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About RF's Theists

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
A week or two ago, I created a poll to see where RF's theists stood on their ideas of who/what God is and how he/she/they operated. I want to share the results of that poll here, in a separate area, and invite any and all to discussion on this.

I am curious to hear responses on whether or not people are surprised about the results, or if this is about what they expected.

First off, the largest group of us is those who feel God is infinite, and not fully knowable by our finite minds. 88.5% of us who took the time to take the poll believe this. 34.6% of us believe in God as a concrete being outside of ourselves. There is a bit of overlap here. Personally, I voted for both, as I feel God is infinite, but partially incarnates in finite forms occasionally(but never fully, because the infinite cannot be contained by the finite). I'd be curious to hear from others who voted for both('cause obviously, some did).

69.2% of us believe God is one. 30.8% of us believe God is many. (I voted both, because while I believe God is one, he/she/it appears in many forms).

76.9% of us believe God can relate to us in a personal manner. 19.2% believe God does not interact with humanity at all.

46.2% of us believe God lays out the basis for morality. That's less than half of us. Based on frequent threads I see on RF questioning the morality of God by nontheists, I am curious if non theists are surprised by this statistic, or if its about what they would expect from fellow theistic RFians.

30.8% of us believe God is a part of nature or the laws of science. I admit, I was surprised by this one. I thought there would be more of us who held this belief.

And for the last set of statistics, 73.1% of us believe that the ways to reach God are many, while only a small amount of us(19.2%) believe in one exclusive path.

Any thoughts on this?
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Maybe you could link the poll for those who missed it?
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
76.9% of us believe God can relate to us in a personal manner. 19.2% believe God does not interact with humanity at all.
In particular I wonder if of the 19.2% believing that God does not interact with humanity are they all deists or are agnostics and atheists voting in the poll?

First off, the largest group of us is those who feel God is infinite, and not fully knowable by our finite minds. 88.5% of us who took the time to take the poll believe this.
69.2% of us believe God is one.
Those two figures seem contradictory in a way. You can count complicated things, because they are things. Is God a thing which can be counted? Doesn't number exist within God? Are we saying that God is not transcendent when we say God is one? Are we saying that numbers transcend God?

30.8% of us believe God is a part of nature or the laws of science. I admit, I was surprised by this one. I thought there would be more of us who held this belief.
That sounds like a Deist position. Catholics believe God is transcendent, so Science would exist in God not God in Science. The universe would be in God not God in or part of the universe. A deist, though, insists that God equals the universe -- which I'd view as a limitation on God.
 

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
In particular I wonder if of the 19.2% believing that God does not interact with humanity are they all deists or are agnostics and atheists voting in the poll?

I did specifically ask atheists not to take the poll, and for agnostics to weigh whether or not it was relevant to them(and take or not take) accordingly. This would fit a Deistic viewpoint, though. I'm not sure whether any of our Deists voted here or that way, as votes were private.

That sounds like a Deist position. Catholics believe God is transcendent, so Science would exist in God not God in Science. The universe would be in God not God in or part of the universe. A deist, though, insists that God equals the universe -- which I'd view as a limitation on God.

I voted this way.
 

Yazata

Active Member
A week or two ago, I created a poll to see where RF's theists stood on their ideas of who/what God is and how he/she/they operated. I want to share the results of that poll here, in a separate area, and invite any and all to discussion on this.

I am curious to hear responses on whether or not people are surprised about the results, or if this is about what they expected.

I don't consider myself a theist, so I didn't participate. But I do find myself slowly drifting in the direction of a deistic sort of (what might be called) theism I guess, much as Anthony Flew did. My comments:

First off, the largest group of us is those who feel God is infinite, and not fully knowable by our finite minds. 88.5% of us who took the time to take the poll believe this.

My impression is that this kind of idea is found in all of the theistic traditions. It's basic to Eastern Orthodox Christianity (the essence-energies distinction). There's the pseudo-Dionysius, John Scotus Eriugena and many of the medieval Catholic mystics. It's common in Sufism I think. It's like the air that Hindu Vedantists breathe. So it isn't surprising to me that most of our RF theists feel this way. (If I identified as a theist, I would agree with it too.)

34.6% of us believe in God as a concrete being outside of ourselves.

Isn't that just another way of saying objective rather than subjective? That God is something more than merely a figment of our imaginations? Again entirely traditional and orthodox on the part of our theists.

There is a bit of overlap here. Personally, I voted for both, as I feel God is infinite, but partially incarnates in finite forms occasionally(but never fully, because the infinite cannot be contained by the finite). I'd be curious to hear from others who voted for both('cause obviously, some did).

I would have I think. I don't see God as transcendent and God as objective as mutually exclusive. But I expect that wasn't the distinction that you had in mind and most respondents picked up on that.

69.2% of us believe God is one. 30.8% of us believe God is many. (I voted both, because while I believe God is one, he/she/it appears in many forms).

The 30% who say many is a little surprising I guess. I would have thought that outside India perhaps, orthodox theists would have answered 'one'. As for me, I just intuitively feel that the universe's ultimate Source or Explanation would probably be one. But polytheism does have its attractions. If the various polythistic gods are symbolic abstractions of various basic aspects of reality, it does often seem that they are operating at cross purposes. Apollo and Dionysus, Life and Death...

76.9% of us believe God can relate to us in a personal manner.

Yes, that's traditional. I'd be curious to know what they think 'relate to us in a personal manner' means. Does it mean that God presents as a human "person", or does it merely mean that God presents in such a way that human persons can relate to it?

19.2% believe God does not interact with humanity at all.

But that's awfully strong in the other direction. It seems to indicate a deistic tendency. I lean that way myself, I guess, but then I'm not a self-identified theist.

46.2% of us believe God lays out the basis for morality. That's less than half of us.

That's definitely unorthodox. Lower than I would have expected.

Based on frequent threads I see on RF questioning the morality of God by nontheists, I am curious if non theists are surprised by this statistic, or if its about what they would expect from fellow theistic RFians.

It surprises me a little I guess. I suspect that many/most of our RF theists are far more diverse and independent than they get credit for being.

30.8% of us believe God is a part of nature or the laws of science. I admit, I was surprised by this one. I thought there would be more of us who held this belief.

That suggests a pantheistic tendency perhaps. Maybe the RF theists simply want to preserve the idea of transcendence. The idea that what we see isn't all there is, and that God comes out of that 'something more'. But I expect that most of the remaining 70% would agree that signs of God's activity can be discerned in this physical reality, in the circumstance of their lives, or perhaps simply in the fact that physical reality exists at all and in the order it displays.

And for the last set of statistics, 73.1% of us believe that the ways to reach God are many, while only a small amount of us(19.2%) believe in one exclusive path.

I like that.

Any thoughts on this?

It makes me feel more kinship with our theists I guess. Maybe I was too taken up by atheists' attempt to portray theism as if it was nothing more than fundamentalism, textual literalism and moral rigorism.

Your poll results certainly seem to contradict that narrow caricature and portray our theists as more diverse and interesting than that.

Again, I like it.
 
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