Atheist, Agnostic, or Religious?

[fraggle]

[GreyGhost]

Danarchy said:

Yay, causing children trauma.

Should have first taken a short course in de-programming before dismantling her children's belief system.

[Lich]

GreyGhost said:

Should have first taken a short course in de-programming before dismantling her children's belief system.

Agreed that she should have gone about it in a better way, but better that than nothing.

[Creaphis]

Hey guys, you know how sometimes some old thing just pops into your mind, and suddenly seems to be the most ridiculous thing ever? Like the pronunciation of a single word. Choose any random word, and meditate on the sounds you make to say it. Pay more attention to it than you have in decades, and it will be novel and bizarre. Well anyways, something like that just happened to me. After years and years of just taking it for granted, I had a fresh realization that, around the world, there are billions of people of people who believe that there are these big, invisible things that think sort of like humans, only better, I guess, and that they - get this - control the universe! Even though there isn't the slightest evidence for that! And, here's the best part - they base their lives on this. I mean, wow. That is just so weird.

Lich said:

My girlfriend has two children from a previous marriage and she's battling her ex-husband (and her mom) all the time on them taking her kids to church when she's not home. The oldest was already saying she wants to go to church because it's "fun" and was saying that "God made everything". She recently put the hammer down and told her kid that "God doesn't exist". The kid, of course, freaked because that was her only way to explain things she didn't understand. After she stopped screaming about not being able to go to church, she had a lot of questions about how things actually work (like "how does a tree get made?"). The ex-husband still takes the kids to church, though.

Kids are very inquisitive and they want to know the order and operation of things to the best of their understanding. Religion really needs to operate on a mind that lacks incredulity in order to take hold. Children are perfect for this.

It's hard to figure out what the best approach is in this situation. It seems unfair to rob a child of his or her chance to make friends in the church, and to feel part of something bigger. The good times I had growing up in church were good times, and the benefits of being raised in a small church community are still obvious in my life. I have friends there of all ages that are fun to talk to. I understand religious language, practice, and the Christian mythos, which makes me a more well-rounded individual. Hey, I learned to sight-read music by singing hymns, and without that, I probably wouldn't be musically involved today. I'd say that children should be allowed to attend church if they want to - maybe even encouraged to attend, if they don't want to. The parents should emphasize the good aspects of religion instead of the bad ones. Your children will probably end up atheist anyway, if you encourage them to think critically, and if you tell them why you don't believe in God's literal existence. If they don't, well I guess that's okay. If you have Christian kids, that really isn't your problem, unless they're obviously struggling with that or being total dicks.

geekmarine said:

That said, atheism is also about logical and rationality prevailing over fear and superstition. It's about saying to yourself that you're going to trust hard, scientific evidence over myths and legends. Sure, like in all science, you run the risk of being wrong, but the far more important issue at stake is not whether you're right or wrong, but the method you use to investigate the question in the first place.

There's something I think that goes along these same lines. My path to atheism was long and convoluted, but the guiding forces that led me along it were logic, rationality, and a need to understand the world without superstition. I was an adept mathematician when I was younger (I've since lost interest), but I wasn't content to have a systematic understanding of only that one subject area, so I devoted time and effort to bigger questions. I pursued scientific knowledge in the hard sciences, to see what they really state about the universe and the human condition. I've studied psychology, in efforts to link our diverse mental phenomena into my own grand unified theory of mind (currently under construction). I've taken some philosophy courses, and learned how to test philosophies (including my own) to find the assumptions, the weaknesses and the contradictions. (I don't like being wrong, so I try to be the first to find my mistakes.) I've learned to enjoy many different arts, and the messages behind them, and a grand theme I've taken from them as a whole is that something doesn't need an eternal happy ending to be beautiful. In essence, I've become an atheist after a lifetime of using my brain as much as I can - after fighting to understand, to learn, and to solve as much as possible. So, if it turned out that God defies his one-in-a-googol chance of existence, and actually does judge the final destinations of our immortal souls, and if he decided to send me off to burn in eternal hellfire for not giving him praise, then he would be punishing me for using my brain. He would be sentencing me to eternal torment for using the brain that he gave me. Such a fickle, treacherous, hypocritical and dastardly being does not deserve my worship.

fraggle said:

video

I'm pretty sure I've walked down the street, saying those exact same things.

