Does believing in a Supreme Being make you a Theist?

RationalAnswers
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Does believing in a Supreme Being make you a Theist?

I do believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, though that does not necessarily make me a theist. When you think about it, everyone should be able to buy into the idea that there is something that is greater than everything else in each of our value systems. This is analogous to observing that there must be a location on this planet that is farthest from you. For every distinct earthling this location is slightly different, but there is one for each of us.

The Supreme Being is simply the top of the hierarchy by which you judge importance. Just because this entity is not the God of scriptures does not make it any less supreme in your world view (note that the actions of more than a few theists indicate that the God of their scriptures is somewhere below fame, wealth and/or power as their Supreme Being). If you truly believe that all beings are equal, then your Supreme Being is simply the totality of all beings.

Even atheists believe that something is supreme. Arguably for most atheists the Supreme Being is either the entire universe or some ultimate state to which all conscious beings aspire (ironically, there are atheists who reserve their ultimate veneration for the same fame, wealth and/or power that certain theists revere). In this context, regardless of whether you are atheist or theist, how spiritual you are reflects how much of your life you spend in prayer to, contemplation of or communion with your Supreme Being.

Simply acknowledging an entity as supreme, is to accord it the most basic form of worship. As such, it is generally not belief in and worship of a Supreme Being that distinguishes atheists and theists. The primary difference between them seems to be the theist’s tendency to engage in anthropopatheia (assigning human traits to God). This means that the fewer traits your Supreme Being shares with humans (e.g., will, desire, wrath, agape, etc.) the more of an atheist you are.

Your Thoughts?

 


Visual_Paradox
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Theism and atheism, to me,

Theism and atheism, to me, are primarily concerned with the belief or nonbelief of whether the universe was brought into existence through the act of a conscious entity or that life was brought into existence through the act of a conscious entity. If you think the universe is a conscious entity that consciously brought life into existence, you are a theist (pantheist or panentheist or whatever the heck they call that position). If you do not think the universe is a conscious entity and you do not think the universe was brought into existence through the acts of a conscious entity, then you are an atheist.

I think the term "supreme being" is irrelevant to this discussion. The atheist can call the universe itself the supreme being. The word "being" is merely a contraction of the word "be" and the suffix "-ing," which is a way of something "something that exists." The word "supreme" merely means "that which is the greatest." Does it contradict atheism to say the universe is "something that exists and it's the greatest of things existing"? Of course not. I agree with others that the phrase is often seen as relating to a conscious entity but a literal interpretation of the phrase itself does not connote that quality.

As far as I can tell, the position outlined by RationalAnswers is an atheistic position.

Stultior stulto fuisti, qui tabellis crederes!


LosingStreak06
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Well, this topic took an

Well, this topic took an interesting turn.


Archeopteryx
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If I was supposed to be

If I was supposed to be impressed by this trick, I wasn't.

 

RationalAnswers wrote:

OK, this topic is starting to circle the drain. I’ve gotten what I came for and I can only hope some of you found it beneficial as well. I will now explain my ulterior motives and summarize my actual view of things:

Here are the problems I had with what you said in this post. Correct me if I've misunderstood you.

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I run with a group of philosophers for whom the theist/atheist question has phenomenally little significance. Another member of my circle put forward the thesis that “Atheism is the new Goth”. That a lot of the so-called neo-atheists are simply contrarians flying in the face of the biggest convention they know.

Those types of contrarian atheists are out there, but I think it would be a mistake to hastily assume that most atheists, or even most recent atheists, fall into that category.

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She put forth that a significant percentage of them are simply “farting at the formal dinner party to make the old women clutch their pearls”. That when pushed, ever so slightly to question their beliefs, rather than offer rational defenses based on philosophical arguments,

What if someone isn't interested in making complicated philisophical arguments? What if someone just wants to say "I don't believe in god because I don't believe in Santa Claus"?

What if someone chooses to doubt the existence of a god based solely on what they know about biology? What would be wrong with that?

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they will dogmatically engage in semantics for reasons that we as a group have already discussed ad nauseum in the context of religious believers.

