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Poll: are you an atheist, theist or ?
- Thread starter Kapalika
- Start date
There are a few other posts I want to get to but I just wanted to skim real quick before going somewhere.
I'm gonig to try to take the results and responses to figure out how to chart it all later.
QUOTE="9-10ths_Penguin, post: 5247504, member: 13455"]I can't answer. I disagree with your definitions. By reasonable definitions of the terms, your categories overlap.[/QUOTE]
The definitions are defined in a way to not overlap. If you really think the do how about you give some of your own definitions? The terms yes overlap in everyday life because people are a little more loose with the meanings. I wanted to "for the purposes of this poll" avoid overlap while covering the entire spectrum. This isn't my fault but the fault of language.
I also get the sense you like most people are not very familiar with nontheistic and transtheistic religious beliefs. Also are you telling me you are not an atheist according to the definition I gave? How did I define atheist wrong in your opinion?
First thing that comes up on google is:
"belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures origin."
I specifically wanted to define theism in that way to be very specific in what i wanted. No poll is perfect. Yes, a god doesn't need to be personal or supernatural which is why the other catagories of transtheism and deism exist. Nontheist can also contain beliefs in god albiet not theistically.
I'm gonig to try to take the results and responses to figure out how to chart it all later.
QUOTE="9-10ths_Penguin, post: 5247504, member: 13455"]I can't answer. I disagree with your definitions. By reasonable definitions of the terms, your categories overlap.[/QUOTE]
The definitions are defined in a way to not overlap. If you really think the do how about you give some of your own definitions? The terms yes overlap in everyday life because people are a little more loose with the meanings. I wanted to "for the purposes of this poll" avoid overlap while covering the entire spectrum. This isn't my fault but the fault of language.
I also get the sense you like most people are not very familiar with nontheistic and transtheistic religious beliefs. Also are you telling me you are not an atheist according to the definition I gave? How did I define atheist wrong in your opinion?
First thing that comes up on google is:
"belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures origin."
I specifically wanted to define theism in that way to be very specific in what i wanted. No poll is perfect. Yes, a god doesn't need to be personal or supernatural which is why the other catagories of transtheism and deism exist. Nontheist can also contain beliefs in god albiet not theistically.
That's fair. Then I suppose according to the standards set here, I am not a theist (in spite of being a theist) and there are no options on your poll that describe what I am. You now need a "none of the above" option, it seems. I have removed my vote from your poll.
I voted 'Transtheism' and we are doing better than I expected in the poll so far considering it doesn't even pass my spellchecker.
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
I accept that existence is intelligently manipulated to create life, however, this falls way short of godhood. a God would have to be ideal existing and there is just no evidence of that. so I picked nontheism.
i am also wondering if intelligent life emerged from random chance, but I consider that too much of a miracle to be seriously considered.
so I believe in higher realities, different planes of existence that are like spiritual in nature. whatever created us is an eternally existing superintelligence that lives in a sea of other worldly untouchable unseeable spirituality. it holds the ability to manipulate our universe, and is more like an animal creature than a god, yet with super intellect.
i am also wondering if intelligent life emerged from random chance, but I consider that too much of a miracle to be seriously considered.
so I believe in higher realities, different planes of existence that are like spiritual in nature. whatever created us is an eternally existing superintelligence that lives in a sea of other worldly untouchable unseeable spirituality. it holds the ability to manipulate our universe, and is more like an animal creature than a god, yet with super intellect.
I finally settled on "non-theist", because it's the vaguest option. I almost changed it to Deist, because that's pretty accurate also.
And that one vote looked lonely.
I do see the word God as having meaning. Whatever the reason that the universe exists, rather than not, is a God. What I don't believe is that we limited humans know anything important about God. The religions I am surrounded by are Abrahamic. Their fundamental premise is that primitive people from centuries ago knew things about God that modern people do not. I cannot believe that.
I think that science is the only way for us to learn about God. So far, we don't really know all that much.
Tom
And that one vote looked lonely.
I do see the word God as having meaning. Whatever the reason that the universe exists, rather than not, is a God. What I don't believe is that we limited humans know anything important about God. The religions I am surrounded by are Abrahamic. Their fundamental premise is that primitive people from centuries ago knew things about God that modern people do not. I cannot believe that.
I think that science is the only way for us to learn about God. So far, we don't really know all that much.
Tom
Ricktheheretic
"Do what thou will shall be the whole of the law"
Nontheism. I am agnostic, but sometimes I redefine god as the ultimate cause or something like cosmic consciousness.
Then what are you? AFAIK a theist does believe in an intervening deity, as opposed to say something like deism.
I'm planning on trying to make sense of the "other" answers and plot them with the poll answers in a way that makes sense on a sliding scale to get a sense of the distribution of RF members.
edit: used wrong word
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Bob the Unbeliever
Well-Known Member
I voted "atheists" because you required me to with the 'for the purposes of this poll'.
But, to be honest, I often avoid that label when referring to myself, just as I avoid the words "faith" and "believe".
The reasons are fairly simple: Too many conflicting definitions for each of these terms, to be unambiguous.
The only way to strip ambiguity is to explain the terms, every time they are used-- which gets old pretty quickly.
So, I tend to go with a more generic descriptive term: nonbeliever. Or unbeliever. Sometimes, if I want to be a smartazz, I'll go with nonfaithist, but that's awkward to say out loud.
