It is religion that needs to prove god, not theism

[The Dude]

The leap from theism towards religion has always been a strange one to me. Theism, the belief in a god/gods, seems a justified position to me. While I'm atheist, I can see the merits of a theistic explanation of reality. It's not foolproof, but then what theory is. If it's what someone wants to believe, they can go right ahead.

You could argue that Plato was a theist. Afterall, his Theory of Forms is specifically based on the One Good giving birth to all Forms after it. The prime mover that is One, Good and True in which all other things participate. Doesn't get more theistic than that. And while there was philosophical disagreement with Plato in his time, there wasn't anybody who was asking him to prove what he said. Not in the way that we are asking for proof of God today.

Why not? Well, obviously there wasn't any dogma attached to Plato's theory. There was an ethical aspect to it, a largely Socratic one where virtue was equated with knowledge, but it seems relatively innocent in comparison to the oppressive morality of Christianity and Islam. Yet it fulfills all the necessary requirements, does it not? If you really want to believe that all existence is born from a single transcendent entity, then there you go. Platonism, perhaps reinforced by some other philosophy developed throughout the centuries, is really all you need.

So how does one make the leap from simply reasoning that there must be a god, to specifically becoming a christian or a muslim and getting into the whole prophet and divine revelation thing? Because it seems to me that there's nothing to justify that leap. There's nothing that religion adds to the base belief that reality is shaped by a god.

The difference in religion and theistic philosophy seems to be that the former is inherently evangelistic and the latter is not. Which is why the former needs to be proved, and the latter not. I don't care what you believe created all things as long as you don't bother me with it. A Scientologist has to prove his Thetan idiocy as much as a Christian has to prove that Jesus Christ is the son of god and whatnot. Because the line of "mind your own business" has been crossed.

Now, don't take mind your own business to mean that we should keep all philosophical enquiry to ourselves. Discussion of our ideas and theories is a good thing. But religion, with its elaborate take on morality and how we should live our lives, has a lot less to do with philosophy and a lot more to do with forcing your worldview on someone else.

I realise I'm largely kicking in open doors here, but I felt it was necessary to write this bit because a lot of discussions around here get stuck in the phase of "prove your god, then" without people really realising why. As an atheist, it is important to distinguish between theism and religion in that sense that one is a philosphical position worthy of respect and discussion, whereas the other is an elaborate system of fear and control grounded in intellectually injustified leaps in thinking.

This is proven true particularly by the tendency of religious people to completely disregard the philosophical basis that originally made their faith come about. The concept of god as understood today is not regarded as coming about from the works of early christian neoplatonists/islamic aristotelians but as simply a dogmatic given. This is God. Believe in him and obey him. Don't, and you'll go to hell. Few people know that early christians realised all too well that if they couldn't unite their Jesus myth with genuine philosophy, their religion would suffer the same fate as Greek and Roman polytheism.

A lot of religious folk out here get genuinely tired of the demand to prove that their god exists, so keep in mind that you'll be fully relieved of that burden when you revert to theism as a philosophical stance. It's your insistence in being religious that has me asking what proof you have your god is real. Because if you're going to start basing your treatment of others on what your religion tells you, be it political, ethical or what have you, then I have good reason to question the validity of your course of action.

That is what the question for God's existence is about. Not whether or not he really exists. Because if he does, then he does and it's not big deal. If he doesn't, it's no big deal either because in that case something else will be true instead. The question is about me wanting to be sure that, if I am going to live my life in a certain way because you think that that would be a good idea, there's going to at least be a bloody good reason for it. You're the one that decided to go the extra mile and include all this talk of angels and prophets and whatnot. I've got good reason to question the leap you made there.

[John ''True Grit'' Wayne]

God was invented in our ancestors minds to help them understand death.

[SigniferOne]

You could argue that Plato was a theist. Afterall, his Theory of Forms is specifically based on the One Good giving birth to all Forms after it. The prime mover that is One, Good and True in which all other things participate. Doesn't get more theistic than that.

It would be shocking to most atheists to find out how theistic Aristotle was as well; or heck, almost all of the great ancient philosophers. Seneca, in Stoicism, has A LOT that hinges on God. And it's important to note that these people's theism was not the simplistic beliefs of the pagans: i.e. Plato didn't argue that the One Good was actually Zeus. Right alongside the 'traditional' pagan mythology was developed a very mature and very serious monotheism. They didn't invent it, but it is nonetheless fact that they took it very seriously. Aristotle, for example, is the one who made the "First Cause" argument which is almighty difficult to refute for a modern atheist.

