What kind of God could an atheist believe in?

[Binkie The Clown]

[font size=4]A God That Could Be Real' In The Scientific Universe[/font]

---SNIP---

We can have a real God if we let go of what makes it unreal. I am only interested in God if it's real. If it isn't real, there's nothing to talk about. But I don't mean real like a table, or a feeling, or a test score, or a star. Those are real in normal earthbound experience. I mean real in the full scientific picture of our double dark universe, our planet, our biology and our moment in history.

These are characteristics of a God that can't be real:

God existed before the universe.
God created the universe.
God knows everything.
God intends everything that happens.
God can choose to violate the laws of nature.

More (but not enough) at this link (NPR)

[Warpy]

1. One who actually turned up once in a while

instead of hiding behind some silly construct called "faith."

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Collective Unconscious

She ends up proposing a hive mind as an emergent property of life. OK. Her personal story is that she got to this place through, it seems, a classic 12-step recovery program for her eating disorder and now believes in the hive mind as a higher power.

Fine. Let's have some evidence.

I do think we might be on the cusp of either accidentally or intentionally building "TheAi", which might actually be a super-intelligence. Meanwhile I remain dubious of the existence of Mr. Jung's CU.

[Lordquinton]

3. 12 step programs

Very religious, they claim not, but one glance at the charter and, well, it kinda speaks for it's self. Also really degrading and dangerous to people's mental health. And apparently leads to new crazier revelations.

[applegrove]

13. The 12 step program I've been to used a higher power

as a way to teach addicts they have no power over their drug of choice. I'm not religious so I made my higher power nature or my ancestors. And though as an agnostic I do not know how the universe was created, how it was created is a god I can accept. So nature or ancestors or physics are all scientific truths that tie me to that higher power. And something fantastic but scientific started it all. And that is when I truly was done drinking. When I handed the delusion that I myself had power over my drinking (a delusion shared by every addict) to this god/higher power/nature. By handing my delusion over to some other entity I had to deeply admit I could never be the one in control of my addiction. If I could never control my addiction - I could never drink. And I was done. And I'm back to living a science based life regarding alcohol where I have a disease and better treat it like one. Which balances with my science based life. So my god is science in the end. And at the start. And in the middle. And that really works for this agnostic.

[Lordquinton]

15. I'm glad it worked for you

But the 12 step program is religious, and is flawed in it's use of shame. Studies I've seen, which are few because they don't like people studying the program, show it's really not better than any other programs.
I don't want to get more into detail about it here tho.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. "they have no power over their drug of choice"

is utter nonsense.

There is a famous experiment in the mechanisms of addiction called "Rat Park". This experiment differed from the classic animal addiction studies, experiments in which rats given access to cocaine or heroin while isolated in a cage quickly killed themselves by over consumption of the drug, by putting the rats into a healthy rat environment: "rat park", where all sorts of rat pleasures and other rats abound, and giving them access to water free of drugs and water with cocaine or heroin. The rats do not choose to kill themselves with drugs. Instead they generally shun the drugs and prefer to just be healthy rats in a rat friendly world.

http://www.brucekalexander.com/articles-speeches/rat-park/148-addiction-the-view-from-rat-park

Your own testimony contradicts your assertion that you had "no power over" alcohol. You did and you do. You choose every day to not drink. No higher power is making that choice for you, you are.

[applegrove]

17. Nope. When I handed my power over to science, I was no longer

a big fish in a small pond. I was humbled in the way addicts need to be.

[Lordquinton]

30. Addiction is a symptom, not the problem

Again, I'm proud that you've made it work, it can be really hard to deal with.

You just said you were Humbled, you do realize that's religious speak? They tricked you into a god framework. What we need is a whole shift in our approach to drug problems, starting with uplifting the lower class, eliminating poverty, and providing things for kids to do. At that point drug abuse will take care of it's self.

We also need to stop demonizing addicts, and treat them as you would treat any other medical problem, using harm reduction, and free recovery care, not telling them they're trash and they have no power, they're the only ones who have power.

What happens if you fall off the wagon? You catch a whiff and go on a bender? you come back to the meeting and they take away your chit, you start from 0, right? what kind of message does that send? that unless you do nothing you're a failure? that hurts way more than it helps, people have killed themselves due to it.

And the hypocrisy, "No drinking, but smoke a whole pack in the meeting, that's fine" Alcohol kills 80,000 people a year, roughly. Cigarettes kill about 480,000. Don't see an issue there? Maybe they should focus more on CA than AA.

Still proud that you're clean.

