music_phantom13

What are you on about here? If you really mean what you write in your post, why does it make a flying **** of a difference that some atheists want to get together to talk about their lack of belief in a god? And why should you have the right to judge them? I don't see what's wrong with the UUA, or being an atheist and being involved. Is it impossible for you to see that there are genuinely good people out there who want to meet and talk about making the world a better place that don't believe in any higher power? Also, the fact that atheists don't believe in a higher power doesn't mean that some of them might not want to get together to search for a meaning in life. I'm sorry for what I'm about to say because I know you will most likely take it wrong and be offended, but that's really what all religion is about - developing good morals and finding a meaning for the chaos that is life. Some just choose to do the same thing that you and I do with religion without looking to a spiritual being. There's much bigger concerns today with religious groups than there are atheists. We tend to cause quite a lot of big controversies; I don't see much with atheism.

crukster

There's no need to apologise for saying that and I agree anyway man. They should admit that that's what they're doing, and not fly about with this false pretense saying that they're not a group or a theology. Because they're definitly a group and they are a theology imo.

atheism is just half-assedness. There's a lot of different answers to the big questions of life out there. All I'm saying is don't develop your own based off some bad experience with religious people in the past or anger at your parents or something.

If you called a Buddhist an atheist because they don't believe in the traditional Abrahamic God, I don't think they'd be too happy. That's not what defines their belief; what defines their belief is the path they follow.

All I'm getting at is, people should stop focusing on what they dont believe and focus on what they do believe. If they believe the answer is nothing, then that's their answer. That's not anti- or a- anything, it's just nothing. I don't think the answer is ever nothing though. So why develop your grounds for questioning life on the antithesis of something existing?

If you dont believe, you dont believe. I'm not a doctor. Thats doesnt make me adoctor or amedical. I'm just simply unqualified to be a doctor.

the idea of atheism represents the aknowledgement of emptiness. And I can't respect that.

Which is something different to not believing. If you dont believe, fine, as I've said 100 times already. But you cant form a frickin philosophy around not believing in something; you form it around believing in something ELSE, or you dont form anything, its as simple as that.

Janszoon

I remember reading one of your posts in another thread where you said you hate strawman arguments. Well all you are doing here is engaging in a strawman argument against atheism. Please do yourself a favor and do some reading on the subject because you're coming off as extremely ill-informed on this topic.

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crukster

Yeah but the thing is I then actually answered the argument and pointed out why it was a strawman, and what my actual opinion on it was.

What's your resposne to that cos atheism imo is about forming a philosophy around not believing in something. Either I'm ill-formed or I'm right

Janszoon

I already did that and you simply ignored my response and continued with the strawmen.

Heh. You're not ill-formed, you're ill-informed. Atheism isn't a philosophy, all it is a lack of belief in a god or gods. That's it. Atheists have a variety of different philosophies, some are even members of religions even though they don't believe in the supernatural components.

__________________
A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

crukster

Thats irrelevant. If you didn't know what I meant you wouldnt have been able to correct it. Grammar and spelling is not really the issue here.

If they are a part of religion, then they're not atheist. Atheist = a self-proclaimed aversion to religion.

Psychologically, to be asocial is to decide to withdraw from social matters.

Biologically, to be asexual is to have a biological construction which does not require you to have sex in order to reproduce.

and so on.

Theologically, atheism is the decided rejection of theism.

It doesnt mean just not beliving.

It doesnt mean not beliving in the supernatural

It doesn't mean not beliving in God.

It means the rejection and dispute of theism. Atheists believe theism is unneccessary to the Human Condition in absolute.

Furthermore, if you won't accept the possibility of the supposed impossible, if you won't accept that there's more to life than you currently know, then you can't be a part of any religion. Can't is not really the word - I mean it more in the sense that there's no reason for you to be.

If there is no purpose to Humanity then I have no interest in Humanity.


But before you play the "without your religion you'd be a psycho killer" card, allow me to explain.

There is a purpose to Humanity, because we exist. Thus, we maintain that existence, and seek to understand it further. From that, we'll attain further purpose.

If I didn't believe THAT, then yes, I would be a psycho killer. Arguably, though, if it wasn't true I wouldnt exist or be here in the first place, so how would I kill anyone?

But you dont have to be religious to believe that. All I'm saying is religion is a useful component of such an idea.

You could decide to not follow a specific religion, but still assist to maintain Humanity and seek that purpose. All that would be different is the "name" and affiliation though, which is irrelevant in the end, you'd be doing the same things, with the exception of the corrupted religious and non-religious alike. Righteousness is Universal. What works works. What doesnt, doesnt.

But I don't really see how making yourself an enemy of religion helps. Because in essence, if what we're all doing truly works, it wont matter if we learnt it from a book or from experience. All that'll matter is whats done. Why should entire sources of input be written off just because you cant verify where they came from? Why does it matter where they came from? Why does it matter if Christ was sent by God or not? Why does it matter if Moses was physically handed the ten commandments in stone? Why does it matter if Muhammed was led to the mountains by a literal burning bush?

What matters is that we know of Christ and what matters is the message he left behind. What matters is that Moses gave us the ten commandments. What matters is that Muhammed was led to the mountain. God rest their souls.

What matters is what was said and done, because they hold very important messages, regardless of where they came from.

What matters is whatever larger framework we may be a part of.

How can you write off the possibility that they came from a higher power, a greater conciousness?

Why do you doubt the intention of that higher power, when the ten commandments have been shown very clearly to be functional and in the best interests of Humanity?

I'm not saying we shouldnt question, we should always question things.

it justs seems ignorant to me for someone to say "I am atheist, your rules dont apply to me" When we're not talking about rules of society. We're talking about rules of the Unvierse. If you're agravity will it stop affecting you? Religion is about understanding those laws of the Universe and then using our concious minds to maintain and apply them as best as possible to our own manmade social structures.

It doesnt matter who says them, it matters what's said and our understanding of whats said.

It's not who said it. It's what's said.

RVCA

This is fundamentally incorrect. Suppose that, somewhere in the world, there is a small group of people that worship a tiny golden teapot in the sky. We could call them teapotists. Does it take someone who "rejects and disputes" the existence of this tiny golden teapot to be labeled as a "ateapotist"? No, of course not. Most people probably aren't aware that such an epistemic absurdity is considered to exist. Therefore, they lack belief in this teapot, therefore, they are ateapotists by default.

As Richard Dawkins said, "We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

Janszoon

I see no reason to continue responding to you when you clearly aren't even bothering to read my posts. Hopefully at some point something will click with you and you'll make some kind of effort at understanding things before jumping to all these wild conclusions about them.

__________________
A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man

Time & Place

25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die

last.fm

Burning Down

I consider myself an atheist Jew. There's a whole history and culture that goes along with being Jewish and religion is only a part of that. I don't reject religion at all, but I personally don't believe in a deity so why get involved in religious matters? I haven't really been involved in religion since my Bat Mitzvah when I was 12, but that doesn't mean that I've completely rejected religion as a whole. I respect people who have faith in God, or who go to church every week, etc., just like I respect others who don't.