Religion

Post by **Gogeta70** » 09 Feb 2007, 19:14

First of all, i would like to state that i'm an atheist. However, i'm not going to make a point until i have an opposer.

Take your chances...

Post by **Necrix** » 09 Feb 2007, 20:54

Honestly, I think this subject is too worn out..but..hell, let's go.

This really isn't a debate topics, in my opinion...not with what you gave us, anyway. All there is to debate is whether or not you're actually an Atheist or not. SO, I'm guessing this won't last long unless someone starts questioning your beliefs.

Okay..by definition, Atheism is the denial of the exist of any/all gods..pretty much not believing in theism at all. Alot of people confuse this with not having religion at all..but it's simply not believing in an ultimate being(s).

What do you believe, then?

Post by **Gogeta70** » 09 Feb 2007, 22:52

Too worn out? I agree, but let's get this out of the way.

Let's take a look at the definition of atheism:

Atheism is the state either of being without theistic beliefs, or of actively disbelieving in the existence of deities.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

And religion:

generally a belief in a deity and practice of worship, action, and/or thought related to that deity.
www.carm.net/atheism/terms.htm

Now, what you said is that atheism is the denial of the existence of any or all gods, pretty much not believing in theism at all.

However, if you look at the definition of religion, it gives the entities that make up religion. That includes the belief in a god, or deity. It says 'the belief of a deity and the worship of that deity'. And the definition of atheism above that says "actively disbelieving in the existence of deities".

So while atheism may not be the lack of worship, religion is defined as worship toward a deity that you believe in. Atheism rules out that main entity, which takes down the entire structure of religion. Therefore, atheism is vicariously the lack of a religion.

I am an atheist.

Post by **Necrix** » 09 Feb 2007, 23:23

The following links have slightly different definitions than this carm.net(actually carm.org) has.
I have to say, after looking at the site, it seems their definition of it is biased..and is probably their own thought of what it means. They admit that it's a general definition of it...which, generally, means what people generally define it as. lol.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion
http://tinyurl.com/2ez42w (Google ... define:religion)
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/religion (seems to have both of the definitions)

By the way, why did you use wiki's definition for Atheism...but not their definition for religion?

Post by **CommonStray** » 10 Feb 2007, 08:21

I've studied alot of the occult and religion and they all have similiar stories...but thats not the point, worship may be what it is 'worship' but worship also includes the practice of doctrine, and understanding others, each story of every religion teaches something about life, and not reading it and trying to understand it is like trying to boycott computer technology in a computer driven world.

Jesus was a man, he was a man, mabey created through divination, mabey not.

But how can you disbelieve in something that is higher than yourself? What then can you believe in? Believing in yourself is simply bravery or cowardice and a simple choice....explain ghosts, explain phenomenon, explain to me the magic that creates life, the electricity that charges that egg and makes it do what it does when a sperm enters it? explain to me the changes plant life goes through and the natural way of evolution and why evolution happens...

explain the stigmata

why would so many people, hold their beliefs so high as to die for them?

explain to me how 7 in a car accident 6 die instantly and one lives with minor injuries....luck?

explain why humans are the dominant a smartest lifeform on this planet...why not dolphines why not pigs?

religion isnt just worship in a deity, its an answer...

its an answer to why this and why that

its mostly a state of mind...im tired of hearing im this and im that, and i believe in this and that...i dont have to tell anyone what i am or what i believe because i know what i am and what i believe, i dont "have" to write about it or debate with others about it, i dont need to know where im going, all i need to know is where ive been and what ive learned...from all things in life we learn knowledge....however knowledge is not wisdom.

Wisdom is the ability, developed through experience, insight and reflection, to discern truth and exercise good judgment. Wisdom is sometimes conceptualized as an especially well developed form of common sense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom

The classical definition for knowledge, found in (although not ultimately endorsed by) Plato, has it that in order for there to be knowledge at least three criteria must be fulfilled; that in order to count as knowledge, a statement must be justified, true, and believed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge

To finalize this post and point - You may think your Atheist, but do you "know" for sure that you are? Posting to debate someone about such an issue and looking for someone to contend your belief is an outcry for someone to change your mind - how do you know your not Agnostic?