The great philosophers from antiquity were without fail STRONGLY convinced in a profound transcendent (non-natural) essence of some kind. The one guy they all hated was Epicurus, and his atheism; it was a viable alternative, for anyone that wanted to take it, and they all never tired of heaping scorn upon it, and decrying it as immoral. It is then ironic, or I would say to be expected, that the atheism Epicurus founded devolved into hedonism. The predictions of all the theistic philosophers about Epicureanism were proven right.

But I digress, you and I are on the same ground so far, so I'll move on.

And while there was philosophical disagreement with Plato in his time, there wasn't anybody who was asking him to prove what he said. Not in the way that we are asking for proof of God today.

Why not? Well, obviously there wasn't any dogma attached to Plato's theory.

That's simply not true. What there wasn't enough of, yet, was a developed critical thinking, that required direct proof for everything that was posited. See for example Aristophanes' Clouds, where the main protagonist complains of these atheists who posit that clouds are just a hovering vapor, and that it's the clashing in them produces lightning, not Zeus throwing it down when he's angry. Socrates, the inveterate 'atheist' in the play, of course proves that clouds are made from vapor, and that there aren't any gods at all, it's just vapor everywhere up in the sky. In the end the protagonist ends up smacking Socrates, and leaves home muttering his dogma that it is Zeus after all. This was the complex situation in the 5th century Athens; a lot of questioning, mixed with a lot of traditional beliefs stubbornly held. Just because "Socrates" proved that there were no gods didn't mean that the main character needed to accept it. In the same way, other theoreticians posited other metaphysical theories in parallel to Plato, and they weren't demanded strict and rigorous proof. What's interesting about Plato is that he posited the idea of the One Good in the first place. It came to Aristotle to amend the concept to an Immovable Mover, and start supplying rigorous proofs for why it is logically necessary.

There was an ethical aspect to it, a largely Socratic one where virtue was equated with knowledge, but it seems relatively innocent in comparison to the oppressive morality of Christianity and Islam.

It is oppressive in demanding a single standard, a single objective morality immovable and infallible for all time. I would've thought that as someone who has an understanding of philosophy, you would understand that nothing is more important. Both Aristotle and Plato posited objective and immovable philosophy. They couldn't prove it yet, but they were grasping for it, they realized that absolutely nothing in the world was more important than that, and that relativistic morality is the very death of a culture or an individual person believing in it.

"The great-souled man is one who knows what is moral, and then actually proceeds to do it."
-Aristotle

So how does one make the leap from simply reasoning that there must be a god, to specifically becoming a christian

Well first, it would just make sense to assume that if there was a God, this vast omnipotent something, which makes all things possible, that there would be something conceptually revealed from it to those who understand concept and thought. I'm not saying this is a proof, I'm just saying that if you accept the concept of some sort of God, it is not out of the question to look for some sort of revelatory communication. It may or may not be there, but it's conceivable, given that there's a God.

Secondly, if you understand all aspects of your theistic God fully, you understand that alongside the All Goodness and All Efficacy (omnipotence), there's something else -- there is deliberation and intentionality. For if you combine the philosophical "Form of the Good" (ala Plato), and then add on to it the cosmic statistical impossibilities that were cut through to make our universe possible, you realize that this something that you're grasping for is intentional too. So in a short order, just from the logical necessity of things as they are alone, you determine the following qualities:

omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and intentionality.

This very quickly becomes something much more than an impersonal force like the force of gravity, but something that is vaguely recognizable to the human form, by which we mean human reason, although obviously vastly different in terms of scope and size.

This is proven true particularly by the tendency of religious people to completely disregard the philosophical basis that originally made their faith come about.

I know, it's depressing sometimes.

Few people know that early christians realised all too well that if they couldn't unite their Jesus myth with genuine philosophy, their religion would suffer the same fate as Greek and Roman polytheism.

It's important to note that the early Christians did not syncretically tie their beliefs in Jesus onto some pre-existing philosophical theism. Jesus himself made those ties. In addition, Paul and John in the New Testament are exceedingly philosophically learned men. There is sophisticated monotheistic philosophy not only expounded by Christ himself but by the canonical authors Christians regard as divinely inspired.

[Tuor]

I have never really seen this being discussed. This thread is full of interesting, and I like it. It hasn't occurred to me that it is the dogma of religion and the idea of religion itself that I am concerned about, instead of the idea of there being a god or gods. +rep to both Sig and The Dude for the reasonable and enlightening discussion being had so far.

Edit: Sorry, Louis XI, I was making this post while you posted.

