An Atheist Theology: A Humanist Collective

[angellous_evangellous]

Thomas J. J. Altizer revolutionized theology when he attempted - I think with remarkable success - to rethink a theology of God and our experience with God guided by an interpretation and self-actualization of Neitzsche's "will to power." He called this practice "Atheist Christianity" reconstructed through Buddhist principles, taking the Chrisian to nihilism into life.

I have a new atheist theology... well, I thought it up this weekend, and someone else may have already done it but I haven't seen it in my reading.

Here goes:

As human beings, I believe that there is more to us than the vast array of scientific models can evaluate and classify. We share this quality with many other animals, and it could be mistaken for instinct for those who have supposed that animals cannot think.

Our insatiable desire to express ourselves with music, the arts, nature, and religion nurtures a part of us that can achieve a kind of greatness that very few of us have experienced. This is the power that some have achieved: great healers, psychics, mystics, peacemakers, and etc.

I think that it is possible that we create our gods, and they are real in that as a gathering of human beings we express a part of ourselves that is great and powerful. And I think that these gods are real and can help and harm us, and we can destroy them, and reinvent them as we come together to rejuvenate the gods as we need them.

This "theology" is in its roughest form right now... this is just raw thinking, and not intended for a debate.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I choose Christianity because of the theology of the cross.

I realize and agree that there is evil in the world... just as people come together for good, trying to create a god or a force (etc) in a sacred space for redemption of time, talent, and resources... there are people who gather in desolate places and create evil.

The cross is the place of the death of God, the tomb the resurrection of Christ... the Eucharist is God in the hands of humans being broken and reborn in the lives of those who consume it. We can pour all of our anger at God into the cross and the Eucharist, and rejoice also in the promise of renewal through the new life of Christ and the power this brings to our lives.

My prayers to God have enriched me beyond measure, and it is more a participation in what God is doing, which is continually as unpredictable and dangerous as the human heart.

I've noticed in archaeological digs that temples have been holy places for as long as human beings have been in that place, and the people just rename the gods they worship there. At the same time, where evil is, death and garbage and fire have been there for as long as humans have been in that place. We're talking thousands of years - altar on top of altar, garbage on top of garbage, bones on top of bones.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

You are speaking Sanskrit my friend.

And why the hell is this in the philosophy forum?

 

[angellous_evangellous]

You are speaking Sanskrit my friend.

And why the hell is this in the philosophy forum?

Well, from Altizer to Nietzsche to whatever it is I'm saying...

I just didn't want it in the Christian forums.

 

[freethinker44]

I don't really see how this is an atheist philosophy.

 

[Danarch]

The idea that we created the gods and not the other way around is a possibility.

 

[sandandfoam]

I'd purchase this book.

 

[EverChanging]

Very interesting....I agree if you mean that the gods are merely a part of us, that is, they are from our imagination. But sometimes the imagination, the mind, can be very powerful and feel very real.

However, I don't believe in psychics, and as far as healers, I tend to attribute their "powers" to the placebo effect.

Still, these were interesting thoughts, similar to what I've often thought. Your interpretation of Christian theology is very interesting, too, and probably quite compatible with more than just Christianity, considering the pagan roots of the religion. I've heard of atheistic/humanistic neo-pagans who basically have the same view of the gods.

 

[Falvlun]

Are you saying that "god" is simply our way of understanding and expressing our own human greatness?

 

[Just_me_Mike]

Well, from Altizer to Nietzsche to whatever it is I'm saying...

I just didn't want it in the Christian forums.

Before I comment on post one and two, would you mind clearing something up, so I don't misread something into them.

In post 1, you indicate the possibility of creating gods that ultimately serve our needs and situatioin

In post 2 you indicate

and it is more a participation in what God is doing, which is continually as unpredictable and dangerous

as if there is an independent God in addition to the gods we create as indicated in post 1.

