semantics, religion, philosophy, logicWith respect to the Dawkins comment (or Stephen Roberts) mentioned a few times, that Atheists are like everyone else in denying everyone else’s god, they just go one further and deny the existence of their own, is that position tenable as a theist generally?
Deviating from the standard, static definition of religion toward a more functional one, here is a Legal Approach to defining using “Assumptions about the Underlying Nature of Religion”:
first, religion in its metaphysical or theological sense (e.g., the underlying truth of the existence of God, the dharma, etc.); second, religion as it is psychologically experienced by people (e.g., the feelings of the religious believer about divinity or ultimate concerns, the holy, etc.); and third, religion as a cultural or social force (e.g., symbolism that binds a community together or separates it from other communities). Definitions of religion typically begin by assuming one of these three different theoretical approaches -T. Jeremy Gunn 2003,2008
When one looks into just the second and third (when the first, ie God’s existence, is denied) underlying assumptions about religion, is it within logical limits to be a follower of [Christianity, etc] (as a model for action, identification) and be godless? How do you reconcile the seeming incoherence of this position?
*Note: Many answers have [Christian]-based answers because that was the original example given for this question.
I suppose one could belong to a social Christian group. Some liberal Quakers (I think) do not necessarily believe in the literal existence of God, and they are still considered Christians.
For me, the question is are we talking about religion or theism. A theist believes in at least one god - that a deity, a supreme being of some sort, exists. Thus, a theist couldn’t logically deny the existence of all gods.
However, what is included in this “supremacy” of the deity varies, and it is a slippery slope of sorts. Basically theism seems to come down to the inherent quality of the being, a deity would be something clearly distinct of us, something distinctly better in a way that cannot be broken down to individual godlike traits. In that way, becoming god (as I understand was possible in some ancient variants of theism) would not the same as achieving the exact same powers via for example technology.
But your question was about religious adherents, and that of course comes down to what is the definition of religion. Of course, if you define religion as being a theistic view of the world, then in that case an adherent could not deny existence of a god.
Thing is, I wouldn’t define it as such. I don’t think assumption of a deity is necessary for a religion. A religion could also be based on, e.g. assumptions of supernatural laws that govern the world. What I think is inherent in religiosity is the adherence to faith and/or tradition - accepting certain assumptions, or at least a significant part of the set of common assumptions, without evidence. This way, there could be a non-theistic religion, who’s adherents could deny the existence of god and remain logically coherent. (I might even go as far as to say that some of the modern day UFO belief could quite well be considered such a non-theistic religion -though they seem to be at least trivially evidence based.)
Of course, as a question of semantics, there can be never be any “correct” definition of neither religion nor theism, only ones that are agreed upon in communication. So this was my contribution to that.
If a christian (relevant for any other religion as well) does not believe in god, he is not a religious christian. You can say that he is culturally christian, but an atheist or agnostic.
I am very familiar with this issue among many Jews, who don’t really believe in God (atheists/agnostics), or in the literal truth of the bible (deists), but keep following the Jewish traditions like celebrating holidays and etc., mostly for social purposes, or a feel of belonging.
It comes down to how you define your religion. Christianity is a good example of how broad of an umbrella a religion can be; there are Protestants, Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, etc. Each denomination interprets verses of the Bible differently. Thus, if one defines Christianity as "following the precepts of Jesus Christ," then one could be a Christian without accepting the claim that there is a god.
Under such a position, Christianity could be simply a philosophy on morality or a religion without god depending on how defines religion.
Moreover, if we define religion solely as by Gunn's third approach, there is at least one example of godless religious people: Jews. Many Jews do not believe in god but still identify as Jews. To them, being Jewish is more than adhering to a religion, it's also an ethnicity.
Mostly no if you are talking about the Abrahamic religions (Judaism seems a little vague on it to me - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_atheism), yes if you dealing with eastern religions. Take for example Hinduism. It is possible to be both atheist and Hindu - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism_in_Hinduism . I believe the case with Buddhism and Jainism is similar.
Not really.
One of the core tenets of Christianity is a statement of beliefs called the Nicene Creed which lays out the things you’re supposed to believe. Churches that don’t use that, tend to use the Apostles Creed.
Both lay out belief in God, bodily resurrection, forgiveness of sins, etc, etc. If you don’t buy it, you’re really not a Christian. You could call yourself one, but that doesn’t make it factually true.
For most of my "Christian life", I would say I was a Christian but didn't believe in God in the way my church defined it at the international level. I was on the role as a United Methodist in a sanctioned church, but that church did not require that I recite the Nicene or Apostle's creed to become a member. They made up their own initiation that spoke of being a "sojourner", a seeker of wisdom. Jesus Christ may have been the primary provider of the wisdom that was preached on Sundays, but his name wasn't mentioned all that much. We read Crossan and Borg and publicly went against the authority of the church and welcomed gays.