[The Dude]

The great philosophers from antiquity were without fail STRONGLY convinced in a profound transcendent (non-natural) essence of some kind. The one guy they all hated was Epicurus, and his atheism; it was a viable alternative, for anyone that wanted to take it, and they all never tired of heaping scorn upon it, and decrying it as immoral. It is then ironic, or I would say to be expected, that the atheism Epicurus founded devolved into hedonism. The predictions of all the theistic philosophers about Epicureanism were proven right.

Well there's a lot to be said about hedonism, it's certainly not so unequivocally bad as you make it out to be, I think. In a way, Epicurus' take on god was interesting in that sense that there's no real reason for god to concern himself with us at all, after initial creation took place. Of course the problem was that his take on god (or gods, rather) was inherently antropomorphic which was definitely not the case with many of his contemporaries/predecessors. So you could argue it was a lot more naive than that of competing philosophies, and I'd agree there.

But on the topic of hedonism, it's a philosophical stance that has a few things going for it. Its problem is that its prone to excess and abuse. A well moderated hedonistic take on things has a hint of truth to it, since it adresses the basic needs and wants that we have on an emotional level.

That's simply not true. What there wasn't enough of, yet, was a developed critical thinking, that required direct proof for everything that was posited. See for example Aristophanes' Clouds, where the main protagonist complains of these atheists who posit that clouds are just a hovering vapor, and that it's the clashing in them produces lightning, not Zeus throwing it down when he's angry. Socrates, the inveterate 'atheist' in the play, of course proves that clouds are made from vapor, and that there aren't any gods at all, it's just vapor everywhere up in the sky. In the end the protagonist ends up smacking Socrates, and leaves home muttering his dogma that it is Zeus after all. This was the complex situation in the 5th century Athens; a lot of questioning, mixed with a lot of traditional beliefs stubbornly held. Just because "Socrates" proved that there were no gods didn't mean that the main character needed to accept it. In the same way, other theoreticians posited other metaphysical theories in parallel to Plato, and they weren't demanded strict and rigorous proof. What's interesting about Plato is that he posited the idea of the One Good in the first place. It came to Aristotle to amend the concept to an Immovable Mover, and start supplying rigorous proofs for why it is logically necessary.

Fair point, and one I hadn't really considered yet. What I tried to express, though, is that what Plato was trying to do wasn't forcing his world view upon others. The Theory of Forms was his own and he undoubtedly taught it. But there was nothing to it that held the form of dogma. Philosophy in ancient Greece was an attempt at understanding the world. The development of organised religion, I feel, is exactly the opposite. It claims to understand the world, and confident in the superiority of its knowledge, forces itself upon others as the best way.

This is demonstrated, for example, by the Aristotelian reception in the 13th century and the subsequent verdicts of heresy that were issued in 1277 and 1328. Because what happened was a development of thinking that was not in line with Monastic dogma. The fact that there was room for this thinking to exist, that there were gaps to be filled, was not something the monasticists were concerned with. Scholasticism as a movement contradictory to Monasticism developed only by the grace of those who eventually did manage to unite Aristotle with scripture, even though this take on Christianity was hardly traditional.

It is oppressive in demanding a single standard, a single objective morality immovable and infallible for all time. I would've thought that as someone who has an understanding of philosophy, you would understand that nothing is more important. Both Aristotle and Plato posited objective and immovable philosophy. They couldn't prove it yet, but they were grasping for it, they realized that absolutely nothing in the world was more important than that, and that relativistic morality is the very death of a culture or an individual person believing in it.

"The great-souled man is one who knows what is moral, and then actually proceeds to do it."
-Aristotle

I do understand that nothing is more important, actually I quite frequently find myself in discussions with one of my fellow students who's an ardent relativist. We had another discussion on the train home last night where eventually I forced him to conclude that his attitude would completely justify everyone just throwing their hands up and adopting a completely laissez-faire attitude to existence. And that would pretty much be the death of humanity as a species. Our desire to live and exist alone contradicts a relativist approach. But he apparently felt that our desire to exist can't be a purpose in itself. We're of two completely different minds and I doubt we'll ever agree, but as an absolutist I can only come to conclude that in our extremities, only one can be right. I like to think that it's me.

But I disagree that what christianity offers is an immovable, infallible moral standard. It doesn't, and I actually don't think that it's possible for us (with the knowledge we have today) to create a moral standard that completely covers every possible event in life. I'm actually doing a lot of reading on moral theory right now and the first conclusion to draw is that it's literally impossible to create a moral theory that covers every aspect of human action. I cannot accept, therefore, that what the Bible offers is a divinely revealed system of ethics because it's inherently flawed. It wouldn't be flawed if it did come from god. And so it becomes oppressive in nature, because if it's not true but still has to be lived after, it chains you rather than frees you.

