Atheism as a belief

Post Reply New Topic

I don't have the time really to read through this thread but my reason for being an Atheist is simply that there is not one reason to believe or even common sense in any religion at all, the idea of a god was made by humans from what anyone can easily see with some research and thought added, the bible or any other religious writing does not state enough proof or as I said above, common sense in any religion. Many are brainwashed to the point where they think divine gods are sent down here in human forms and state prophets, but that really is just not enough proof and if were done in modern society would easily be seen as a lie. Of course back then people were much more gullable from what I can understand.

There never was any reason to believe in a god, there never will be. People just do for whatever reason they think is correct. Being an Atheist means I have no beliefs really other than I don't believe in a God or what any other religion says. It generally is a disbelief of a God or divine power.

It is probably deeper than that. Theists seem to believe that all order in the universe resides in their god. They continually refer to the chaos of the universe that is only kept tamed by their deity. The underlying difference between that and the principles of scientists is that scientists are continually discovering that order is a basic part of the fabric of the universe and the discipline of science is to discover what this order is. All through religion the basic concept is that their god can violate the rules of the universe by raising the dead, walking on water, changing water to wine, dancing to make rain, throwing spells and curses to control and demolish enemies, etc. - in other words, magic. That is the basis of the Catholics establishing sainthood in that the saint must be shown to work miracles. Science does not recognize that the rules can be violated. When something occurs that seems to violate them, then scientists rethink what the rules are to maintain a universe of inviolate rules.

odin: well, i, for one, dont really buy too much into wittgenstein (and the linguistic turn in general). while i agree that the danger of just going wild with all kind of speculation (hence, the parody of the spaghetti monster) is there, i wouldnt go as far as to declare the empirical dimension the quintessential root. well, i have a bit of a language problem here - in german, there are differing words that more or less may just fall together in the english "experience"... dict.leo.org tells me that "intuition" may be the word im looking for, but that appears to be too weak a word for what i mean. do you know what im after when i make up a conglomerate like "immediate perception/intuition" - i mean referring to the direct, hands-on moment, not what is usually meant with empirical evidence (which involves much more covert reasoning along the way).
anyway - schopenhauer once wrote that this should be the scale by which all good philosophy is measured - that it never leaves <immediate perception/intuition>. i tend to agree with that.

skafather: nah, you got me wrong... i didnt say you need to lay proof that god exists.
i rather meant that all the evidence of the world doesnt necessarily imply a god (i agree with that, absolutely) - but by going the step from statements like "in my world, there is no god", "god doesnt take place in the world", "there is no evidence for god" etcetera... to a statement like "god does not exist", you are stepping from clearly formulated observations to assumption (based on said observations, but its an assumption nevertheless).

in that sense, id say babys are not born atheist, they are born completely uncaring about the whole matter of god, believing etcetera.

Man, some ppl really take themselves serious on these kinds of issues.

By Jove topic

In another forum I was told by a poster that because I was not certain that there is a supreme being and because I stated I had not been persuaded that there was indeed a god of some kind then I was technically an agnostic atheist.

After reading what people have said here I would rather refer to myself as a nontheist. In any belief system I have, a supreme deity is not contingent. Those who have or rely on a supreme deity, then their belief is a religion. I believe that human beings have the right to believe what they want, and they will. I take an eclectic/practical approach to morals and ethics, but I am not extreme. I would imagine I am more of a humanist, with a laissez, faire, live and let live approach, with compromises within reason, and separation of religions and state.

OK, but what I meant was why get upset and overly opinionated over a question that can't be answered in a clear black and white answere?

........and what the hell does money have to do with this topic?

I too study this stuff BTW.

Okay, the desire for clarification in this thread prompts me to include detail. Let me include a short definition:

-gnostic (adj): Of, relating to, or possessing intellectual or spiritual knowledge.
-By this definition, all theists are gnostic. I am not talking about the Gnostic Christian Sect. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism for more information on them.

-Agnostic Atheist(also Soft\Weak\Skeptical\Negative Atheist): Lacks a belief in God. This person does not believe there is no God, they simply have no belief in a deity because there are no rational grounds that support his/her/their existence. This person does not shoulder a burden of proof for his\her belief in a debate .
-Gnostic Atheist(also Hard\Strong\Positive Atheist): Believes there is no God. This person asserts God does not exist, and therefore shoulders a burden of proof when entering into debate. .

Plagerization follows (http://www.religioustolerance.org/atheist4.htm):
-Peter Berger suggested that the term "methodological atheism" be used to describe theologians and historians who study religion as a human creation without declaring whether individual religious beliefs are actually true.
-The terms "Noncoherent Atheist" or "Noncoherentism" have been suggested to cover the belief that one cannot have any meaningful discussions about deities, because there exist no coherent definitions of "god."
-"Apathetic Atheism," or "Apatheism" have been suggested to cover the individual who doesn't really care whether Gods or Goddesses exist. They probably live with the assumption that no deity exists.
-Antony Flew: "I want the originally Greek prefix 'a' to be read in the same way in 'atheist' as it customarily is read in such other Greco-English words as 'amoral,' 'atypical,' and 'asymmetrical'. In this interpretation an atheist becomes: someone who is simply not a theist."

-Theist (n): Believer in the existence of a god or gods, especially a believer in a personal God as creator and ruler of the world.


----If that doesn't shut ya'll up, I dunno what will <3

I already know what those mean.