Dystopiary
putting up a hook to hang my hopes upon
BIB - not any more.
LGBT in schools vs religious parents
- Thread starter Anton
- Start date
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
There are indeed ignorant atheists, but when compared to belief based on superstition, gods and the worship of supernatural beings, then atheism is a fountain of wisdom.
Humberto
Relax
Yeah all the best people eh?
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
I wouldn't say that. Some of the nicest people I know are religious and there are a few atheists arseholes about.
Is that a question.
Humberto
Relax
Well I wasn't sure what you meant. Lighthearted, it's kicking off or prepare to have the leg bored off you by Humberto. Anyway. No drama.
tim
EXPLODED TIM! (Help me!!!)
,
Anything that diverts this thread from toxic transphobia is welcome.
Anything that diverts this thread from toxic transphobia is welcome.
Personally I am agnostic. I mean I do vehemently believe there is no such God as the ones I was nominally taught about at school. if asked. But I don’t definitely believe there isn’t some creative force. Mainly because I don’t want to waste the intellectual energy on a null hypothesis.. And it doesn’t really affect the day today anyhow.
Oh please don’t, lest we should summon Dwyre.
Just put him ignore.
ouirdeaux
Caring, Understanding, Non-judgemental Type
OK, you're probably at least semi-trolling, but its extreme -- by which I'm assuming you mean dogmatically asserting that there is no god -- no more so than any given reigion.
Religions assert that there not only is a god, or gods, and that they want you to behave in a particular way. I can't prove that this isn't the case. But it's obvious that most of them must be wrong, because the things that they believe -- with nothing approaching evidence -- contradict things others believe, equally without evidence.
Just take the Abrahamic religions. Christians believe that Jesus is the son of God, and that he came to earth to die for our sins. Muslims believe he was a a prophet, but not the last or the greatest. Jews, and everyone else for that matter, believe that he was nothing in particular.
They can't all be right. Unless you're going to go down the 'it's all a metaphor' route, which frankly I don't understand. So why don't more believers wonder how it is that their own unevidenced belief system is the right one? Few claim to have some personal revelation. Most stick with the one they were brought up in --- sure, they might have been lucky, but don't they ever wonder whether they weren't? And even those who pick a new belief don't generally have much more to go on than that it seemed for some reason persuasive at the time.
This alleged divinity wants us not to eat pork. Or maybe not. Just cover your heads while worshipping if you're a woman. Or maybe a man. Worship with others on Friday, or is it Saturday or Sunday?
For all we know, if there is indeed a god who created the universe and has certain rules it wants us to follow. we are all supposed to wear green bobble hats on Wednesdays, or face eternal damnation. Which means that everyone is damned, apart from that funny bloke in the corner of the pub you tried to avoid.
Humberto
Relax
No one's stopping you saying what you want so don't be having a pop at me. I stood up whenever it was unpopular.
ElizabethofYork
Old Crone
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
To have the discussion you have to define a bunch of stuff first, as LBJ says. First of all "god". Clearly not all religions worship the same god, some worship many, and some none at all. There are "nontheistic" religions, like branches of Deism and Pantheism. Some atheists will try to claim that nontheistic religions aren't religions, so you'll need to agree a definition of "religion" too. When you've done all that, some atheists will often agree with deists, pandeists, or pantheists, so you also need to define "atheist". Some atheists, for example, often like to claim Einstein as one of theirs, but he was accepting of Spinoza's god, of pantheism.
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They're not non-theistic though, are they? They literally believe in the 'theism' part.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Which part?
Not all theism requires a belief in an anthropomorphic personal god who goes around smiting bad people or doling out virgins to the faithful.
So you agree with me, that deism and pantheism are not non-theistic. That doesn't necessarily make them religions, which is perhaps what you meant.
ElizabethofYork
Old Crone
Are you talking about hell?
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
That depends on how you define god. If your definition is a belief in the kind of god I described in #1702, then I don't agree with you. Whether or not they're religions depends on another definition.
ddraig
kicking against the pricks...
ddraig
kicking against the pricks...
No, just a reminder for the usual suspects who ignore and carry on regardless
I would say that the definition of god is broader than the beardy sky moralist, and encompasses the god that is the subject of deism and pantheism. What they have in common, ontologically, is positing the existence of a uniquely special entity as the most important fact about the universe.
ouirdeaux
Caring, Understanding, Non-judgemental Type
What they all have in common is that they posit things about the universe that people believe without any evidence. They believe them because they were born to people who told them that these were things to believe, or maybe they heard about them later in life, and thought that they sounded nice. Unless they think they've had some sort of message, and even then you'd think it would enter their heads that they might be delusional, because others have claimed to receive similar messages, but they are radically different in content.
I don't assert that there is no god. What I can say is that I can see no evidence for a god or gods, let alone for the way it or they would like me to behave on earth. It baffles me that so many people can think that their belief system is right, and everyone else's is wrong. By definition, most people have to be wrong, because they believe in a different system, or none. So what are the odds that your particular one is right?
I don't assert that there is no god. What I can say is that I can see no evidence for a god or gods, let alone for the way it or they would like me to behave on earth. It baffles me that so many people can think that their belief system is right, and everyone else's is wrong. By definition, most people have to be wrong, because they believe in a different system, or none. So what are the odds that your particular one is right?
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