Well first, it would just make sense to assume that if there was a God, this vast omnipotent something, which makes all things possible, that there would be something conceptually revealed from it to those who understand concept and thought. I'm not saying this is a proof, I'm just saying that if you accept the concept of some sort of God, it is not out of the question to look for some sort of revelatory communication. It may or may not be there, but it's conceivable, given that there's a God.

Well it's certainly not out of the question, but then the same is true for the countless other possibilities that could be. That's my problem with it, it's cherrypicking. If you're going to accept that one possibility could be true, then you other possibilities can be true aswell. It could be that if there is a god, he doesn't care about us at all (Epicurus). It could be that, if there is a god, he doesn't actually want to reveal -anything- to us, which is why we're left grasping at straws to understand the world. It could also be that if there is a god, he's completely a-moral and has no concern for the silliness that we as humans perceive as good or bad, and so would never give us a moral doctrine that could only be inherently untrue.

There's so many things that could be. I'm just not convinced of the necessity of revelation. It's the same questionmark that I place at the philosophies of Eriugena and, centuries after him, Eckhart. Why does the human soul have to be central in this process of creation from and return to god? I think it's a premature conclusion, and a gross overestimation of our importance as a species.

Secondly, if you understand all aspects of your theistic God fully, you understand that alongside the All Goodness and All Efficacy (omnipotence), there's something else -- there is deliberation and intentionality. For if you combine the philosophical "Form of the Good" (ala Plato), and then add on to it the cosmic statistical impossibilities that were cut through to make our universe possible, you realize that this something that you're grasping for is intentional too. So in a short order, just from the logical necessity of things as they are alone, you determine the following qualities:

omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and intentionality.

This very quickly becomes something much more than an impersonal force like the force of gravity, but something that is vaguely recognizable to the human form, by which we mean human reason, although obviously vastly different in terms of scope and size.

Well, on this one I'm gonna have to use one of the age old atheist arguments: you can't argue probability with a sample size of one. This one reality is all we have and all we know, so we have no grounds on which to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that this reality is the one created out of a myriad of possibilities.

Don't get me wrong, I understand your train of thought here. And as I said, as theistic thinking it's a philosophical position worthy of respect. But this still leaves me wondering as to the necessity of Jesus Christ. Or Muhammad, for that matter. These singular men who claim to be the son of god/have spoken with god. Genuine philosophy stands in such sharp contrast to these, well... fantasts. Fantasts who have a lot more to do with ungrounded spirituality and mysticism than they have to do with intellectual enterprise.

Nobody, literally nobody would believe a man who said he was god made flesh today. And I think very few people believed Jesus back in his day. And rightfully so, we should all be skeptical of people who show up with these crazy claims. Jesus has had the good fortune that his few followers managed to retain his core mythology which was later picked up by an empire struggling for an identity and looking for a means to maintain power. Muhammad, was... well, let's call it "a bit more proactive".

It's important to note that the early Christians did not syncretically tie their beliefs in Jesus onto some pre-existing philosophical theism. Jesus himself made those ties. In addition, Paul and John in the New Testament are exceedingly philosophically learned men. There is sophisticated monotheistic philosophy not only expounded by Christ himself but by the canonical authors Christians regard as divinely inspired.

Wait, am I understanding you correctly here? Because it seems to me as if it's not Jesus that created the philosophical foundation for Christianity, but thinkers hundreds of years after him.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Since I'm short in time, I'll leave just a brief commentary on the Aristophanes and the Clouds, which has been since and still is a point of contention between Atheists and Theists, that is the presence of a divine causality, whichever source it comes from (not necessarily a Theistic God, and Platonism is far, far away from full blown Monotheism - great misconception here).

The presence of a physical causality does not preclude a divine (vertical causality). The fact that man no longer needed to explain that plants grow because Zeus orders them so, or the like, does not hurt divine causality a jot; Christianity, specifically, was never really anti-scientific. When they condemned Astrology, they left away "Natural Astrology", which is our physical astronomy. When Galileo was judged by the Church, he was so because of his conduct, not because his stance was a theological heresy. His own Inquisitor even believed Heliocentrism was a viable theory, and we no longer witness any trouble with Heliocentric teaching in Catholic countries in the late XVII century.

Metaphysics, Theology, whatever... Are not concerned with physical facts. And the fact that physical facts have physical causes has not troubled religious people at all since the start; man has had religion for a long time, yet they also had fire for a long time. They were not really troubled by the fact that fire was created by sparks of flint.

