Anti-Theist Theism in Fantasy

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RichardGarfinkle

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I just got back from an SFF convention. One of the panels I attended was a discussion of mythology. One of the ideas brought up by a member of the audience was the standard fantasy trope that gods require belief to exist.

This has been around for decades. It even has its own TVTropes Page {I accept no responsibility for lost time or sanity spent on TV Tropes}.

It struck me a bit afterwards that despite being used for theist worlds, this idea is the strongest anti-theist statement that can be made. It embodies the concept that gods are human creations and that they derive all their capabilities from the humans who make and sustain them.

Yet this idea is accounted as theistic, which now seems very odd to me.

What do people think?
 

rugcat

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I think it quite definitely is a theistic concept. At core, it posits that faith is the ultimate driving force, a force outside of the realms of scientific inquiry or explanation. Even though it may come from people, it still basically requires a supernatural framework.

And since one of the major tenets of atheism is that there is a rational and scientific explanation for everything, even if we don't yet know it all, when you have a framework that falls outside those parameters and depends on belief I think calling that theistic is not unreasonable.

Not surprisingly to me, the stories I have read with this concept are a lot more comfortable being placed in the fantasy genre than that of science fiction.
 

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One of the key complications is that we have no record of our species before belief(s); Historical and Religious grew up together. Textually, we're stuck with a Theist point of reference.

We've only just begun to investigate what belief might look like at a neuronal level in ourselves (never mind what mythos might be like in other species).

I keep changing my mind as to whether the Theist Reference Point is artificial because it's not known what evolution makes of it all.
 

kuwisdelu

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It struck me a bit afterwards that despite being used for theist worlds, this idea is the strongest anti-theist statement that can be made. It embodies the concept that gods are human creations and that they derive all their capabilities from the humans who make and sustain them.

Yet this idea is accounted as theistic, which now seems very odd to me.

What do people think?

Gonna have to disagree.

It's a leap of logic to go from "gods derive their power from belief" to "gods are human creations".

Moreover, even if we say gods deriving power and existence from human belief makes them human creations (which I think is a debatable nuance), that doesn't make them fictional or non-existent.

Or to put it another way: humans create other humans — that doesn't mean children don't exist.

I'm having trouble understanding how you are interpreting the idea as anti-theistic.
 
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RichardGarfinkle

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I think it quite definitely is a theistic concept. At core, it posits that faith is the ultimate driving force, a force outside of the realms of scientific inquiry or explanation. Even though it may come from people, it still basically requires a supernatural framework.

And since one of the major tenets of atheism is that there is a rational and scientific explanation for everything, even if we don't yet know it all, when you have a framework that falls outside those parameters and depends on belief I think calling that theistic is not unreasonable.

Not surprisingly to me, the stories I have read with this concept are a lot more comfortable being placed in the fantasy genre than that of science fiction.

I would argue that in a universe where this phenomenon worked, it would be possible to create scientific experiments in godmaking (Frank Herbert wrote a book called The Godmakers). All that would be necessary would be to get sufficient numbers of people to believe in a similar fashion.

My point is that this isn't faith in a being outside of human control, but it is the use of human belief to create beings that act according to ideas shared between a set of humans.

Religion then becomes a feat of social engineering with gods as the product of that feat.
 

kuwisdelu

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I would argue that in a universe where this phenomenon worked, it would be possible to create scientific experiments in godmaking (Frank Herbert wrote a book called The Godmakers). All that would be necessary would be to get sufficient numbers of people to believe in a similar fashion.

My point is that this isn't faith in a being outside of human control, but it is the use of human belief to create beings that act according to ideas shared between a set of humans.

Religion then becomes a feat of social engineering with gods as the product of that feat.

The problem there is even if you could control the creation of gods in theory, they're still supernatural beings, so you wouldn't have a scientific way to measure whether you were successful or not.
 

RichardGarfinkle

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The problem there is even if you could control the creation of gods in theory, they're still supernatural beings, so you wouldn't have a scientific way to measure whether you were successful or not.

I could argue that point, but I'm not trying to deal with the scientific method here. What I'm getting at is that this trope that a lot of people are okay with actually subordinates the divine to the human, making belief the underlying power, rather than the god or gods involved.

In other words, this is saying that rather than humans being the work and/or servants of god, they are the makers and controllers of those gods. That seems to me a fundamentally anti-theist position.

Note, I'm not declaring it an atheist position since gods are clearly relevant in this world view. I am arguing that it is anti-theist because of the subordinate and dependent character of gods in this structure.

