Having read and listened to the thoughts of many “spiritual but not religious” people, I have come to believe it is nothing short of self or ideological-deification. No matter whether they profess to believe in God(s) or some higher power, the end is the same. They ultimately extol themselves or their ideas a degree of godhood. It may sound presumptuous of me to claim that someone who professes a belief in a God(s) or higher power do not actually believe in God, (not a real God anyway). In fact how is it anyone can say you do not believe what you believe? How could someone make any claim to know that? What gives it away is in the details.
I actually have the most difficult conversations with ‘spiritual but not religious’ people. I think one reason for this, is a lack of foundation for their belief system. They do not seem to have a set of beliefs which are interconnected and interdependent, but rather individual beliefs which form a collage from different worldviews, mixed with a few of their own alterations. For example, some select Eastern religious ideas such as karma and reincarnation mixed with Jesus as a good and moral teacher. Not the Jesus who said “go and sin no more”, or “unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins”. No, it is the Jesus who said “love your neighbor” and “judge not”. Their idea of God is an all loving (read: only loving), all forgiving (read: never condemning) God. In cases of belief in a heaven and or hell, the latter is not usually affirmed.
Whatever the religious snippets happen to be, they are nothing short of a collection of desires. Desires they foist upon the object of their worship giving no credence as to whether the qualities they attribute to their God are actually true, in the objective sense. Present in the Spiritual Atheist’s religious worldview is religious pluralism or relativism. One problem I see with this view, is it assumes religion/God is not something which can be really true. After all, if you can pick and choose, affirm or deny at will the qualities and properties of your object of worship, it does not exist outside your mind. The Spiritual Atheist relies heavily on their feelings, desires, and experience to define their God(s) or higher powers. Rather than making an attempt to discover, they define. I often wonder how it escapes the Spiritual Atheist that their God’s qualities and properties change as their political, social, and spiritual outlooks change. It would seem, if God is real, we would have no authority or ability to change God according to our new-found tastes.
So why do I call them ‘Spiritual Atheists’ if I am acknowledging they believe in a deity, and that they themselves claim this belief? The answer starts with the fact that we (humans) are not God. The Spiritual Atheist in defining their God, assign arbitrarily qualities and properties to the deity. In effect creating an idea rather than discovering details. With no foundation other than their personally invented beliefs, their object of worship is non-existent. –For the sake of this discussion I assume God exists, and by definition, there can only be one maximally great being.– So God, like you and I, is very particular. In reality, you and I have qualities and properties which are specific to us. Such that too great a variance in description would mean you are speaking of someone else. In the same way, too far a departure from describing the actual God, you venture away from God and into the realm of abstract ideas.
So in worshipping their desires and ideas disguised as God, they really are not worshipping anything real. The most you could say is Spiritual Atheists are worshipping themselves, bringing us back to the reality that we (humans) are not God(s) and therefore are not worshipping God at all. The focus of their worship being on an abstract idea puts them in the position of not actually worshipping anything at all.
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Related Article: Do Differences Matter?, Do You Believe…Really?
Sifting Reality 
John, how well put. Grand post! Couldn’t agree with you more.
God is more than an abstract idea or a belief. There can be no true worship without a person.
Let’s see there are how many world religions? Not to mention the many that have gone extinct with the destruction of peoples. So your religion is correct because you have a book to go off of? Because it’s 2000 years old? Because it was the religion YOU were raised in? But can you actually PROVE your religion is any more than someone’s “Spiritual Atheinism” from 2000 years ago that they wrote down and now we follow because we are taught are whole lives that we have the TRUTH? How come religion isn’t a bunch of Spiritual Atheists who happen to be following the same rules? Rules set for them not necessarily out of rationality, but because these are the rules that others have told them will get them to heaven.
