deleted in protest of poor moderation

Having read the different religious threads, observing the religious members battle the athiests or just different religious groups clashing, I can conclude two things :

Religious: you ALL kind of think you are somehow special, and better than the non religious, whether you state it directly or merely imply it.

Athiests: you ALL kind of think you are somehow special, and better than the religious, whether you state it directly or merely imply it.

(de ja vu?)

You can't ALL be right, either 'ALL are special' or 'NONE' are...which is it?All are special (and unique etc.).

Theists>Atheists

Theists>Atheists

a spade is a spade mate, call it what ever you wish.

You can't ALL be right, either 'ALL are special' or 'NONE' are...which is it?

As an atheist I think all of human life is special. Though some are gullible, while others tend to use reason to get through life. Theism=gullibleist
atheist=rationalist. ;)

Why do you think atheist gang up on theist here?

This is the way we are viewed outside of sciforums.
click (http://www.ur.umn.edu/FMPro?-db=releases&-lay=web&-format=umnnewsreleases/releasesdetail.html&ID=2816&-Find)

At least here, we can tell them what we really think.


Godless

This is the way we are viewed outside of sciforums.
click (http://www.ur.umn.edu/FMPro?-db=releases&-lay=web&-format=umnnewsreleases/releasesdetail.html&ID=2816&-Find)

At least here, we can tell them what we really think. Theyr full of it. :rolleyes:

Godless

deary me? That's rough! Lower than the lowest of the low? What is it about Americans then and zero tolerance??? What's with this scale you have?? We don't have such a scale in the Uk?

Uk is more advanced mentaly then the US.

Btw, there's more secularism in the Uk than there is here.

both 'sides' as i experience te game going on here--are patriarchal. te religionists here are mainly literalists who believe the bible naively.
te non-religioniss also believe it but deny it. get me?
the religionists think they have 'God' on their sde' and the non-religionists 'science' on their side. both feel suprior---well never say 'all'. but generalizing
where i am comin from. is i see both sides as patriarchal and wanting to escape Nature or put it ritght. the religionists see Nature as a steppin stone to some heaven, and te anti-rs see it as mechanical, and here for teir mainpulation. their 'logic' becomestheir 'god' and the ones who believe temselves to be kosher scientists are kind of LIKE 'God'. but they believe tat tere's no meanig. tat when they die that's it. tes no communion. no interlatedness---if youuu will
i just watch. like tennis. bemused and ignored by both players. But i AM NURTURED BY THE MOTHER

This idea of being special is crap. For anyone. I was born before I knew it, and I will die before I know it. So will you, regardless of what you believe now. But your beliefs don't make you special. Generalizing that religious, atheist, etc. people think they are special is absurd. I would think that a lot of people on this forum would give you the opposite idea. Someone who is special wouldn't want you to be a part of their group, so why is everyone here pushing their beliefs (the religious and the atheist, and the whoever else)!

You might have a decent point, but I think that "special" is the wrong word.

Max

Actually Max, mine and duendy's observations are correct, you read of some of that stuff! They think they a e pretty special alright! There is no denying it, as I said in some cases its explicit, 'we are righteous, you are wrongous?' lol Some imply it, of course as Duendy says, a generalisation.

re being ignored Duendy, you and me both, thats cos we're not on their teams! lol

P1. God cannot create time & space
P2. God cannot create without time & space
C5. God cannot exist without time & space

P1. God cannot create time & space
P2. God cannot create without time & space
C5. God cannot exist without time & space

prove it...oh and what's any of this got to do with you feeling 'special'?

1.) If God exists, then he is perfect..
2.) If God exists, then he is the creator of the universe.
3.) A perfect being can have no needs or wants.
4.) If any being created the universe, then he must have had some need or want.
5.) Therefore, it is impossible for a perfect being to be the creator of the universe (from 3 and 4).
6.) Hence, it is impossible for God to exist (from 1, 2, and 5).

1.) God, by definition, is a perfect being.
2.) God, by definition, deliberately created the universe.
3.) So, if God were to exist, then he would be a perfect being who deliberately created something.
4.) To be perfect, one cannot have any needs or wants.
5.) To deliberately create something, one must have at least one need or want.
6.) Thus, it is impossible for a perfect being to deliberately create anything.
7.) Therefore, God cannot exist.

1.) God is an atemporal being.
2.) God is all aware.
3.) God then would be aware of the passage of time.
4.) The passage of anything is change from one instance to another.
5.) God is not an a temporal being.

1.) If the Christian God exists, everything that exists is part of his perfect, divine plan.
2.) Atheists exist.
3.) So, atheists are a part of God's perfect plan.
4.) Therefore, God wants atheists to exist.

1.) If God exists, then he is perfect..
.

your argument falls apart here...didn't get much further...

why does he have to be perfect? BIG assumption, forgettting religious garb. why?

1.)

1.) If the Christian God exists, everything that exists is part of his perfect, divine plan.
2.) Atheists exist.
3.) So, atheists are a part of God's perfect plan.
4.) Therefore, God wants atheists to exist.

Meanhwile you are saying here that Athiests are special because God (who doesn't exist???) made you, and therefore wants you, so you are special.
Well thats not very well reasoned is it? If there is no God how can you explain your 'specialness' this way?

Why something imperfect must be the first cause ?

ZERO Tolerance
Yea, that's the problem with people...
Religious: you ALL kind of think you are somehow special, and better than the non religious, whether you state it directly or merely imply it.

Athiests: you ALL kind of think you are somehow special, and better than the religious, whether you state it directly or merely imply it.
What does this tell you about humans in general? Religion /Atheism has little to do with it. What do you think I was implying when I said: "Yea, that's the problem with people...¨

Religious: you ALL kind of think you are somehow special, and better than the non religious, whether you state it directly or merely imply it.

Athiests: you ALL kind of think you are somehow special, and better than the religious, whether you state it directly or merely imply it.

Comparing the two is pretty pointless. It's like when people constantly say atheism is a belief that is on a par with being religious.

I think atheists are 'better than the religious' because they make up a better society. That is a fact. And this is ignoring the obvious delusion which really... you have to be of low intelligence to accept as being true.

