A Year Without God / A Year With God

[Chesterton]

Okay, what does meaning external to yourself (individually or collectively) look like, and how could that ever *not* become a horror show?

I honestly don't understand what you mean, why would that become a horror show?

The way I see it, the pursuit of happiness relies on being the best version of yourself, pursuing what is meaningful *to you*.

But I'm sure this is being the best version of myself.

Assimilating to somebody else's vision of what you ought to be is not only nearly impossible - even if you succeed, you have just forced yourself into a corset and bow underneath a yoke.
It is antithetical to a genuinely meaningful life, like being assigned a caste.

Speaking for myself, it felt a little unnatural at first, but it's not impossible. You find that the "corset" was what you were made for all along, since childhood, and it's both very comfortable and liberating.

As for meaning, no, what is antithetical to finding real meaning is trying making up your own. Your thread on Rand prompted me to read a famous old review of Atlas Shrugged by Whittaker Chambers, which sort of came to be considered the definitive response of Conservatism to Rand. (Long story short, he said the book sucked.) But here's a bit from the review which is relevant here. If you seek what you consider your own meaning, you're going to be seeking what pleases you. As he says, the pursuit of happiness turns into the pursuit of pleasure, which is merely animalistic, not noble, and ultimately cannot even be successful:

"Here occurs a little rub whose effects are just as observable in a free-enterprise system, which is in practice materialist (whatever else it claims or supposes itself to be), as they would be under an atheist socialism, if one were ever to deliver that material abundance that all promise. The rub is that the pursuit of happiness, as an end in itself, tends automatically, and widely, to be replaced by the pursuit of pleasure, with a consequent general softening of the fibers of will, intelligence, spirit. No doubt, Miss Rand has brooded upon that little rub. Hence in part, I presume, her insistence on man as a heroic being” With productive achievement as his noblest activity.” For, if Man’s heroism” (some will prefer to say: human dignity”) no longer derives from God, or is not a function of that godless integrity which was a root of Nietzsche’s anguish, then Man becomes merely the most consuming of animals, with glut as the condition of his happiness and its replenishment his foremost activity. So Randian Man, at least in his ruling caste, has to be held “heroic” in order not to be beastly."​

 

[Kevin.worthy]

There was a Christian theologian who spent a year pretending to be an atheist and soon discovered that he had actually transformed into an atheist. The theologian was Ryan J. Bell and he named the experiment "A Year Without God" ( Ryan J. Bell - Wikipedia ).

This started me wondering what would happen if I spent a year pretending to be a Christian - "A Year With God".

• Would I become a Christian again?
• Would I want to become a Christian again?
• What type of Christian beliefs would I want (progressive or fundamentalist, liturgical or non-liturgical, ...)?

To be honest, I suspect that I could transform myself into a Christian again simply by pretending to believe and immersing myself in a community and practices. I'm not a particularly organized and rigorous thinker, so it probably wouldn't be hard to confuse myself. I just don't know that I want to be a Christian again. I always thought that I missed being a Christian, but I think I only miss my past.

Assuming you could change your beliefs to convert to a different religious orientation would you want to? If so, what would be your preferred religious orientation?

I do not want to convert to a different religious orientation. I spent quite a while when I was younger studying different religions and I have been a Latter-Day Saint for more than 15 years now. I have been disappointed with the people in my church at times, but I have been blessed in so many ways because of my membership. I feel that God led me to this church and continues to bless me because of my loyalty to it. I have also found the church's focus on Christ to be extremely helpful to me. It helps me to remember to be charitable, and to stay focused on keeping God's commandments.

 

[cloudyday2]

I do not want to convert to a different religious orientation. I spent quite a while when I was younger studying different religions and I have been a Latter-Day Saint for more than 15 years now. I have been disappointed with the people in my church at times, but I have been blessed in so many ways because of my membership. I feel that God led me to this church and continues to bless me because of my loyalty to it. I have also found the church's focus on Christ to be extremely helpful to me. It helps me to remember to be charitable, and to stay focused on keeping God's commandments.

