Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I do not consider what God is now calling upon is to look at a joke, but YMMV.
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What would it take for you to NOT believe in God?
- Thread starter Mock Turtle
- Start date
@Quintessence, I've written and re-written this reply several times now, in an attempt to be as clear and respectful as possible. But I may still not have done the job, so I'm sorry in advance.
Sorry, I'm still unclear on what the act/behavior is that's involved in worship, in your view. It's more than highly valuing something, and it's more than a feeling. What would I be doing that you would look at and say, "LC is worshipping"?
I agree here. So let's take your recent thread on the storm in Iowa as an example for clarification.
The Midwest Derecho of August 2020
There, you said you worship a deity called Storm Spirit, referred to them as a "who," and seemed to credit them with causing the storm to occur.
Now, is all that just metaphorical language? My assumptions, reading what you wrote, is that you believe in some type of being, some conscious person (a "who") that is presumably immaterial that has the ability to cause storms to occur. Or is everything there just a poetic way of talking about the storm itself/the physical meteorological forces that cause it to happen?
I'd like to put a gentle reminder here that atheists are also a minority, particularly in the US, who have historically been discriminated against. We have a voice, too. So I empathize with your feeling excluded from the mainstream religious conversation and your desire to reframe things.
However, good bad or indifferent, our language today is what it is. "Dog" means something different than "cat" in our language, whether we like that or not. Language changes, and it may change someday in a way that you find more welcoming or natural for your religious framework. But you can't just use words in non-standard ways and expect that people must adopt it, or that they'll even understand what you're trying to communicate. So I'm not telling you to "sit down and shut up." I'm telling you that if you're going to use words in non-standard ways, you should be clear about what you mean if you want to avoid confusion.
My reply to you came after you said, "which is what atheists in my mind do all the time: have your gods, and don't call them gods for whatever reason." When I challenged that this is a kind of equivocation, same as terms like faith or worship getting applied to atheists, you said again: "Well, they pretty much do [engage in those things], though."
I may just be pricklier than usual, but I took some offense at this, because it seems to invalidate the notion of atheists as a category of people at all. And it seems you took some offense earlier at my suggestion that you use standardized meanings of terms, particularly if, as you say, the words used aren't that important as long as the meaning is clear. In fact you even tied it to historical oppression of religious minorities.
I'm happy to go beyond labels and get at the substance of ideological and cultural differences. But I think we both have to concede that word choice is important - thus your justifiable umbrage at the way Abrahamic faiths have sucked all the religious air out of the room for centuries, and have tailored language to a way that fits more for them than other worldviews. This is even an apologetics tactic, which is one of the reasons I'm probably sensitive to it. Atheists are commonly told that we really do have faith, gods, etc. and thus it's silly for us to object to people having gods, employing faith as a basis for a worldview, etc.
So I hope you can understand why I would take exception to being told I "pretty much do have gods." If "having gods" means, "loving my boyfriend" or "finding sunsets beautiful," then okay, I "have gods." But casually saying that without clarifying what you actually mean is understandably going to cause confusion and even offense.
Does that clarify my position?
Sorry, I'm still unclear on what the act/behavior is that's involved in worship, in your view. It's more than highly valuing something, and it's more than a feeling. What would I be doing that you would look at and say, "LC is worshipping"?
I agree here. So let's take your recent thread on the storm in Iowa as an example for clarification.
The Midwest Derecho of August 2020
There, you said you worship a deity called Storm Spirit, referred to them as a "who," and seemed to credit them with causing the storm to occur.
Now, is all that just metaphorical language? My assumptions, reading what you wrote, is that you believe in some type of being, some conscious person (a "who") that is presumably immaterial that has the ability to cause storms to occur. Or is everything there just a poetic way of talking about the storm itself/the physical meteorological forces that cause it to happen?
I'd like to put a gentle reminder here that atheists are also a minority, particularly in the US, who have historically been discriminated against. We have a voice, too. So I empathize with your feeling excluded from the mainstream religious conversation and your desire to reframe things.
However, good bad or indifferent, our language today is what it is. "Dog" means something different than "cat" in our language, whether we like that or not. Language changes, and it may change someday in a way that you find more welcoming or natural for your religious framework. But you can't just use words in non-standard ways and expect that people must adopt it, or that they'll even understand what you're trying to communicate. So I'm not telling you to "sit down and shut up." I'm telling you that if you're going to use words in non-standard ways, you should be clear about what you mean if you want to avoid confusion.
My reply to you came after you said, "which is what atheists in my mind do all the time: have your gods, and don't call them gods for whatever reason." When I challenged that this is a kind of equivocation, same as terms like faith or worship getting applied to atheists, you said again: "Well, they pretty much do [engage in those things], though."
