possibilian.

wayspo:

Possibilianism is defined as “a philosophy which rejects both the idiosyncratic claims of traditional theism and the positions of certainty in atheism in favor of a middle, exploratory ground.”

I watched this video because I was curious about the concept. I really want to get behind this, because it embraces the unknown, which I love. I think anyone who thinks we have everything figured out is being close minded. He mentions dark matter, which consists of 90% of the known mass in the universe, but which we know almost nothing about. All the way through, though, there was something nagging at me. 

This may sound meta, but I am at the point, philosophically, where I feel like the atheism/theism discussion isn’t even one I am interested in having. This doesn’t mean I’m jaded! What it means is that where I am coming from is the perspective of the universe. If I am thinking of things from the perspective of the universe, the earth was created, life came about on it, at some point the sun will grow really huge and the earth will probably be destroyed…or however things turn out. 

When I think of things that way, the question “is there a God?” just seems unnecessary…and a bit confusing. When you ask if there is a God, what does that mean? I am seriously interested in what question people are asking when they ask that - I think it’s a deep question that goes way beyond its surface. I also think that if you asked 10 different people you would get 10 different answers.

Maybe I will put it this way. One person says: I believe in God. Another person says: I don’t believe in God. I say: Why is it necessary to be talking about “God” and what does that even mean?

Final final note: So my main critique of possibilianism is that I am not sure what important differentiation it has with just good ol’ “curiosity”?

I would just like to add that the idea of human religion and any belief system, based on astrology (our one perspective of the stars) or the idea of God, Buddha, whatnot, and then making conclusions that we apply to all of creation, is still dealing with the medieval concept that the earth is the center of the universe. It is man’s way of dealing with the unknown and our own imagination.  I think possibianism is an evolving form of thought that people like me are fascinated with. Also, perhaps categorizing these big questions/curiosity as “possibilian” allows people to focus on the questions within and not so much the definition of “what is curiosity and what are we curious about?”