Nonbeliever is very apt, but unbeliever seems to imply there was once belief, which is quite accurate with respect to who I used to be.
I nearly went with 'nonthiest' to be contrary... but it's just a poll, so...
But, to be honest, I often avoid that label when referring to myself, just as I avoid the words "faith" and "believe".
The reasons are fairly simple: Too many conflicting definitions for each of these terms, to be unambiguous.
The only way to strip ambiguity is to explain the terms, every time they are used-- which gets old pretty quickly.
So, I tend to go with a more generic descriptive term: nonbeliever. Or unbeliever. Sometimes, if I want to be a smartazz, I'll go with nonfaithist, but that's awkward to say out loud.
Nonbeliever is very apt, but unbeliever seems to imply there was once belief, which is quite accurate with respect to who I used to be.
I nearly went with 'nonthiest' to be contrary... but it's just a poll, so...
Bob the Unbeliever
Well-Known Member
As an aside, I first used the term "unbeliever" back in 2005, and it was inspired by the novels about Thomas Covenant, White Gold Wielder. The first couple in that series were pretty good, but sadly the later novels did not rise to that initial high standard.
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
going with #1: Theism
(I started at the bottom a long time ago and worked my way up!)
(I started at the bottom a long time ago and worked my way up!)
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Corvus
Feathered eyeball connoisseur
I was born into a family were religion was suddenly sprung upon me as my mother converted to Christianity whilst I was a teenager, until then she had always been deeply interested in the occult and witchcraft. For me there was nothing cool or rebellious about that kind of thing since I grew up with it, crystals and tarots cards the lot. I remember playing with my mum's tarot cards and reading her astrology books and spell books on many tedious rainy days. All that got thrown away, except for that which I managed to rescue, an old pack of French tarot cards and loads of semi precious gems, that mother used as healing stones etc, that I instead would employ as tokens in games I created for me and my equally geeky brothers to play. To be replaced by bibles, bible study books and Christian titles reflecting on why hating yourself is something to be encouraged etc...sort of, I exaggerate.
VioletVortex
Well-Known Member
My beliefs sort of transcend the theistic classification system. I voted "deism", though both theism and transtheism are applicable terms as well.
In retrospect, I probably should of included every single label I could think of with an "other" and then just group them into larger sets. But overall I think most people have more or less gotten an idea of where to put things. A big thing I wanted with this was just to get a spread from atheistic to more theistic like ideas, but I realized it's not that black and white and so tried to include the attitudes on that type of "spectrum" so to speak.
But it seems some people would prefer a Venn diagram or sorts.... that gives me some ideas I will try out later..
We call these people anti-ism-ists.
How is nontheism like theism when it's literally "not theism?" Sure, in the poll I defined it as not being atheist either so that we wouldn't get as much cross-voting.
I've never heard of a nontheist Catholic, but ya for some Christians Transtheism is apt.
Sometimes it seems to me that there is so much nuance on these subjects that what you really are is totally a matter of perspective and nothing more.
I know people like to say that lacking a belief in god and believing that gods do not exist is different, but it just seems like semantics to me. The only difference if any I can see is that "lack" implies a sense of passiveness where "disbelieves" indicates a more active non-acceptance of the concept.
So basically.... both are an atheist so WTF does it matter?
It's an under-appreciated term that many are not familiar with.
Could you then tell me what you consider the "other" to be?
But it seems some people would prefer a Venn diagram or sorts.... that gives me some ideas I will try out later..
We call these people anti-ism-ists.
How is nontheism like theism when it's literally "not theism?" Sure, in the poll I defined it as not being atheist either so that we wouldn't get as much cross-voting.
I've never heard of a nontheist Catholic, but ya for some Christians Transtheism is apt.
Sometimes it seems to me that there is so much nuance on these subjects that what you really are is totally a matter of perspective and nothing more.
I know people like to say that lacking a belief in god and believing that gods do not exist is different, but it just seems like semantics to me. The only difference if any I can see is that "lack" implies a sense of passiveness where "disbelieves" indicates a more active non-acceptance of the concept.
So basically.... both are an atheist so WTF does it matter?
It's an under-appreciated term that many are not familiar with.
Could you then tell me what you consider the "other" to be?
Guy Threepwood
Mighty Pirate
That's interesting, we all have different backgrounds- which do you identify with now? both?
That's funny.
I recognize an underlying reality that some would point at, jump up and down, and label "God." But "God," to me, is nothing more than a word, and the underlying reality is something on which I wouldn't (couldn't) waste an investment of belief.
Sounds about right to me.
Then again, I consistently find myself concluding that it is a mistake to lend much significance to god-ideas either way.
Not an expert, but monotheism is sometimes close to non-theism, particularly if you define God as 'Whatever caused the universe'. In that case you have neither a well-defined being, nor necessarily even an interactive one. Polytheism can also be fairly close to non-theism by having some vaguely defined assortment of deities that are not interactive. Suppose for example that you're following the Greek myths but don't see the gods as beings so much as universal principles. Then your polytheism is close to nontheism. So in those cases both monotheism and polytheism can be close to nontheism (since you are differentiating nontheism from atheism), and therefore I argue theism can be similar to non-theism in some cases for the purposes of this thread.