Apologies if this is a stupid question...

retired_sargent · 05-31-2006, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by infectedbydevils:
"But isn't disbelieving in God the same thing as believing he doesn't exist?"

Definitely not. Disbelief in a proposition means that one does not believe it to be true. Not believing that something is true is not equivalent to believing that it is false; one may simply have no idea whether it is true or not.

Exactly right, I remember doing an essay on the subject. Two Theories: God exists; God does not exist. Argue the cases. (or something like that, it was 30 years ago.)
I think I leant towards the latter theory at the end of it, but there was no hard evidence either way.

retired_huseyinek · 05-31-2006, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Okay, so technically you are correct that atheism is not a religion, but at the end of the day, it performs exactly like religion: it is a perspective that governs your behavior. It is a belief system, if one that is different from individual to individual.

I could not disagree with you more. If anything being aethiest or agnostic actually frees you from having your behavior governed. I don't walk around going "I don't belive in God so I am going to make sure I live my life that way. Got to make sure to **** off some Catholics today." If anything I don't have the burden of "WWJD" (What would Jesus do?) I have total respect for anybody's belief but that statement was just flat wrong. Religion in its self is a mental disease. Where else in the world can you find a bunch of people taking LITERALLY a book of fiction written 2000 years ago?? A book translated over and over and over, rewritten by King James (this also happens to be the most popular version of the bible) because he didn't like some parts of it. Wanted to make it more to what he liked. And people take it seriously. Amazes me, no problem with it, your choice. But it still amazes me, and being aethiest is nothin at all like a religion. If I had it my way it wouldn't even be called anything, except maybe sane.

retired_sargent · 05-31-2006, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by gfairbairn:
.... Religion in its self is a mental disease. Where else in the world can you find a bunch of people taking LITERALLY a book of fiction written 2000 years ago?? ....

You are confusing religion with Christianity. Prior to the invention of any form of written language, the religions of the day existed via an oral tradition that passed down for generations.
Don't knock it, there are tribes in Africa whose oral traditions go back thousands of years and are generally accepted as being almost 100% accurate.
The Jewish religion was one of these and the first written bible was a collection of stories from that tradition.
The Buddhist and Hindhu traditions also go back a long way before written language.
All of these have the same basic ethics
Honour your parents, do not steal from others, do not kill, do not believe in other gods.

I do not think that a believer in God is insane any more than I believe that one who does not believe in God is insane.

retired_jmathias · 05-31-2006, 04:57 PM

I agree with Church (the respectable member of this forum).
You can't claim a person insane, just because he believes in "higher being". Islam has Koran, and I bet it wasn't rewriten by King James.
It has same basic principals same basic behaviour patterns, and of course some differences.

retired_huseyinek · 05-31-2006, 05:44 PM

True, I do apolgize. I was kinda in a bad mood when I wrote that and did make a very broad generalization. I truly don't believe all religion is a mental illness, though I think some people it truly is. I don't like to offend anyone so I apologize if I did. I just tend to get fired up talking about christianity, I may again offend someone, but I just don't understand how someone can take some of the stories in the Bible (a talking burning bush??) more literally than saying that we came from monkeys. Anyways I will stop before you all hate me. lol :cool:

retired_jmathias · 05-31-2006, 06:04 PM

Ummm. There is nothing wrong with religion per-se. But there is something wrong with institution that uses it to get what it wants. And tries to force it to the others that don't want it.

retired_raistlin1979 · 05-31-2006, 06:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by iamthequinn:
Wild guess ... stab in the dark ... but you're a Christian, yes? Or you believe and have a faith in something. And Kallinan too, no doubt. It's only religious people who make the claim that atheism is a religion. They (somebody who is religious, be they Christian, Jewish or Muslim) don't seem to accept that other people can live their lives without something to govern their choices in life so they start to try and draw parallels to justify atheism. I remember having an arguement with my ex-mother-outlaw (she was a devout Catholic) about atheism. She looked at me in a sad (patronising) way and said "it must be hard to live your life with such a great hole". She couldn't accept that I didn't believe in God so she decided that an absence of belief in something meant there was something missing from my makeup. And thats where religious people start thinking that atheism is a religion. Calling atheism a religion isn't for my benefit: it's comforts those with some kind of faith. It puts order in their lives. Not mine.

