In the comments, Hafidha asks me to spell out how I can say I’m not a theist or atheist but then say I’m something of a panentheist. My answer: there’s theism and then there’s theism.
By “theism,” most folks usually mean monotheism, with one god who is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present, and all-loving. Different flavors of the supernatural can come into play here.
But, yeah, different forms of belief in god(s) can be lumped in together under the blanket term “theism.” There are dozens of flavors under that broad sort of “theism.” My agnostic panentheism is just one of them. There can be one god or many. Some of them use the same name(s), which is confusing. The different gods that can fall under this broader theism aren’t necessarily all-knowing, all-powerful or all-present, so there isn’t necessarily an element of the supernatural for the various flavors.
It’s been my experience that most atheists have rejected the first theism—traditional monotheism—but haven’t looked into the other theisms much. Maybe they’d be better described as “amonotheists.”
It’s as though they’ve tried Coke and go around saying they reject all carbonated drinks. Sure, Coke is the most common. In some parts of the country, Coke stands for all carbonated beverages. (“I’d like a Coke.” “Which kind?”)
But drinkers of Diet 7-Up or Red Bull don’t have to take guff of them when an a-Coke-ists doesn’t know anything about Diet 7-Up or Red Bull. It’s certainly possible that a particular a-Coke-ist might actually not like all carbonated beverages just because they’re carbonated, but how many times do you see that?
They don’t have to like carbonated beverages, but how do they look when it becomes clear that they’ve never tried anything but Coca-Cola? That they think all soft drink people drink Coca-Cola? Or that we really are drinking Coca-Cola even when we know that we’re not?
And then they go around saying that we all believe our carbonated beverage is “the real thing,” that we believe we’ll “catch the wave” and drink our Cokes with magical polar bears in the sweet by-and-by.
Then they start in on Coca-Cola’s environmental record and how it’s unsafe because you can dissolve a penny in it. How everyone who drinks a soda is complicit in that. How they’ve felt marginalized because everyone drinks Coke.
Then the rights come into it. Their right to drink what they want to drink. Their right to not be intimidated by Coke drinkers.
Just order something else and shut up.
The god definitions are fuzzy because the words have meant so many different things to so many different people over time. They can’t be a single cut and dry definition and still be respectful to the folks have used those words differently. Nobody has to know all of those different uses. But we each can at least take a sip when we come across them the first time before we pass judgment.
And then you can throw in another use of “Coke”: cocaine. Coke-ists and a-Coke-ists alike will agree that it’s harmful. (Yeah! More fuzziness!)
Yes, when most people in our society ask, “Do you believe in God?” what they really mean is, “Do you believe in a holy father deity who knows all?” Despite this, I understand that theism is a large canopy under which many other imaginings of a god(s) can sit. I would say no to the aforementioned question, and I would say no if a person more specifically asked, “Do you believe in [insert name of any-other deity]?”
I can honestly say I don’t believe in any god at all. This doesn’t mean there isn’t one out there, but I don’t have any belief in it. I understand your coke analogy – the problem I have with it is that you’re using something we all know exists. I can hate Mountain Dew, but I can’t deny it’s in the refrigerator case at the convenience store down the street.
I think you could have used words like “atheist” and “believer in Jesus” instead of Coke and Diet 7-Up. I think it would have been helpful.
For example, you say,
But drinkers of Diet 7-Up or Red Bull don’t have to take guff of them when an a-Coke-ists doesn’t know anything about Diet 7-Up or Red Bull. It’s certainly possible that a particular a-Coke-ist might actually not like all carbonated beverages just because they’re carbonated, but how many times do you see that?
I would replace those analogous words to read:
But worshipers of Oshun or Lakshmi don’t have to take guff of them when an atheist doesn’t know anything about Oshun or Lakshmi. It’s certainly possible that a particular atheist might actually not believe in all kinds of deities just because they’re deities, but how many times do you see that?
I think you see it at least sometimes.
The different gods that can fall under this broader theism aren’t necessarily all-knowing, all-powerful or all-present, so there isn’t necessarily an element of the supernatural for the various flavors.
At first this puzzled me, because it sounds like you’re saying there can be gods who aren’t supernatural. Are you saying that you believe in gods that aren’t supernatural?
At first I wondered at this, but after some thought, I can see how that’s possible. For example, someone could call capitalism their god. Or their laptop. Or physics. There is even a Church of Reality, comprised of people who believe in reality. None of those things are supernatural. So if you’re saying that you believe in something like “the workings of the universe” and you like to call it god, then I could see where you’re coming from. But if that is indeed the case, it would make things a lot easier if you described what you believed in. There are a lot of people who say “I believe in God. Because God is Love.”
Isn’t it clearer to just say “I believe in Love?”
It’s further complicated by the differing ways in which popular writers have used the word. John Shelby Spong would probably not call Paul Tillich a theist, for example, but Tillich himself probably would.
(On most days, I am a parenthesist.)
My experience with atheists is that, if they consider monotheism non-scientific and ideologically and socially dangerous, polytheism (this is not about several gods engaging in sexual activity together, it’s about believing in two or more gods ;-)) is just plain silly.
I would also define myself as a panentheist. Michael Servetus was also a panentheist, although he never used that word because it did not exist at that time. The word was invented in the 19th century by German philosopher W.F. Krause, who was a great source of inspiration for Spanish and Latin American religious liberals.
I agree that there are informed atheists who have no belief in any gods whatsoever. I have no doubt that your atheism is authentic and legitimate. I just don’t hear that often, certainly not from the leading lights of atheism.
Saying “I believe in Love” might be clearer sometimes, but then words like that can get fuzzy too. “Love” carries some bad baggage too. The word “god” is just so powerful and rich a metaphor that I have to go back to it from time to time. Sometimes “Love,” “Justice,” etc. aren’t big enough words for me. Sometimes I just want to take back the word “god.”
Tangent: I can’t say enough good things about Chris’ new UU World article on science and metaphors. He talks about Mary Midgley, who is one of my favorite philosophers. And I’m into the religious naturalism he talks about when he gets to Ursula Goodenough. (I don’t think Chris calls her a religious naturalist, but she’s usually the first one off the list.)
Hmm. Metaphors? God? See Mo and Jesus…
Hafidha, does that mean that those who believe in Advaita Vedanta (the philosophy that denies reality as just an illusion that hides the One Ultimate Reality from our minds) are heretics from the Church of Reality? (Or Neo and the rest of Matrix-fighters for that matter.) ;-)
Sofia: You and I are on the same wavelength.
Chutney: If you want atheists that will be on the same page as Sofia and I, you’ll find a great many of them here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=214
The reason leading atheists don’t get into this more often is what I suggested before: the face of religion is still supernatural believers, and their actions are most likely to be problematic.
theism simply means belief in a god, not belief in a particular god. how you define god is your theology and there are numerous theologies. I feel it’s very important not to cede the name God to the particular theology of what I call the “Omni-God” (omniotent, omnipresent, omniscient). God is the right word to point to the thing I want to talk about. But it’s important once we’ve identified the subject of the conversation that we do then go on and talk about it. For instance explaining why the Omni-God is bad theology and that much better theologies (that would overcome most objections of atheists, for instance) do exist.
I’m really glad you like my essay, but it’s actually kind of old. (No one paid any attention to it when it was published back in 2003.) For a really old one, here’s an academic essay of mine about Tillich; I loved stumbling across the notion that a symbol is real even though it evolves and is situated in human culture.
“Mo and Jesus” is now my new favorite comic strip!