Issue with the label "atheist"

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Can God be defined in a way that isn't supernatural? If God is defined as nature or as existence or as humanity or as an emotion, I can't call myself an atheist. This brings me to another question, what is religion? If a belief in the supernatural a prerequisite of religion, then what about Pantheism or Buddhism? Could one be a religious atheist if one believes in spirits but not in any god? These issues are leading me to conclude that "atheist" might be an insufficient and misleading label. I would prefer to be known as an asupernaturalist, materialist, or perhaps as a realist.

[Black Dagger]

Originally posted by FPA+--> (FPA)Can God be defined in a way that isn't supernatural? [/b]

Of course.

Anyone can define 'god' in anyway that they choose, that's the beauty of superstition and 'faith.'


Originally posted by FPA+--> (FPA)
If God is defined as nature or as existence or as humanity or as an emotion, I can't call myself an atheist.[/b]

Of course.

If you choose to define 'god' as being the keyboard infront of you, it would be illogical to then declare, 'The keyboard doesn't exist!''

But what is the point of taking something, say your existance or humanity; things you know exist in concrete terms and to a large extent understand and then re-labelling them 'god'?

Are you suggesting then that humanity is an omnipotent super-being? Or at least, some form of super-being?

Or that humanity created itself?

I guess, my question really is...what is the utility of using the term 'god' to describe these sorts of things?

What is the practical benefit of conceptualising humanity or existance as 'god'?

My answer would be, none at all.

Mystifying human existance or humanity itself by re-labelling it 'god' is thoroughly misleading and completely pointless.

Misleading because i'm fairly sure when you suggested re-labelling humanity etc. as 'god' - you were not suggesting that humanity bears the traits commonly attributed to 'god' or 'gods' - i.e. humanity is not an eternal force, all-knowing, all-powerful, we did not choose to create the earth or ourselves and so forth.

So then what is the point? If humanity bears no meaningful or substantive similarity to 'god' why equate the two?

If you don't think that 'god' as omnipotent super-being, creator of the universe etc. exists (and this is the feeling i get from your post) - then why not throw out the concept all together? I don't understand the impulse to salvage ideas that you've already dismissed?

(now that i've read ALL of your post, it's clear that's not what you're doing - whoops!)


Originally posted by FPA
This brings me to another question, what is religion?

A way of understanding the world, existance (life and death) and the place of humans in it.


Originally posted by FPA
If a belief in the supernatural a prerequisite of religion, then what about Pantheism or Buddhism?

A belief in the supernatural is not a prerequisite of 'religion.' I'm not very familiar with pantheism, but Buddhism definately has 'supernatural' elements.


[email protected]
Could one be a religious atheist if one believes in spirits but not in any god?

I suppose, but that would be a ridiculously inconsistent position to hold?

Why would someone accept one invisible entity (spirit) but reject another (god)?

To accept either notion requires 'faith'; that is to embrace and idea without proof. Now if someone holds a standard of proof up to the concept of 'god' and finds it lacking, i don't understand how they could take the same standard to 'spirits' (essentially a tweaked version of 'god') and come to the opposite conclusion.


FPA
These issues are leading me to conclude that "atheist" might be an insufficient and misleading label. I would prefer to be known as an asupernaturalist, materialist, or perhaps as a realist.

I don't understand what you find misleading or insufficient about the term.

With the exception of realist (which has conservative political connotations, i.e. realist school of international relations etc), the terms you suggest in-place of atheist are already encompassed by it.

Atheism is a materialist view-point and thus by extension is 'asupernaturalist.'

Just face it, you're an atheist ;)

[silentprotest]

Originally posted by bleeding gums malatesta+--> (bleeding gums malatesta)
Originally posted by FPA+--> (FPA)Could one be a religious atheist if one believes in spirits but not in any god?[/b]

I suppose, but that would be a ridiculously inconsistent position to hold?

Why would someone accept one invisible entity (spirit) but reject another (god)?

To accept either notion requires 'faith'; that is to embrace and idea without proof. Now if someone holds a standard of proof up to the concept of 'god' and finds it lacking, i don't understand how they could take the same standard to 'spirits' (essentially a tweaked version of 'god') and come to the opposite conclusion.[/b]

I do not see this as inconsistent, someone could reject a God on the grounds that they reject that some sort of physical being as such could exist. To my knowledge it is spoken that man was created in God's image (according to Christianity), thus God must have some sort of human form. It would thus be perfectly reasonable to reject the idea of a physical God, one that can be depicted, and accept one that is some kind of non-corporeal entity.


bleeding gums [email protected]

FPA
These issues are leading me to conclude that "atheist" might be an insufficient and misleading label. I would prefer to be known as an asupernaturalist, materialist, or perhaps as a realist.

I don't understand what you find misleading or insufficient about the term.

With the exception of realist (which has conservative political connotations, i.e. realist school of international relations etc), the terms you suggest in-place of atheist are already encompassed by it.

Atheism is a materialist view-point and thus by extension is 'asupernaturalist.'

Just face it, you're an atheist ;)

The term Atheism is misleading in the way that it is used, to define it, an atheist is a person who does not believe in a God or Gods. Under such a definition we can include Buddhists as atheists as they do not believe in a God. Yet, they are spiritual people. The way atheism is used by those who are religious is to suggest a lack of spirituality, which, in many ways, may be untrue. Thus, religious people feel that they can look down upon those so called "atheists".