The only reason they still to this day maintain some dwindling respect in modern society is because there is still so many of them. A belief (no matter how rediculous) will be respected so long as it is popular.

Why something imperfect must be the first cause ?

And why not?

To preseume that God had to be perfect to create this universe, means that
you beleive that the universe is TOO perfect to have been accidentally or randomly caused...which means you believe it was created. You athiests have trouble NOT believing in God it seems?

If the universe as is said was a random event, then God need not be perfect at all...and even it was NOt a random event, still no need to be perfect? Since when do you have to be perfect to create something?

Comparing the two is pretty pointless.

I think atheists are 'better than the religious' because they make up a better society. That is a fact. And this is ignoring the obvious delusion which really... you have to be of low intelligence to accept as being true.

The only reason they still to this day maintain some dwindling respect in modern society is because there is still so many of them. A belief (no matter how rediculous) will be respected so long as it is popular.

Thank you for blatantly identifying yourself as 'special' indeed!

Max, you see now?

What do you think I was implying when I said: "Yea, that's the problem with people...¨

I haven't seen anything else you've written in this thread so not sure what this is about? but agreed with rest of post.

I said it earlier in the same post. Just making a passing comment :)

And why not?

Why not 0 ?

Why not 0 ?

is that it? your reply? er bit brief, rather vague...erm ambiguous.......could you elaborate?

God has to be perfect because........'O..............?'

Everyone is special hopefully anyone who has a child will recognize that. Theists tend to divide humanity into the damned and the saved the righteous and the sinners. Atheists by definition cannot divide humanity in such a way. I look at my wonderful boys so full of the joy of life and potential and find it disturbing that anyone would ever see them as damned to hell regardless simply because they don't believe, as something less than a fully realized human being.

Special atheist/agnostic peoples:

Anne Frank
Elie Weisel
Mahatma Ghandi
Shari Lewis
Albert Einstein
Carrie Fisher
The Marx Brothers
The Three Stooges
Charlie Chaplin
Rodney Dangerfield
Katherine Hepburn
Jody Foster
Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees
Bob Geldof - Humanitarian Activist.
Carl Sagan
Christopher Reeves
Ron Reagan Jr
Jack Nicholson
Jerry Seinfeld
William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy
Ben Franklin
Abraham Lincoln
George Washington
Thomas Edison
James Randi
John Lennon
George Carlin
Gene Kelly
Walt Disney
Charles Schultz
Matt Groening
Douglas Adams
Ernest Hemingway
Isaac Asimov

Everyone is special hopefully anyone who has a child will recognize that. Theists tend to divide humanity into the damned and the saved the righteous and the sinners. Atheists by definition cannot divide humanity in such a way. I look at my wonderful boys so full of the joy of life and potential and find it disturbing that anyone would ever see them as damned to hell regardless simply because they don't believe, as something less than a fully realized human being.

Agreed! We ARE ALL special, the thread though is about those who believe that THEY are more special than others, and Athiests are as guilty of this (as Mythbuster has just demonstrated with that list) as anyone else.

meanwhile Mythbuster, why does God have to be perfect...as this is the entire argument you have for your 'proof' there is no god, please do explain?

Oh and thanks for your 'special' list, anyone from any group can produce a list though. I think Jews probably would have the longest list, they seems to have the most achievers? Does that make them more special or just winning a numbers game?

Although Arabs invented maths, without which there would be no science, without which there would be no athiests? So Arabs created athiests? ponder ponder......

Everyone is born atheist.
Therefore, everyone is special and different ! :D

Everyone is born atheist.
Therefore, everyone is special and different ! :D#

No they are not, Jews are born Jews if their mothers are Jewish, and muslims are muslim if their parents are muslim (thinks that's correct?)

So, God has to be perfect why? Still haven't answered that...are you afraid it will rock your nonbelief system to address the core of your non beleif argument?

Therefore, everyone is special and different ! :D

yes everyone is special and different, athiest or not.

Although Arabs invented maths, without which there would be no science, without which there would be no athiests? So Arabs created athiests? ponder ponder......

Sorry that is bullocks, do some research ;)

Sorry that is bullocks, do some research ;)

it's 'bullucks' is it ;)

copied from web, link to follow:

""They invented mathematics and science." Surely, Bertrand Russell could not have expected to be taken seriously. The Egyptian invented mathematics, which he decided to denigrated as, 'form of rule of thumbs.' Pythagoras, whom the White people like to credit with the mathematical theorem that bore his name was a student in Egypt. So much for the so-called 'Father of mathematics!' This fact alone, which could not have escaped Bertrand Russell, demolished the argument that the Greek invented mathematics. Aristotle, Plato borrowed their ideas from the Egyptian - although without giving any credit. Not less a personage than Herodotus affirmed that Greece borrowed from Egypt all the elements of her civilization, even the cults of her gods. We have to ask Bertrand Russell how a people could could something as imposing as the pyramids with a working knowledge of trigonometry! The Papyrus of Moscow and the Rhind Papyrus greatly enrich our knowledge of these facts.

When it is not sufficient to ascribed any notion of ingenuity on the ancient Greeks, Western scholars fall back on an old-trick, looking for a mythical White origin of the Egyptian civilization - the most impressive of all ancient civilizations.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/30/009.html

from the web:

"Algebra
Is a word derived from the Arabic source AlJabar and is the product of Arabic genius.

Al-Khwarizmi the celebrated mathematician is also the author ofHisab Al-Jabr Wal Muqabla, an outstanding work on algebra which contains analytical solutions of linear and quadratic equations. Khwarizmi has the distinction of being one of the founders of algebra who developed this branch of science to an exceptionally high degree. He also gives geometric solutions of quadratic equations, e.g., x2+10x=39 an equation which was repeated by later mathematicians. Robert Chester was the first to translate this book into Latin in 1145 A. D. which introduced Algebra into Europe. Later on this book was translated by Gerard of Cremona also. The Algebra written by Al-Khwarizmi is lucid and well-arranged. After dealing with equations of the second degree, the learned mathematician discussed algebraic multiplications and divisions. Writing in The Legacy of Islam Carra De Vaux says, "In the 18th century Leonardo Fibonacci of Pisa, an algebraist of considerable importance says he owed a great deal to the Arabs."' He travelled in Egypt, Syria, Greece and Sicily and learned the Arabic methods there, recognised it to be superior to the method of Pythagoras and composed a liber Abaci in 15 chapters, the rest of which deals with algebraic calculations. Leonardo enumerates the six cases of the quadratic equations just as Al-Khwarizmi gives them. The translation by Robert Chester of Khwarizmi's algebra marks the beginning of the era of the introduction and advancement of this branch of science in Europe. "The importance of Robert's Latin translation of Khwarizmi's algebra", says a modern orientalist, "can hardly be exaggerated because it marked the beginning of European Algebra."

