Laera

Freethinking is, IMO, a good thing. And I think fundies are far less thoughtful than liberals in general, but both seem to be very creative. Both accusations can be maintained because many on these boards claim that, in order of most critical thinkers to least, there are fundies, liberals, then M-Ns. Liberals realize the silliness of upholding the bible as infallible, but don't go that extra step to "realizing" the silliness of the entire god-concept. (no offense intended)

The difference between your opinion of God and your opinion of New York is that you can actually GO to New York and find out if you're right. (or maybe you've been and that's how you formed your opinion?) Either way, it's impossible to validate your opinion of God in any real way. (by "real way" I mean through evidence and observation) This is where, I think, liberals claim their opinion IS valid, because they OBSERVE God all the time (in their hearts, in the world around them). The problem there is that no one else can observe these 'evidences' in the same way -- no one sees into that person's heart and other people look at the world as a purely natural thing, no creator necessary, no divine intervention proven to-date.

Same point, how do you know what 'reality' is? So how can you know if you're close, or way off-base?

My mother justifies this by saying "I do my best, and I know I make some mistakes. I don't understand fully, but no-one can. I trust God will forgive my human failings." (not really a quote, but the gist)

But then, how does she KNOW God will forgive her? What if my version of God says "One slip-up and you're going to hell... or maybe I'll just send you there anyway!" But of course, we won't know if I'm right until we die. Is her "forgiving god" just wishful thinking? Because I'm pretty sure my vengeful god is in the bible a lot of places... (all those times God "hardens the hearts" of some enemy or another so the good guys can wipe them out with plagues or just slaughter the women and children and rape the virgins - or maybe you prefer the new testament where it says several times that the Holy Spirit bestows faith, and whosoever God has chosen will be with him in heaven (no choice, no hope for the damned))

What's your gauge for accuracy?

Btw, thank you for your thoughtful replies so far. I look forward to discussing this further with my questions above.

Rational Ag

Yes, you are being *accused* of freethinking in a sense. Instead of swallowing doctrine whole, you are applying your logic and reason, your sense of justice and righteousness, and your sense of morality to god. You are projecting your values onto god. You undoubtedly assume that if god is "good", that he would be "good" as you consider it.

The atheist freethinker does not have the presupposition that god exists, and therefore does not have to reconcile the "bad parts" of the bible away, or dismiss any of it to "cultural differences" or have to say "this part was fabricated for the writer's own benefit, but this part was not."

Quite easily, actually. Yes, it's true that fundamentalists accept completely (mostly, but not all usually) the doctrines taught to them. However, they are forced to reconcile or altogether ignore much of the doctrine. They generally try not to end up projecting themselves on to god, and go along with orthodox doctrine when presented with a choice about the character of god.

This is the best comparison I can come up with at the present:

Fundamentalists mainly reconcile the bible with ITSELF, trying to understand the "true word of god", mainly because the bible is full of contradictory doctrines, statements, and ambiguities.

Liberal Christians mainly reconcile the bible with THEMSELVES, i.e. their sense of morality, sense of justice, and concept of reality. They don't attempt to reconcile the bible with itself as much, because they accept that it's not all the word of god. They "see god's image" in the bible because they look for the passages that describe god as they "know him". That's another way of saying that they reflect themselves onto god.

Here you state quite clearly that you are projecting your idea of god onto "the actual god", as described above. This does not objectively make god "true", nor does it make god this way necessarily. God exists only in your mind and in the mind of people that agree with your idea of god.

The problem with your analogy, however, is that New York has a verifiable, real, existence. We can objectively test your idea of God against New York and see if you are indeed correct. A more correct analogy would be everyone's description of Atlantis.

Do you think that your description of Atlantis would match everyone else's description of Atlantis? If there are matches between your description of Atlantis and other people's description of Atlantis, does that prove in any way the objective existence of Atlantis?

It's also because they feel like they are being a bit more intellectually honest. My cubicle-mate is a fundy. He despises liberal Christians because he thinks they are making up their own God by ignoring the book they claim to follow.

Accurate = ?

Objective?
True?
Historically Accurate?
Those that you "feel" is right?
Those that agree with your sense of justice and love?

