Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: What is God?
Position‹2 of 4›: God is a thought form
Argument: The powers held by religion are social

The powers held by organized religion relate to their socio-economic influence rather then to any supernatural power

The argument

When we discus the powers held by institutionalized religion these powers are best understood in the same terms as we understand any other social institution. There is nothing particularly unique about god, it is just another idea that holds sway within the border battle of ideas. This is not to say it is not powerful as the idea of god has, and still does, controlled entire societies. When people reference the power of god, know it or not, they are referencing the power wielded by these institutions.

Premises

[P1]The powers attributed to religion are best understood like those of any other social institution—god is one more idea competing for influence, with nothing uniquely divine about it. [P2] This does not make it weak: the idea of god has controlled entire societies, but that power is really the power wielded by religious institutions. [C] God is a thought form—an idea whose power is social rather than supernatural.

Counter-arguments

This answers a different question from the one asked. The question is what God is; the argument describes the powers of religious institutions. Those are separable: that churches, temples and clergy wield social influence of an ordinary sociological kind is compatible with every position on offer, including that God is the fundamental substance. The reality of the natural world is not affected by the sociology of universities, and by the same token an account of how religious organisations accumulate authority leaves the existence and nature of their object untouched. The inference also runs the wrong way. From the observation that people invoking divine power are often describing institutional power, nothing follows about whether the object of belief is real — that is an explanation of belief substituted for an assessment of it. And the pivotal claim, that there is "nothing particularly unique about god, it is just another idea", is asserted rather than argued. The concept differs from ordinary ideas in precisely the respect at issue: it purports to refer to something beyond the social world. Classifying it as one idea among others competing for influence assumes that this reference fails, which is the conclusion the argument was meant to reach.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Describing religion's powers in institutional terms is consistent with God existing independently of those institutions, so the analogy with other social institutions does not establish that God is merely an idea. [Rejecting P2] That the idea of God has moved societies shows the influence of belief, and explaining belief's effects does not bear on whether its object is real — the argument offers an account of religion in place of an answer about God.