In fact, it is a misconception of modern Scientificism to postulate that a progressive measurement of natural phenomena works against religion. It doesn't, and it never has. The case of Aristophanes concerns a superstitious fool, and nothing else; in fact, when it comes to postulating anything beyond the measurement of physical phenomena as faits accomplis, Science shows its limitation. Physicalism was never really conceived as a something which was self-sufficient, but as a mere appendage to the religious outlook of the early Scientists. Neither it excludes the ultimate role of God as the source of vertical causality, or even behind the most simple physical phenomena, which philosophers like Al-Ghazali postulated so cleverly. The fact that there is a "natural causality", does not logically contradict the immanence of a divine nature even in the shallowest and most matter of fact physical phenomena; indeed, Chesterton, all the more cleverly, postulated there's magic behind every simple physical phenomenon, and he's right!

Neither, in fact, is the postulate of hard Atheism, that we are the byproduct of random clashes of atoms gone right after billions and billions of years a remotely plausible explanation. By denying the transcendent and the immanent, Materialism strives ceaslessly to argue we are the byproducts of pure randomness - yet simple postulations like the Infinite Monkey Theorem, or the fact that nothing can be created out of nothing fly in the face of such assertions. The irony is, that between the highly personal creationism of Theism and the Atheistic idea of pure randomness, the Theistic one is far more plausible. Not the most plausible, mind you, but still much better.

[Khassaki]

Neither, in fact, is the postulate of hard Atheism, that we are the byproduct of random clashes of atoms gone right after billions and billions of years a remotely plausible explanation. By denying the transcendent and the immanent, Materialism strives ceaslessly to argue we are the byproducts of pure randomness - yet simple postulations like the Infinite Monkey Theorem, or the fact that nothing can be created out of nothing fly in the face of such assertions. The irony is, that between the highly personal creationism of Theism and the Atheistic idea of pure randomness, the Theistic one is far more plausible. Not the most plausible, mind you, but still much better.

The argument is simpler than that, Atheists dispute the origins of gods, not their existence. Whatever mechanism created the gods could have created the universe, making the gods irrelevant.

[Ludicus]

By denying the transcendent and the immanent

In fact, science by its misunderstanding of the nature of the infinite has been led into idea that the knowledge of the unknown is from the known.

[Col. Tartleton]

I'm with the Dude. I'm agnostic. I lean atheist but theism is intriguing. Religion and mythology is fascinating.

Atheism and Theism without any attachments are equally likely. They way we think, we reason there must be a start, the evidence suggests as much, and that leads us to this problem. Eternal universe? Doesn't need a God. But a temporal universe? Implies a start. So it was either created or just occurred. What is the creator? The first unexplainable movement of a domino effect chain reaction, or a perfect being beyond the universe? Who knows. We can't see it. Everything points back to singularity. But that leaves us with what may be an unknowable past.

Did something "say" 'Let there be Light' and Big Bang the mother er into existence, or did it just Big Bang in existence?

[Sphere]

I am having a hard time following some of this, particularily the OP. Theism is generally taken to mean the belief in a personal God, while diesm is the belief in a supreme creator which is not a personal god. Wikipedia sums it up well

The use of the word theism as indicating a particular doctrine of monotheism arose in the wake of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century to contrast with the then emerging deism that contended that God, though transcendent and supreme, did not intervene in the natural world and could be known rationally but not via revelation.[4]

The step from deism to religion is quite a drastic one (and the one I think the OP is trying to talk about). The step from theism to religion is not that hard to make, if the will of God(s) is acted out on Earth, if he is a personal God that intervenes, then forming a religion to spread/interpret Gods revelations does follow without too much effort.

That being said, from what information we have been able to gather about our world and our universe, the use of a creator as an explanation is more or less superfluous. You can still add one in to get the Universe started if you want, or even to spark life on Earth if you really make a stretch, but in both these area's it is not that we have found something unexplainable, some mysterious happening that requires a creator to explain it, rather its simply an area of human ignorance, a gap if you will. You can plug a divine being in that gap if you want, but you would be pressed to defend your reasoning in doing so. A more defensible and less arrogant position would be to simply claim that you too, like all other human beings, are ignorant of what is in that gap.

[Helm]

A more defensible and less arrogant position would be to simply claim that you too, like all other human beings, are ignorant of what is in that gap.

The problem is ignornce of what is in the gap doesn't have anything particularly to offer, human nature being what it is demands something more so the gap wtends to be filled with something objective, such as the historical account of the bible or else something "subjective" that comes through suh practices as meditation, prayer and yoga. So there isn't necessarily any arrogance involved here.