[myk]

Lich said:
I find it hilarious that as an athiest, I've been charged with being "faithless". A mother of an ex-girlfriend of mine, a loving, understanding but hopelessly Catholic woman once asked me "how difficult is it living without faith in something?" As if faith is relegated strictly to matters spiritual. The answer was, of course, very easy: "I have faith in myself."

That might be a good line to throw someone like that off, but when faith in God is a limitation, faith in the self isn't? If you can question yourself, you don't have faith in yourself. And if "faith in oneself" is something else, why use the same word?

Creaphis said:
After years and years of just taking it for granted, I had a fresh realization that, around the world, there are billions of people of people who believe that there are these big, invisible things that think sort of like humans, only better, I guess, and that they - get this - control the universe! Even though there isn't the slightest evidence for that! And, here's the best part - they base their lives on this.

I think most polls about religion aren't very reliable. I read in the FBI fact book that my country has 70% Catholics and 1.5% atheists, or something like that. Maybe from a general cultural perspective the number of Catholics is correct, but a good percent of those care little or nothing about religion past the fact that they've been baptized of the like. At least it did say, I think, that only 20% are practicing. So, I don't know if that many billions really believe anything. None yet if you use the long scale :p

In any case, your description is like saying they still try to keep something like the presence of their parents in their heads after they fully noticed their parents are just human, and even while this may contradict some facts.

[Creaphis]

myk said:

I think most polls about religion aren't very reliable. I read in the FBI fact book that may country has 70% Catholics and 1.5% atheists, or something like that. Maybe from a general cultural perspective the number of Catholics is correct, but a good percent of those care little nothing about religion past the fact that they've been baptized of the like. At least it did say, I think, that only 20% are practicing. So, I don't know if that many billions really believe anything. None yet if you use the long scale :p

It's a big number regardless. "Billions" can be considered hyperbole if need be.

myk said:

In any case, your description is like saying they still try to keep something like the presence of their parents in their heads after they fully noticed their parents are just human, and even while this may contradict some facts.

That sounds about right, though my description was a crude oversimplification, of course. My point in writing it was that of all the ways that religious belief can be boiled down to a few sentences, one way is to make it look extremely absurd. I try not to see religion that way by default, as there are positive aspects to it (and there are religious people I need to get along with), but I really was struck by that today - that religious beliefs are just plain ridiculous. Somehow I had forgotten that temporarily.

[myk]

Creaphis said:
I try not to see religion that way by default, as there are positive aspects to it

Personally, I don't see that as so negative. People may be able to think, but they still are just vulnerable beings in a world they can't control much. Thus many find, in their context, that those myths and traditions are of more value than whether the large hardon collider can generate intergalactic jizz.

[Creaphis]

myk said:

whether the large hardon collider can generate intergalactic jizz.

Mankind's understanding shall penetrate deeper than ever before!

[Creaphis]

and HARDER

[Lich]

myk said:

That might be a good line to throw someone like that off, but when faith in God is a limitation, faith in the self isn't? If you can question yourself, you don't have faith in yourself. And if "faith in oneself" is something else, why use the same word?

It's not a "line", myk. It's humanism. Religious people who go through tough trials in their life often do end up questioning their faith in God. But when they've reached the end of a shitty time in their life and they still have their faith in God, did they ever really lose it to begin with or was it just shaky for a time?

I often have faith in myself to do the right things and make the right decisions. But yeah, I do question myself and somewhat often. But I don't feel like I lose my faith in myself as long as I endeavor to achieve what I can while I'm here.

[myk]

Lich said:
It's humanism.