[applegrove]

31. The same program is not going to work for everyone. AA worked wonders for me. And humility is the

universal ticket to happiness. It is taught everywhere. As it should be. I got my humility from both my grandmothers. Also ceading your delusional power over a certain drug that is causing serious issues in your life is a very important step. I don't know if you have ever been in a program but it has done wonders for millions. And me.

[Lordquinton]

33. It has helped some

and harmed others, funny how the harm is ignored and swept away (like any other religious institution) I've known people who have killed themselves because of it. The research shows that there are much better and more effective ways. Now, you have been through a religious 12 step program and made it work for you, and clearly you were well indoctrinated in it, but that doesn't make it a good thing. It actually has hampered progress in addiction research and such in this country.

Have you studied addiction? Do you know anything about it besides what you were taught in a religious indoctrination program? What are you thoughts on harm reduction?

If it's a disease then why do you need humility, do diabetics need to be taught humility?

Did you miss the part where I mentioned that the few studies done have shown that AA is about as effective as cold turkey? Do you have a study to counter that? I'd love to hear it because I'm sure some of my knowledge is out of date.

Why do they make you ashamed of drinking while allowing smoking (a greater killer by a factor of lots (see previous statistic)) if their goal is to save lives?

There is a difference between humility and humiliation, AA teaches people shame and to hide their disease, lest anyone find out and they are humiliated for it. It can work for some and still be very harmful to many others.

[Novara]

39. In AA I learned that I may not know what my higher power is, I just know I'm not it.

I am not my own higher power. This is part of the humility I needed to learn in order to fully understand that I was not in control once I took that first sip.

Congrats on your sobriety. I'm more than 6 years sober myself, and although I regularly attend AA I still don't have a god as a higher power. My higher power is the collective wisdom of the group. Those people guide me with much more wisdom than I could possibly find anywhere else. And I know several atheists in AA who cope just fine without having a god figure as a higher power.

[AlbertCat]

34. She ends up proposing a hive mind as an emergent property of life.

Oh please.... not this again!


If there were anything close to a "hive mind".... no one could be fooled. There'd be no Ponzi schemes. No real estate hoaxes. No theatre (you'd know they were acting and never get "lost" in a performance). There'd certainly be no religion, which is a Ponzi scheme, real estate hoax AND a bunch of acting put together!

And 12 step programs are religious in nature.

[Warren Stupidity]

38. In fairness she would likely claim that our access to the "hive mind"

is indirect, obscured, etc. i.e. the usual dodge of those with evidence free assertions. Only in breakthrough moments do some of us manage to connect consciously with the purported hive mind. Like when one is in a 12 step program being indoctrinated to surrender to a "higher power". No problem. Just bring the evidence. Shouldn't be hard to find, after all she claims she is not proposing a supernatural entity.

[trotsky]

4. I think the only thing that can be said...

is that if there really is a god, it will know how to reveal itself convincingly to anyone.

If believers are correct, then it has done exactly that - but only to a select few people. Therefore that means, again if we accept their claims, that there is no universal prohibition ("free will!&quot preventing it from doing so for everyone. Any truly benevolent god should treat all sentient beings equally.

So why doesn't it? It could, and in doing so would eliminate huge amounts of violence and conflict in the world. But it doesn't, so we are forced to conclude, again if the believers are correct, that it deliberately withholds information that WOULD help people, and prevent much unnecessary pain and sorrow, for no good reason.

Their god is then a sadistic asshole. Which would explain why so many of its followers - even some on DU - are simply emulating it.

[F4lconF16]

5. I'm not a fan of this idea.

I am happy without God, period. I feel like this is another faitheist that extols the virtues of religion and the harm and dreariness of a life without it.

Some bits from the article:

Does God have to be part of our understanding of the universe? No. But if scientists tell the public that they have to choose between God and science, most people will choose God, which leads to denialism, hostility to science and the profoundly dangerous mental incoherence in modern society that fosters depression and conflict.

You hear that? You atheists are the problem--you're the ones causing all the conflict and depression and hostility to science. If you'd just play along and believe in a new "God" that really isn't a god, then we wouldn't have these issues. C'mon, atheists, just stop being atheists already. You know that's what we're getting at.

Meanwhile, many of those who choose science find themselves without any way of thinking that can give them access to their own spiritual potential.

Dude, I'll bet you the 6 grams of shrooms I did not that long ago was one hell of a lot more spiritual than most any religious bullshit ever will be. Just sayin'.

What we need is a coherent big picture that is completely consistent with — and even inspired by — science, yet provides an empowering way of rethinking God that provides the human and social benefits without the fantasy. How can we get this?

Guys, let's get rid of God. Except not really. That'll solve our problems.

