Atheism - theism

[Freethinker]

but that to each individual there is a strong feeling that we cannot ignore

Ah, this is obvious not true. I can and have "ignored" it.

[Stargazer]

I used to say I was an Atheist until I realized that the common definition was "the belief that there is no God," which sure smelled like a religion to me. So I go by "agnostic" or "heathen" ("I believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny..."), depending on the audience....

Maybe you could say "weak atheist" which some mean is when you simply lack a belief in god or gods. But then again it's not exactly bold to say that there is no god, since they're all created by us.

[pgrmdave]

Ah, this is obvious not true. I can and have "ignored" it.

 

I was speaking strictly of believers.

[lindagarrette]

I think amassing wealth represents power which most people subject themselves to willingly. They like the idea of a lord and master. The notion that good things come from the lord and master are incentives to give sacrifices to the temple. Look at the vatican treasure trove. Although it has a negative cash flow these days, the art and jewelry it posseses are priceless. Now, that brings up a curious point. What are art and jewelry worth, really. Someone has to part with useful goods to acquire them and then they sit around, again in that person's treasure chest.

[Freethinker]

If you make sure to be open minded about things,

It is said that one has to be careful not to be so open minded that your brains fall out.

[Freethinker]

In regards to Riverrat's premonition - I've had that same feeling multiple times, and, looking back on them, have realized that there were some subtle clues that I didn't consiously notice, but were there, and affected my thoughts.

Just like the "bible Code" and Nostradamus. It is easy to invent correlations after the fact.

[Freethinker]

Ah welcome, especially if that is your actual picture! (Ops my bad!)

I used to say I was an Atheist until I realized that the common definition was "the belief that there is no God," which sure smelled like a religion to me.

I prefer to make the effort to stop the word "Atheist" from being hijacked. Why should I not use the CORRECT word just because others try to demonize it? The "other side" plays this game very well. Poeple are afraid of calling themselves "liberal". Not because being a liberal is BAD, in fact nothing of value has come from any other stance, but it has been so demonized that liberals are afraid to use it. So now we hear "Progressive". Yet the Progressive Movement in America was actually responsible for Prohibition. They wanted greater Governmental control over the population. But being afriad to be called Liberal, we've now redefind Progressive. But soon it will be coopted to mean something horrible also and we "progressive liberal atheists" will buckle under and find a new word, like "Brites".

 

This will keep happening till people stand up to the Conservative which are so good at demonizing words and inventing new ones, like Partial Birth Abortions and Unborn Babies.

 

So if you prefer to use the wrong words (like Agnostic) because you want to surrender to the oppostion that is your choice. Me, I'm willing to fight for truth and reality.

[IrishEyes]

This is actually proven statistically. There is a direct inverse correlation between education and belief. The higher the level of education the less apt to be a believer. The more highly regarded the instituion of learning, the lower the % of believers attending.

If you have them available, I'd really like to take a look at those stats, as well as their source studies. This is something that I've heard referenced, but have never been able to get my hands on. Thanks for the help.

[Buffy]

Ah welcome, especially if that is your actual picture! (Ops my bad!)

"Intelligence: the ability to manage two contrary views without having one's brain explode."

 

"Freethinker?" "Sexist?" Ooooh, my brain hurts....but I can deal. :)

 

So if you prefer to use the wrong words (like Agnostic) because you want to surrender to the oppostion that is your choice. Me, I'm willing to fight for truth and reality.

Nah, actually its the Madeline Murray O'Hair crowd that hijacked it, not the uber-fundamentalists... oh wait, is that what you mean by "the opposition?"

 

Its easy to get attacked by all sides: I've had hard core atheists attack me with the line, "Oh so you don't care?" I don't like anyone with absolutist opinions...

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Bahaichap]

GOD IN 1793

 

 

In the works of Enlightenment rationalists like d’Holbach, Helvetius, Diderot and Voltaire reason assumed the throne which Revelation till then had occupied. In 1793 in Notre Dame, Paris, God was publicly ‘dethroned.’ Atheism became a political movement. The thinkers who laid the philosophical foundations of what today constitutes the creed of systematic disbelief were: Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche. -Udo Schaefer, The Imperishable Dominion: The Baha’i Faith and the Future of Mankind, George Ronald, Oxford, 1992, pp.3-4.

