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The Forum > Article Comments > The theist-atheist encounter > Comments

The theist-atheist encounter : Comments

By George Virsik, published 3/12/2018

Insights from the philosophy of physics can clarify the theist position and avoid misunderstandings.

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Dear George,

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Thank you for advising that from your experience as a professional mathematician, you consider Wikipedia as a reliable source of information in your particular sphere of competence.

As you say, I think we can presume “that similarly, authors of philosophical entries are professional philosophers”.

However, you quote Wikipedia as indicating :

« Einstein stated that he had sympathy for the impersonal pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza's philosophy. He did not believe in a personal God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings, a view which he described as naïve »

Doesn’t this classify him as a deist i.e., “belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator, who does not intervene in the universe” (OED definition) ?

If so, should I understand that by “pre-theist” you mean “deist” ?

As for Kant, I note that he figures in Wikipedia’s list of agnostics (as an “idealistic agnostic” in the section “philosophy”), for which I provided a link in my penultimate post.

According to the OED, an “idealistic agnostic” is "a person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of any mind-independent thing, including God".

Here is the link to the Wikipedia list of agnostics once again :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_agnostics

Should I understand that by the term “pre-theist” you also include “agnostics” ?

In other words, do you consider that deists and agnostics are both potential theists or what you call “pre-theists” ?

Sorry to insist, but, as you can see, I am a little confused.

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Posted by Banjo Paterson, Tuesday, 11 December 2018 12:39:52 AM
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Dear George,

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In case you missed it, here is an interesting article that just appeared in the South China Morning Post, entitled “Chinese scientists go in search of the soul with world’s most powerful brain scanner”.

For the time being, it’s just a (spectacular) announcement of intention, but maybe it will materialise in about ten or fifteen years’ time (hope we’ll still be around !)

Who knows, they might even come up with some interesting evidence of the existence of the hypothetical God we so often discourse about here on OLO, as I suggested in my post on page 3 of this thread :

« I consider that what you interpret as "transcendental aspects of reality" are simply mental or psychological projections of the observer, a figment of his or her imagination – which is why I suggested that such phenomena (projections of transcendence, God, etc.) are possibly already being investigated today, not by “contemporary natural scientists”, but by neuroscientists, or neurobiologists, working in association with psychologists, sociologists, philosophers and, perhaps, other specialists as well.

The reason being, of course, that such phenomena are more likely to be found, not in any observed reality, but in the minds of those particular observers, due to their personal biological, neurological and psychological processes »

Here is the link to the article :

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2177064/chinese-scientists-go-search-soul-worlds-most-powerful-brain?utm_medium=email&utm_source=mailchimp&utm_campaign=enlz-scmp_china&utm_content=20181210&MCUID=10f922cc72&MCCampaignID=ae8809223b&MCAccountID=3775521f5f542047246d9c827&tc=1

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Posted by Banjo Paterson, Tuesday, 11 December 2018 1:20:27 AM
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Dear Saltpetre,

You can find a standard interpretation of Genesis 1:27 (God created man in his own image etc) for instance in https://www.bibleref.com/Genesis/1/Genesis-1-27.html .

You raise many points, some are going against my understanding of God, e.g. as the Creator - hence not subject to - time. Most are justified, usually concerning the human element in religion that this article is not concerned with, and to address each one of them, even if I could satisfy you, would take more space and time. So I can only refer you to the metaphor from one of my previous posts about the usefulness vs harmfulness of a sharp knife.

A theist believes that God created the world including time in which his creation evolves since the Big Bang. An atheist believes the world is creating itself through evolution in time since the Big Bang. Natural evolution is part of that “global” evolution in both views.
Posted by George, Tuesday, 11 December 2018 9:06:18 AM
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Dear Banjo,

Kant is not mentioned in the list of agnostics you gave, and the Wikipedia entry about Kant you refer to contains the part I quoted before as well as:

“However, as Kant was skeptical about some of the arguments used prior to him in defence of theism and maintained that human understanding is limited and can never attain knowledge about God or the soul, various commentators have labelled him a philosophical agnostic.”

I presume the words God, belief/faith (no distinction in German) and knowledge appear many times in Kant’s writings but I do not think the word agnostic does. So you make your pick which philosopher/commentator you prefer.

An agnostic is by definition neither an atheist nor a pre-theist nor a theist - he/she is undecided or uncommitted, sits on the fence between atheist and pre-theist (or between pre-theist and theist in the sense “I believe in God but am not sure whether this or any religion can say anything about Him I could accept").

As for deists, I state explicitly in the article that “also pantheists, panentheists, deists, etc. satisfy the pre-theist assumption, since they all do not think God as such can be investigated by scientific methods.”.

As for the article about Chinese scientists, the first paragraph states:

“China has launched a plan to develop the world’s most powerful brain scanner, one that could generate an extremely strong magnetic field to observe for the first time the structure and activities of every neuron in a living human brain.”

If they succeed, that would be a scientific achievement that probably will tell us more about the “physics” of consciousness, but would have nothing to do with soul which by definition, if it exists, is beyond the reach of science. Saying they “search for the soul” may be a nice way to put it - like when Hawking says that he “would (like to) know the mind of God" - but is not a proper description of a scientific project.
Posted by George, Tuesday, 11 December 2018 9:12:24 AM
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Dear George,

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You wrote :

« Kant is not mentioned in the list of agnostics you gave »

He is when I open the link.

Here is a copy of the section where his name is listed :

Philosophy[edit]

Idealistic agnostics[edit]

Confucius (551 BC–479 BC): Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period of Chinese history. The philosophy of Confucius emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. His followers competed successfully with many other schools during the Hundred Schools of Thought era only to be suppressed in favor of the Legalists during the Qin Dynasty. Following the victory of Han over Chu after the collapse of Qin, Confucius's thoughts received official sanction and were further developed into a Chinese religious system known as Confucianism.[187][188][189]

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804): German philosopher; known for Critique of Pure Reason[190][191][192][193][194][195]

Laozi (604 BC?–?): Chinese religious philosopher; author of the Tao Te Ching; this association has led him to be traditionally considered the founder of philosophical religion Taoism[196]

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Posted by Banjo Paterson, Tuesday, 11 December 2018 9:46:36 AM
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Dear Banjo,

You are right I overlooked it.

As I said, we as laymen can chase quotes in support of this or that positrion concerning Kant and God. For instanece, in

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-religion/#GodOpuPos

you have "it should be recognized that Kant is not only not an atheist or agnostic, but he is not even a Deist. While theoretical reason is agnostic, and pure rational faith likewise is neutral with regards to any particular historical claim, Kant is clearly open to divine agency in the world."
Posted by George, Tuesday, 11 December 2018 10:04:51 AM
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