You know, we could just drop God entirely, as so many of us have already done to great success. There's this thing called education. With it, we minimize denialism, hostility to science, etc. Education is a proven vaccine against bullshit, and it will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

We can have a real God if we let go of what makes it unreal. I am only interested in God if it's real. If it isn't real, there's nothing to talk about. But I don't mean real like a table, or a feeling, or a test score, or a star. Those are real in normal earthbound experience. I mean real in the full scientific picture of our double dark universe, our planet, our biology and our moment in history.

See atheists? God is real. As long as you make him real, and take away all the parts without evidence.

You mean people already did that? And there just wasn't any evidence for any god at all?

Well shit.

The point I want to make here is that this list pretty much agrees with most atheists' reasons for dismissing the existence of God. But this is no place to stop. We've merely stated what God can't be. We haven't considered yet what God could be.

Atheists can't disprove God, lalalalala *sticks fingers in ears*

...

This article is some of the sneakiest faithiest bullshit I have seen in a while. What a load of crap. I don't need god, I don't want god, and I especially don't want some god that just encourages their religious crap, "evidence" or not (which, by the way, the author means the lack of evidence disproving a god, not, you know, actual evidence).

[Binkie The Clown]

7. I posted without comment, but...

...I was hoping I wasn't the only person who felt like that.

I boils down, in my opinion, to redefining the word "god" until it becomes something that is possible, but no longer deserves the label "god". What's the point? I've long maintained that I could believe in a god as long as that god was not all powerful, not all knowing, not all good,... in short, not any of the things "god" is supposed to be. In other words, I believe in the non-existence of that kind of god, and since I can't think of any other kind of god worthy of the name, my default position is to not believe in any god or gods.

[beam me up scottie]

26. You shouldn't worry about commenting in an op like that.

Have you met us?

Nothing is too cynical for this bunch.

[trotsky]

8. Great response.

Totally agree.

[Curmudgeoness]

14. I thought the same thing.

Thanks for saying it so well. I do not understand why we should need a god, or anything to worship.

Love your comment about this being the "sneakiest faithiest bullshit".

[beam me up scottie]

23. Wow, great response!

Way to see right through it.

[AlbertCat]

35. What a load of crap.

Bingo!

[truebrit71]

9. One that was real?

Isn't that the point?

[Gore1FL]

10. Nature can be called God.

It seems silly to worship nature.

[Binkie The Clown]

11. I have a big problem with the word "worship"

To me it seems nearly synonymous with "grovel". Even when I was a little kid and still sort of believed in god, I had a real problem with being told I had to grovel, and fear, and serve this all powerful being.

What kind of "all powerful" being needs to be worshiped, or needs to be feared, or needs to be served. Sounds like an awfully needy "all powerful" being to me. I have no use for such a needy "god".

[AlbertCat]

36. It seems silly to worship nature.

And it's not god.... it's nature....


Redefining gods is part of moving the goal posts.

Useless.

[Gore1FL]

40. Not useless.

It was a great loophole to participate in Boy Scouts with my son, for example.

No redefining is involved because there is no standardized definition for "God."

[EvolveOrConvolve]

12. I wish the author posted at DU

so I could tell her to fuck off in person.

[beam me up scottie]

24. LoL!

And they wonder why atheists are so angry...

[LiberalAndProud]

18. Defining a palatable god is a job for liberal christianity.

I'll leave it to them. When a superior intelligence is actually discovered, I'll be willing to consider whether or not it is a god. For now, they can keep whatever real god they try to devise.

[edhopper]

19. Eric Clapton.

[frogmarch]

20. What kind of meat would vegans like to eat?

Not a good analogy since meat is real like a table, etc., but what a dumb question it is to ask what kind of god atheists could believe in. You know... a god who is real in a different sort of way than the wrongheaded but common notion of what every real is. Just as there are different ways of knowing, there are also different ways of being real. Right. Got it. Oh, and this vegan will have steak tartare, please.

[Binkie The Clown]

21. LOL! Great analogy IMHO. n/t

[Cartoonist]

22. What kind of wood could a woodchuck chuck

If a woodchuck didn't believe in wood?

[beam me up scottie]

25. No, kidding.

It's insulting.

Raw oysters for this vegetarian.

[AtheistCrusader]

32. what about meat like protein grown in a vat?

And for that, I'd compare 'sufficiently advanced technology' to impart apparent omnipotence being something like godhood, but I probably wouldn't call it that.

[mr blur]

27. Well, by definion, none.

[progressoid]

28. ...

[Lordquinton]

29. The real question

is who's sock is god?

[AlbertCat]

37. is who's sock is god?

And what color is it?


Is it knitted in natural fibers or is there some Lurex in there?


What if there's hole in it?????

What kind of shoe should cover it when one goes outside?

Should one wear god with sandals?