Materialism

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Is it possible to be a materialist and believe in a god?

I know that some theistic people are relatively materialist, as in they believe that most of reality is material, except for I think God, but I don't think most believe in a material God. Such a concept isn't popular given that most of society's theology is derived from spiritualist traditions. However, a being that is material, and uses unknown physical laws in order to control things in a god-like manner doesn't seem logically impossible.

In a spinozan sense if god is nature and in everthing could this be considered materialist.

Well, there is a belief for some that the universe is actually a big computer simulation, controlled by some unknown entity. Hmm...

Why not. God is bu**sh*t which is very material.

ruveyn

I think a more interesting question would be if the notion of a diety fits in with the notion of a materialistic universe.

People can believe in anything (as shown by Christianity and it's branches), so the OP's question is moot.

This seems like a hard one only because we've abstracted the heck out of the term 'materialist'.

I'm not a materialist (don't think I am at least?), don't know what the definition is aside from my own inference, but at first it seems like its origins with Democritus suggested that everything is made of atoms, taking on the idea that everything that exists is tangible and everything that's intangible does not exist (??). What confuses me with this concept is that technically with science finding forces of energy with no mass, one would think that the age of strict-materialism has been ended.

With the theistic frame of mind being that our reality is cavernously deep and complex, it seems to push the notion that our sense of materialist atheism could only be a temporary phase as science is in a period where today's dials and technology have it in a perceptual bind. In another few thousand years the term materialism could easily mean absolutely nothing, it might even seem absurd when looked upon in retrospect as a philosophical stance on metaphysical issues.

The obvious absurdity of most religious dogma has had no effect on the avidity of the bulk of humanity to be swindled by con men in elaborate clown suits to persuade them of the reality of their naive nonsense. Whether or not the forces of nature involve mass, it is critical that they be detectable through material means. The bulk of religious belief rests on suppositions that are theoretically but very vaguely possible but are physically undetectable. Materialism's base is founded on detectability.

But if you look into Spinoza's idea of a god, than this god is not personal, is not a creator, does not make decision by will - so is Spinoza's god nothing than a nice name for an "Atheist's God".

As is the "God" mentioned frequently by Einstein.

Compiling the data and taking in all the uncertainties with the certainties to make conclusions that go beyond the givens can take some guts - either way one's opinion falls.

It's not a matter of guts. It's a matter of detection of phenomena and seeing whether or not it conforms to current understanding.

That's also a matter of taking a hatchet and chopping things down to fit the box or letting them be what they are. Culturally we are where we are, same with technology, unless one truly believes that man even creates the galaxy and universe with his mind by seeing the sky then you have to take into account that things are what they are regardless of what we think and regardless of what our level of technology or understanding happens to be at this point. Letting the conventional dictate in the realm of science is more than fair, as with medicine, accounting, law, or anything that revolves around our trying to get a fixed and high quality result. As for clamping down on philosophy because what someone is projecting by, what they see all around them, because modern thought in a few isolated parts in the world says that religion is poison - its a really poor set of reasons and logic.

The only thing I could suggest maybe is reading Jurgen Habermas to see what some other schools of atheism think? While I doubt there's an atheists for Christ club, I wouldn't even suggest it unless they're rugged utilitarians that fall that way, there are enough atheists who have a lot to say on the complexity of our needs at this point and how they're failing under the age of pure and blind reason based on reason's amoraility and that we're having a heck of a time backing it up with any currency to correct that problem - which means looking the model of what religions have organizationally and inspirationally done right and seeing if there's any possible way to reduplicate that mechanism for societal unity and guarantee of human dignity. Any recollection of the book Voltair's Bastards? I'm starting into that as well and finding it to be quite an eye-opening read on a lot of levels, interestingly enough it seems to dovetail perfectly into the Habermas and Novak I've read. John Ralson Saul gets more into the hallucinations that reason seems to be giving unfortunately too many people and has since the time of Descartes.

Reason squeezes things into a comprehensible box until the it finds they don't fit that box anymore. Then it makes a better box. Religion tries to squeeze things into its box and when they don't fit it denies they exist because it is totally in love with its box.

Depends what we're talking about - if its strict adherence to a dogma then it tends to be inflexible, if its a more generalized theism that learns as it progresses, it works in a similar manner to what your describing and is open even endorsing of self-criticism and self-correction.

BTW, I didn't want to side track this into materialism-bashing, I may have just gotten wrapped up in responses forgetting that they were responses to my initial points. The question of being a materialist and believing in God though does bring up the question of how tightly or loosely we want to define the term 'material'.

Well its kind of a grey area.

Don't value things over God and realized that those things are only temporary.

Hey I like stuff too but I don't let it get in my way of whats important.