What if my subjective view of God was quite different than yours? Would you say that my vision and interpretation of God was just as valid as yours? What if my God was tyrannical, murderous, hated people, was interested in domination, and had a completely different set of moral instructions than yours?

If you didn't think my interpretation of the God of the universe was as valid as yours, why wouldn't you? I would be coming to my conclusions in the same manner you did!

Do you feel as though you have been successful in your attempts to prove your version of god objectively?

-Rational Ag

[ May 30, 2002: Message edited by: Rational Ag ]</p>

brighid

Even though I was brought up as a Roman Catholic and for the large part of my childhood and adolescence believed in Jesus I never could reconcile an all loving God with what I was told this God was, is and revealed to the Church as their duties. I always got in trouble in Catholic school and in Sunday school because I asked questions that they didn’t have answers to. Catholicism was always more cultural for me then religious per say. The iconography, the festivals, the wedding and death rituals have always been a prominent part of my cultural heritage and familial traditions. As a child I remember thinking could this Jesus, the idea of the God I felt I knew really be what the Bible says He is? Eventually I began to investigate those questions I had about Catholicism, God, etc. and it let me down a varied and interesting path. I suppose I have always been a “liberal” theist and it wasn’t until perhaps the past year that I had the courage to classify myself as a strong atheist in regard to religion and an agnostic when it come to the actual existence of something that could possibly be defined as a “God.”

In my journey from liberal Catholic to atheist there was a time of exploration into other faiths, including other forms of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Mystical Kabala, Bah’ai (sp?), and eventually paganism. I still belong to a coven and participate in pagan rituals, but I no longer believe in Gods or Goddesses. The reason I can participate in pagan ritual AND be an atheist is because of the freedom the New Age movement allows. I am allowed the fullest and freest expression of my creative being. I am not obligated to participate, to observe ant esbat, sabbat, or even believe in the pantheon of Gods and Goddesses. No doubt there are individual groups that require allegiance, dogmatic observance of rituals, etc. but none of this is mandated by Neo-Paganism. This is one of the qualities that drew me to exploring it more. I also wanted to know for myself what pagans actually did and not simply believe what I was told by other religious authorities. My findings only further cemented my budding atheistic views.

I know quite a few atheistic pagans. Half of my coven is atheist witches. I simply enjoy the rituals and especially the kinship of this sisterhood, but I have no delusions about the actual existence of Brighid, Hecate, Freya, Kali Ma, Cerronous, Pan, etc. Those archetypal figures are merely symbolic to me. So in the New Age movement one is allowed to pick and choose, create a unique mish-mosh of sorts and explore, revise, and discard as one sees fit.

Brighid

Tercel

Clearly I can't know for sure what 'reality' is, but I can hopefully gather a good idea via observing evidence and thinking about it.

I would agree with your mother's view. Does she KNOW God will forgive her? I doubt it, since none of us can absolutely KNOW that sort of thing. But, as she says, she trusts God will forgive her.

Rev. Joshua

I came to seminary from a literature and philosophy background, and the philosopher in me has a low tolerance for an inconsistent epistemology.

Consequently, although I do use the experience of faith to validate my belief in the existence of God, I do not use it to validate my theology. My beliefs are based on a very carefully developed (and contantly examined) hermeneutic for studying Scripture.

That approach to Scripture (and the fact that as a clergyperson I am accountable for the study of every verse in the Bible) is built on different assumptions from those of fundamentalists. I do not believe that the Bible was written by God, or even that it is always internally consistent. I believe it contains the human record of human encounters with the divine, and should be interpreted with that in mind. Epistles written by church leaders to local congregations are not divine mandates, they are cultural contextual advice. Accounts of battles where the victors wrote "God blessed us" are not proving the blessing of the Divine, they are at best hoping for it.

This is not picking and choosing, this is recognizing the voice and purpose of the various sources that make up the Bible. Ultimately, the most effective use of the Bible is to seek out the general principles it teaches and apply them to our contemporary culture - not attempting to force our culutre into any of the diverse molds represented in Scripture.