If it turned out that atheism was the truth would you feel that the real-life benefits of LDS membership justified the cost in money, time, ridicule, emotions, etc.?

EDIT: This is the question that faces an atheist when contemplating brainwashing himself/herself to believe in some religion. Are the real-life benefits worth the cost assuming the metaphysical claims are false? (The real-life benefits include things like a false assurance of God's love, life after death, etc. The feelings of joy, hope, peace, etc. are real even though the feelings might not be justified.)

 

[Silmarien]

If it turned out that atheism was the truth would you feel that the real-life benefits of LDS membership justified the cost in money, time, ridicule, emotions, etc.?

EDIT: This is the question that faces an atheist when contemplating brainwashing himself/herself to believe in some religion. Are the real-life benefits worth the cost assuming the metaphysical claims are false? (The real-life benefits include things like a false assurance of God's love, life after death, etc. The feelings of joy, hope, peace, etc. are real even though the feelings might not be justified.)

Atheism is unverifiable, so we'll never know if it's true. The only thing we could ever find out is that it's not true.

I deal with this question a lot, actually, though for me the options are theism and something that's closer to deism. I have no reason to reject divine revelation as a possibility, but I am aware that the human species could just be completely insane and reaching for something that's going to be eternally out of grasp. All things being equal, though, I really don't see the point in assuming the nihilistic option--to put it in Pascalian terms, you gain nothing by thinking like that, and could potentially lose out on everything. (Or at least on a relationship with God during this life.)

In any case, if God does not exist or is completely beyond human knowledge, I'll get nihilistic about the objective value of truth also. Why is fact more important than fiction, or truth better than a lie? Are we just programmed to care about transcendental ideas that have no extrinsic value in reality, and if so, why does it even matter if someone chooses to delude themselves into a set of false beliefs? Any atheist who sees horror in such a possibility ought to reevaluate their atheism, because they're still holding to objective values that are inconsistent with their beliefs, and that isn't terribly rational.

So... for me either God exists or truth does not, and the only reason I have for walking away is fear of being wrong. The stakes are either too high for that or completely nonexistent, so as far as I'm concerned, there really is only one choice. And the part of my brain that's clinging to agnosticism is falling more and more into nothingness as it feeds on its own nihilism.

 

[cloudyday2]

I'll respond to some things piecemeal. I'm not trying to pick apart your post, but I want to zoom-in on some areas.

Atheism is unverifiable, so we'll never know if it's true. The only thing we could ever find out is that it's not true.

If I defined God as a teapot in orbit around Mars, then we could verify atheism. However we can't verify atheism against an ever-changing definition of God, and we can't verify atheism against a definition of God that has no real-life implications, and so on. The problem is not atheism but the unwillingness or inability of theists to agree on a definition of God that has some solidity.

All things being equal, though, I really don't see the point in assuming the nihilistic option--to put it in Pascalian terms, you gain nothing by thinking like that, and could potentially lose out on everything. (Or at least on a relationship with God during this life.)

You gain many things by being an atheist instead of a Christian. You gain the money you might give to your church, you gain your Sunday mornings, you gain all kinds of things. Christianity is not free. I'm sure you agree with that ("take up your cross", etc). The same can be said about most other religions. Even seeking a relationship with God outside of a religion requires some effort - effort that the atheist can use for other things.

Why is fact more important than fiction, or truth better than a lie?

Because a meaningful fact or truth will result in the believer making decisions that are more likely to achieve the desired results.

... why does it even matter if someone chooses to delude themselves into a set of false beliefs?

The same reason that truth is better than lies. If my neighbor believes lies and makes stupider decisions, then it can potentially harm me. Just look at the problems caused by fundamentalists who object to the teaching of evolution in public schools. Everybody loses (assuming evolution is a good thing to learn of course - I know there are many members who disbelieve evolution for a variety of reasons).