Speaking only for myself, I never tried to refute your point of view through semantics. I only ever said that if the term "supreme being" is problematic, and if the common understanding of the term can't be helped, then you should use a different term rather than going on about how it shoudln't necessarily mean a god.

Whatever your beliefs are or were staged to be, my discussing the semantic problem wasn't an argument against those beliefs.

Here was your reply to my post:

Quote:

Archeopteryx, I'm not complaining though I am trying desperately to get past using "Supreme Being" since so many people seem to have such deeply embedded issues with the term. I've been trying to use the expression "the most important thing in existence". These have been my new words for some time now except when I am asked questions by people still referring to the "supreme being". The basic point I'm trying to make it that the fact that I believe there is a "most important thing in existence" does not, in and of itself make me a theist.

I understand what you're saying, and I agree (though too late for it to matter) that "the most important thing in existence" does not necessarily mean a god. The point of my post was simply that "supreme being" is problematic. You can't accuse people of being contrarians for their inability to get past the commonly understood meaning of those words paired together in that way.

We face a lot of theists on this site, and we see many arguments that have been presented to us countless times before. When you come here asking us to consider a new definition of supreme being, you may as well be asking us to understand that "big bang" simply means a bang that is big. It could mean that, yes, but you can't heckle us for assuming the more common meaning.

As far as "the most important thing in existence" goes, it can also point towards theism. If you were to phrase it more like "the most important thing in existence to me" then it wouldn't seem quite so troublesome. But by simply saying "the most important thing in existence", it sounds like there is a single most important thing in existence being offered. I would be much more willing to put the theist label on the latter.

Quote:

She insists that “most neo-atheists are a single life crisis away from shoving God penis right back up their butts and rejoining the theist herd” (the lady has a way with words).

Yet you nor she has any way of knowing who is a so-called "neo-theist" and who is not. An inability to argue effectively, a failure to understand your post, or a failure to read your post thorougly does not automatically make someone a "neo-theist" who is ready to "shove God's penis right back up his butt".

I find that statement to be a little ignorant, and the "test" carried out to prove it to be... well... "inconclusive" to be nice, but "shitty" to be honest.

Quote:

I took the counterargument that, atheists do have a valid point that a great deal of the evil in the world is the result of a fact so eloquently stated by Voltaire : "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities". People who appreciate this can't be that bad.

So it fell to me to develop this scenario. I was actually trying to lay the groundwork for a more profound challenge to the atheist belief system, but I couldn’t get any traction past “Supreme Being = God”. While I tossed this in as an intentional red herring (which shikko picked up on immediately but was easily able to get past it), I had no idea that it would ultimately derail the entire endeavor.

I really don't think it did. It's true that "supreme being" does not necessarily equal "god", but you can't label us contrarians who only engage in semantic games for thinking so. We've seen theists try to validate their beliefs by trying to redefine terms or make up new ones. Also, the common understanding of "supreme being" is that it means "god". Those who labeled you as a theist probably didn't read your posts thoroughly enough or didn't entirely get them. And it makes sense that they wouldn't, as it would make sense for people to raise an eyebrow at someone who said "red herring" should not be assumed to mean a logical fallacy.

Quote:

When we got together last night to discuss the results I was placed in the interesting position of having to defend BGH, shelleymtjoy, Nero, CrimsonEdge, Crocoduck, Thomathy, magilum, Archeopteryx and Susan. I was truly rooting for all of you to rise to the occasion but the group consensus was that I was wrong. Nonetheless, I want to take this opportunity to thank shikko for keeping it from being a rout and Crocoduck for making me laugh.

I'm curious to know what you said "in our defense" and whether or not the people here would agree that you were a good representative.

You had to defend me? How so? All I said was that supreme being has an understood definition and if you have beliefs that don't involve a god, you shouldn't apply the term, because people would be inclined to think that you believed in a god. As others said, it is a loaded word.

I somehow doubt that I was well-represented.

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In the same way that believing in God does necessarily not elevate the spirituality of a theist, not believing in God does not necessarily elevate the rationality of an atheist.

Seems reasonable. I wouldn't disagree with that.

