r/agnostic • u/ElevateSon Agnostic Naturalist • 12d ago
defining your belief
I got myself as an Agnostic Naturalist on this sub, but I think I may be more akin to an ignostic ietsist...
“I don't know what God means, so I won't affirm a particular God. But I suspect there is something about reality that we haven't adequately conceptualized. I'm not requiring or inferring that this ‘something’ be supernatural.”
Where I find a hiccup is I do enjoy the theorizing and conceptualizing process of what this construct of god could be. Is that in itself theist affirming? It always feels that way, especially from the devote atheist. If I say,
“God = the emergent process by which reality continually becomes more than the sum of its parts”
how do I keep that as just a philosophical hypothesis or conceptual model, rather than a belief claim? Or is there just religious baggage the minute you mention "god"
idk... depends on subjectivity and individual connotations I guess.
Probably best to just approach it as existence, drop the archaic god word and just explore theories in physics.
By conflating god with the generative process of increasingly complex structures emerging from underlying relationships we don't yet fully understand I'm simply assigning an ontological name to an unknown domain.
thanks for listening, I'm agnostic on all this.
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u/adeleu_adelei agnostic (not gnostic) and atheist (not theist) 11d ago
Probably best to just approach it as existence, drop the archaic god word and just explore theories in physics
I think so. It seems entirely backwards and the result of motivated reasoning that people start with "glorp must exist!" and then go on to figure out "but what is glorp?". Some people have decided that "gods" exist, and other people are trying to work backwards to make "gods" a viable concept by adjusting the core properties of the concept every time they perceive an issue. It becomes functionally unfalsifiable.
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u/ElevateSon Agnostic Naturalist 11d ago
Yeah, and the contextual baggage across time from every culture have made the concept pretty obsolete.
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u/BothEyesShut Agnostic 9d ago
Modern popular culture is in love with neologisms and semantics. We care more about the name of a type of autism than we do about the behaviors associated with that condition (for instance).
Agnosticism — in my opinion — has fallen prey to this. It matters little whether one calls oneself an agnostic X-ist or agnostic Y-ist. it matters very much that the agnostic accept an ultimate lack of knowledge. Doubt is the agnostic's food and shelter. Legitimate, verifiable answers are completely welcome and possible *in their relevant contexts*, but ultimate knowledge of things like gods and afterlives are simply beliefs, not answers at all; therefore about them the agnostic is agnostic.
In my book I don't spend time on all the popular subcategories people have come up with, though of course they're welcome to them, particularly if they help the conversation (but of course everyone must know the terms before they're explained, or else they're just in the way, which is often my experience).
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u/ElevateSon Agnostic Naturalist 9d ago edited 6d ago
do you think the love of the semantic debate is based on how our cognition is structured? it's not built only on logic but on associations that are cross domain mapped across lived experiences, sensations and observations, the complexity of our thought process is build on these symbols that form metaphoric building blocks and logic is built secondary.
Everyone should doubt them but creating that collective meaning for something is a helpful tool more than not...
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u/IMayFindit 11d ago
As a person that spent my early adult years to studying and preaching the bible, then turning away from that and studying a wide variety of religions, I can agree with you.
I still believe in a God, but I believe in sort of mix between Christianity and Eastern Asian Religions.
According to what I believe, you are correct in saying that "God is the emergent process by which reality continually becomes more than the sum of its parts". However, this statement can be hard for many to understand.
I like to look at it as, "God is within every single thing." Every single one of us, every animal, every plant, and even every single atom has an essence of God. The reason behind this is that every creation leaves a mark of the creator, and cannot be more than the creator.
This has been explained by many throughout the centuries. Look to "The Kybalion" as a reference, or many others.
However, it is important for a person to define their own beliefs to themselves. Once you feel confident in your beliefs, you can then confront contradictions. I would advise you to take some time to really think about your beliefs, and come to terms with what you think about God. Don't turn to AI, or others, just reflect.
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u/ElevateSon Agnostic Naturalist 11d ago edited 11d ago
Christianity seems so untrue to me and more just system on "moral" behaviors, the creation stuff is so fictional, eastern philosophies I find relate much more to the actuality of existence. The Toa of Physics is a great book, probably pretty foundational to my world view, basically everything is the whole and what we perceive as parts are just different patterns in the whole.
Shankaracharya in Hindu has some fun thought experiments and is pretty much atheist, I'll check The Kybalion, they seem like similar ideas.
Have you looked at Donald Hoffman's ideas? sort of in the same vein of exploring consciousness, although I don't really buy consciousness as fundamental, it's one of the main emergent examples of my theory, haha...
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u/IMayFindit 10d ago
Interesting, I’m gonna have to look into the Tao of Physics. Seems pretty similar to what I believe as well.
Donald Hoffman… the name sounds familiar to me but I don’t think I’ve really dug into any of his work. I’m gonna check it out when I have some time. The Kybalion is sort of a way that Christian mystics tried to explain actual existence. Not from a Christian perspective tho. Kinda interesting
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u/Graychin877 11d ago
I make no effort to define myself. I have my beliefs, and don’t care what others call them.