection, was to live in his own “living soulâ€, becoming what we all have as potential within us – we realise that he not only showed us what that means but also gave us a living example – the incarnation of the word.
We can become aware to the highest degree, but there is a spark that ignites the glow of assurance, and a breeze that kindles the flame of selfless love. In the legend of Elijah, it is the soft whisper that follows the storm, the earthquake and the fire. It is hardly discernible, but those who do discern are called blessed and consider themselves lucky. The difference between all of these levels and “the One†is not only the level of enlightenment, but also the level of commitment. “The One†goes through the “valley of the shadow of death†and humiliates us all.
You may say that this just “happens†and is attributed to God. I am sure that there are many examples of that kind of projection. I know that projection of many kinds is a common occurrence. However, I am convinced that the “cause†behind this all is a reality and I suppose that this is the moment of faith, where those who do not see and still believe are called blessed.
I’m not sure it is. If you experience people at the various levels I have described, which I’m sure you have, you can easily reach that assumption. If you experience people at the final level, whether Christian or not, I think you would come to a different opinion. However, as I also had to learn, we have to discern too, where our measure comes from. If we apply the measure of Europeans or Americans on the Holy women and men of India or China, I’m sure that we would be unsatisfied.
The whole Bible, just like every other scripture, is a human activity. The word of God is less what is written than what you read between the lines. It is a medium of inspiration. I am also inspired by the Tao te Ching, by ancient and modern writers and speakers, by you and others – because, for me, inspiration is what resonates with my “living soulâ€. It is what makes me give a sound, like the string of a guitar when it is plucked.
I think that people are too mixed up to imagine a God – and in the past there were reasons not to do so. Buddha refused to and saw in “nirvana†his goal, which is strangely like the mystic description of God. I think that you do well to refuse to imagine a god, since that is idolatry. Turn rather to the divine seed inside you and let it grow – that has more promise.
Shalom