Thank you for blatantly identifying yourself as 'special' indeed!

Max, you see now?

Well, then I am a counter example. I am religious, and I don't think I'm much of anything. And since it only takes a handful of examples to prove a point (my inference from your example(s)) then at most you have a wash, some do, some don't. I know that there are atheists that would say the same thing. I don't see how belief in God/or no belief in God/or no belief at all, logically(!!) has anything to do with feeling special.

If you are going to say anything, say that everyone thinks they are special. Because to an extent this is true, it is tied to survival, but has nothing to do with personal beliefs about or against God.

I am also a bodybuilder, and I would say that "most" bodybuilders think they are special; again I'm not one of them.

I am a lawyer, and I would say that "a lot" of lawyers think they are special; again I'm not one of them.

What else am I...

Doesn't matter, I think that you get my point. There will be people in every group that thinks that they are special, but to say that religious people and atheists are special just isn't saying very much.

Max

Special atheist/agnostic peoples:

The Marx Brothers


I think that you would have a hard time putting Groucho into that category. I've been somewhat of a die-hard fan for some time. He was much too complicated to put into a group of atheist/agnostic.

He was Jewish, and his grandparents were devout, while his parents were less so and his brothers were even less. But ironically they all married non-Jewish women, who were of the Christian persuasion.

I would say that the honest truth is that Groucho just didn't give it much thought. And you can't lump people into a category that don't think about. And I'm sure that someone could bring up or fabricate a quote from Groucho that would prove otherwise, but to do so is to admit that you don't know very much about Groucho. Everything that came out of his mouth was either to make money or make someone feel bad (usually his family, especially his wives) or to do both. He didn't have very many serious moments, wasn't very forward with his feelings and wasn't very lucid in his later years.

I just point that out, because despite all of his flaws I still look up to what he did as a person, a father, a husband and a comedian. So, I defend a man who can no longer defend himself, based on my very extensive research of his life.

If you do want a Groucho quote, here you go: "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." Therefore, I think it would be impossible to place him into any category.

Max

it's 'bullucks' is it ;)

http://www.crystalinks.com/mayancalendar.html

He was much too complicated to put into a group of atheist/agnostic.

Theist group like Adolf Hitler ? ;)

Having read the different religious threads, observing the religious members battle the athiests or just different religious groups clashing, I can conclude two things :

Religious: you ALL kind of think you are somehow special, and better than the non religious, whether you state it directly or merely imply it.

Athiests: you ALL kind of think you are somehow special, and better than the religious, whether you state it directly or merely imply it.

(de ja vu?)

You can't ALL be right, either 'ALL are special' or 'NONE' are...which is it?

I think both religious people and atheists are special in a special kind of way....

Religious people believe such STUPID things, like creationism, and that all non-christians are damned for eternity, they are always saying "Halleluyah" and quoting the Bible and protesting about abortion or blowing themselves up in busy shopping centres because some cynical towel-head told them they would get to heaven quicker that way. That makes them special.

Atheists are special too, smug in their naive belief that science has or will explain everything, and that they are obviously more intelligent than any superstitious idiot of a theist. They are totally blind to anything that cannot be measured, analysed and classified. So it's not surprising that they miss out on finding the mystical source of joy, love and wisdom because they insist we all should be sitting in their objective, inhuman, cold, callous and uncaring scientistic materialistic reductionistic universe.

Sorry, didn't mean to offend anyone. :o

smug in their naive belief that science has or will explain everything

Sorry bro but, i know atheist peoples who know nothing about science and have no clue what the hell is a god. Some place where atheism is high like china, tuvalu islands, small tribes in africa and some native south american countries.

Like a child ready to learn something or get brainwashed.

Thank you for blatantly identifying yourself as 'special' indeed!

Special? No. I have re-read my post and can not see how you can come to that conclusion. In fact I don't even see any relevance to anything you have said in this thread. There is no double standard, nobody is extra special. My point was secular societies are healthier than those filled will strong religious values. As I said, that is a fact.

No they are not, Jews are born Jews if their mothers are Jewish, and muslims are muslim if their parents are muslim (thinks that's correct?)

WRONG!

The human mind is born a blank state, no knowledge of anything, it's not christian, jewish, nor is it islamic, it's just an organ learning to breath, and survive. The parents are the ones who indoctrinate these children to be jewish, muslim or christian. But they are defenetly biologically born atheist. Thus have no religion whatsoever!. no knowledge of religion, no knowledge of god, no knowledge of anything, only survival by limited means. The mind at birth is a blank slate.

Godless

WRONG!

The human mind is born a blank state, no knowledge of anything, it's not christian, jewish, nor is it islamic, it's just an organ learning to breath, and survive. The parents are the ones who indoctrinate these children to be jewish, muslim or christian. But they are defenetly biologically born atheist. Thus have no religion whatsoever!. no knowledge of religion, no knowledge of god, no knowledge of anything, only survival by limited means. The mind at birth is a blank slate.

Godless

WRONG, athiest is 'NOT having no religion' as you define it, becuase I have NO religion but I believe in God, athiest is a point of view and babies have no such point of view!

And no babies minds are far from being blank at birth, they can hear sounds outside of the womb and can indeed demonstrate recognition of them after birth.

Jews are born Jews whether the indoctrination porcess has begun, they would have to 'opt' out in later life if they did not want to be 'Jewish'.
Jesus was a Jew, he was born to a Jewish mother. I guess he opted out ay?

Comparing the two is pretty pointless. It's like when people constantly say atheism is a belief that is on a par with being religious.

