Impersonal God and Religious Naturalism

[Cheerful Charlie]

Recent surveys by Pew show that many people who self identify as Christians do not believe in a personal God. 26% of self identified theists believe in God as an impersonal force.

A little poking around has led me to the concept of religious naturalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_naturalism

Most odd. There seems then to be some sort of religious movement going on under our noses, but to what extent I can't say. I just want to throw this out since it interests me that there seems to be a lot of something going on, that may be worth knowing about.

Googling religious naturalism seems to pull up a lot of sites pushing this idea. There has always been some oddball ideas about religion burbling along in America, we may think back to the big to do made over the rise of neo-paganism a decade ago, but this seems to all have deeper roots and more numbers than Wiccans and neo-pagans do.

To tell the truth, I was somewhat startled to see 26% of theists in America may not believe in a personal, orthodox God. A 2006 study from Baylor, Piety in the 21st Century showed 15% of self identified Christians believing in an impersonal God as a force. So this is not totally new. There seems to be something of a movement away from standard Christianity. Deism, pantheism, impersonal Gods, process/open theology and who knows what else.

Anyway, heads up friends. Something strange is going on.

 

[abaddon]

The article describes naturalists who consider their feelings, perceptions and moral sensibilities to be religious — not dogmatic, not superstitious, not deistic or theistic, but just coinciding with the feelings/perceptions/behaviors commonly associated with religion — feelings like awe and wonder, perceptions like the sacredness of nature, behaviors like acts of devotion to the beloved - which is nature.

There are varieties of religious naturalist, as noted in the article, but none accepts a God or force that’s beyond science’s knowing or they wouldn’t be naturalists. So, among the ones that might use theistic language, they’re trying to sum up all the material universe as a whole or referring to some specific aspect of it like its creativity.

Loyal Rue sums up the tenets well: “Religious naturalists will be known for their reverence and awe before Nature, their love for Nature and natural forms, their sympathy for all living things, their guilt for enlarging the ecological footprints, their pride in reducing them, their sense of gratitude directed towards the matrix of life, their contempt for those who abstract themselves from natural values, and their solidarity with those who link their self-esteem to sustainable living.” (quoted from the already linked Wikipedia article).

Cheerful Charlie, your focus on a God, though an impersonal one, may come from needlessly linking God and religion as if they're inseparable. Remember, there are nontheist/nondeist religious people in the world.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I do not necessarily link religion to God. There are in fact a lot of religions that are not theistic, Buddhism for example.
Of course, I am in Texas, overrun by fundamentalists, creationists et al, so the idea that up to 26% of people regard themselves as Christians but do not believe in a personal God and are explicit about that strikes me as remarkable. Where does that come from? Something is going on here but what? It seems to be a massive shift in religious attitude that has slipped under the radar.

I doubt people are reading Spinoza in large masses, or are accepting Process Theology, or are converting to Taoism.
I wonder what the hell that 26% means by that. I wonder where people are getting that idea. I may have to do some googling You Tube for Religious Naturalism stuff to see if people are getting some of this from the Internet. Who knows?

I am always interested in the sociology of religion, so this is interesting because it seems to me to be a rather large shift in the thinking of a large segment of the population.

Could it be that many of those who self describe themselves as Christian mean merely culturally Christian? It's something that has got me wondering, what is going on here? Some of this seems to have deep and old roots, New England transcedentalism.

Anyway, it's a challenge to figure out what is going on, and I have no idea where this rabbit hole leads. I therefore am going to try not to rationalize about this, there are too many unknowns to be glib about it, or make snap judgments.
It might not really mean much, or may herald a large intellectual movement that has flown under the radar. I just wanted to post this so others can scratch their heads also, and wonder what that 26% of Christians not believing in a personal God really means, if anything.

We're not in Kansas anymore.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Anyway, heads up friends. Something strange is going on.

Nothing strange going on, just the draw of nature.