 

In the works of Shaykh Ahmad and Siyyid Kazim, the precursors of the Bab; and in the works of Baha’u’llah, ‘Abdu’l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi as well as the Universal House of Justice a messianic Shi’ism was transformed into a world religion. The beginning point, it could be argued, was also 1793 when Shaykh Ahmad migrated to Najaf and Karbila and began to attract a personal following. Now, after more than two centuries of slow and painstaking extension and consolidation, this belief system is acquiring a marvellous systematic form and organizational effectiveness. -Ron Price with thanks to Peter Smith, The Babi and Baha’i Religions: From Messianic Shi’ism to a World Religion, George Ronald, Oxford, 1987, pp. 7-8.

 

While God was being dethroned in Paris,

He seemed to be taking up a special place

in Karbila and Najaf, those holy thresholds

or the Atabat, where the Imams were buried,

among the mujtahids, among the ulama, and

especially among the adepts of Shaykhism.

 

While God was systematically dieing,

if such an organic process can occur

systematically, thanks to Marx, Freud

and a thousand others; He was getting

a new lease on life, definition, form,

place, in a new holy of holies, in the birth,

the gradual unfoldment of a supreme

Theophany, a charismatic Force now

visible before the eyes of men,

the Desire of all the Divine Messengers,

now a new Jerusalem just down the road.

 

Ron Price

13 December 1998

[Bahaichap]

I came across the following passage in ESSAYS ON RUSSIAN NOVELISTS(William Lyon Phelps, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1911). The essay was entitled RUSSIAN NATIONAL CHARACTER AS SHOWN IN RUSSIAN FICTION. The great five, whose place in the world's literature seems absolutely secure, are Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevski, and Tolstoi. Like all great literatures, Russian literature throws light on the question of atheism and theism. I would encourage any voteries of atheism to plow their way through the Russian body of literature. It may take a lifetime. But like all great questions of belief, there are no simple answers.

___________________________________________________

 

Phelps writes:

 

"The religious sentiment, in its essence, can never be crushed by reasoning, by a sin, by a crime, by any form of atheism; there is something there which remains and always will remain beyond all that, something which the arguments of atheists will never touch. But the chief thing is, that nowhere does one notice this more clearly than in the heart of Russia. It is one of the most important impressions that I first received from our country."

 

Phelps continues:

 

Many Russians do not believe in God, or Law, or Civil Government, or Marriage, or any of the fundamental Institutions of Society; but their daily life is as regular and conventional as a New Englander's. Others, however, attempt to live up to their theories, not so much for their personal enjoyment, as for the satisfaction that comes from intellectual consistency. In general, it may be said that the Russian is far more of an extremist, far more influenced by theory, than people of the West.

 

Of course, this book was written before the Russian Revolution in 1917. Atheism in the 20th century has had, extensively, a winning game. I'm not so sure any more--100 years after Phelps is writing, whether the question any more is: "Does God exist?" Rather, the question seems to be--now that we have made a tentative mapping of both the universe and the brain--"what does it all mean?" I think that's enough for now. -Ron Price, Tasmania.

[maddog]

Gnostic? You want to claim that you can PROVE there is a god? That there are physical proofs with logical processes behind it? That is what is meant by Gnostic as a religion. It was (is?) a specific religion which was one of the one's Christianity stole their stuff from.

 

As for Buddhism, it's support for a caste system is to anti-humanistic for me. I have too much respect for the entire human race to accept that some are born inferior and should stay in their place!

 

Gnostic was the branch that early on was branded as heretical by the then dominant Catholic structure.

However, the origin of Gnostic is from Greek Gnosis "to know" and as I understand refers the knowing

which comes from within. This is not about "proving". It is from this that the term "agnostic" is formed as

that which is against a connection to God. This group attempt to prove such.

 

Brahmanism is the chaste system. Buddhists are more pacifists. They are the groups that think all

animals are reincarnations of previous lives. Why cows are practically worshiped in India.

 

As I said, I somewhat against the notion of denominations and prefer to study from the source. I have

read from the Koran, Bible (finished), Bhagavad Ghita. I have yet to read from the Torah and any parts

of the Rig Veda, if I can. I meditate. I find that all of these differing beliefs aren't actually that far off.

 

The importance is the word belief itself. Practically why the Crusades were fought. "They were infidels!"

and "We are right with God!" See how those oppose each other. Doesn't matter that both can be

wrong. We faught anyway. I see it as same, with God / "No God". Both are belief. Both can neither be

proved nor disproved.

