What religion are you? And what does it mean?

[rehmwa 2]

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Now excuse me while I go search for some chicken bones to throw at rehmwa.

Hey, these chicken bones still have some good fried chicken on them. mmmmmm

ouch! that one didn't

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[rehmwa 2]

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>Therefore, it is possible for an atheist to be spiritual.

Well, to believe in a spirit, you do have to believe in the supernatural. But I suppose you can believe in the supernatural and not believe in a conventional god.

"conventional" is it exactly - just because it's unconventional doesn't mean it's just as invalid (or valid) - it's still an unprovable belief system

so it is still a religious belief - so go ahead and sacrifice the virgin to the pentagrammed volcano god or gods of karma and spirituality

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[billvon 3,114]

>just because it's unconventional doesn't mean it's just as invalid (or valid)

But if you believe in an unconventional god (say, the tiny mouse god who obeys our every whim) are you an atheist?

[beowulf 1]

I would say NO. An atheist would be someone who doesn't believe in god or gods of any kind.

[Shotgun 1]

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But if you believe in an unconventional god (say, the tiny mouse god who obeys our every whim) are you an atheist?

No. If you believe in an unconventional god then you are not an atheist.

If you believe in ghosts and fairies and the Easter Bunny, but you don't believe in a god, then you are an atheist. (You're probably a drug addict too, or a psycho, but that's irrelevant.)

[rehmwa 2]

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If you believe in ghosts and fairies and the Easter Bunny, but you don't believe in a god, then you are an atheist. (You're probably a drug addict too, or a psycho, but that's irrelevant.)

I'd say you also have a religious bent anyway. I think atheist still wouldn't apply.

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Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[steveorino 7]

I'm not sure why you think that? Is atheism the belief in only the physical or is it the denial of God?

steveOrino

[SpeedRacer 1]

And who do atheists talk to during sex?

Speed Racer
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[shropshire 0]

The only person in the room at the time ...... Themselves

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[steveorino 7]

oh, me! Oh, me!

steveOrino

[Royd 0]

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If you believe in ghosts and fairies and the Easter Bunny, but you don't believe in a god, then you are an atheist.

To believe that ghosts exist would be to acknowledge that something of the human life exists beyond death. That would disallow the " If you can't see it, touch it, feel it, or measure it, it doesn't exist." mentality of atheists.

[SpeedRacer 1]

What do you call a person who thinks he is God? A meist?

Speed Racer
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[steveorino 7]

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What do you call a person who thinks he is God? A meist?

Do atheists believe in skygods?

steveOrino

[Shotgun 1]

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If you believe in ghosts and fairies and the Easter Bunny, but you don't believe in a god, then you are an atheist. (You're probably a drug addict too, or a psycho, but that's irrelevant.)

I'd say you also have a religious bent anyway. I think atheist still wouldn't apply.

What do ghosts, fairies, and the Easter Bunny have to do with being religious?

Well, obviously "Easter" is a religious thing, but to believe nothing about it except that a giant bunny hides eggs once a year - that doesn't seem to have anything to do with religion.

[billvon 3,114]

>What do ghosts, fairies, and the Easter Bunny have to do with being religious?

Well, religion is a belief in a supernatural pantheon of god(s), angels, devils, saints, ghosts etc. Most christian religions have the Holy Ghost as pert of the trinity, and Druid religions had "the land of fairies."

[Shotgun 1]

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That would disallow the " If you can't see it, touch it, feel it, or measure it, it doesn't exist." mentality of atheists.

Some atheists might have that mentality, but that is not what defines them as atheists. Their disbelief in God is the only thing that defines them as atheists; the reasons why they don't believe in God can vary widely.

[Shotgun 1]

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Well, religion is a belief in a supernatural pantheon of god(s), angels, devils, saints, ghosts etc.

I don't think that simply believing in ghosts (not the "Holy Ghost") makes a person religious - unless they worship these ghosts or think that they created the universe or something.

But I suppose religion can be defined in many different ways. And if it doesn't necessarily require belief in a god to be religious, then I suppose that atheists can be religious too.

[beowulf 1]

As an atheist I think that there is no god or gods but there are beings out there that we have never encountered yet. Those are new species that we just haven't found yet. There are no supernatural beings. Those are what people imagine.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

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oh, me! Oh, me!