I may just be pricklier than usual, but I took some offense at this, because it seems to invalidate the notion of atheists as a category of people at all. And it seems you took some offense earlier at my suggestion that you use standardized meanings of terms, particularly if, as you say, the words used aren't that important as long as the meaning is clear. In fact you even tied it to historical oppression of religious minorities.
I'm happy to go beyond labels and get at the substance of ideological and cultural differences. But I think we both have to concede that word choice is important - thus your justifiable umbrage at the way Abrahamic faiths have sucked all the religious air out of the room for centuries, and have tailored language to a way that fits more for them than other worldviews. This is even an apologetics tactic, which is one of the reasons I'm probably sensitive to it. Atheists are commonly told that we really do have faith, gods, etc. and thus it's silly for us to object to people having gods, employing faith as a basis for a worldview, etc.
So I hope you can understand why I would take exception to being told I "pretty much do have gods." If "having gods" means, "loving my boyfriend" or "finding sunsets beautiful," then okay, I "have gods." But casually saying that without clarifying what you actually mean is understandably going to cause confusion and even offense.
Does that clarify my position?
The behaviors vary a lot depending on the culture and tradition, so I didn't really list any. In the broadest sense, worship is behaviors that honor the things people call their gods. What it looks like from there is really diverse. It could be doing some sort of formal ritual on a sacred day, it could be behaving in a way that embodies the virtues of that god, it could be a simple thank you... lots of things. On the whole, worship is about honoring and building a relationship with the things someone call gods. In many respects it's not really that different than building relationships with humans - spend time with them, do nice things, say thanks, celebrate special days together, etc.
Yeah, this is a very "mainstream" way of interpreting what I said, but it isn't accurate. While it is common to perceive some wedge between gods and reality in the "mainstream" theism of Western culture (aka, to assume gods are transcendent), this isn't how polytheists necessarily think about things. In Paganisms of antiquity, many gods were basically mythopoetic renditions of various aspects of our reality (aka, assume gods are immanent). Eos is the dawn, for example. Similarly, for me, Storm Spirit is the storm; it's an honorific way of referring to what you probably consider "just a storm" because to me, storms are worthy of worship.
It's a bit more complicated than that, but this is kind of a tangent, so I'm going to leave it there.
I already do this regularly, or when folks ask questions and are curious. That's kind of why we're even having this conversation... haha. And I don't think it's that much of a demand to expect people to acknowledge cultural diversity is a thing and be careful about making assumptions.
It is important to keep in mind that equivocation is used for different reasons. I understand that at times it is used to undermine others, but when I make these sorts of equivocations, I'm interested in doing the opposite or to use equivocation to mediate conflict. For folks who don't appreciate cultural diversity for its own sake, deconstructing labels to show them how underneath people are doing similar things can help reduce "otherness" and fear. It doesn't always work, particularly for folks who are attached to their labels. They'll respond with things like this:
You strongly value the labels that you consider part of your identity, probably? A lot of us strongly value our maps of the territory. As much as we value our maps, when the map is discarded - and it is easy to invalidate or challenge all of these categories and constructs we build - the territory remains. We are still who we are, regardless of how the map is drawn by ourselves and others.
In any case, I make no secret of the fact that I find the supposed dichotomy of "atheist" and "theist" to be especially useless. That these things aren't on my default map isn't supposed to offend people, but, well... people will get offended by what they get offended by. People get offended by me not having "gender" on my map, too. Their negative reaction fail to represent my intent, but it is what it is. It's like they think I'm out to get them, but I'm not.
ecco
Veteran Member
YMMV ? Not a joke?
Wasn't you who wrote...
No worries, God does not usually answer His phone anyway and if He does He usually puts you on Hold.
... with a winky at the end?
Hmm.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
YMMV ? Not a joke?
Wasn't you who wrote...
Trailblazer
No worries, God does not usually answer His phone anyway and if He does He usually puts you on Hold.
... with a winky at the end?
Hmm.
Putting us on Hold when we call on God with prayer requests has nothing to do with what God is calling us to do through Baha’u’llah.
Soapy
Son of his Father: The Heir and Prince
When you die, nothing happens UNTIL you are resurrected into the great judgement...
ppp
Well-Known Member
Or not.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
NOT, definitely not.
Nothing? Some people say sleep, others say you go to Heaven immediately... but the end is the same in both cases i will KNOW! 
truthseeker7
Member
ive made up my mind on what "god" is and i think its a solid case
But I don't call anything my god.
So is the "god" on the other end of this "worship" a person? I don't know how I'd build a relationship with an inanimate object, say.
Okay, so the language you're using is basically metaphorical. The storm, or what causes the storm, is not literally a conscious being or person of some kind.
I don't think so, either.
So, I think it's clear that you're also attached to your labels here. Otherwise you wouldn't be insisting on using particular words, even though what you mean by them means something quite different from most people. Clearly, those labels have a value to you, and also form part of your identity. So we're both seeking language here that accurately represents us and our views.