Joshua

Tercel

Perhaps. I would be one of the first however to advocate that God is beyond our complete understanding. So any projecting of my own values I do on to god, I am careful to do in only a limited way with the full understanding that god does not become what I'd like him to be nor does my understanding correspond to complete truth.

I'm not sure it's correct to charge me with presuppositionalism either. Although I am currently getting quite interested in the idea of presupposing the existence of God, I have always previously been a firm evidentialist.

I try to do that also.

True, Correct etc.

Assuming you were unable to convince me of the truth of your beliefs: I would disagree with your idea of God. I would believe me to be more probably correct than you.
I would of course respect your opinion, it's your right to have your own opinion and I can't dictate it to you.
But I would probably have some feeling about just how intelligent or stupid your idea of God was depending on how closely it aligned to mine, how far you could defend it, and how sensible it sounded.

I would probably say "good for you" and not bother talking with you further...

"Valid" from whos point of view? Any definition of God is potentially "valid". If you come to your conclusions through serious logical thought, evidential argument, open-mindedness and discussing your thoughts with others then I would commend you for that. Whether I think your opinion is a sensible one would be another matter.

Both yes and no. As far as I know I have had little if any success at ever convincing anyone else on these boards of anything. However in my own opinion a number of arguments I have learned in posting here are valid objective arguments and since I rate my own opinions on assessing sort of thing pretty highly, I myself have gained a lot from these discussions.

Marduk

I think you should do like the Bahi (sp?) look at all the religious writings, JudeaoChristianMuslimHinduBudhistetc. and compare common elements, morals, etc. Many of the more 'fundy' types try too hard to put God in a box, they try and describe and explain him as if he really were some old guy in a white robe, if there were a God he would be way too big to fit in a box. And he probably would be beyond our comprehension anyway. This would seem like the best way to get to the heart of the matter, eliminate all the cultural bias.

[ May 30, 2002: Message edited by: marduck ]</p>

seebs

True enough - however, if God exists, then his belief system is incorrect, and may fail to include useful or true beliefs that follow from acceptance of God's existance.

It is easy to imagine, for either belief system, circumstances under which it is incorrect, and to see the challenges it raises, both in terms of risk of error, and in terms of questions which are hard to answer well.

Kassiana

Laera:
How do liberal theists NOT think they might be making up their own god?

Kass:
Who says we don't consider that possibility? I am fully aware that my Gods might be nothing more than my brain stroking itself. But they don't feel like it to me, and I have fun believing in them, so I believe in them anyhow.

Laera:
I don't understand how personal experience (as powerful as it can be) can actually be expected to convince anyone ELSE.

Kass:
They aren't for anyone else, thus no liberal believer of intelligence, like myself, tries to convince others by his/her own personal experience of the Gods.

Laera:
But does that mean that if someone we trust has a god-experience, we should have faith in god?

Kass:
No. Why do you think it means that? Has someone of a liberal persuasion been bothering you? In my experience, we liberal religious thinkers are willing to allow others to believe/disbelieve as they wish, as long as those others allow us to continue believing as well. Other than some idiots, of course. Even atheism can claim some idiots...::rolls eyes at a certain "philosopher"::

Laera

Yes, my whole family is of the liberal persuasion and have accused me of "trusting strangers over them" when it has little to do with trust and more to do with my evaluation of the information available to me. Last weekend I kept asking them why they think I should believe - and the biggest argument they could make was that THEY know God, so I must be closing my heart to him and I should trust their evaluation of events and realize god loves me.

They give god credit for everything from fixing their marriage (god worked through counseling, btw), to preventing suicide (extremely personal and suicidals are not known for their accurate interpretation of the world around them at the time they're feeling that way), to keeping my sister alive through 15+ years of agonizing cancer therapies (when god must not have wanted everyone else with cancer to live any longer than they did... right...). Not that I'm not extremely happy about the outcomes of all of these major events in their lives, but I just don't see how it "has to be god" and why, in order to stay together and stay alive, my parents needed to give up control to a "higher power" - and not just give up control in general. But if that's what they needed, I'm glad they have their god. Why do I need it?

Even liberals believe in salvation and want those closest to them to "not throw it away."