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort. -Confucius

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

True philosophers who are burning with love for truth and learning never see themselves . . . as wise man, brim- full of knowledge . . . For most of them would admit that even the very greatest number of things of which we know is only equal to the very smallest fraction of things of which we are ignorant. Nor are these philosophers so addicted to any kind of tradition or doctrine that they suffer themselves to become their slaves, and thus lose their liberty. -William Harvey

Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. -Thomas Henry Huxley

Post by **CommonStray** » 10 Feb 2007, 08:37

one more thing...

Atheism is a world view which accepts nature without resorting to supernatural explanations, magic, superstition, or beliefs. Information is accepted or rejected based on reason and verifiable observation.

If your Atheist you disbelieve in god(s) because you have no cold hard evidence to support your belief in them...or because you cant see them.

Agnosticism is a belief that neither denies or accepts the existence of one or many gods.

Post by **Necrix** » 10 Feb 2007, 09:48

Bravo, CircuitB0mb!

Simply awesome..

FrankB · Post by **FrankB** » 10 Feb 2007, 10:27

That was indeed a good piece of writing !
Hat tip for Circuit !

JuggaloMushroom · Post by **JuggaloMushroom** » 10 Feb 2007, 12:24

uummm....seriously this is just my opinion i really could care less what any one else has to say about it because i have been called a bunch of names(these consist of the following:hippie,pothead,athiest,satanist,ect.) because of what i belive in or do.I belive alot of things and i do find evidence for each and every one so to my acknowlage i do as i want to do in life for a simple reason because when i die i am not taking any material possesions with me into the after life (if there's even one which i belief there might be cause energy can't simply die it has to go some where) i also belive that love and peace should be a thing all humans should get around to and stop with calling wars in name of their religions (main reason why i was called a hippie) further more i belive that we are already in hell for the bible mentions nothing about it (name refarance satanist) and i also belive that there might not be a god for there has to be an original creator to create and if god exist who is the creator and if there is non then i simply find it as there is no god ( or mabey he's an alien i don't know this is a reason why i getr called athiest) but to my terms beliefs are a choice of the human kind and they should be respected and they should not be made fun off(not that any one did

) i here by due tell every one to please if hopefully should join and put religons apart and learn to share.(cause if there's aliens out ther we are screwed cause we don't know how to work together.)

TheKingOfHearts · Post by **TheKingOfHearts** » 10 Feb 2007, 12:51

Religion doesn't exist its a myth its something created by higher form of government to control the minds of millions of people.
Religion was created for one purpose because people needed to have a reason why. Some people don't have what i call it open eyes they cant see the world in a way that intelligence and everything else mixes in the human brain and develops a full head on collision with the "now" not the past the current and the future. Religion creates racism and diversity also created gaps between people and cripples society. Given that the term Religion might turn out someday fake people would still believe in "god" reason why is that we humans need to believe and when we do that we are complete if we don't believe in anything we
give others the chance of our misunderstanding our pain our suffering. Sometimes religion has a point putting "Greater Laws" on humans like
don't kill because if we kill each other we wont survive or don't lie cuz lies always come out somehow or don't be greedy , greed = desire and passion and sometimes it equals the bad parts of the human brain therefore creating a disaster which could end up in alot of "sins"
Sins....phhh what are sins in our modern lifestyle who hasn't sinned
recently one girl from school told me that porn is a sin and i should stop watching it....yeah like never....or drinking is a sin....yeah you got me there too....
The worse thing that religion can do to the world is change the proper thing with its improper....example when Copernicus and Galileo found out that the Earth is not frikin flat they got laughed at by the CHURCH...
oh lets make a reality check....is the Earth Flat? Flat like a Ball

Sometimes the personal individualism ends up the right thing sometimes not the only thing important is what you believe in
YOU and only you decide no one else can do it for you
if you let that happen if you let the thinking to be done by someone else you are not an individual you are not a person you are a puppet