So... for me either God exists or truth does not

I don't follow your reasoning unless you defined God to be truth.

 

[cloudyday2]

There is another implication of the potential for myself to become a Christian again by behaving like a Christian ("A Year With God" instead of a "A Year Without God"). The implication is that my reason for disbelieving in God might be no more reasonable than my potential reason for believing in God. Maybe I'm just reading the wrong books, behaving in the wrong way, etc. I'm not Bertrand Russell.

 

[Silmarien]

If I defined God as a teapot in orbit around Mars, then we could verify atheism. However we can't verify atheism against an ever-changing definition of God, and we can't verify atheism against a definition of God that has no real-life implications, and so on. The problem is not atheism but the unwillingness or inability of theists to agree on a definition of God that has some solidity.

If you defined God as a teapot orbiting Mars, we'd be talking about different things entirely.

The philosophical traditions of all the great theistic religions have very much agreed upon a definition. We're not talking about another object in the universe out there somewhere, but that which makes all existence possible. The fullness of being, the infinite consciousness that makes individual consciousness possible. This isn't an ever-changing definition; it's actually the classical one.

You could say many more things about the Christian God, of course. I'm not sure what you mean by having "solidity," though. I'm very suspicious of any God concept that does have real solidity, since I see anthropomorphism all over that, but seriously, if an atheist wants to fight me, they'd better get used to apophatic theology first. It's not invalid simply because it's slippery--those of us on the mystical side of theism have been thinking in these terms for millennia!

You gain many things by being an atheist instead of a Christian. You gain the money you might give to your church, you gain your Sunday mornings, you gain all kinds of things. Christianity is not free. I'm sure you agree with that ("take up your cross", etc). The same can be said about most other religions. Even seeking a relationship with God outside of a religion requires some effort - effort that the atheist can use for other things.

Well, I should specify that if you admire religious people and believe that Christianity offers a path that would lead to serious self-fulfillment, regardless of whether it's true or a matter of self-hypnosis, then you gain nothing by saying, "Well, I'm not sure if any of this is true so I'll go be an atheist instead."

I have a strong moral code that I'm pretty terrible at living up to, though, so Christianity doesn't really mean additional burdens at all. Obviously this will be different for different people, but things like meditation and contemplation are supposed to be good for you anyway, so if there are health benefits regardless of a religion's truth value, I don't see what you gain by expending that time in some random other pursuit. I think my anxiety levels have been dropping, actually.

Because a meaningful fact or truth will result in the believer making decisions that are more likely to achieve the desired results.

Not necessarily. A correct belief about unsustainable population growth could lead to eugenics or any number of other less than savory things.

The same reason that truth is better than lies. If my neighbor believes lies and makes stupider decisions, then it can potentially harm me. Just look at the problems caused by fundamentalists who object to the teaching of evolution in public schools. Everybody loses (assuming evolution is a good thing to learn of course - I know there are many members who disbelieve evolution for a variety of reasons).

I certainly accept evolution, but this is actually an interesting example, since I'm really not sure what societal value you could claim that knowledge of evolution has. People got along just fine believing that the sun went around the earth, after all. Scientific literacy is helpful for technological advances, but on the individual level, I don't see practical value to a lot of it. If I made up my own insane theories and called them quantum physics and never bothered anyone about them, I'm not sure what the problem would be.

I should specify that I'm not advocating against science--we just seem to be valuing truth for its own sake here, which is interesting.

don't follow your reasoning unless you defined God to be truth.

Ultimate truth, sure! My problem is more that I don't see why truth itself would have any value otherwise--there are situations where it's societally useful, true, but there are also situations where it is not. I don't see how you can avoid descending into a relativistic free for all where the "correct" thing to do is get as much as you can by whatever means you can at the expense of everyone else, while trying to trick the rest of society into continuing to behave in a moral manner. Perhaps it's evolutionarily beneficial to be moral, but you'd think that rising above evolution's constraints to truly embrace self-interest would be the way to go.