To elaborate. If a god's characteristics depend on the belief of the people then it is neither a source of inspiration, guidance, or morality, and if its power comes from the power of the minds of humans working together than it is a communal tool rather than an overarching truth.
 
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kuwisdelu

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I could argue that point, but I'm not trying to deal with the scientific method here. What I'm getting at is that this trope that a lot of people are okay with actually subordinates the divine to the human, making belief the underlying power, rather than the god or gods involved.

In other words, this is saying that rather than humans being the work and/or servants of god, they are the makers and controllers of those gods. That seems to me a fundamentally anti-theist position.

I don't agree that gods being superior and humans being subordinate is a fundamental characteristic of theism.

It is certainly true of some religions, but not all.

Nor do I agree that such a system necessarily makes gods subordinate, anymore than a child is automatically subordinate to a parent.

I see it as more of a symbiotic relationship.
 
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RichardGarfinkle

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I don't agree that gods being superior and humans being subordinate is a fundamental characteristic of theism.

It is certainly true of some religions, but not all.

Nor do I agree that such a system necessarily makes gods subordinate, anymore than a child is automatically subordinate to a parent.

I would agree with the latter principle if the gods once made were independent of their creators.

But in the trope under discussion the gods are created and sustained by belief and can be changed by a change in those beliefs. To my mind that makes them subordinate.
 

kuwisdelu

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I would agree with the latter principle if the gods once made were independent of their creators.

But in the trope under discussion the gods are created and sustained by belief and can be changed by a change in those beliefs. To my mind that makes them subordinate.

But they can typically still alter human society, history, and influence belief.

Likewise, belief is a difficult thing to change. Consider, for example, the economy, which many people essentially view the same way as these kinds of gods. Ultimately, the economy should be entirely under human control, yet it also has incredibly power over most individuals and many segments of society.

But still, as I said, I don't think superior versus subordinate is a fundamental part of theism in the first place.
 

RichardGarfinkle

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But they can typically still alter human society, history, and influence belief.

Likewise, belief is a difficult thing to change. Consider, for example, the economy, which many people essentially view the same way as these kinds of gods. Ultimately, the economy should be entirely under human control, yet it also has incredibly power over most individuals and many segments of society.

But still, as I said, I don't think superior versus subordinate is a fundamental part of theism in the first place.

Interesting. Let me deal with your first point. I'm essentially asserting that this process makes gods glorified tools. Tools can alter society, history and belief. Tools can also convince people and people's views of those tools can be difficult to change.

So is there In the paradigm of gods created and sustained by belief any distinction between gods and tools?
 

kuwisdelu

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Interesting. Let me deal with your first point. I'm essentially asserting that this process makes gods glorified tools. Tools can alter society, history and belief. Tools can also convince people and people's views of those tools can be difficult to change.

So is there In the paradigm of gods created and sustained by belief any distinction between gods and tools?

I suppose that's a legitimate interpretation, but it makes me uncomfortable in the same way that calling other humans "tools" makes me uncomfortable.

If one human uses another human to alter society, history, and belief, to convince people, etc., does that make that second human a "tool"?

People use other people all the time like tools. I don't think that makes those humans tools.

Likewise for gods.
 

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As for me, "belief" is not the underlying power. And as such, that would mean engaging in this argument with you; would be arguing cross-purposes, so there is no point in doing so. But I will toss this one into the mix: what if the universe was belief itself? It thinks therefore it is. And what if the final out come of this war against belief is to bring on the destruction of the universe? That too is, just as viable an argument as this the one you are arguing here.
 
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ToDieUnsung

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I just got back from an SFF convention. One of the panels I attended was a discussion of mythology. One of the ideas brought up by a member of the audience was the standard fantasy trope that gods require belief to exist.

This has been around for decades. It even has its own TVTropes Page {I accept no responsibility for lost time or sanity spent on TV Tropes}.

It struck me a bit afterwards that despite being used for theist worlds, this idea is the strongest anti-theist statement that can be made. It embodies the concept that gods are human creations and that they derive all their capabilities from the humans who make and sustain them.

Yet this idea is accounted as theistic, which now seems very odd to me.

What do people think?
I concur with everyone who says that this does not give much proof at all about whether or not Gods exist. Hypothetically, if a God existed and there were no humans who believed in it, all it would mean is that this God would be written about in the same way modern humans write about Egyptian and Greek mythology.