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Atheism does not attract smart people, it generally attracts those who are simply less spiritually inclined.

Where has this been proven to be the case?

Can't atheism attract the less spiritually inclined and intelligent people? Can't someone be less spiritually inclined and intelligent?

Why does a person have to be "attracted" to atheism? Many people on this site were simply born atheists and remained that way.

Quote:

In the final analysis, people are just people and it is a rare individual who is fundamentally changed by his or her beliefs.

And now, for the last part of the price I have to pay for losing:

“INFO_SISTER, I AM YOUR BEYOTCH!!!”

I apologize to anyone who thinks this endeavor was presumptuous and thus feels offended by it. But bear in mind that your's is a public forum and I can assure you, this is not the first time this has happened and it will probably not be the last.

Thank you all for playing and I truly wish you all the best.

 

Thanks. But don't start blowing yourselves yet.

I'm not so much offended by the fact that you did an expirament here as I am by the fact that you seem to be drawing conclusions that I don't think can be drawn. I was also offended by the fact that you needed to "defend" me, and yet I get the feeling that I was not being honestly represented.

RRS has a specific approach to promoting atheism. They tend to favor the "in your face" approach. It would be great for everyone to accept atheism based on their own logic and understanding of science. But I don't see anything wrong at this point in just promoting atheism as an acceptable position on the nature of the universe. Honestly, if a person wants to be atheist just because they find no more reason to believe in God than Santa Claus, then they're perfectly welcome.

That being said, just because the site bears the name "Rational Response Squad" does not automatically mean that everyone who speaks in the name of atheism on this forum claims to be familiar with philosophy or science. They might just be here to learn. They might just be here because they are contrarian. They might be here to argue biology, geology, archaeology, psychology, philosophy, or mere common sense. They might just be here to throw insults. Don't assume you know who you're testing.

How many individual posters actually replied?

How many members does this forum actually have?

Do you really think you've got some kind of great sample out of this that proves your friend's claim?

You sound as if you've come with presuppositions about who you would be sampling and then came to a hasty conclusion when you got bored. That is probably the most insulting thing about the whole ordeal.

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


magilum
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I want to talk to the

I want to talk to the clove-smoking little sewing circle without the false pretenses.


Archeopteryx
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magilum wrote:

magilum wrote:
I want to talk to the clove-smoking little sewing circle without the false pretenses.

 

It wasn't the false pretenses that were annoying/insulting. It was the fact that he and his "philosophy group" made a handful of presuppositions in this little test of theirs and then came to a poorly supported conclusion. As if that wasn't bad enough, he then went ahead to pat his group on the back as if something meaningful had been accomplished.

You can't suppose something about thousands of people based on a poorly constructed internet "test" that only sampled about ten of them. You also can't suppose anything about the site itself, since we have many more than 10 members.

I get the sneaking suspicion that this is a group of philosophy majors (or a philosophy major that is lying about his "group" ) that think they're a bunch of Socrates-reborn deep thinkers and love constructing trite ways to inflate their already swelling egos.

Now if I could just think of a really shitty way to test this claim and then assume it to be proven true based on an inadequately-sized sample group... hmmm....

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


Nero
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He's gone.  It was

He's gone.  It was absurd.  Let's let the damn thread die, eh?


FreeThoughtMake...
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Yeah I think it does if you

Yeah I think it does if you believe in a supreme being or entity or what not which is supreme to us (human beings)....I pretty much think it does make you a theist.

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Religion at BEST - is like a lift in your shoe. If you need it for a while, and it makes you walk straight and feel better - fine. But you don't need it forever, or you can become permanently disabled.

---George Carlin---


I AM GOD AS YOU
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Atheists are the higher

Atheists are the higher prophets of "god", not the theists, not the religious, ask Dawkins and Harris about this, .... "atheists for god", reinventing this hugely important word g-o-d, as it ain't going away soon, .... I am an atheist so of course I believe in god, god is an atheist. ..... hijack the god word from the religious right, we atheists have to be more cleaver, simple people want god , focus on the regular people ..... Jesus was an atheist, etc etc , geezzz and more war tomarrow, WTF to do ?????