The problem with using equivocation as a mediating tool is that it can gloss over critical differences that are precisely the crux of why a conflict exists. There is a qualitative difference between the faith of someone who thinks their faith demonstrates that what they have faith in is true, and the "faith" someone like me has which is predicated on probabilistic evaluation of evidence. They're just two different animals.
This I'm in total agreement with.
In any case, I make no secret of the fact that I find the supposed dichotomy of "atheist" and "theist" to be especially useless. That these things aren't on my default map isn't supposed to offend people, but, well... people will get offended by what they get offended by. People get offended by me not having "gender" on my map, too. Their negative reaction fail to represent my intent, but it is what it is. It's like they think I'm out to get them, but I'm not.
I don't think you're out to get me, not at all. My anxiety has been getting the better of me the last few days, but I'm slowly on the mend.
The theist/atheist distinction can get muddy simply because there are such a vast number and variety of God-concepts out there, it's true. But in general, in modern English, the terms have a reasonably clear meaning into which most of us can categorize ourselves and others (thus making it useful).
ppp
Well-Known Member
Obviously, you have not met the Lelo line of toys. {deadpan}
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I say you go to heaven immediately, if you believed and followed then one true God.
“They that are the followers of the one true God shall, the moment they depart out of this life, experience such joy and gladness as would be impossible to describe…. “ Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 171
Soapy
Son of his Father: The Heir and Prince
All are resurrected.... it’s the JUDGEMENT by Christ Jesus that determines whether you continue into everlasting life or you go to eternal destruction.
ppp
Well-Known Member
No.
I agree...
2 Corinthians 5:8
We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
But I don't call anything my god.
You don't have to, and to my mind, you shouldn't if you don't want to because all that does is create false gods for yourself. It's more important to be authentic to who you are than make falsities for yourself, though your mileage may vary on that I suppose.
Well, I'm not like most Westerners whose worldview limits personhood to just humans. I'm an animist, so Storm is a person. So are the so-called "inanimate objects." These persons are not human persons, and should not be expected to be like a human persons (they are not). So it really isn't "metaphorical" though I guess non-animists would probably see it that way. As for conscious? It's a word that is more trouble than it is worth so I leave it alone. I don't use it except when referencing organisms with sleeping-waking cycles.
Of course. We all do, probably. Humans have to communicate somehow, being social animals, and that involves words (labels).
I made the decision years ago to not let dominant groups monopolize language. I haven't had cause to abandon that decision yet. There may come a time that happens.
I like prefixes to resolve those issues. Faith, broadly, includes both of those types you talk about. Then you add prefixes to specify the type. These sorts of situations are kind of unavoidable. Like I said earlier, I think, a lot of words are polysemic, or have multiple meanings (often due to cultural differences). I guess the bottom line is it's always good to ask for clarification or practice active listening.
May that continue going well! There's a lot to be anxious about these days, right? I don't usually have issues with it, but I've been getting it too.
Oh dear. So what's a person, then?
I just don't see a need to preserve these terms by adding prefixes. Again, the attachment to certain words seems to be overriding meaning and clarity there. If I'm wearing a green shirt, it would be bizarre and confusing to describe it in casual conversation as "semi-blue."
May that continue going well! There's a lot to be anxious about these days, right? I don't usually have issues with it, but I've been getting it too.
Ugh, tell me about it! Thanks for your well wishes. Meditation and exercise have been helpful. Sorry to hear anxiety is creeping up on you, too.
Soapy
Son of his Father: The Heir and Prince
No one goes ‘to Heaven’ when they die: the SPIRIT of the person goes to rest with YHWH God, who made the spirit for them. For humanity, the spirit without the body is inactive... inert... dormant... passive (Hence claims of ‘Hauntings’ by disembodied spirits of dead people are unrealistic!)
((Note that ‘Resting with God’ does not mean ‘being in Heaven’))
The apostles speaking about being in Heaven when they die refers to their imminent positions as chosen ones ‘whose names were written in the book of life from before the creation’ (putting paid to the claim of trinity about Jesus being pre-existent: if Jesus was pre-existent because of the so-called claim in john 17:3, then the Apostles were ALSO PRE-Existent because God ‘chose them from before creation’!!)
No, the scriptures tells us that there are TWO RESURRECTION: the first will be for those who WILL BE HEIRS WITH CHRIST in heaven judging over creation... already judged and found innocent by the blood of Christ... and the second resurrection of those NOT YET JUDGED who will discover their fate as they are judged by Jesus Christ. Those given ETERNAL LIFE will possess the earth - Paradise... as the immortal words of YHWH GOD were spoken ‘I give you the earth as your possession. Dominate the animals and fill it with humanity’ (paraphrased Genesis 1?)
As I mentioned before, there are two positions - one of which you are stipulating... I'm with the other group.
Either way... we will see Him.