Religious people can be humanists. As far as I'm concerned it's of an essentially religious origin. I respect humanism though I don't really find it something worth following or espousing. I guess that's how I generally deal with religion too, although I might often find myself more in tune with secular humanism, at least as far as many political issues are concerned (human rights and so on).

But when they've reached the end of a shitty time in their life and they still have their faith in God, did they ever really lose it to begin with or was it just shaky for a time?

That might be trivializing religious people, or at least some of them; they often change their perspectives in considerable degrees yet may remain religious. The concept of faith is not central to all religions and while it is so in hegemonic Christian dogma, for example, this doesn't necessarily dictate how individuals or groups handle it. I've noted that some (even Catholic) theologians respect popular faith while they go by more complex and abstract concepts in the grasp of their religion.

The self exists in more or less the same way God exists.

[Richo Rosai]

geekmarine said:

You realize I AM an atheist, right? Just checking - as I was trying to explain the virtues of being an atheist. Anyway, I was looking at atheism through the eyes of a religious person, and as a general rule, most religious people can't comprehend the idea of anyone else's god being the "correct" one.

Yeah, I figured. I was just arguing against giving that sentiment of theirs too much credit.

[Lich]

myk said:That might be trivializing religious people[/B]

That's fair, and it is a generalization on my part.

myk said:The self exists in more or less the same way God exists.[/B]

I agree with you in the way that the self is intangible and an abstract concept like God. Save that we can see the expressions of the self in ourselves and other people and therefore we know that it is a very real part of everyone and their personalities. But there is also some scientific effort that tries to explain it because we know that all of what we perceive is because we have a brain. To what quality and how we perceive it is can be subject of debate. I disagree because the logic doesn't apply to the concept of a god. It applies even less so to western religion.

[myk]

To put it one way, a god is a sort of meta-self cultures develop as they live. It may seem silly in some ways, inconsistent or arbitrary, but it spans over centuries, social classes and often other cultural bounds.

[ReFracture]

I'm not going to put out some big rant as I have before in other places, but I'll just throw in that I'm atheist.

[Jello]

Atheist.

[PAWKMAN]

I used to be Christian. Then became an Atheist and was convinced religion/God was a lie. Then somehow I started to question that and now I am a Deist. I am not religious but think someone made all this.

I think someone made us but I could care less about it. I become very irritible when friends/family try to get me to go to church with them. I feel like it is a chore/routine/waste of time and I always wonder which god of all the gods of humanity is the real one.

In the end, religious seems to me like some self-explanation for why we are here. But I am convinced of a after-life though I think hell is not real. I think ghosts are real since I had 1 very real ghostly experience.

[kristus]

PAWKMAN said:

Then somehow I started to question that and now I am a Deist. I am not religious but think someone made all this.

That raises the question though. Who/What made that someone?

Steven Hawkings on the origin of the universe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFjwXe-pXvM

[Gez]

Creaphis said:

Such a fickle, treacherous, hypocritical and dastardly being does not deserve my worship.

Big ditto. A "worship me, or else!" deity is basically just a cosmic jerk that deserves nothing else than scorn and contempt. Freedom!

kristus said:

That raises the question though. Who/What made that someone?

That's the critical flaw in the school of thought that there need to be an intelligent designer "behind the scene". If the world couldn't exist on its own but had to be created, what created the creator? If the creator could come into being on its own, why couldn't the world?

This issue is also found in many science fiction novels which had mankind, or intelligence (2001's monoliths...), come from another planet. That's not solving the problem of determining how we did appear, that's just moving it elsewhere.

[Sharessa]

TBQH, militant atheists annoy me just as much as religious proselytizers. Live and let live, says I. Everyone should be allowed to hold their own beliefs as long as they don't start fucking with other people.

[fraggle]

kristus said:

Steven Hawkings

Hawking.

quote:
Then there is Hawking's famous and rather endearing sense of humour. When spotted by American tourists around Cambridge who point and say: 'It's Steve Hawkins!', his speech machine spits out an automatic 'I'm always being mistaken for that man.'