Gods require belief so that humans can use their skills to glorify said gods and to do their best to convince other humans who are willing to listen as to why they should glorify said Gods.

As for stories of gods without belief, I think the issue is that if you had a god that existed but humans did not believe in that god, it would require a unique set of challenges as to how that god treats humans. This god could still exist but he/she would have to contend with humans treating him or her, well, again, the same way we treat Greek or Egyptian mythology. This god would most likely be compelled to try to convince humans to believe in him/her and would be trying to figure out how to have a relationship with humans when none of them believe in him or her. I think that this would raise fundamental challenges in Fantasy that many writers may find simply too exhausting to try and answer.

But I do not think it is the exact same thing as saying gods need human belief to exist.

In fact, I think - and of course I could be totally wrong here - but I think that many major religions actually teach that their god's existence is unaffected by how many humans believe in him or if no humans believe in him at all. It always seemed that at least the intention of major religions was to focus on our need for that god in our lives - and what we need to do to ensure that god's presence in our lives - and not really the other way around.
 

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So is there In the paradigm of gods created and sustained by belief any distinction between gods and tools?

You know how difficult this is to answer? It depends on how you write the gods. If you write them as tools, then that's what they are. A lot depends on what you think "believing" is.

Instrumentalising a god might, for example, be an activity that diminishes their power. Basically, under such an assumption, a world in which people see gods as tools gods wouldn't exist. (That doesn't mean you couldn't have god-enslaving techniques, but they'd run into similar problems as with human slaves, only the problems would be multiplied because complacently relying on gods would rob them of their power, while believing that gods don't deserve that treatment would give them power.)

Imagine, you'd have to pray to your hammer to make it effective, and you'd have to mean it. Basically, my hunch is that the relationship you have to your tools is not one that can sustain a god. People who think of gods as tools won't be able to give a god power (directly; they can by manipulating other believers), because they're interested in tools, not gods.
 

kuwisdelu

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Yeah, there are a number of stories where gods are enslaved. Is that also anti-theist?
 

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You know how difficult this is to answer? It depends on how you write the gods. If you write them as tools, then that's what they are. A lot depends on what you think "believing" is.

Instrumentalising a god might, for example, be an activity that diminishes their power. Basically, under such an assumption, a world in which people see gods as tools gods wouldn't exist. (That doesn't mean you couldn't have god-enslaving techniques, but they'd run into similar problems as with human slaves, only the problems would be multiplied because complacently relying on gods would rob them of their power, while believing that gods don't deserve that treatment would give them power.)

Imagine, you'd have to pray to your hammer to make it effective, and you'd have to mean it. Basically, my hunch is that the relationship you have to your tools is not one that can sustain a god. People who think of gods as tools won't be able to give a god power (directly; they can by manipulating other believers), because they're interested in tools, not gods.

I often get the impression that an awful lot of humans who claim to believe in a god, any god, are in their heart and soul just using that god as a tool and not as a true source of spiritual guidance and direction. There is no way to verify this of course, since we can only asses what he feel in our own heart/mind/soul, never that of anyone else. But I sometimes imagine that many gods already are dealing with a world in which a disturbing number - NOT all of course but more than these gods would like in my opinion - of their supposed followers treat them like a tool or a magic wishing well or a button they can push and expect to give instant results.

And so a world in which a god exists but is not truly worshiped in the hearts and souls of humans may not be all that fundamentally different from the world we live in now.
 

RichardGarfinkle

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Yeah, there are a number of stories where gods are enslaved. Is that also anti-theist?

Depends on the story. The parts of Irish mythology where humans defeat the gods and gain the right to live in Ireland are not anti-theist.

But what struck me about this particular trope is that it is an aiffrmation of a particular atheist and anti-theist assertion: that gods are figments of human imagination.

In a universe in which human belief creates and sustains gods, the gods are figments of imagintion with power proportionate to the number and strength of believers. That strikes me as an affirmation of the above statement by some of the very people who usually object to it.
 

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I often get the impression that an awful lot of humans who claim to believe in a god, any god, are in their heart and soul just using that god as a tool and not as a true source of spiritual guidance and direction.

There are indeed an awful lot of people who use the pretense of belief to manipulate other people for their own purposes. And perhaps have alway been.
 

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Yeah, there are a number of stories where gods are enslaved. Is that also anti-theist?
I would say not.