I’d like to make just a few quick points. The number of religions the world’s populous adheres to is irrelevant to any of them being true or false. We do not determine truth by counting noses. I also see that you make a few presumptions, such as the idea that “my” religion is correct because I have a book to go by, or the age of the particular religion, or that I may have been raised in my particular religious system (which I was not by the way, though my parents sporadically allowed me to go to church with my grandparents, or every few years took me to an Easter or Christmas service. The household I grew up in was neutral towards religion in general. My father, is apparently an atheist, something I did not know until I became a Christian, which was not until my mid to late 20’s. Up until that time I was a functioning agnostic who had never put any thought into God or religion; which explains the lack of religious atmosphere). Maybe sometime we can discuss epistemology, perhaps at Thanksgiving ;)
Kelsey, I would have to ask what you mean by prove? I can offer solid evidence for the tenets of my religious beliefs, i.e. historical, logical, and philosophical reasons for holding the beliefs I do. So yes I can prove my beliefs are true, but I certainly cannot compel you or anyone else to believe it any more than you can compel someone to believe you had scrambled eggs for breakfast if they do not want to believe it. Any bit of evidence someone can simply gainsay.
The reason I referred to “Spiritual Atheists” as such is the propensity to make it up according to their current political, social, and emotional states. And many, if not most will candidly admit it. “Because that’s what I believe, that’s why!” is a very common rejoinder I encounter in my dealings with Spiritual Atheists.
but you don’t see the monumental ego involved in proclaiming your religion and your god to be the one true god?
My ego is irrelevant to whether my point is true. Do you see any monumental aspects for you or any atheist to claim 90+% of everyone who ever lived is delusional in believing in a non-existent God? Do you see how your or my attitude really doesn’t have any bearing on whether our arguments are true?
for thousands of years most of the humans on the world believed the world was flat
for 1500 years the Christians taught that the earth was the center of the universe and defended that belief by executing as heretics anyone that argued otherwise.
The Christian faiths have been fighting the advance of science for 2000 years.
Every time science makes an advance that flies in the face of doctrine the scientists are branded as heretics.
I discount everything religion claims.
You should do a little moreg che king into how christianity furthered the scientific enterprise. Additionally your objections are quite thick with fallacies
yes, advances in science
like trial by ordeal? Where a person accused of heresy woulld have their hand held to a fire. If they were innocent god would protect him and no harm would come from the fire. Funny how 100% of those accused were guilty.
Or maybe you meant the the swimming of witches?
Perhaps the advances in the science of torture during the Spanish inquisition?
If you want to talk innocent deaths under worldviews, you lose the argument. But perhaps you could argue without using logical fallacies. Or perhaps you could explain what this has to do with the original commentary. I think I should have included this in “the price of tea in China “
This seems to me to perfectly describe RCC doctrine. Instead of injecting their own biases onto their “God”, Catholics inject the Papacy’s biases. They also add a dash of Sainthood, a sprinkling of indulgences and confession, a pinch of Mary worship- essentially bastardizing Biblical Christianity.
This post does not, however, help explain Glenn’s point on Facebook. I wonder if you would prefer to defend his thesis- since you seem to want to bolster it by pointing me to this post?
Glen’s point wasn’t about Catholicism per se, you injected that into it. He then was trying to communicate that Catholicism is heretical and apostate. This would speak more to other religious systems and “spiritual” people.
I’m not debating any of that. I did inject Catholicism into the debate- precisely because I knew that the extension of his logic was faulty.
I get that Catholicism is heretical to just about everyone except Catholics. It was a purposeful choice to contrast it with Mormonism.
Given all that- are you prepared to agree with and defend Glenn’s root assertion that Obama is both religiously BLT and effectively atheist- which is what prompted me to require this distinction?
Given Glenn now claiming that his distinction between LDS and the RCC is “pointing to another God” (I’m not claiming that this is the only possible distinction of an “effectively atheist” theology- but bear in mind it is the only one Glenn has forwarded thus far), would you care to explain what makes BLT point to “another God” or explain what alternate criteria makes BLT “effectively atheist” so that we might investigate whether that assertion is true or not?
You don’t have to defend Glenn or his arguments- but stepping in on his behalf to bolster his argument, coupled with your unwillingness to disavow yourself of them, leads me to believe that you support them in some sense.
Conversely, you might just be unwilling to stand up to someone who is traditionally an ideological ally on Facebook…..