Lets go back 41 years to my first encounter with a National Park. Before that time I'd only ever read accounts and seen pictures but had never been there. My destination that day was Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, and unwittingly, Guadalupe Mountains National Park along the drive from El Paso. Quite frankly the beauty, awe, majesty, whatever you wish to call it, stunned me. Naturally I compared it to a religious experience only that it made all previous religious experiences seem insignificant and artificial. Here was the real deal in all its breathtaking danger and intoxication.

I think that's what Sagan was into with Cosmos. It's quite real, and the gods of classroom and history seem like these quaint little inventions from childhood, nothing more than talking baby dolls.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Possibly part of it. I know there was a big rise in the 80's - 90's in people going bicycling, camping and kayaking et al. And some surveys of Nones indicates that was far more amenable to many who left the churches to spend time out in the wonderful, awesome wilds, rather than in a stuffy church listening to some preacher rant about homosexuals.

And I do remember the outrage the fundies felt with Sagan. A sense of awe and wonder about nature was stealing their schtick. I was rather amused at that during the heydays of Cosmos.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Possibly part of it. I know there was a big rise in the 80's - 90's in people going bicycling, camping and kayaking et al. And some surveys of Nones indicates that was far more amenable to many who left the churches to spend time out in the wonderful, awesome wilds, rather than in a stuffy church listening to some preacher rant about homosexuals.

And I do remember the outrage the fundies felt with Sagan. A sense of awe and wonder about nature was stealing their schtick. I was rather amused at that during the heydays of Cosmos.

I think the experience, that feeling one gets, is probably identical in the two groups. I know lots of people who are deathly afraid of riding bicycles, taking a hike down a path, in short, leaving their comfortable, danger-free surroundings. Taking a hike out into a wild place is something for savages and crazies. They prefer their comfy little pews, their coffee makers and their smelly dryer sheets 24/7. The constant squawking of the TV has become something they cannot live without. They cannot conceive of a city without roads and bridges and cars and buildings, a before-time. The lay of the land and how the water once flowed, where the critters lived, that's foreign. They never played in the woods as kids and wouldn't know a praying mantis from a digger wasp. They prefer condos, strip malls - and daytime television with the curtains drawn and yellow lamps glowing inside dimly lit homes. They are literally terrified of the outdoors.

 

[Kharakov]

Could it be that many of those who self describe themselves as Christian mean merely culturally Christian?

Would you be interested in what they said if they said they didn't believe it, they are playing advanced level make believe, and award prizes to one another based on the intelligence of the "convert" to their religion?

I only speak of the sports-fishers. Not whale watchers...

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Could it be that many of those who self describe themselves as Christian mean merely culturally Christian?

Would you be interested in what they said if they said they didn't believe it, they are playing advanced level make believe, and award prizes to one another based on the intelligence of the "convert" to their religion?

I only speak of the sports-fishers. Not whale watchers...

Religion is a readily available way to identify other people and yourself. Easy peasy. Everything's been done for you.

 

[Kharakov]

Everything's been done for you.

Why am I picturing thumbs up Buddy Christ with a twinkle in his eye?

 

[abaddon]

Could it be that many of those who self describe themselves as Christian mean merely culturally Christian?

Maybe but there's no direct connection between that and religious naturalism. Any "postchristian" American or European is going to have similarities to Christians, for having come out of that cultural background. Including many irreligious atheists. That doesn't make them culturally Christian. They'd have to find the Christian metaphors still viable to be agnostic Christians, and religious naturalists draw their inspiration from science and seek new metaphors there, not in ancient traditions.

It's something that has got me wondering, what is going on here? Some of this seems to have deep and old roots, New England transcedentalism.

American religious naturalists cite roots in Emerson and Thoreau. You're barking more up the right tree here, irt religious naturalism.

Anyway, it's a challenge to figure out what is going on, and I have no idea where this rabbit hole leads. I therefore am going to try not to rationalize about this...