I think atheists are 'better than the religious' because they make up a better society. That is a fact. And this is ignoring the obvious delusion which really... you have to be of low intelligence to accept as being true.

The only reason they still to this day maintain some dwindling respect in modern society is because there is still so many of them. A belief (no matter how rediculous) will be respected so long as it is popular.

Special? No. I have re-read my post and can not see how you can come to that conclusion. In fact I don't even see any relevance to anything you have said in this thread. There is no double standard, nobody is extra special. My point was secular societies are healthier than those filled will strong religious values. As I said, that is a fact.



OK, so you are unable to identify what part of the above establishes you as an athiest think you are 'better' than the thiest? Note items highlighted in red and copied below:

"I think atheists are better than the religious because they make up a better society."

You then say
"That is a fact."

Prove that fact my 'special' friend.

If you do want a Groucho quote, here you go: "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." Therefore, I think it would be impossible to place him into any category.though I dont doubt, your right here.
however atheism is'nt a club, there is'nt a club house/church, if it was'nt for the internet, you would probably find they would just lead a peaceful life, the only time they would debate religion would be, when out socialising, or talking to some religious person who knocked on the door to preach. atheism is a byproduct of education, as such any peace loving analytical non-conformist, like groucho, could be thought of as athiest, whether he was or was'nt.

WRONG, athiest is 'NOT having no religion' as you define it, becuase I have NO religion but I believe in God, athiest is a point of view and babies have no such point of view!you clearly dont understand what an atheist is
dictionary.com defines at as,

1. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
2. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
however two points here, it's not a belief, so there cannot be any disbelief, and there cannot be be any denial, for to deny something you must first believe it exists.

encarta defines it as, unbelief in God or deities.

so you see you are wrong, no baby is ever born with a belief in a god.

you clearly dont understand what an atheist is
dictionary.com defines at as,

1. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
2. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
however two points here, it's not a belief, so there cannot be any disbelief, and there cannot be be any denial, for to deny something you must first believe it exists.

encarta defines it as, unbelief in God or deities.

so you see you are wrong, no baby is ever born with a belief in a god.

eh talk about contradicting yourself, dictionary says DISBELIEF in God, then you say there cannot be disbelief, so you are contradicting dictionary definition, I think you are confused.

I never said babies were born with a belief in God? I said they were not born with a disbelief in God, which is entirely different.

Babies have no concept of 'God' when they are born (we assume??) so they can neither believe nor disbelieve. Disbelieving in something is a 'choice' an 'opinion'. Thus without a concept of God, we would have no such opinion, babies are therefore NOT born athiests.

You have a label 'athiest' becuase you believe in the non existance of God.

http://www.focusmagazine.org/Articles/bornatheists.htm

from above link:
"Born Atheists?
Doy Moyer

William Edelen, a former professor of religious studies and anthropology, wrote a commentary article in a Palm Springs, California newspaper under the title, "We’re all born atheists and brainwashed to believe." In the article, he argues that if we were really "born again," then we would all return to atheism because "that is the way we were born the first time around." He says that every baby born into this world has no belief in "god, goddesses, Jesus, Buddha, Lao-Tzu, Shiva or anything else until such time as we brainwash, indoctrinate, threaten or coerce them into some adult belief system, the same one usually that we were brainwashed into as children." He continues:

"Through acculturation, we become something other than what we were at birth. That is the definition of atheism. The only reason that you are a Christian is because you were born in America."

He continues throughout the article in a similar vein, charging that "religious belief systems are only an accident of birth." He thinks that the "Christian myth" will soon die out, and concludes: "The resurrection of a free human spirit from this dying monolith will turn out to be one of the most significant events in the history of civilization. Like the Phoenix, the spiritually free will rise alive from the ashes."

Mr. Edelen has a few problems with his own "belief system." Setting aside his misconception about being "born again" (i.e., not a return to what we were but an entrance into an entirely new life), I challenge his concept of atheism. Atheism is not so passive as Mr. Edelen tries to make it sound. Atheism is not having no belief at all; atheism is an active belief that there is no God. Babies are not atheists; they are just ignorant. They have no beliefs in anything whatsoever because they have not developed the capacity to think and reason. If Mr. Edelen’s article says much at all, it’s consequence is that a return to atheism is a return to ignorance, since that’s what babies really are. I don’t think he would want to accept that conclusion. But it’s only logical.

From what he says, atheism is becoming something other than what we were at birth through acculturation. Huh? Again, what we are at birth is ignorant. Now I wonder if Mr. Edelen teaches anyone that there is no God. If so, is he also guilty of the acculturation, brainwashing, indoctrination, or coercion with which he charges everyone else who believes in something?
He argues that the "only reason" anyone is a Christian is because of this acculturation. Children come to believe in whatever their parents teach them. But if Mr. Edelen is correct in the idea that there is no God, then would he not have to admit that there was a time when someone, somewhere first believed in God without being taught it by parents? If so, what was the "only reason" that this person became a theist? And I doubt he or she was born in America.

It’s also very poor scholarship to suggest that the "only reason" anyone is a Christian is due to being "born in America." That’s not a very scientific statement. Now I would agree that many people are what they are religiously because they have been "born" into a family with this religion. But to suggest that this is true of everyone? I don’t think I’d have to travel very far to find someone who can disprove that. I wonder if he would appreciate the statement that the "only reason" he or anyone else is an atheist is because they have been indoctrinated by atheists who tell them that smart people are atheists.

There is a subtle suggestion that Christians have no real minds of their own; they have blind faith and no evidence to back up their beliefs. That’s another article, though. It’s interesting that he accepts things that supposedly happened 150,000 years ago, even though there are no documents, eyewitnesses, or anything else to back it all up, but then calls something a "myth" that has plenty of historical evidences, including eyewitnesses and early documents. What was that proverb about the legs of the lame? By the way, I wonder if he would call macroevolutionary theory a myth? Think there’s any "brainwashing" going on there?

