I’m a theist but that encompasses virtually every other religious standpoint. I do not want to be grouped with christians, hindus and the rest. Not because I have a problem with the views but because I have adopted mine from my own reasoning and not from a holy book. What do you call the thinking theist without a specific religion?
Rhinoboy, it could be viewed in different ways by different people. Such as being in ‘spiritual limbo’, or an ‘open minded theist’ waiting for a clear concrete thing that satisfies your mind to proceed in that direction. Are there any of those sects that interest you at all that is worth investigating?
Do you feel fulfilled in your present situation and are happy to stay there? Or do you think closely fits an agnostic sense waiting for the correct one to show itself to you?
I agree with Xunzian. This is what the Deists were attempting to accomplish. With the writings of Hume, Kant, and Darwin, many ended up being Atheists in the end. Darwin’s deism eventually waned. I went through a very short deism period before I realized it was untenable and had to be canned. Hopefully you will make this journey too. You’re on you way to enlightenment!
So many religious “standpoints” contradict that only someone with a serious reasoning disability could believe them all to be true except in the most general or possibly trivial sense.
I think I’ve been passed those cross roads a long time ago. Atheism did not hold for long in my mind, too many questions arrised in that viewpoint that made it seem impossible to accept it as Logical that God does not exist. But we wont go into that now
I don´t see why deist is more appropriate than theist, because you´re yet to mention your particular understanding. Nor do I think theism equates to religion. Theist is a very general term, after which things like deist, pantheist, monotheist, can offer more exactness. But perhas there is an important diference between theist and deist which you need to consider: whether you see God as personal and sustaining (T) or as creator but not personal or sustaining (D).
Remember that it is simply disbelief in God. You are saying that you believed in God, then doubted, now believe in him again? If you were supposedly a disbeliever at one point, I don’t think you had your reasons quite right. Or perhaps didn’t understand the many problems with your original belief in God. I guess the way I see it is that you never really let go of many of the theistic notions when you were doubting.
Anyway, with regards to this thread and your original post. I’d say you’re simply attempting to be a Deist. Maybe even a Bahai!
Doubting? I always doubt my faith, Im not a moron, I can see that this question is way beond me. But have you never wondered that pehaps it is your reasons that are not quite right? Or that I may have spend 5 years, 1 of which involved me becoming ill over needing to know the truth of this unanswerable question (OCD). During this time I would have loved to have becopme atheist, because it would have ment an end to my torment, and trust me it is torment. But OCD makes you too probing, I overanaylised every argument every counter argument. I doubt there are alot of people on here that have done as much reasurch as me on this subject, In the end I realised that its not a question of Logic or reason but simply one of what you want to belive in, tempered by reason. Logic on this subject can lead you to one conclusion. That it would be very arogant and foolish to say that one standpoint is right, or that one is even more probable than the other when we dont have any real means of testing a theory.
I’m not expecting you to belive me or even give a shit, all I want is to make you realise that it may not be me who’s in the dark here. I belive that its you, and neither of us have the evidence to prove eitherway.
I guess Im undecided on that as of yet. I would like to think that God has a personal level but think that it conjures up a man in a beard a little to readily, which is an idea that does not work for me. I think Im going to have to stay as Theist as I’m not defined enough to go further.
To simplify. I find theism slightly more reasonable than atheism. (no arguments please) But beond that I can find no way of using reason to define God further. To me doing that is like guessing what you have got for christmas beofre you even see the shape of the presents, in so far as what ever I guess at it cant be educated in any way. This is not to say that I dont imagine what God could be like, but I have to remind myself not to become to attached to any idea. I think that if there is a God out there, analyzing him accurately is going to be impossible from a human perspective.
I’m sorry to hear of your struggle. It sounds like you have gone through some tough times.
However, I believe people can have correct and incorrect ‘standpoints’. There is correct and incorrect. To say that no one can ever be ‘right’ (or ‘wrong’ for that matter) is incorrect itself. You are incorrect and I am correct that there can be correct and incorrect…
“neither of us have the evidence to prove eitherway…”
Not so fast. The burden of proof is on the person positing an idea. If someone does not believe the idea or points out troubles with it, the burden of proof is on the person proposing the idea.
If I proposed that there was a giant fridge sized diamond buried in my backyard, isn’t the burden of proof on me? Not on you for disbelieving in the huge diamond.
The burden of proof is on those proposing an idea, not those disbelieving in the idea. That would be backwards.
I never said that there was not correct or incorrect standpoints, just that in this instance it is impossible to tell which standpoint is right
By golly your right! But if we re-cap the reason why I said that is because you said that I was in “in the dark” thats an idea that you have proposed, I feel you may have shot yourself in the foot here
Nope. No shooting in foot. I am disbelieving in God. You’re positing that God exists. How do you suppose?
I’m not proposing anything. I’m simply not believing in the God you are supposing. Burden isn’t on me. If you believe Elvis is still alive, you’re going to have to demonstrate why. A person that doesn’t believe you is simply that, someone who doesn’t believe you. It’s your job to convince and your burden of proof.
It seems to me that you still held onto notions of God while you were in your Atheist phase. That is all I was saying above. You never really let go.
Are you saying you don’t know if god exists or not
or
You are convinced god does not exist.
If the later then the burden is also on you to disprove god’s existence.
If the former then surely there is the burden of you still having to make up your mind. This is a far worse burden because ultimatly you should care if you go to hell or heaven. The burden on you in the later case isn’t very bad its just for you to convince someone else their living there lives wrongly.
Witches and the loch ness monster are physical enitities I can (in theory) test for thier existence. They are within the scope of science so I take a purely scientific view on there existence. God is not falsifiable and hence outside the scope of science. I see no meaning in the question ‘does god exist?’.
To claim belief in God, he must exist in some capacity right? In order to create a physical world, God must be physical, or at least be able to connect to ‘the physical’ right? Why is God outside the scope of science? Why is God outside simple rationality, logic, and reason? ‘Does God exist?’ seems pretty straight forward and reasonable to any rational person.