It is thus obvious to me that there needs to be some kind of new label, perhaps similar to asupernaturalist, materialist, or realist as Fly Pan Ama suggests.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by Fly Pan [email protected] 29, 2007 01:49 am
Can God be defined in a way that isn't supernatural? If God is defined as nature or as existence or as humanity or as an emotion, I can't call myself an atheist. This brings me to another question, what is religion? If a belief in the supernatural a prerequisite of religion, then what about Pantheism or Buddhism? Could one be a religious atheist if one believes in spirits but not in any god? These issues are leading me to conclude that "atheist" might be an insufficient and misleading label. I would prefer to be known as an asupernaturalist, materialist, or perhaps as a realist.
If you believe in the idea of a 'God' as an earthbound entity then youre probably best described as a pagan, since they worship the earth, air ,moon etc.

[pusher robot]

God created man in his own image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favor.

[Freigemachten]

why is there a word for a person that doesn't believe in god at all? It doesn't make sense to me, there aren't many words to describe people that don't believe in things. The is no one word for people who don't believe in the "power" of Tarot cards, or people who don't believe in magic, examples could go on forever. There is however one phrase that encompasses all of these factrs of disbelief. I like to call these individuals who do not believe in such things "Reasonable people", rather than calling them atheists.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Can God be defined in a way that isn't supernatural

Einstein believed in "Spinoza's God" which is just the beauty of the universe, but it's a silly use of the word. Unless you're speaking metaphorically or poetically, then no, not really. Wahey, three adverbs in one sentence.

-Ale

[Ol' Dirty]

God works in mysterious ways, you know...

:rolleyes:

[whoknows]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 05:17 am
why is there a word for a person that doesn't believe in god at all?
try 'rationalist'

[Ol' Dirty]

There's not much point in making a whole position about something as trivial as that. Why spend time pondering it if it doesn't matter?

[RedStarOverChina]

Why the fuck do you have to have a "god"? I hardly ever talked about or even hear about "god" until I was 12...It's a notion so silly it doesn't deserve the attention. It should be irrelevant to people's lives.

Especially when we are supposed to be intelligent, free-thinking lefties.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

It should be irrelevant, but the idea of God affects millions people. God is just one little aspect of theology though. Basically what I'm saying is, why do we all (theists and atheists) divide around this issue when it's not really what we're fighting over, because God (in the traditional sense) doesn't affect anything... because 'he' doesn't exist, but it's religion (which does affect a lot of things) we're fighting over. Are we (atheists) any more atheist than liberal religious people who interpret their religion in a materialist way or affiliate themselves with it purely as a cultural identity? I don't think that question really even matters, all that matters is the valuing of rationality and reality above archaic and harmful religious superstitions. (Not that liberal religious people shouldn't get away from their creepy religions, of course.) It seems like debating about the existence of God almost always turns pointless really fast (especially if they define it 'non-traditionally'); pressing religious people about how harmful and stupid religion is would be better because that's what's relevant to people's lives.


Originally posted by bleeding gums malatesta
With the exception of realist (which has conservative political connotations, i.e. realist school of international relations etc), the terms you suggest in-place of atheist are already encompassed by it.

Atheism is a materialist view-point and thus by extension is 'asupernaturalist.'

I suppose that's a fair enough position and I wasn't aware that 'realist' has conservative political connotations, so scratch that idea. But the term "atheism" is still falling into that god-debate trap, when that's not all we care about as atheists.

[Eleutherios]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 05:17 am
why is there a word for a person that doesn't believe in god at all? It doesn't make sense to me, there aren't many words to describe people that don't believe in things. The is no one word for people who don't believe in the "power" of Tarot cards, or people who don't believe in magic, examples could go on forever. There is however one phrase that encompasses all of these factrs of disbelief. I like to call these individuals who do not believe in such things "Reasonable people", rather than calling them atheists.
The answer is that the majority of the world's population is deluded into thinking there are gods. If there was a popular belief in unicorns, and it was something of a social stigma to declare yourself a non-believer of unicorns, you can bet that we would have a word for people who don't believe in unicorns. The word "atheist" is there because it is a useful term for a subset of the population which has used its mental abilities to throw off the shackles of god-belief.

[Eleutherios]

Originally posted by Fly Pan [email protected] 29, 2007 01:49 am
Can God be defined in a way that isn't supernatural? If God is defined as nature or as existence or as humanity or as an emotion, I can't call myself an atheist.
True, but my answer to anyone claiming that any of these things actually is God would be to question why the label "God" is appropriate for that phenomenon. It seems like a rather misleading definition, since the word "God" to most people implies a supernatural super-intelligent creator of the universe. If we're allowed to just make up new definitions for words like that, then I'm going to redefine the word "leprechaun" to include the planet Jupiter and insist that everybody now believe in leprechauns.


This brings me to another question, what is religion? If a belief in the supernatural a prerequisite of religion, then what about Pantheism or Buddhism?
I would say supernaturalism is not a prerequisite for religion. A religion, I would say, is any set of outrageous claims believed on faith around which a social organization of some kind has formed. A Scientologist who believes body thetans have a physical reality and who is philosophically a materialist is still following a religion.

Could one be a religious atheist if one believes in spirits but not in any god?
Technically, yes, but I sincerely doubt that such people would adopt the label "atheist". Buddhists who believe in a supernatural soul and animists who believe everything has a spirit but that there is no supreme spirit, for example, generally do not call themselves atheists. The term atheist seems to have this extra connotation of denying all supernatural beings.

These issues are leading me to conclude that "atheist" might be an insufficient and misleading label. I would prefer to be known as an asupernaturalist, materialist, or perhaps as a realist.
Yes, perhaps one of those terms might be better, but you are still an atheist if you don't believe in God, and that's the label people are going to stick to you whether you like it or not.