Incidentally, I always thought anti theism was in fact fundamentally different from atheism and agnosticism because it is a lack of belief in a god combined with the idea that not only is having belief on a god, or for that matter any kind of higher spiritual power or afterlife, incorrect but also damaging, asinine and counterproductive. It seemed to me to be the idea that belief in divine powers of any kind prevents humans from reaching their full intellectual potential and forces them into a kind of cognitive dissonance that hurts their ability to think independently. Now in order to ensure that NO flame wars come from this, I will reiterate I am specifically talking about anti theism and I am not making ANY assumptions that being an atheist means you are necessarily an anti theist. I am only talking about the specific idea of anti theism as I understand it - and also acknowledge that i could be completely off base.

And so even if Fantasy did have this idea that it was impossible to have gods without human belief, I don;t get the impression that it is automatically anti theist.
 

kuwisdelu

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But what struck me about this particular trope is that it is an aiffrmation of a particular atheist and anti-theist assertion: that gods are figments of human imagination.

But this is where I think you're making an unfounded leap in logic.

A god deriving existence from human belief isn't imaginary, because as a result the god actually exists.

So I'm not sure how you can say such a god is a figment of human imagination?
 

RichardGarfinkle

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But this is where I think you're making an unfounded leap in logic.

A god deriving existence from human belief isn't imaginary, because as a result the god actually exists.

So I'm not sure how you can say such a god is a figment of human imagination?

Here we're running into matters of what existence is. A number of things that are figments of imagination exist to some extent by continued human usage. Language, mathematics, stories, money, etc. All of these have an existence wholly dependent on continual human mental activity and interaction. I'm fine with gods as having an existence like that, but I do not think it fits a lot of people's ideas of what gods are.
 

kuwisdelu

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Here we're running into matters of what existence is. A number of things that are figments of imagination exist to some extent by continued human usage. Language, mathematics, stories, money, etc. All of these have an existence wholly dependent on continual human mental activity and interaction. I'm fine with gods as having an existence like that, but I do not think it fits a lot of people's ideas of what gods are.

I think you may have a fundamentally different reading of the trope than I do, because as I interpret it, such gods' existence is not merely as a concept like the things that you mentioned, but very literal and corporeal (albeit perhaps as part of an unseen world rather than our own world).

Although not a god, take the character of Tinker Bell in Peter Pan for example. I don't interpret fairies in Neverland as existing merely as concepts because we believe in them, but as literal and extant creatures whose lives happen to depend on that belief. Is your interpretation different? That fairies in those stories should be interpreted more as a concept like "mathematics"?

Was Tinker Bell merely a figment of Peter's and all of the other character's imaginations?
 
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It's a leap of logic to go from "gods derive their power from belief" to "gods are human creations".

This is a very good point. As humans, if we are deprived of the plants and animals that we eat, we will eventually die. We depend upon them for our continued existence, but that doesn't mean those plants or animals created us.

The "Gods derive power from our belief" trope strikes me as a similar situation. We have power over the Gods insofar as we are capable of depriving them of sustenance. They therefore have good reason to involve themselves in our lives in order to ensure a steady supply of that sustenance. They may go the "frighten people into worshiping" route or the "help people and they will love you route," but the end result is the same.

Now "Gods are human creations," is a whole different story, but it's important to clarify which concept is being discussed so that we're all on the same page.
 
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RichardGarfinkle

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I think you may have a fundamentally different reading of the trope than I do, because as I interpret it, such gods' existence is not merely as a concept like the things that you mentioned, but very literal and corporeal (albeit perhaps as part of an unseen world rather than our own world).

Although not a god, take the character of Tinker Bell in Peter Pan for example. I don't interpret fairies in Neverland as existing merely as concepts because we believe in them, but as literal and extant creatures whose lives happen to depend on that belief. Is your interpretation different? That fairies in those stories should be interpreted more as a concept like "mathematics"?

Was Tinker Bell merely a figment of Peter's and all of the other character's imaginations?

While it's tempting to label your children's story example as a strawman, I don't want to get into an Oz, Neverland mashup.

Okay, seriously. I don't see that an object or being having power or even manifest form in a fantasy setting means that it has independent existence, sapience, or anything else beyond whatever power imagination has in that world.

Implicit in the ascription of the power to create to human belief is the ascription of that power to human imagination. So, if imagination can bring a being into existence, that being is a figment of imagination.

The point is that under that trope human minds have the underlying power and gods are created and sustained expressions of that power.

In the example of Tinkerbell, it's not asserted that she was created by beleif, but that belief has the power to heal her. Again, the power is fundamentally a power of human minds, not of beings external to those minds.
 
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