Again, not advocating this, and I frankly think it's unhealthy to think like this, but even if it is all a matter of evolution, it's an interesting bit of wiring.

[Edit] I should specify that I don't think that appeals to transcendental values are valid arguments for the existence of God. This is why my personal dilemma is between theism and deism, because I see an epistemological nightmare surrounding this particular question. Not really sure what I gain in insisting upon moral nihilism simply because I can't disprove it, though. Except depression, I suppose.

There is another implication of the potential for myself to become a Christian again by behaving like a Christian ("A Year With God" instead of a "A Year Without God"). The implication is that my reason for disbelieving in God might be no more reasonable than my potential reason for believing in God. Maybe I'm just reading the wrong books, behaving in the wrong way, etc. I'm not Bertrand Russell.

I would be careful trying to jump back into Christianity again without serious deliberation--swinging back and forth from one extreme to the other seems unhealthy. But you do seem a bit irrationally attached to one particular point of view right now, so starting to read stuff from the other point of view would help balance things.

 

[MehGuy]

Did you have to kill @Wayholka, put his head on the wall and make a rug of his body?

Hey.. I eventually put him back together.. and he's making new comics again. Everything is fine now.

> : ( Lol.

On a serious note, I am actually incredibly sad that you have had this experience with "us." I have had similar experiences, which influenced my decisions to oscillate between faith. It can be commonplace that "believers" don't act exactly like Christ. I am sure/hoping that you know it is pretty much impossible to reach His standard, but to feel estranged from a group that prides itself on welcoming the worst of the worst is ridiculous.

Plenty of Christians were nice to me, and I had many Christian friends. I attended pretty much every social event the church had. Youth group, various camping trips. Just that when it came to talking about theology and spirituality I was miles apart from everyone else. Since I was clearly out numbered I kept my mouth shut most of the time, lol.

Although sometimes it was nice going to a verse in the Bible that none of my youth group friends knew existed and point it out to them. They'd often remark "I'm not sure what kind of Bible you're reading.. where do you get this stuff?" Sadly my interactions with Christians online was often less pleasant. So much so, towards the end of my faith I thought that it was better to hear an atheist preach about the Gospel than a Christian. An atheist will provide a more raw and honest commentary and not try to twist everything down to a sugar coated level, lol.

It was also kind of sad that I never had any Christian role models to look up to. No preacher I enjoyed googling sermons from. Or Christian author to inspire me. The only Christians I can find common ground with are various dead monks and nuns, many whom have been dead for centuries and are now only occasionally talked about by psychologists for being peculiar and interesting oddballs of history. Lol.

 

[Zoness]

I sort of take back what I said earlier in the sense of returning to my religious roots. I said there would be a lot of social currency to gain but I don't think that's true. Most of those people wouldn't care for me again anyways as they've moved on.

I've never really jived well with church groups, really. Politics is part of it but it's more so interests and approach to life. I feel like I'm being inspected by my boss all the time. I've met good people over the years but I just don't seem to jive well in those settings.

 

[Ygrene Imref]

I sort of take back what I said earlier in the sense of returning to my religious roots. I said there would be a lot of social currency to gain but I don't think that's true. Most of those people wouldn't care for me again anyways as they've moved on.

I've never really jived well with church groups, really. Politics is part of it but it's more so interests and approach to life. I feel like I'm being inspected by my boss all the time. I've met good people over the years but I just don't seem to jive well in those settings.

That is unfortunate to hear, truly.

 

[Ygrene Imref]

Hey.. I eventually put him back together.. and he's making new comics again. Everything is fine now.

> : ( Lol.



Plenty of Christians were nice to me, and I had many Christian friends. I attended pretty much every social event the church had. Youth group, various camping trips. Just that when it came to talking about theology and spirituality I was miles apart from everyone else. Since I was clearly out numbered I kept my mouth shut most of the time, lol.