Mr. Edelen would probably not admit it, but atheists also have a religious belief system. It’s called secular humanism. Atheists deny it’s a religion, but then watch them turn around and defend it with ardor and zeal, trying to "evangelize" people into believing that there is no God. That’s what his article is doing. He’ll avoid religious-sounding terms (e.g., "think" instead of "believe"), but this is just playing around with words to avoid the undeniable consequences. The god of atheism is just materialistic instead of spiritual.

In the end, Mr. Edelen’s article is an attempt to coerce people into believing there is no God; after all, only brainwashed people believe in God. I guess we just don’t get it, do we? Shouldn’t we have figured out by now that only intelligent people are atheists while everyone else is brainwashed and enslaved? I guess he’s enlightened.

"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse ... Professing to be wise, they became fools"

I don't agree with all this but it does relate to our chat, babies are ignorant in believing or not believing. Meanwhile where can you go in the world where they have no belief in a divine power of some sort? Where do these people reside? Even tribal peoples untouched by civilisation have a belief system...where did it come from...who indoctrinated them?

OK, so you are unable to identify what part of the above establishes you as an athiest think you are 'better' than the thiest? Note items highlighted in red and copied below:

"I think atheists are better than the religious because they make up a better society."


Read my post again - I put quotes around "atheists are better" because your origional post was stating that atheists thought they were better or special... So in a way I was making fun of you... This went over your head.


You then say
"That is a fact."

Prove that fact my 'special' friend.

Well for the 100th time I will repeat what I have said on this forum before about this. Or you could read my posts going back several weeks or months. Or find the thread "most americans will be non christians by 2035. Failing that I'll do it myself after work.

Read my post again - I put quotes around "atheists are better" because your origional post was stating that atheists thought they were better or special... So in a way I was making fun of you... This went over your head.

(Cop out!) YOU saiud it! End of

Well for the 100th time I will repeat what I have said on this forum before about this. Or you could read my posts going back several weeks or months. Or find the thread "most americans will be non christians by 2035. Failing that I'll do it myself after work.

If its that important to you?

meanwhile
"most americans will be non christians by 2035" so someone planning on 'converting' them all the atheism? lol, belief in devine power has been around too long for a small bunch of non believers to 'convert' anyone. Ask yourself why it is so important your opinion is the majority one? Why??

(Cop out!) YOU saiud it! End of

How old are you?

meanwhile
"most americans will be non christians by 2035" so someone planning on 'converting' them all the atheism? lol, beleif in devine power has been around too long for a small bunch of non believers to 'convert' anyone. Ask yourself why it is so important your opinion is the majority one? Why??

You have made the assumption before even looking or waiting for me to tell you? No, nobody is planning to convert everyone to atheism. From memory it talks about how Christianity and church attentance is on the decline while other faiths and atheism are growing. But in the same thread there is another article that shows statistics of percentage of atheism in most countries in the world. And if you had bothered to look at it you'd see that the countries with the higher percentage of atheism has better social health and less war torn.

The statistics say that a better society and levels of atheism are linked.

How old are you?

You have made the assumption before even looking or waiting for me to tell you? No, nobody is planning to convert everyone to atheism. From memory it talks about how Christianity and church attentance is on the decline while other faiths and atheism are growing. But in the same thread there is another article that shows statistics of percentage of atheism in most countries in the world. And if you had bothered to look at it you'd see that the countries with the higher percentage of atheism has better social health and less war torn.

The statistics say that a better society and levels of atheism are linked.

What statistics? Meanwhile anyone can maniupulate statistics, they ARE NOT facts! You said it is fact atheists are better and healthier??? Prove it! Where are your FACTS?

link on statistic corruption
http://www.unsafescience.com/corrupt.html

eh talk about contradicting yourself, dictionary says DISBELIEF in God, then you say there cannot be disbelief, so you are contradicting dictionary definition, I think you are confused. no not contradicing myself, just pointing out the error that dictionary.com has printed, the first definition does not capture atheism, which is based on an indifference to the issue of God's existence, (which is what babies are born with) the second statement is closer, The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
most dictionaries get it wrong, because they were originally written and printed by theists. I never said babies were born with a belief in God? I said they were not born with a disbelief in God, which is entirely different.could you explain to the layman what the opposite of belief is or what the opposite of disbelief is.
and no you actually said, Jews are born Jews if their mothers are Jewish, and muslims are muslim if their parents are muslim.
athiest is a point of view and babies have no such point of view! wrong, atheism is anti-theism, without god, babies are born without any knowledge of god. therefore anti-theist. you clearly have no idea what your talking about.
Babies have no concept of 'God' when they are born (we assume??) so they can neither believe nor disbelieve. but here you quite clearly contradict yourself.I said they were not born with a disbelief in Godmake your mind up. Disbelieving in something is a 'choice' an 'opinion'. Thus without a concept of God, we would have no such opinion, babies are therefore NOT born athiests. but they are as they are born anti-theist, without god, as they are without god, then they have no knowledge of gods or god.
You have a label 'athiest' becuase you believe in the non existance of God.no I have the label atheist, because there are no such thing as gods, devils, fairys, unicorns, and pink polka dotted elephants wearing roller skates, etc, etc, etc.

no not contradicing myself, just pointing out the error that dictionary.com has printed, the first definition does not capture atheism, which is based on an indifference to the issue of God's existence, (which is what babies are born with) the second statement is closer, The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
most dictionaries get it wrong, because they were originally written and printed by theists.could you explain to the layman what the opposite of belief is or what the opposite of disbelief is.
and no you actually said, wrong, atheism is anti-theism, without god, babies are born without any knowledge of god. therefore anti-theist. you clearly have no idea what your talking about. but here you quite clearly contradict yourself.make your mind up. but they are as they are born anti-theist, without god, as they are without god, then they have no knowledge of gods or god.no I have the label atheist, because there are no such thing as gods, devils, fairys, unicorns, and pink polka dotted elephants wearing roller skates, etc, etc, etc.

1) Prove there are/is no God/s
2) Babies are NOT born atheist as atheism is an 'opinion', and babies have no such opinions.

Not having any knowledge of God's or any understanding in order to aquire this label, does not make you athiest.

Note this was quoted from official athiest website;
"Who are the athiests? | What do athiests believe in? | Is athiesm right for me?