god does NOT exist
religion is FAKE

i am not atheist or w/e i just chill out dont care on this stuff

and i also this posted to prove that jesus was just a steroid addict

JuggaloMushroom · Post by **JuggaloMushroom** » 10 Feb 2007, 12:58

TheKingOfHearts wrote:Religion doesn't exist its a myth its something created by higher form of government to control the minds of millions of people.
Religion was created for one purpose because people needed to have a reason why. Some people don't have what i call it open eyes they cant see the world in a way that intelligence and everything else mixes in the human brain and develops a full head on collision with the "now" not the past the current and the future. Religion creates racism and diversity also created gaps between people and cripples society. Given that the term Religion might turn out someday fake people would still believe in "god" reason why is that we humans need to believe and when we do that we are complete if we don't believe in anything we
give others the chance of our misunderstanding our pain our suffering. Sometimes religion has a point putting "Greater Laws" on humans like
don't kill because if we kill each other we wont survive or don't lie cuz lies always come out somehow or don't be greedy , greed = desire and passion and sometimes it equals the bad parts of the human brain therefore creating a disaster which could end up in alot of "sins"
Sins....phhh what are sins in our modern lifestyle who hasn't sinned
recently one girl from school told me that porn is a sin and i should stop watching it....yeah like never....or drinking is a sin....yeah you got me there too....
The worse thing that religion can do to the world is change the proper thing with its improper....example when Copernicus and Galileo found out that the Earth is not frikin flat they got laughed at by the CHURCH...
oh lets make a reality check....is the Earth Flat? Flat like a Ball
Sometimes the personal individualism ends up the right thing sometimes not the only thing important is what you believe in
YOU and only you decide no one else can do it for you
if you let that happen if you let the thinking to be done by someone else you are not an individual you are not a person you are a puppet

god does NOT exist
religion is FAKE

i am not atheist or w/e i just chill out dont care on this stuff

and i also this posted to prove that jesus was just a steroid addict

(

jesus took steroids) i agree with him chill out and have the nicest life you can

Post by **floodhound2** » 10 Feb 2007, 19:11

math is my religion. Ghost and unexplainable can be explained if given it time and an open mind. My opinion is that religion is a lazy mans way to answer questions about this world and all it has to offer.

Religion serves its purpose but it has no purpose for me. I can describe most of the universe using math. Math and science!!!

No i will not attempt to show any of you what i am talking about. Simply put any one who disagrees i apologize; it took me many years of schooling in physics, math, and science to begin to comprehend all of what i believe in.

God is all of us and we are God. We are energy and space forming life as we know it.

sternbildchen · Post by **sternbildchen** » 11 Feb 2007, 04:07

The christian religion was created when the Holy Land was conquert by the Romans. The people were suppressed by the Romans and some smart people created the christian religion.
"The more worse your live on earth is the better you live in heaven will be." Easy solution for the poor and suppressed people. They don't had to care anymore for their bad live. And over the centurys the religion became part of our education and so of our howl life. Even if you dont like or trust in religion, its still always aroung you.

Like Karl Marx said: "Religion is the opium of the people". This is the true reason why religion was created.

I don't like religion at all and never went to church, but I trust in something that stands over our lives. Maybe a god, maybe not.

New scientific studies have proven that praying acts in the human brain like telling a real person your worse fears, because of that praying to god really helps the people and makes them feel better. So give me any reason why we shouldn't pray.
Discuss.

FrankB · Post by **FrankB** » 11 Feb 2007, 07:52

Strange, everybody jumps into debate but nobody tried to discuss of terms that make religion like belief, faith, sacrifice, conviction, principles, adoration, passion, love, rituals, rites, dicipline ..
you name it.
It is esential : not every belief is religious, not every religion is based on conviction nor is every religion deistic per se.

From a great ex-nun, Karen Amstrong ,in her book "3000 years of Judaism, Catholicism and Islam" and the "History of the Crusades" she gives a good description of ways to look at the world's events, life & death

Men and women look to life in basically two ways :
1. in "pathein" :
"quality that arouses pity or sorrow," 1668, from Gk. pathos "suffering, feeling, emotion," lit. "what befalls one," related to paskhein "to suffer," and penthos "grief, sorrow;" from PIE base *kwenth- "to suffer, endure" (cf. O.Ir. cessaim, Lith. kenciu "suffer").

Here we can recognise Christianism and islam.

2. in "manthanein" ( to learn ), which gave birth to circumspection, investigation, wondering, axioms, propositions, mathematics and science.
Each of them have their own motives, nature of conviction, statements, myths and facts.

.. and here we have more something like animism, chamanism and gnosis.

Both ways though, can lead to a firm denial of a god or of a firm belief in one or more gods and the practice, the discipline that makes a religion.

Both ways have a central element : the big question : "Why are we here"

But religion as a word is far, very far from an answer to that question. Religion - look up the etymology of the word - means "to bend for", " to lean in front of", "to give yourself entirely to", "to commit yourself to", "devotion". And we all know that devotion is a sword that cuts on two sides.