You've asked 2 very different questions in one thread and my recommendation is to clarify which topic you want to discuss: 1) What are the 26% Christian agnostics all about? and 2) What are religious naturalists? I can try to help with the religious naturalist topic, being one but having very little sympathy for Christianity in any form. That's my interest in your topic.

It might not really mean much, or may herald a large intellectual movement that has flown under the radar.

Yeah, sadly, RN should be a better-known alternative to what looks like the two main choices to too many people: 1) irreligion/secular humanism/atheism, who tend to emphasize the fact-value dichotomy so much that meaning gets treated like an entirely private, almost embarrassingly "poetic", individualized thing (and thereby losing grounding for it), and supernaturalists who are clinging to ancient, obsolete metaphors for their meaningfulness (and thereby losing grounding for it).

I just wanted to post this so others can scratch their heads also, and wonder what that 26% of Christians not believing in a personal God really means, if anything.

That's fine. And I'm not trying to debate, I just wanted to help clarify. You're interested in the weirdness of agnostic Christians, which I can't help with, but you also expressed a wish to explore religious naturalism, which maybe I can help with. Here’s a brief video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FSMLDv_MSs that summarizes it though extremely basically. You can watch three religious naturalists talking about it between themselves here, if you’re ok with a longer vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr6LIJztSL4&list=PL8p5SazNe4px434ik4IXw-GVXNI5FX8TY&index=4

Here are some books you might peruse if by chance the religious naturalism topic becomes more interesting than the agnostic Christian topic: The Sacred Depths of Nature by Ursula Goodenough, Nature Is Enough by Loyal Rue, and Religious Naturalism Today by Jerome Stone.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Religious naturalism is the same as scientific naturalism only with a religious bias.

 

[remez]

Recent surveys by Pew show that many people who self identify as Christians do not believe in a personal God. 26% of self identified theists believe in God as an impersonal force.

Is Rachel Dolezal an African American?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Religious naturalism is the same as scientific naturalism only with a religious bias.

So, more "the exact opposite of" than "the same as" then?

 

[abaddon]

Religious naturalism is the same as scientific naturalism only with a religious bias.

So, more "the exact opposite of" than "the same as" then?

In what way do you imagine that the naturalism is different?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

So, more "the exact opposite of" than "the same as" then?

Can you defend the notion that being religious makes it the opposite of scientific or philosophical naturalism with some evidence, or is it just an unscientific ideological dogma that is the reason you imagine they're opposites?

There are some words that are well defined. Bachelor for example.

And some words that are not, Religion, spirituality, God. So if somebody calls themselves a religious naturalist (and agrees there is no God only naturalism), it gets hard to argue against that. One can only say for me that is pointless or not really a useful position, or maybe it is useful, or maybe one is a self identified religious naturalist. But getting into some sort of definition war here is futile and pointless.

Perhaps there is a wide variety of positions self identified religious naturalists will claim, and if we don't really know if that is a fact, our opinions might not really count for much. Having just stumbled on this concept, I don't know. I still wonder where 26% of self identified Christians get the idea God is not a personal God, if indeed the numbers are in fact truly representive of what self identified Christians believe about God as an impersonal force.

The Baylor study, Piety in the 21st Century of 2006 showed 15% of self identified Christians holding that view. The real head scratcher is where people are getting this. Is religious naturalism something that is organized enough to be responsible for that? Or are people somehow reinventing it for themselves? Are numbers of those believing in God as an impersonal force rising, or are the numbers not really meaningful.

I don't know, but it's an interesting phenomena. A quick Google demonstrates there are books, forums and You Tube explanations of this from Religious Naturalist proponents, but the forums seem to be rather inactive, and RN does not seem to have anywhere the internet presence of atheism. Is RN really just another form of atheism?

 

[abaddon]

There are some words that are well defined. Bachelor for example.

And some words that are not, Religion, spirituality, God. So if somebody calls themselves a religious naturalist (and agrees there is no God only naturalism), it gets hard to argue against that.