Although sometimes it was nice going to a verse in the Bible that none of my youth group friends knew existed and point it out to them. They'd often remark "I'm not sure what kind of Bible you're reading.. where do you get this stuff?" Sadly my interactions with Christians online was often less pleasant. So much so, towards the end of my faith I thought that it was better to hear an atheist preach about the Gospel than a Christian. An atheist will provide a more raw and honest commentary and not try to twist everything down to a sugar coated level, lol.

It was also kind of sad that I never had any Christian role models to look up to. No preacher I enjoyed googling sermons from. Or Christian author to inspire me. The only Christians I can find common ground with are various dead monks and nuns, many whom have been dead for centuries and are now only occasionally talked about by psychologists for being peculiar and interesting oddballs of history. Lol.

Have you found success in conversing with a Christian on here - where you feel free and not judged?

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

There is another implication of the potential for myself to become a Christian again by behaving like a Christian ("A Year With God" instead of a "A Year Without God"). The implication is that my reason for disbelieving in God might be no more reasonable than my potential reason for believing in God. Maybe I'm just reading the wrong books, behaving in the wrong way, etc. I'm not Bertrand Russell.

Doubt is good.

I'm confident that if there is a deity, and said deity
a) is benevolent,
b) wants to establish contact/a good relationship, and
c) knows me better than I know myself,
I will receive just the information I need in order to see where my train of thought in establishing that personal deities are silly concepts went off the rails. I mean, for a deity that's less effort than for an adult to teach a child that colorful pills aren't candy.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

Personally, I didn't reject Christianity out of hand. My alienation from my childhood religion occurred when I started to study it more closely, and progressed the more I learned about it. Reading the Bible, reading apologetic literature, frequenting these forums: all of these gradually weaned me of a theistic cosmology where literal personal deities (who just so happen to feel, think, and act like homo sapiens) intervene with reality by supernatural means.
It wasn't a linear process, either.
This forum, especially (along with Chick tracts and street preachers) exposed me to a Christianity that was so toxic, I had a hard time relating to more moderate, liberal, or non-fundamentalist Christianity in a positive fashion. I purged some of that hostility by reading up on Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart or St. John of the Cross, and finding some common ground again.

 

[cloudyday2]

If you defined God as a teapot orbiting Mars, we'd be talking about different things entirely.

The philosophical traditions of all the great theistic religions have very much agreed upon a definition. We're not talking about another object in the universe out there somewhere, but that which makes all existence possible. The fullness of being, the infinite consciousness that makes individual consciousness possible. This isn't an ever-changing definition; it's actually the classical one.

That's not how I see it. If you read Genesis you can see various imaginings of God (partly due to the mixing of different traditions into the Torah and the ancientness of those traditions). God opens gates of heaven to flood-out the world. Jacob wrestles with God's angel (originally God Himself according to most scholars) and God begs Jacob to release Him before sunrise. There I see God as a Solar deity who rides the skies on His fiery horses.

What we have is a ever-growing knowledge of nature and an ever-shrinking and increasingly nebulous definition of God ("God is the smile on the face of a newborn", etc.). I don't know about apophatic versus cataphatic statements in theology. There are probably a larger number of true apophatic statements that can be made about something inconsequential, and the popularity of apophatic theology probably should be a hint that there is a problem underlying the religion IMO.

BTW, in my previous post I claimed that truth was superior to falsehood, because it would lead to better decision-making. I thought more about this claim, and I realized it's not obvious. Most people define truth to be based on objective reality. Our brains sense this reality and note patterns of "cause and effect" for future decision making. But I suspect there are certain classes of falsehoods that will lead to better decision making than truths. Islam and religion in general might be such a falsehood. The Arabs conquered their neighbors and grew fat on the spoils. It didn't matter if Islam was true.

I'm kind of out of it today, so that's all I can write.

 

[Silmarien]

That's not how I see it. If you read Genesis you can see various imaginings of God (partly due to the mixing of different traditions into the Torah and the ancientness of those traditions).

