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Inuyasha
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02 Dec 2010, 3:15 pm

Fuzzy wrote:
Inuyasha wrote:
Magnus is correct, Atheism is an ideology in the fact that it is: "a belief in the absence of a deity."


No because infants and snails do not believe in a god. What does that make them?

It is an absence of belief, not a belief in an absence. To play off the Nag Hammadi.


Uh an infant doesn't have an opinion one way or the other on the subject and if a baby does, you have no ability to make those kind of claims unless you speak baby. A snail doesn't even have sentience as far as we know, and if it does how would you know what a snail thinks? Do you speak snail?



ikorack
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02 Dec 2010, 3:48 pm

Fuzzy wrote:
Inuyasha wrote:
Magnus is correct, Atheism is an ideology in the fact that it is: "a belief in the absence of a deity."


No because infants and snails do not believe in a god. What does that make them?

It is an absence of belief, not a belief in an absence. To play off the Nag Hammadi.


Atheism isn't a lack of belief in something. a lack of belief requires no name, hence babies are not called atheist. But adults who state a belief in an absence do follow an ideology. This doesn't exactly make them a religion however just a group of people who happen to have extremely similar beliefs. Won't really be able to call them a religion until they start acting as a group and creating something akin to a dogma or creed.



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02 Dec 2010, 4:11 pm

The reason that atheists have a term to describe them is because they are rare enough not to be taken for granted - we don't have a term for aunicornists because it is assumed that all adults are aunicornists.



ikorack
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02 Dec 2010, 4:16 pm

LKL wrote:
The reason that atheists have a term to describe them is because they are rare enough not to be taken for granted - we don't have a term for aunicornists because it is assumed that all adults are aunicornists.


Atheists are rare?



LKL
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02 Dec 2010, 4:40 pm

they have been assumed to be in the past. They probably make up about 10% of the American population now, with another 10% being non-affiliated who do not identify themselves as 'atheist.' Before the 'new atheists' started speaking out, they were all but invisible in American society at large.

There probably isn't much wrangling with the term 'atheist' or who is or isn't a believer in northern European countries where the majority of the population are non-believers.



Philologos
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02 Dec 2010, 8:06 pm

"It is an absence of belief, not a belief in an absence.."

Surely here we bump against the atheist / agnostic distinction?



ikorack
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02 Dec 2010, 8:15 pm

Philologos wrote:
"It is an absence of belief, not a belief in an absence.."

Surely here we bump against the atheist / agnostic distinction?


No. What makes an agnostic an agnostic is very wishy washy too many reasons really. The grouping of agnostic and atheism together is completely off base. While a person can be both it is not always so, and neither are inclusive with the other. I would be a mixture of agnostic theism and hard agnosticism. This would mean I am agnostic but not atheist at all.

EDIT: That is to say, atheistic agnosticism is a specific subset of atheism.



Banned_Magnus
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02 Dec 2010, 9:07 pm

Maybe the NWO should use Atheism instead of Religion to steer the masses. Would you vote for that? Religion, spirituality, Atheism...they all are ideologies about the same thing; whether or not spirits or God exists.
When we disagree on this human phenomenon that causes people to form ideologies, wars and arguments occur. The first step toward dehumanizing people is to ridicule them and see them as inferior. Once we dehumanize one another, it is easy to rationalize mistreatment of people who hold different points of view.

Beliefs such as homosexuality, spiritual experiences, and so forth cause people to vehemently hold onto their ideologies in face of disagreement. It would be ideal if we could cooperate and tolerate one another respectfully, but it is probably not realistic to expect that most people have evolved to the point to do this. That is why I am suggesting that a one world religion or ideology will serve to unify people.

I believe you when you say that you do not believe in spirits. I do believe in spirits because I experienced them. Why is that hard to accept. You may not experience it, but I do. I went on meds and saw doctors when I first started having these experiences, but that only made me more dull in my senses. Overall, spiritual experiences have taught me more than all the books I've read. I don't want people to take this part of me away or ridiculing it because it is very important to my well being. I analyzed it to the point where I disassociated and fell into solipism syndrome. Accepting that my brain is different helps me to relax and enjoy it, but when I relate my experiences to others...nobody understands. Maybe that is just life and I have to deal with it.



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02 Dec 2010, 9:14 pm

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROiqC-iQL9I&feature=recentu[/youtube]

The claim that God does not exist is as much of a claim that he does exist.


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Banned_Magnus
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02 Dec 2010, 9:21 pm

I could also say that I don't believe in murder. It is not the fact that I don't believe in murder that makes me an "amurderer", but it is my ideologies that cause me to not believe it is a good thing to do.

Be honest, Atheists have similar outlooks, talk the same way and use words like unicornism and spaghetti monster, they share memes like cigarettes in a FEMA camp, and they all vehemently believe that there is no way that a spirit can exist, nor that a creator fashioned anything in the universe. That reeks of world view ideologies.



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03 Dec 2010, 4:20 am

Banned_Magnus wrote:
We all know the conspiracy theory debate fallacy. It's just a way to discredit the person. It is rude and trite these days.

To be honest shows strength of character. Defend your position without attacks. If it is a legitimate position, there is no need to fear that it will be challenged if you are really seeking truth. If not, be honest about that and say. Mean what you say and say what you mean.


Well when I see something so idiotic as Project Blue Beam I find it laughable and therefore I laugh. I am sorry, but a resort to claims of planted geological discoveries and planned earthquakes etc as a way of continuing to delude oneself of the 'true word of the bible' over scientific discoveries is laughable and not laudable.


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03 Dec 2010, 5:53 am

People don't kill each other simply because of differences in opinion and individuality. They kill each other because they can't respect other opinions and the right of others to be individuals. I think wars are mainly started over material resources anyway. The spiritual mumbo jumbo about God and country is just used to get people to fight them. Sun Tzu actually cited this as a tactic in The Art of War. If people want to come to basic, philosophical agreements about the sanctity of human life and that suffering should be ended, I'm all fine with that. However, I don't think people are going to ever be in 100% full agreement on things metaphysically. That would be boring.



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03 Dec 2010, 7:27 am

JNathanK wrote:
People don't kill each other simply because of differences in opinion and individuality. They kill each other because they can't respect other opinions and the right of others to be individuals. I think wars are mainly started over material resources anyway. The spiritual mumbo jumbo about God and country is just used to get people to fight them. Sun Tzu actually cited this as a tactic in The Art of War. If people want to come to basic, philosophical agreements about the sanctity of human life and that suffering should be ended, I'm all fine with that. However, I don't think people are going to ever be in 100% full agreement on things metaphysically. That would be boring.


Wars are fought by men over status, land and women.

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03 Dec 2010, 10:27 am

Wars are not caused by religion or ideological differences. Most people don't know that though. They are tools used to dehumanize people. Military tactics aside, this should teach us that we should treat each other better so we don't play like puppets in the hands of emotional puppeteers or else we are no better than the heathens.



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03 Dec 2010, 10:30 am

"Wars are fought by men over status, land and women. "

While we are low on Amazons, at least perfectly parallel microwars are fought by women.

They do have a better record of avoiding the arms race.



TheBicyclingGuitarist
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03 Dec 2010, 10:47 am

Philologos wrote:
"Wars are fought by men over status, land and women. "

While we are low on Amazons, at least perfectly parallel microwars are fought by women.


You can buy the eggs but the Amazon me.


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