Now my question and confusion:


Are you suggesting:

1. There is a real God independent of the ones we create for ourselves
2. The is no real God, except the ones we create, and that these gods can have physical and spiritual power over us, even though they are creations of the mind
3. Or are post 1 and 2 not related, but post 1 is a theology you are constructing and post 2 is what you believe in.

I hope I have not added to your confusion, but before discussing your posts, I just wanted clarification.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I'm still working it out - it's a thought that is deep in my soul.

It seems to me that the gods that we create share our passions and faults - as much as we try to mold them into an ideological framework that fits various economic, philosophical, and moral needs / objectives.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

1. There is a real God independent of the ones we create for ourselves
2. The is no real God, except the ones we create, and that these gods can have physical and spiritual power over us, even though they are creations of the mind
3. Or are post 1 and 2 not related, but post 1 is a theology you are constructing and post 2 is what you believe in.

I hope I have not added to your confusion, but before discussing your posts, I just wanted clarification.

Read my posts on this thread as the introduction of possibilities and not what I "believe."

 

[angellous_evangellous]

It seems to me that the gods that we create share our passions and faults - as much as we try to mold them into an ideological framework that fits various economic, philosophical, and moral needs / objectives.

Yes! Like Gadamer says, once we start playing the game, the game plays us.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I think that it is possible that we create our gods, and they are real in that as a gathering of human beings we express a part of ourselves that is great and powerful.

Two brief comments:

• I would recommend anticipate over 'express,' and
• none of this speaks to the reality of preternatural agency.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Thanks, Jay.

Theology really isn't my "thing."

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Two brief comments:

• I would recommend anticipate over 'express,' and
• none of this speaks to the reality of preternatural agency.

I don't think that it is preternatural - I think that it is natural, but inaccessible as yet to scientific methods. Perhaps it is accessible through metaphysics - and by that I mean the "knowing of oneself" that so few of us have been able to do.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I don't think that it is preternatural - I think that it is natural, but inaccessible as yet to scientific methods. Perhaps it is accessible through metaphysics - and by that I mean the "knowing of oneself" that so few of us have been able to do.

You are conflating two different senses of the term 'natural.' Doing so simply divests the term of useful content.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

You are conflating two different senses of the term 'natural.' Doing so simply divests the term of useful content.

My mind is slow... do you mean in that post that you quote or in the entire thread?

My understanding of "natural" is "that which is accessible through the sciences and philosophy." Perhaps access through philosophy strains the meaning a bit, but quantum physics may be a philosophical science, and metaphysics is the only way to look inside ourselves philosophically.

So I think that we can identify a natural "thing" which is "our inner life" but it is reviewable only by metaphysics... in a similar way that quantum physics is a philosophical science.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

*bump*

 

[Alex_G]

As human beings, I believe that there is more to us than the vast array of scientific models can evaluate and classify. We share this quality with many other animals, and it could be mistaken for instinct for those who have supposed that animals cannot think.

Our insatiable desire to express ourselves with music, the arts, nature, and religion nurtures a part of us that can achieve a kind of greatness that very few of us have experienced. This is the power that some have achieved: great healers, psychics, mystics, peacemakers, and etc.

I think that it is possible that we create our gods, and they are real in that as a gathering of human beings we express a part of ourselves that is great and powerful. And I think that these gods are real and can help and harm us, and we can destroy them, and reinvent them as we come together to rejuvenate the gods as we need them.

This "theology" is in its roughest form right now... this is just raw thinking, and not intended for a debate.

Just wanted to say, i have so much time for the original thinker, the fleeting ideas, epiphanies, and eureka moments.

Just to clarify, as im not sure im fully appreciating what you've written, (not for any literary lacking on your part), but are you suggesting that 'god' or the 'gods' are emergent phenomenon of human beings taking form in that aspect of our lives that demonstrate greatness, or value that seems to exceed that which scientific, or deterministic reasoning can fully accout for.

Maybe God might be the collective network or entity of humanities cumulation of these attributes, all individual humans existing as an individual piece of the whole jigsaw. And the more one develop these such 'qualities', the closer one might get to experiencing the whole of what this definition of god entails.