Absolutely! Genesis is interesting, but there are definitely competing concepts of God threading their way through the Old Testament, some of which draw more from paganism than others. This is why I said the philosophical traditions--once people start wrestling with what all of this actually means, various religions end up with a lot more common ground than you'd think.

What we have is a ever-growing knowledge of nature and an ever-shrinking and increasingly nebulous definition of God ("God is the smile on the face of a newborn", etc.). I don't know about apophatic versus cataphatic statements in theology. There are probably a larger number of true apophatic statements that can be made about something inconsequential, and the popularity of apophatic theology probably should be a hint that there is a problem underlying the religion IMO.

Apophatic theology isn't terribly popular. Western Christianity kind of forgot it existed, and even if it were popular, I'm not sure why that would hint to a problem with religion any more than the popularity of the scientific method would mean there was a problem with science.

We do have an ever-growing knowledge of nature, it's true, but the lack of education in philosophy and theology also means that we have absolutely no idea what we're talking about when it comes to the types of questions science can't answer. So we end up with a very lopsided picture of reality, no appreciation for our own epistemological limitations, and a tendency to look down on everyone who isn't us as unsophisticated--this goes for both other cultures and other time periods. In some ways, I think the Ancient Greeks were actually more sophisticated.

BTW, in my previous post I claimed that truth was superior to falsehood, because it would lead to better decision-making. I thought more about this claim, and I realized it's not obvious. Most people define truth to be based on objective reality. Our brains sense this reality and note patterns of "cause and effect" for future decision making. But I suspect there are certain classes of falsehoods that will lead to better decision making than truths. Islam and religion in general might be such a falsehood. The Arabs conquered their neighbors and grew fat on the spoils. It didn't matter if Islam was true.

It's worth noting that we have no direct knowledge of "objective reality." All we know is what our senses provide us, with no way of determining how well that matches up to what's actually out there. Our brains are creating our reality as much as they're sensing it. Existing in the world is always an act of interpreting it, and once you're involved in interpretation, truth becomes a slippery concept indeed.

 

[cloudyday2]

Apophatic theology isn't terribly popular. Western Christianity kind of forgot it existed, and even if it were popular, I'm not sure why that would hint to a problem with religion any more than the popularity of the scientific method would mean there was a problem with science.

What I mean is ... let's take two scenarios:

(1) You name me "God". You can create various cataphatic and apophatic statements about me. It's probably easier to make cataphatic statements, because you know my history ("God likes cats and references them often in his revelations to humans"). It's not so clear what isn't true about me, because you can only guess my unexibited capabilities and attributes and preferences. (You can make apophatic statements that are the negation of cataphatic statements based on my past behavior, but that is cheating IMO.)

(2) "God" doesn't exist except in fiction. You can create almost any apophatic statement about God and it will be true as long as it doesn't contradict any other statements you previously made about God. In fact, in theology you can even make contradictory statements and they will only enhance the mystique of God. However, you must be very cautious about cataphatic statements with real world consequences, because some skeptic might prove them false.

So it seems to me that when God is fiction, apophatic becomes the preferred form of theology. The growing popularity of apophatic theology hints to me that we are dealing with fiction.

 

[Robban]

What I mean is ... let's take two scenarios:

(1) You name me "God". You can create various cataphatic and apophatic statements about me. It's probably easier to make cataphatic statements, because you know my history ("God likes cats and references them often in his revelations to humans"). It's not so clear what isn't true about me, because you can only guess my unexibited capabilities and attributes and preferences. (You can make apophatic statements that are the negation of cataphatic statements based on my past behavior, but that is cheating IMO.)

(2) "God" doesn't exist except in fiction. You can create almost any apophatic statement about God and it will be true as long as it doesn't contradict any other statements you previously made about God. In fact, in theology you can even make contradictory statements and they will only enhance the mystique of God. However, you must be very cautious about cataphatic statements with real world consequences, because some skeptic might prove them false.