Athiesm is a common spelling mistake
The word is ATHEISM. From a (without) and theos (god).

Atheism is the theory or belief that god does not exist.

http://mwillett.org/athiest.htm

a quote from another athiest website

""An Atheist loves himself and his fellow human instead of a god. An Atheist accepts that "heaven" is something for which we should work now -- here on earth -- for all people together to enjoy. An Atheist accepts that he can get no help through prayer, but that he must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it and to enjoy it. An Atheist accepts that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow human can he find the understanding that will help lead to a life of fulfillment.

Atheism is based upon a materialist philosophy, which holds that nothing exists but natural phenomena. There are no supernatural forces or entities, nor can there be any. Nature simply exists. "

You are saying babies are born with all this innate philosophy?

i thought anti-theist is opposed to theism. like anti-establishment, anti-abortion, anti-dote, anti-war, anti-social.

being "anti-...." is being against a particfular group or person.

what you are talking about with babies is more like agnosticism.

the prefix "Anti-"

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=anti-

Anti-christ
+
Anti-christian
=
dont much like that as it gives the church the power to accuse those who hold christianity to the light of scrutiny.

i thought anti-theist is opposed to theism. like anti-establishment, anti-abortion, anti-dote, anti-war, anti-social.

being "anti-...." is being against a particfular group or person.

what you are talking about with babies is more like agnosticism.

If you read my passages above re babies and athiesm you will find that babies at birth are 'ignorant' AND not atheist!

".......Atheism is not having no belief at all; atheism is an active belief that there is no God. Babies are not atheists; they are just ignorant. They have no beliefs in anything whatsoever because they have not developed the capacity to think and reason. If Mr. Edelen’s article says much at all, it’s consequence is that a return to atheism is a return to ignorance, since that’s what babies really are. I don’t think he would want to accept that conclusion. But it’s only logical."

and no you actually said, wrong, atheism is anti-theism, without god, babies are born without any knowledge of god. therefore anti-theist.

( Me: big jump, ''without any knowledge of god. therefore anti-theist.'' NO not therefore at all. Theist is belief in personal; God, athiest is disbelief in personal god, operative word being belief, new born babies have no belief system so are neither theist or athiest. They are 'ignorant.' If labels are what you are after , this is it for babies.)

you clearly have no idea what your talking about.
(me: Indeed you don't)

I have the label atheist, because there are no such thing as gods, devils, fairys, unicorns, and pink polka dotted elephants wearing roller skates, etc, etc, etc.


You have the label atheist because you BELIEVE there is no God, you cannot prove there is or is not...can you? Do it!

What statistics? Meanwhile anyone can maniupulate statistics, they ARE NOT facts! You said it is fact atheists are better and healthier??? Prove it! Where are your FACTS?

It's quite simple really, although the statistics may not have precise percentages of atheism/non believers the chart clearly shows what are considered more secular countries towards the top of the chart.

For instance, Scandinavian countries have extremely high levels of atheism in comparison to most other countries and their social security is amongst the best in the world. You also don't hear of Scandinavian countries starting wars in recent times do you? The rest of Western Europe, Japan, Austrailia etc are in pretty good shape despite the fact they are considered secular. Some of the most religious countries have trouble maintaining social order despite having the fear of God in them...

For now I wish you would simply read the article in the thread I pointed out. But for now you will have to wait till I get home from work as I have wasted enough of my breaks trying to get accross this obvious point.

It's quite simple really, although the statistics may not have precise percentages of atheism/non believers the chart clearly shows what are considered more secular countries towards the top of the chart.

For instance, Scandinavian countries have extremely high levels of atheism in comparison to most other countries and their social security is amongst the best in the world. You also don't hear of Scandinavian countries starting wars in recent times do you? The rest of Western Europe, Japan, Austrailia etc are in pretty good shape despite the fact they are considered secular. Some of the most religious countries have trouble maintaining social order despite having the fear of God in them...

For now I wish you would simply read the article in the thread I pointed out. But for now you will have to wait till I get home from work as I have wasted enough of my breaks trying to get accross this obvious point.

What article in what thread, I see no links?

Meanwhile what a load of rubbish, the things about these countries may be true but in no way does it prove in any way shape or form its related to atheism! You may as well say blondes are better/healthier people! If most of them are blonde that is? Whatever their predominant hair colour is...irrelevant. Lots of predominantly religious countries don't war, just the bully, power seeking ones, so again no proof of anything there. Where is your proof that athiests are better /healthier people? proof, proof? links?

What are you
Religious
Athiest
Agnostic
No religion but believe in God

Neither. I suspect I understand nature.

Neither. I suspect I understand nature.
you mean that it just luuuurves radiation

It's hard to talk with an ant, hence no reply.

P1. God cannot create time & space
P2. God cannot create without time & space
C5. God cannot exist without time & space

Can you prove time to me? also can you prove space to me what is space?

Let me ask you a question do you believe in time and space?

In the next post I will show, how illogical your thinking is.

Neither. I suspect I understand nature.

" I understand nature " thereby implying the rest don't understand nature? What makes you so 'special' that you understand what the rest do not?

Can you prove time to me? also can you prove space to me what is space?

Let me ask you a question do you believe in time and space?

In the next post I will show, how illogical your thinking is.

I've done that already Muslim!

It's hard to talk with an ant, hence no reply.

are you saying here that you are superior to Duendy?
Comparing her to an 'ant' and you are what? meanwhile I thought you understood nature? You should therefore be able to communicate and have empathy with all?

If you read my passages above re babies and athiesm you will find that babies at birth are 'ignorant' AND not atheist!i am not saying babies are athiest. do you see me saying babies are athiest?


".......Atheism is not having no belief at all; atheism is an active belief that there is no God. Babies are not atheists; they are just ignorant. They have no beliefs in anything whatsoever because they have not developed the capacity to think and reason. If Mr. Edelen’s article says much at all, it’s consequence is that a return to atheism is a return to ignorance, since that’s what babies really are. I don’t think he would want to accept that conclusion. But it’s only logical."
which is more like agosticism than athiesm, yes or no?
agnostic = having no knowledge of..

Dictionary.com [=-

ag·nos·tic Audio pronunciation of "agnostic" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (g-nstk)
n.