Atheists, contrary to your claim, have no belief system. We disbelieve in God much in the same way we disbelieve in the tooth fairy or Father Christmas. There is only one thing which each atheist agree on, and that's there is no God. After that, each and every one of us is different. Yes, they have a moral code, but everybody has a moral code, be it one influenced by the rules of a religion or one influenced by life and the world around. I'm sure there are many uber-right wing meat-eating nazi atheists. I have absolutely nothing in common with their lifesyle, their moral code, etc. I only agree with them that there is no God. How can that be a religion?

You'd be surprised, quinn. I'm kind of "Christian." I'm sure agnostics would disown me, as would most Christians.

I support evolution as the current best scientific theory, I think creationists are some of the silliest people in the world. I don't believe the Bible as truth. I'm against prayer in school, I'm for additional separation of Church & State in the U.S., but I don't mind that our politicians are often religious. The Christian Conservatives are my most despised political group in the U.S.

The whole Jesus thing, dying for our sins, heaven, and loving creator of the universe is a great story. There's a lot of historical evidence for many things in the bible, but not the main issue of Jesus being divine & being crucified. It'd be great if it were true. But, I can't prove it, even to myself. And I'm a man of little faith outside of things I can prove. So I say, "that's nice."

My personal definition of religion is belief in something you can't prove. Atheism says there is no God. Not "we don't think there's a God, but don't really know, so whatever." No God. And that still requires belief in something you can't prove, hence I draw parallels to a religion. Don't want to call it a religion? Fine, whatever.

I don't believe atheists have a hole in their life. Moral code can be found anywhere - religions, laws, relationships & friends. I *do* think that what *some* Christian leaders preach - live a life of generosity, mercy, and doing the "right" thing (whatever that is) - is a good message. But religions have been the cause of a zillion wars & deaths, so I'm not even sure they're a good thing in general. /shrug

retired_Bruce Rowland · 05-31-2006, 07:29 PM

Religions is like everything. It can be used for objectively "good" or objectively "bad". So, if we take this as a fact, you cannot say that it is or it is not a good thing.

Considering your quest in order to define religion and atheism, I have these little elements to share with you. People across the centuries were attributing to God, anything that they could not explain. It seems now, that thanks to science we know much more things than before. But do we know evrything? The common answer is no. At least this is my answer.

Attention, this does not seem that I explain every ignorance with religion. What I want to say with this is that we must relativize the present time. People, frequently, believe that they live in the era of absolut truth, that everything can be explained through science. Well I can give you many arguments to prove you the contrary. In the history of humanity, people were always living in the "present", had a past, and were interrogating themselves about the future. It is the same for now. Imagine that you claim that there are some pink elephants flying in another dimension. People will tell that you are crazy... Does this remind you something?

What I want to prove by this is that religion is a natural need for some human beings and not for other human beings. The difference is that, some centuries ago, noone could dare affirm that he is an atheist. Now he can. And that's why, people can question the existence of God.

retired_berrysale · 05-31-2006, 08:15 PM

Religion in itself does not cause conflict.

Conflict is caused when people take issue with religion. Some people decide to take issue with religion. It doesn't matter what reason, those people are guilty of using an excuse to cause conflict.

Those people within religion that cause conflict can be just as guilty of causing a problem.

In either case, religion is an excuse found to cause conflict.

Institutionalised religion becomes corrupt when human nature takes control and people try to take control of the religion.

It is human nature that causes problems, not religion. It is not possible for everyone to get along as it's the nature of humans to conflict with others.

retired_raistlin1979 · 05-31-2006, 08:53 PM

Fair enough.

Apologies if this is a stupid question...

Football Manager 2008 has a database compromising of tens of thousands of players.

Apologies if this is a stupid question...