So it seems to me that when God is fiction, apophatic becomes the preferred form of theology. The growing popularity of apophatic theology hints to me that we are dealing with fiction.

"It,s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction,

fiction has to make sense."

(Mark Twain)

 

[Silmarien]

What I mean is ... let's take two scenarios:

(1) You name me "God". You can create various cataphatic and apophatic statements about me. It's probably easier to make cataphatic statements, because you know my history ("God likes cats and references them often in his revelations to humans"). It's not so clear what isn't true about me, because you can only guess my unexibited capabilities and attributes and preferences. (You can make apophatic statements that are the negation of cataphatic statements based on my past behavior, but that is cheating IMO.)

(2) "God" doesn't exist except in fiction. You can create almost any apophatic statement about God and it will be true as long as it doesn't contradict any other statements you previously made about God. In fact, in theology you can even make contradictory statements and they will only enhance the mystique of God. However, you must be very cautious about cataphatic statements with real world consequences, because some skeptic might prove them false.

So it seems to me that when God is fiction, apophatic becomes the preferred form of theology. The growing popularity of apophatic theology hints to me that we are dealing with fiction.

There's no need to use apophatic language to talk about you, unless you're actually a Lovecraftian horror and nobody's noticed.

You have to remember that properly understood, God is not considered an object in the universe. He doesn't exist in the same way that finite beings exist--if he did, he'd be contingent upon something greater for his own existence and we'd be talking about the wrong god. This isn't a matter of retreating in the face of skepticism; it's a theological necessity. So those who prefer apophatic over cataphatic theology aren't part of some conspiracy to only make the sort of statement that can't be proved false; we believe that God is in a real sense unknowable and inconceivable, and that theology ought to reflect that.

You can find a ton of this type of thinking in Patristics, so it has nothing to do with modern day atheism. If it's making a real comeback today, it probably has more to do with people being attracted to mysticism than people thinking God is fictional and needing to retreat to some more nebulous concept. The more apophatic you are, the less likely you are to be threatened by skepticism at all.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

There's no need to use apophatic language to talk about you, unless you're actually a Lovecraftian horror and nobody's noticed.

You have to remember that properly understood, God is not considered an object in the universe. He doesn't exist in the same way that finite beings exist--if he did, he'd be contingent upon something greater for his own existence and we'd be talking about the wrong god. This isn't a matter of retreating in the face of skepticism; it's a theological necessity. So those who prefer apophatic over cataphatic theology aren't part of some conspiracy to only make the sort of statement that can't be proved false; we believe that God is in a real sense unknowable and inconceivable, and that theology ought to reflect that.

You can find a ton of this type of thinking in Patristics, so it has nothing to do with modern day atheism. If it's making a real comeback today, it probably has more to do with people being attracted to mysticism than people thinking God is fictional and needing to retreat to some more nebulous concept. The more apophatic you are, the less likely you are to be threatened by skepticism at all.

Lovecraft? EWWWWWW!!!!

2PhiloVoid

 

[Chesterton]

What we have is a ever-growing knowledge of nature and an ever-shrinking and increasingly nebulous definition of God ("God is the smile on the face of a newborn", etc.). I don't know about apophatic versus cataphatic statements in theology. There are probably a larger number of true apophatic statements that can be made about something inconsequential, and the popularity of apophatic theology probably should be a hint that there is a problem underlying the religion IMO.

Think about what you're saying in regard to Christianity. Christians make the most concrete rock solid claims you can make- we know God walked the earth as a man, at a certain point in time, we have his words and actions in writing. Christianity has the least nebulous, and the most clear, idea of God there is.

What Silmarien is saying is true about apophatic theology, and I'd like to add one thing - that it keeps error from slipping in over time. We have the truth, and we build a fence around it to protect it, and we don't let in human speculation which can become heresy. God has revealed what He chose to reveal, so we don't try to "figure out" what else we can find on our own. That's a big part of the importance of apophatic theology. It's not that we're avoiding saying things about God. We say a lot about God, you can start with the New Testament.