 

Someone said above (forget who) "only way to get an Atheist to believe in God is to have a lobotomy.

I see this as a bit wrong (though FT, I did like your comment :) ). What I see you have two people in

a room: a Creationist (Theist) and an Atheist. To either to see the others point of view would take the

same procedure. The removal of the will. Now a lobotomy would probably do the trick. This would also

have the effect of removing the ability to make any kind of decision. However, where do you find the

"will" in the head ? What group of neurons comprises one's will ? Current medicine has not clue. I could

speculate further, though I wish not to offend either group. So remove the will and remove the need

to prove/believe anything. Then you could tell anything you like. They would say, "OK". :)

 

Maddog

[motherengine]

from what i understand the word atheism was introduced into the english language before the words deist or theist and is a derivative of the french word atheisme which is itself derived from...etc. if someone adopts a word as a lable and chooses what definition of it they like this is all well and good, but to insist that the particular definition they have chosen is the 'correct' definition and that any other is an insult to 'their' lable being used by uneducated people just seems to get in the way of conversation and discussion to me. yes atheism can be traced to a root meaning but words and meanings evolve with cultures and so any root meaning is no more acturate by itself then alternative definitions are by themselves. as it stand in the english language atheism represents the absense belief in the existance of god and agnosticism is considered the rejection of the idea that one can know if god exists or not (thomas huxley coined the term in order to distinguish himself from what he saw as a strict denial of the existance of god in some atheistic views). an atheist is also an agnostic if their view is not an outright denial of the possible existance of god. a newborn is an atheist. a person who states that god does not exist is an atheist. meanwhile a theist is someone who rejects atheism. i can understand someone liking one part of a words meaning and who have adopted said word and definition as a mantle would be offended by people who blatently say 'this is what an atheist is'. but for the sake of conversation and argument it does no one any good to insist that one defintion is superior over another. personally i am an agnostic and sometimes atheist and i was once a theist. but basically i am just a guy trying to have a conversation.

[Buffy]

... to insist that the particular definition they have chosen is the 'correct' definition and that any other is an insult to 'their' lable being used by uneducated people just seems to get in the way of conversation and discussion to me....

 

Amen! :)

 

"'When I use a word,' said the Caterpillar 'it means exactly what I want it to mean. No more, and no less" -- Chuck Dodgson

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[sanctus]

Welcome to the forum Buffy.

 

I've got just two questions: you wrote that you think "thereis/isn't a god" is related to the uncertainity principle. Could explain how you believe this are related (I know the principle, the relation is my question)?

 

And you say

I don't like anyone with absolutist opinions...

 

So you don't like yourself neither? As you just wrote an absolut opinion about people with absolutist opinions.

[Buffy]

Welcome to the forum Buffy.

Hola! Aloha! Konichiwa!

...you wrote that you think "thereis/isn't a god" is related to the uncertainity principle. Could explain how you believe this are related (I know the principle, the relation is my question)?

I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader, but here are a couple of examples (other interpretations are equally valid):

 

Using the colloquial definition: The closer you get to God the warmer and fuzzier he seems! (whether that's good depends on your opinion :) )

 

Using the more formal definition: You can measure existence or you can define what a god is, but you can't determine whether a god exists. (using lower case and inclusion of the article is to avoid offending polytheists (wow! we left THEM out of this thread, huh?))

So you don't like yourself neither? As you just wrote an absolut opinion about people with absolutist opinions.

Nah, won't bite that one. I disagree with your premise: since I didn't define what I think an "absolutist opinion" is, I'm not really expressing one! I'm free to like or not like people depending on my whim at any particular moment (the grey area of my grey matter), and that's my business: I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything! To argue anything else would imply that no one can have feelings! Ew! How Vulcany!

 

Cheers,

Buffy

[Freethinker]

If you have them available, I'd really like to take a look at those stats, as well as their source studies. This is something that I've heard referenced, but have never been able to get my hands on. Thanks for the help.

Sorry Irish. I tried to get to this one last night at home. I have my documentation in a file there. But did not get to this thread. I will try tonight.

 

Unlike others, I always provide support when asked. Rather than ignore the request and drag the discussion elsewhere. I do not fear requests for verifyable support.