That reminds me of the four different orgasms:

1. positive orgasm:
oh yes, ohh, yes, yes YES

2. negative orgasm:
oh no, ohh, no, no, NO

3. the devine orgasm:
oh God, ohh, God, ohh God

4. and finaly the fake orgasm:
oh steveorino, ohh steveorino....

[steveorino 7]

Bwaaaahaaa! I guess my wife has been faking!

steveOrino

[jakee 1,594]

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Well, to believe in a spirit, you do have to believe in the supernatural. But I suppose you can believe in the supernatural and not believe in a conventional god.

That is very annoying.

I'd say it's agreeing with the letter but not the spirit of the law.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[GQ_jumper 4]

So how come there wasn't a choice for those of us belonging to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. That's what I believe in.

BTW, I heard he IS a Jack Daniel's man

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Uhhghh! I'm a beer manslut. I don't do hard liquor at all.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

[juanesky 0]

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So how come there wasn't a choice for those of us belonging to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. That's what I believe in.

BTW, I heard he IS a Jack Daniel's man

So I have a fellow pastafarian!!. Welcome aboard brother. [secret handshake]

"According to some of the conservatives here, it sounds like it's fine to beat your wide - as long as she had it coming." -Billvon

[JackC 0]

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No evidence is needed for faith to exist. In fact, faith means that you believe X despite any and every piece of evidence that proves X false.

That's not really right. Your first sentence is close. The second is very jaded and just wrong and a disservice to those that are faithful (remember, I claim agnosticism - not antagonistic atheism).

1 - No evidence is the BASIS for faith (pretty well the definition) - so your first bit is close to target
2 - that precludes both evidence for or against so your second comment is goofy

again, it is confusing a mature faith, with a less healthy 'blind faith' that we attribute to children

you're still attributing blind faith (which is certainly very present in the world) as the default for all those that are religious

I really think steveorino wants to talk about adult faith, not immature faith. I think very few agnostics or atheists are equipped to actually have this conversation. Neither, however, are the multitudes of the 'blindly' faithful types. These types are just in training for fanaticism anyway. You see it in politics also.

I think religion will die out as the blindly faithful become more and more prominent as the other forget how to teach this to their children.

actually, ditto for the strongly atheistic types too, as it's just another religion with the same symptoms

At the absolute bottom line, to believe in the existence of a creator is pure unadulerated faith. There is no evidence in support of the god hypothesis and all claimed knowledge of this being is just unsupported assertion. Every method I am aware of to detect real "things" fails miserably to detect a god of any kind. God is indistinguishable from his own non-existence.

No matter how you dress it up as mature faith (whatever that is) or immature faith (ditto), you still end up with the same problem. Belief with no evidence (or in spite of) is faith.

The usual course is to dismiss my allegations by saying I don't understand the nature of faith. In my experience, this "mature faith" you speak of is a wooly ill-defined concept that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. But if you know different, then please explain it to me.

[JackC 0]

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Actually there are some very compelling arguments for the non-existence of god. An omnimax god is illogical, the problem of evil, infinite regress etc.

These are arguments against a specific form of supreme being. The all knowing, all seeing, all caring, all good one. That's a lot of assumptions in your hypothesis.

The first applys only to the omnimax god (obviously), the second applies only to the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god, and the last applied to any type of creator. But if you limit gods abilities, from omnimax to almost omnimax, he gets a bit less god like with every snip.

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Fairies might exist. There may be a purple teapot orbiting saturn. Presumably, you discount these possibilities as absurd but somehow god gets a special pass. Why? What is so special about a supreme being that gives it more credibility than other equally preposterous ideas?

You can scan your garden with a sonar machine, and we can take a look at saturn, but we have no way of looking for a supreme being. There's no solid evidence for or against because we haven't found a way to look for it yet.

You can't scan every garden in the universe. You can't look at every possible orbit of saturn. They could be invisible faries or undetectable teapots. Again, why does god get a special pass?

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Well, I think a statement that "there is no god that affects my life in any way that I can perceive" would be more accurate. And no, I'm not an athiest in any sense of the word, as I have made no decision one way or the other. That's the definition of an agnostic.

Fair enough. My appologies. I always thought that if you don't actually believe there is a god, that would make you an atheist. Perhaps we have different definitions, to me atheist is "doesn't beleive in god", of which "believes there is no god" is a subset.