[geekmarine]

Danarchy said:

TBQH, militant atheists annoy me just as much as religious proselytizers. Live and let live, says I. Everyone should be allowed to hold their own beliefs as long as they don't start fucking with other people.

To tell you the truth, this kind of statement has always bothered me. It's based on the assumption that what you believe doesn't affect me, and vice versa. However, certainly here in the United States, what other people believe does very much affect you. Christians try to force the teaching of Creationism and prayer into schools, and they try to force morality-based laws into our government (anti-sodomy laws, anti-gay-marriage laws, etc.), laws that enforce a moral code that doesn't exist outside of Christianity.

Sorry, I'm not trying to say that all Christians are bad people or anything, but there are sects out there who attempt to impose their beliefs on others. Generally speaking, I think militant atheism is usually just a backlash to that imposed religion.

[Gez]

geekmarine said:

To tell you the truth, this kind of statement has always bothered me. It's based on the assumption that what you believe doesn't affect me, and vice versa.

Did you miss the "as long as they don't start fucking with other people"? Or did you interpret it as an opposition to interconfessional copulation?

[Terra-jin]

It's okay if they just don't insult my faith by saying 'mine is the TRUE religion'. There's 3000 religions and they dare say that theirs is 'the one'. Sure they're convinced it's true, otherwise they wouldn't believe it, but they should keep in mind that it's still a belief and therefore by definition not certain.

[geekmarine]

Gez said:

Did you miss the "as long as they don't start fucking with other people"? Or did you interpret it as an opposition to interconfessional copulation?

The entire point of my post was to point out that militant atheists do have something legitimate to be upset about, and therefore a reason to be vocal.

[SYS]

Gez said:

Cognitive sciences have shown that there are areas of the brain that predispose us to have religious beliefs. And it's easily enough explained by simple evolutionary factors because a common religion brings cohesion and unity to a community. After all, the word religion itself means "bind together". For a small community, like hunter-gatherer tribes, it's perfect.

I read this book called DMT. More or less a scientist performed experiments on people with intravenously administered DMT. It's dubbed "The Spirit Molecule" and is produced by humans naturally via the pineal gland. The result of near death experiences are a result of DMT produced from the pineal.

Test subjects experienced these same sorts of states when they were administered it intravenously. Some weren't affected by the drug at all. It's believed that people that have religious experiences are a result of DMT being excreted. Meditation, vibrations of certain speech patterns etc can all cause this phenomena. Strange that this naturally occurring molecule in the human body has a religious context and is extremely hallucinogenic in most people.

It also means people that saw heaven or hell when they almost died were trippin' balls.

[ReFracture]

Danarchy said:

TBQH, militant atheists annoy me just as much as religious proselytizers. Live and let live, says I. Everyone should be allowed to hold their own beliefs as long as they don't start fucking with other people.

I wish people felt that way. Unfortunately, it's religion's nature to shove their ideas and belief down other people's throat.

[Creaphis]

Mike.Reiner said:

I wish people felt that way. Unfortunately, it's religion's nature to shove their ideas and belief down other people's throat.

Well, it's the nature of certain religious people to shove their ideas down throats, and, obviously and unfortunately, it's the most vocal portion that gets the most airtime. This gives us observers the impression that religious people are nutjobs in general. However, there's a pattern behind which religious people are vocal, and this pattern exists because of an interesting trait of the human mind: we feel that something is more likely to be true if more people believe it. This has the following corollaries:

1. If a religious person's ideas about God and morality are general and vague (ie. if the person's beliefs match the majority's beliefs) then that person is much less likely to be vocal about any points.
2. The fewer people who believe something, the more strongly those people will attempt to gain new believers, because more believers can be considered as more evidence that the beliefs are correct.
3. Those who are most vocal about their beliefs are fighting very hard to convince themselves.

[Butts]

damn hook me up with some DMT.

[GreyGhost]

First check the side effects. You mightn't enjoy the sensation of your ass being on fire. :P