1.
1. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.
2. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
2. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.


adj.

1. Relating to or being an agnostic.
2. Doubtful or noncommittal: “Though I am agnostic on what terms to use, I have no doubt that human infants come with an enormous ‘acquisitiveness’ for discovering patterns” (William H. Calvin).


as i said

i thought anti-theist is opposed to theism. like anti-establishment, anti-abortion, anti-dote, anti-war, anti-social.

being "anti-...." is being against a particfular group or person.

what you are talking about with babies is more like agnosticism.


ToR

i think you should relax a little, we are not all here to start a war.

" I understand nature " thereby implying the rest don't understand nature? What makes you so 'special' that you understand what the rest do not?
There is no such implication, besides I have no idea about what "rest" you are speaking of.
I suspect, those who do understand fall in none of the categories mentioned above.

p.s. In your post you quoted me incorrectly and falsely, you left out one word.

i am not saying babies are athiest. do you see me saying babies are athiest?

(me: Did I say you did say it? er No? so whay you asking? Lol)

which is more like agosticism than athiesm, yes or no?
agnostic = having no knowledge of..

(me: No, agnositic by the definitions you provided is still talkimng about belief, belief that we can not prove one way or the other the existance of God, so there still needs to be an understanding of the concepts, babies have no such understanding, they are ...'ignorant')

as i said

ToR

i think you should relax a little, we are not all here to start a war.

I am relaxed, why do you presume otherwise? What misinterprettation are you undertaking to presume my mood? I expect controversy and opposition, hence the thread a versus b? "Jaw Jaw not war war "ay? (Churchill)

Avatar has just replied to a thread you have subscribed to entitled - ZERO Tolerance - religious V non religious - in the Religion forum of sciforums.com.

This thread is located at:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=53901&goto=newpost

Here is the message that has just been posted:
***************
There is no such implication, besides I have no idea about what "rest" you are speaking of.
Those who do understand fall in none of the categories mentioned above.

p.s. In your post you quoted me incorrectly and falsely, you left out one word

Avatar has just replied to a thread you have subscribed to entitled - ZERO Tolerance - religious V non religious - in the Religion forum of sciforums.com.

This thread is located at:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=53901&goto=newpost

Here is the message that has just been posted:
***************
There is no such implication, besides I have no idea about what "rest" you are speaking of.
Those who do understand fall in none of the categories mentioned above.

p.s. In your post you quoted me incorrectly and falsely, you left out one word

Avatar, You said you are not: religious, athiest, agnostic, theist (non religious one), and that you understand nature, the 'rest' being those you stated you are 'neither of'. Hence, stating as you confirm again here, that no one in those catagories understands nature?

So u are special becuase you understand nature whereas those mentioned do not? What aspect of your understanding of nature is superior to mine?

Babies are atheist at birth. They are without religion and without the belief of any gods.

My four-year old is a perfect atheist. She has no concept of a god nor does she care to have one. She doesn't "believe" there is no god any more than I believe there aren't igglelundermops on the planet orbiting a nearby star: she hasn't had the need to think about it.

We are all born as atheists until our parents (in most cases) abuse us with the mind virus of religion. Religious indoctrination amounts to nothing more than child-abuse. You can no more say a child is born Christian or Muslim than you can Republican or Democrat -they simply haven't the cognitive or critical thinking skills to understand what it means to be religious.

The reason its child abuse is because the human child is evolved to believe a parent without considerable question, particularly when at young age. "Don't walk near the cliff," "lions are dangerous," etc. This is an evolutionary advantage that we abuse by indoctrinating children with superstitions of the various faiths one is "born" into. The result is a world of hatred and violence.

(me: No, agnositic by the definitions you provided is still talkimng about belief, belief that we can not prove one way or the other the existance of God, so there still needs to be an understanding of the concepts, babies have no such understanding, they are ...'ignorant')granted ignorant is a better term, than agnostic but, and this is the important bit form my position; geeser or Kenny or someone was talking about baby athiests and my suggestion was agnostic is a better term than athiesm for what was being said at the time.


I am relaxed, why do you presume otherwise? What misinterprettation are you undertaking to presume my mood? I expect controversy and opposition, hence the thread a versus b? "Jaw Jaw not war war "ay? the speed of your grammar and the way you harangued me with little consideration of what i had actually said suggest a defensive atitude and i assume that you are in a slightly heightened perhaps somewhat over active state of awareness. if you are not being defensive and are in a heightend state why are you so quick to defend your already relaxed atitude.

you might as well have shouted I AM FUCKING RELAXED OKAY, TWAT. actually that might have been funnier and i may have thought you where relaxed and winding me up.

TOR: You do it again. Now exploiting my 'post quick reply' trigger happy finger. I edited it in the second after posted as it can be seen by no "edited by" text below the message.
The thing that you are quoting the notification email and not the actual post shows that you are a...
http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/nitpick.htm

You said you are not: religious, athiest, agnostic, theist (non religious one), and that you understand nature
I didn't say that and you know that, I said I suspect I do.
that no one in those catagories understands nature?
I said no such thing. They may and they may not. They do not, if I am correct, but I don't know, if I am.
So u are special becuase you understand nature whereas those mentioned do not?
Why special? You might ask, for example, Dalai Lama the same question. I'm in no way unique at all.
What aspect of your understanding of nature is superior to mine?
You have understanding? I congratulate!

Babies are atheist at birth. They are without religion and without the belief of any gods.
Ahteism is a belief in no gods (that there are none), that is different than having no concept of gods.
http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=atheism

I.e., atheism is a conscious choice to believe in no gods, but that requires having a concept of what god is in order to chose not to believe in it.

Lack of concept does not mean atheism, at least in the way that Webster tells.

We are all born as atheists until our parents (in most cases) abuse us with the mind virus of religion.
how do we know this?

there can be only one way to find out if religion in people is naturaly occuring or not

to the best of my knowledge that experiment has never been conducted

1) Prove there are/is no God/s the burden of proof falls on your shoulders,
Proving Existence or Non-Existence.

The existence of a thing can be conclusively proved by producing one single instance of the thing.