Yes. That’s why I’d be interested in reasons because usually this sort of mistake comes from conflating religion with something (theism, supernaturalism, dogmatism) that religions and religious people don't all share. Just as "all swans are white" is a fallacy if there's an exception, so it goes with broad-brush treatments of religions. The exceptions matter a great deal irt whether you're saying something true or not.

But getting into some sort of definition war here is futile and pointless.

The primary definition in question here is naturalism and it's not hard to define. joedad called it “scientific” naturalism. I’d have called it philosophical naturalism to be clearer about it not being a methodology itself (which may be the source of confusion about the label) but a philosophy that's derived primarily from the findings of science. The important thing to understand is the adjective "religious" does not qualify what sort of naturalism it is, it clarifies something about the persons and their movement. Religious naturalists are not adherents of a naturalism that is religious in nature, they're religious persons with a view of reality that is wholly naturalist.

The Baylor study, Piety in the 21st Century of 2006 showed 15% of self identified Christians holding that view. The real head scratcher is where people are getting this. Is religious naturalism something that is organized enough to be responsible for that?

You were way closer in connecting this to Emerson and Thoreau and environmentalism. Some RN's cite an influence from Teilhard de Chardin and process theology too, but I'm betting your 15% of deistic Christians/cultural Christians may just find talking of their God as a person sounds silly, from their exposure to a bigger multicultural world, and therefore make the term vaguely sciencey (God’s a “force”) in order to keep hold of it and their identity as Christians. You'll see new-agey Christians describing God as as psychogenetic "energy" too.

You can be deistic (more or less... I wonder how deistic they really are) without much of a care about ecocentrism, but you can't be a religious naturalist without it being central. Also the numbers and cultural influence of RN is much too small...

I don't know, but it's an interesting phenomena. A quick Google demonstrates there are books, forums and You Tube explanations of this from Religious Naturalist proponents, but the forums seem to be rather inactive, and RN does not seem to have anywhere the internet presence of atheism. Is RN really just another form of atheism?

That’s right, it’s a very small movement. You’ll find the same for naturalistic or “scientific” pantheism. People tend to be fascinated with the fantastical and are bored with anything less. People aren't drawn to join if it isn't fantastical; people aren't drawn to bash it unless they figure the fantastical is hiding in there somewhere. Even this thread won’t survive long unless atheists get to bash theism in some form or another.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

In the Baylor study, Deism was another classification. Separate and distinct from those who saw God as an impersonal force. The Pew study does not do a further breakdown similar to the Baylor study. And long forgetten was the phenomena of ietisim. Mainly European.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The primary definition in question here is naturalism and it's not hard to define. joedad called it “scientific” naturalism. I’d have called it philosophical naturalism to be clearer about it not being a methodology itself (which may be the source of confusion about the label) but a philosophy that's derived primarily from the findings of science. The important thing to understand is the adjective "religious" does not qualify what sort of naturalism it is, it clarifies something about the persons and their movement. Religious naturalists are not adherents of a naturalism that is religious in nature, they're religious persons with a view of reality that is wholly naturalist.

The Baylor study, Piety in the 21st Century of 2006 showed 15% of self identified Christians holding that view. The real head scratcher is where people are getting this. Is religious naturalism something that is organized enough to be responsible for that?

You were way closer in connecting this to Emerson and Thoreau and environmentalism. Some RN's cite an influence from Teilhard de Chardin and process theology too, but I'm betting your 15% of deistic Christians/cultural Christians may just find talking of their God as a person sounds silly, from their exposure to a bigger multicultural world, and therefore make the term vaguely sciencey (God’s a “force”) in order to keep hold of it and their identity as Christians. You'll see new-agey Christians describing God as as psychogenetic "energy" too.

It's probably best to call it all Christianity Lite, as you could come up with a dozen different names for such a group in short order. I also think lots of people simply wish to distance themselves from whackjob Christian Fundies.