George
It seems that Glen’s position is that BLT (Black Liberation Theology) reportedly views God in a different way than that of traditional Christianity or Catholicism. I haven’t studied BLT enough to know all the theological nuances to confirm or deny any heretical beliefs regarding the person of Jesus, so I can’t speak on it. As far as I have been able to find — because it is not a well documented movement aside from the books of its founders Cone and Hopkins, they believe Jesus was black and that he has and does come to Earth and mingle in human affairs. Of course, traditional Christianity does not teach that Jesus comes and mingles amid humanity, so that is heretical (would “violate” the belief there is a second coming yet to happen).
But the idea is that if one varies enough from the biblical description of who Jesus is, then it could be said that it is another Jesus all together. I’m supposing this is Glen’s point. That BLT in fact varies enough, to the point where it is another Jesus. If that is true, then in essense, they are not worshipping the God who actually exists, thus not actually truly worshipping a god at all — because only one exists.
But I have no problem butting heads with a supporter of mine. After all, the post on the days of Genesis got pretty heated.
Though I don’t claim to be an expert on BLT- I am having trouble finding sources for the claims you made above. I found specific sources where Cone claims that Jesus was not white with blue eyes (this is certainly-if Jesus were a real historical figure-true) yet I see nowhere where they claim he is specifically black. I also could not find references for BLT claiming that Jesus mingles on Earth.
My understanding of this is that BLT is a culturally specific branch of Christianity that has a rather socialist slant. This alone does not make me think it is heretical.
If it could be established that BLT took as a matter of faith that Jesus has returned to Earth and mingled with mankind- I could be persuaded to agree with Glenn’s assesment. Given that Dwight Hopkins is an ordained American Baptist Minister it seems reasonable to be suspicious of such a claim- given that openly forwarding a heresy would disclude him from Baptist Ordination.
As it stands I cannot but view Glenn’s argument as being “if you forward any theological views that Glenn hasn’t found to be of redeeming social value you are an effective atheist”. I have been shown no proof that BLT has any views that could be called heretical. I have many reasons to call RCC a heresy- yet Glenn seems content to say that their heresies are not sufficient to cast them as “EFFECTIVELY” atheist. He simultaneously claims that there are unmentioned things that make BLT a sufficient heresy to meet that designation.
How can Glenn list heresies in RCC doctrine and say it is acceptable- then list no specific heresies in BLT yet claim it unacceptable? Can you understand my suspicion that something seems wrong here?
George
I got it from Big Encyclopedia. I relied on wikipedia for a few details since I have no plans of studying BLT any time soon. But it is something I hear — from the more militant black professing Christians — that Jesus was a black man. jesus was not black, he was Palestinian. Black hair, brown eyes, olive-colored skin. He most certainly was not the blond-haired blue-eyed caucasian which is present in so many portraits inside Christian and Catholic churches.
If BLT posits that Jesus has returned and mingles with humanity, that is heretical. I fully understand your suspicion, but I don’t know enough about the movement other than it trends toward racism to make an official declaration.
Reading through your link, I’m still not seeing any reference to Jesus revealing himself bodily after the conclusion of the Gospels. Do you have a specific reference for this claim or am I missing the mention of it in your reference link?
If you can find an annotated reference to the claim I am more than willing to do my own research on it.
I don’t doubt that a historical Jesus would have been Middle Eastern looking. If he were white that would have been more awesome to contemporary Palestinians than claiming to be the son of God, and would certainly have bore mention in the writings of the Gospels. Though there are no specific quotes in the Wiki that imply Cone or Hopkins say Jesus was a Moor, there is much to like in what they are quoted as saying.
The quotes I’m reading seem logical and even handed, though I am aware as anyone that religion often becomes a justification for existing social prejudices. I suspect that many religious movements with a homogenous membership tend to take on the values of the majority of congregants.
Well Jesus, after the resurrection was around, it’s recorded in acts. It seems that when he is quoted as saying “He enters human affairs” I could have hastily taken that to mean something other than what he meant by it. It really shows my ignorance of BLT. I just wish I was more interested in it to read up on it. For all I know they could be theologically orthodox and just rude and racist. I really don’t know. Maybe Glen will offer something.