It all seemed logical to me. The stories from the Bible have good lessons, and I wanted to be around people who did good things, and they happened to be hanging out at a church. The people were acting consistently, that is practicing what they preached, so no logical problems there.
There were limits, such as the person who decided to follow Islam. He would still show up sometimes, but he is no longer a member. Another person who attends often is a Jew. He offers stories and lessons from his tradition, but does not want to "convert". There were many others such as myself that would never have gone to any other to church.
There are many other examples. If you define religion as a psychological or social force, you have already eliminated the supernatural force. I have experienced the power of a community that lovingly supports its members without a need to draw on prepared prayers spoken in unison or invocations of the names of saints or prophets so the question proposes no problems for me. I got the benefit of a religious-like community without the woo-woo.
I quit the church because an entity that large changes too slow and large parts of it are engaged in activities such anti-gay or pro-military that I don't think are logically consistent with the teachings that it claims to base its platform on. The only reason I could see that it would be logically incoherent to be a religious adherent is that the religions themselves are not logically coherent. But one could be created that is.
Jesus was advocating that his religion needed to change, and Paul stated that people could now base their laws on love, not the 400 and however many rules in Deuteronomy. So, 2,000 years later, it is not that far fetched that we can say God doesn't exist.
Here is the website of the church, just so you can see I am not making it up
To add a finer point on this, the UMC is very aware of the philosophy of this church, so there is some sort of internal logical consistency that allows for churches like this, who are challenging the establishment, to exist within that establishment. This is as logical as having a communist party openly running for office in the United States. Change, in the UMC, comes from within, by design, with regular voting that starts by congregations selecting delegates and bubbling up to the international conference. For that to have any value, there has to be an allowance for non-conformity.
I could see why if you view religion as a rigid set of beliefs with change only coming from a small group at the top, then this question would seem logically difficult. But if you allow for religions that include many viewpoints and open discussion, and many of them do, then out of the millions of people going to church, you have to accept that eventually someone is going to stand up and say, "hey, wait a minute, God is not consistently portrayed in this book we read every week. And what difference does it make if we believe in a virgin or not? I like what we are doing here, but does it really require that we believe these things?" And eventually a discussion group would form, then a committee, etc.
This has been going on for decades. Most people just leave, or just keep quiet when they have these thoughts, but a few have stayed and we have movements like The Emergent Church and people like Brian McClaren and John Shelby Spong. I'm not trying to sell anything here, just point out that it is there.
This question is somewhat western-biased. An interesting counter-example is Buddhism, and particularly, Zen-Buddhism. A good deal of the Buddha’s original teaching was not a religion, but a response, even a criticism, to an existing religion (Hinduism). It appears mythical nowadays, because it was written in a religious context - Not too many atheists lived in 500 B.C India! However, basic Buddhism does not enforce a believe in a deity (although it was commonly mixed with existing religions, such as Tibetan Bon or Chinese Daoism). It also denied the existence of a pre-defined destiny (Karma). The Buddha himself never claimed to be a deity, and made it perfectly clear that he will not return after his death. Zen-Buddhism took this state-of-mind to extreme, and Zen monks use to laugh and taunt at ceremonial religious activities.
To summarize: Most religions in the world do focus on worshiping deities, and therefore denying the existing of a God makes the person a “social believer” rather than a follower. However, a mythically-rooted philosophy (namely, Buddhism) might be classified as a religion, without enforcing the belief in deities as an essential part of it.
(Btw - “Dharma” means “truth” and it is more of a set of guidelines than a divine force.)
So the way this question is worded is by assuming the truth of a definition of religion that is not necessarily accurate. Also, this seems to be a more general question than one that can be addressed by considering only the various strands of Christianity, so I will not make that assumption below.
Still, you need not reject the first tenet to be able to find a consistent story to be told about the atheistic religious. If, say, your religion includes metaphysical/theological assumptions such as the non-existence of something like god(i.e. Gnostic Atheism), that still fulfills the first tenet. It just does so unconventionally.
It has been raised elsewhere on this site that some strains of Buddhism can be thought of as atheistic, and presumably they would still be considered a religion.
While the atheists on this site agree that atheism is best not considered a religion as a necessary feature, that does not mean that atheism is necessarily not a religion. If it had other features of religion, there is no reason why certain types of atheism when practiced in certain ways could not be considered religious.
Many religions appear to have members that lack belief but go along with the traditions and the culture.
Richard Dawkins talks about the former UK Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees who enjoyed the anglican community and culture but had no believe in the dogma.
Furthermore, there is the oft quoted joke, ‘what do you call a Jewish Atheist?…A Jew’.
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