I woul die for my family, really ! But that doesn't make my family a divine entity nor am i opiumized ! It is not a choice and it is not some attitude i put up here, it just is. Unconditionnal.

Marx may have said that "religion was the opium of the masses", which says all what Marx thought about 'masses': Marx, safely hidden in his rich villa, between one cup of caviar and some french champagne. The inventor of socialism thought about crowds as suffering dumb sheep which can be "opiumised" ..
It takes more than religion to "opiumise" masses, mostly fear, famine and violence is enough and popular media knows this. `Fear', violence , ugliness, oddity and misery is their fund of commerce like all the devils and diseases with nature's oddities have been the fund of commerce of the Church.
That's like the hospital mockering charity..

Religion is far from dead, it just handles a new language and has a more sexy outfit : in magazines, publicity, TV, stupid songs : "health, moral virtue and richness" is still promoted as the promise if you do what they say.
If not , if you don't buy what they push under your nose every day, then you will suffer unpronouncable diseases, suffer social outcasting, red spots on your forehead, your money will without value, your children will be hated and your food will be tasteless. You will be said to be "possessed" by a demon named "associality" or "dementia". But worst of all : they will take your comfort away, saying it was not virtuous..! O the irony..

I think scientists nowadays are a bit back like how they were in front of the big and the small events in this huge cosmos just before the Renaissance, when they maintained the sort belief of a "God in the Plot" ( deus in machina ) who didn't forbid them to discover beautiful schemas, continuums, constants of Nature and Nature's physical laws, all of a great scientific and intellectually objective value.

Famous "People & Magazine Scientists" like Daniel Denett and Stephen Hawking are and behave like prophets of a "God of the Machine" ; only they know the keys and laws and their pathis the path of the so-called new scientifical righteous.. ( at the least, that's how they like the media to describe themselves..)

Not one scientist has the guts nowadays to truly and irrevocably talk about a god being a fraud, a cheap trick to resume marvellous coincidences and nature's oddities : he would be put on the stake by all altermundialists, pseudo-bouddhists, weekend-zen idiots, feng-shui trouts, Sunday cabbalists etc, second rank astrologers, Madonna, Kidman, Cruise, Baldwin famillies and all the half-gods of new Babylon : Hollywood.. This is possible annus dei in 2007 !!

Let them all have their religious practise and convictions but don't let them change my life, without my word in it, even if that word would be a cry of sorrow, it is still my voice, my scream, my incantation.

LaBlueGirl · Post by **LaBlueGirl** » 11 Feb 2007, 11:37

gogeta70 wrote:Too worn out? I agree, but let's get this out of the way.

Let's take a look at the definition of atheism:

Atheism is the state either of being without theistic beliefs, or of actively disbelieving in the existence of deities.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
And religion:

generally a belief in a deity and practice of worship, action, and/or thought related to that deity.
www.carm.net/atheism/terms.htm

Now, what you said is that atheism is the denial of the existence of any or all gods, pretty much not believing in theism at all.

However, if you look at the definition of religion, it gives the entities that make up religion. That includes the belief in a god, or deity. It says 'the belief of a deity and the worship of that deity'. And the definition of atheism above that says "actively disbelieving in the existence of deities".

So while atheism may not be the lack of worship, religion is defined as worship toward a deity that you believe in. Atheism rules out that main entity, which takes down the entire structure of religion. Therefore, atheism is vicariously the lack of a religion.

I am an atheist.

Your definiton of relgion says 'generally':)

You can be atheist and a religious person, however the term religious is too often associaed with organzed religion. A more appropriate term would be 'spiritual'
I may also only quote definitions which support my claim:

Religion—sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system—is commonly defined as belief concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine, and the moral codes, practices and institutions associated with such belief. In its broadest sense some have defined it as the sum total of answers given to explain humankind's relationship with the universe. In the course of the development of religion, it has taken a huge number of forms in various cultures and individuals. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion

System of beliefs and practices concerned with sacred things and or symbols uniting individuals into a single moral community.....
www.elissetche.org/dico/R.htm

any specific system of belief, worship, or conduct that prescribes certain responses to the existence (or non-existence) and character of God.
www.summit.org/resource/dictionary/