To put that another way: -
When the existence of a thing is denied, This can be proven wrong by producing one single instance of the thing said not to exist

The non-existence of a thing can never be conclusively proved because there is always the theoretical assumption that the thing exists but has not been seen yet or it exists in a place that can not be visited. Unless all places in the universe have been visited and are being constantly observed, we can not be absolutely certain.

From this we can say that there are only two possible statements we can make about the existence of a thing:


The thing exists.

It is unknown if the thing exists or not.

It is not possible to prove that a thing "does not exist" without further qualifying criteria.

If a thing does NOT exist it can not leave any evidence of it's non-existence. Only things that DO exist can leave evidence. From this we can derive that conclusive proof can only come from the person that claims that a thing exists. It is nonsensical to demand proof of non-existence.

2) Babies are NOT born atheist as atheism is an 'opinion', and babies have no such opinions.atheism is'nt a label, atheism is individual, there is a commonality amongst atheist, but each has his own opinion, however atheism has a basic tenet. it's just a way of life, there are no clubs, no churches, atheism is what you are, before religion has taken hold, The word ATHEISM. is from the greek atheos a (without) and theos (god). just like babies.

""An Atheist loves himself and his fellow human instead of a god. An Atheist accepts that "heaven" is something for which we should work now -- here on earth -- for all people together to enjoy. An Atheist accepts that he can get no help through prayer, but that he must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it and to enjoy it. An Atheist accepts that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow human can he find the understanding that will help lead to a life of fulfillment. thats his opinion, though it's a good tenet to follow, it 'sounds more like buddahism.
Atheism is based upon a materialist philosophy, which holds that nothing exists but natural phenomena. There are no supernatural forces or entities, nor can there be any. Nature simply exists." this is where you er, the natural order of things, exist whether your atheist or religious.
however the atheist, just does'nt divert from the natural path, the path he was born with.
You are saying babies are born with all this innate philosophy? no you are, I have done no such labeling.

i thought anti-theist is opposed to theism. like anti-establishment, anti-abortion, anti-dote, anti-war, anti-social.

being "anti-...." is being against a particfular group or person.

the prefix "Anti-"

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=anti-

Anti-christ
+
Anti-christian
=
dont much like that as it gives the church the power to accuse those who hold christianity to the light of scrutiny.
you are right about thr prefix anti, however in this case it means thus.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Antitheist
An`ti`the´ist
A disbeliever in the existence of God.

http://www.formosa-translation.com/chinese/a/aa89.html
antitheist
A disbeliever in the existence of God.

http://machaut.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/WEBSTER.sh?WORD=antitheist
An`ti*the"ist,
A disbeliever in the existence of God.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitheism
Antitheism (sometimes anti-theism) is a direct opposition to theism. The word has had a range of applications; in secular contexts, it typically refers to direct opposition to belief in any deity, while in theistic ones, it sometimes refers to opposition to the actual entity God.

it has nothing to do with religion.

The concept of god is an archetype of the human psyche, it has occured in every culture and society that we have knowledge of and it has to do with human perception of the world, i.e., how our brain works.
You can read on a topic related to this subject here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking

A bit of it:
Typically, people use magic to attempt to explain things that science has not yet explained, or to attempt to control things that science cannot. The classic example is of the collapsing roof, described in E. E. Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft, Magic, and Oracles Among the Azande, in which the Azande claimed that a roof fell on a particular person because of a magical spell cast by another person. The Azande did understand a scientific explanation for the collapsing room (that termites had eaten through the supporting posts), but pointed out that this scientific explanation could not explain why the roof happened to collapse at precisely the same moment that the particular man was resting beneath it. Thus, from the point of view of the practitioners, magic explains what scientists would call "coincidences" or "contingency". From the point of view of outside observers, magic is a way of making coincidences meaningful in social terms. Carl Jung coined the word synchronicity for experiences of this type.

.



the speed of your grammar and the way you harangued me with little consideration of what i had actually said suggest a defensive atitude and i assume that you are in a slightly heightened perhaps somewhat over active state of awareness. if you are not being defensive and are in a heightend state why are you so quick to defend your already relaxed atitude.

(I think quick, no denying that :) )
My typing style is poo, dyslexic fingers.

you might as well have shouted I AM FUCKING RELAXED OKAY, TWAT. actually that might have been funnier and i may have thought you where relaxed and winding me up.

lol :) you deffinately need to work on interpretting cyber moods! I have no problem with your incorrect assumption, just wondered how u arrived at it?

The non-existence of a thing can never be conclusively proved because there is always the theoretical assumption that the thing exists but has not been seen yet or it exists in a place that can not be visited. Unless all places in the universe have been visited and are being constantly observed, we can not be absolutely certain.

From this we can say that there are only two possible statements we can make about the existence of a thing:


The thing exists.

It is unknown if the thing exists or not.

It is not possible to prove that a thing "does not exist" without further qualifying criteria.
how can you say something like

no I have the label atheist, because there are no such thing as gods, devils, fairys, unicorns, and pink polka dotted elephants wearing roller skates, etc, etc, etc.

Make up any definition you want, but a-theism means without- belief in a deity. Theism is the belief in a deity. Adding "a" means without or not.

For leo: that experiment need not be conducted (nor could it, ethically, since it would require control groups that are indoctrinated; others that aren't; etc). But if you ask my daughter what a god is, she will not have an answer for you. She is without a deity. An atheist from birth. And it'll stay that way unless she decides to change it at some point in the future.

Babies are atheist until someone indoctrinates them in some belief system that includes one or more deities. QED.

A lot has appeared here in last few minutes, I need to eat my ice-cream before it melts, don't go way 'I will be back!' (as Arnie said!!)

The non-existence of a thing can never be conclusively proved

this is not true

if one of the requirements for something to exist is proved impossible then that thing cannot exist

for example if x exists and it is required for y and z to exist for x to exist then proving either y or z impossible rules out x

lol you deffinately need to work on interpretting cyber moods! i am doing. thanks for the feedback.;)

Make up any definition you want, but a-theism means without- belief in a deity. Theism is the belief in a deity. Adding "a" means without or not.
I made up no definition! And I had the idea that Merriam-Webster is a reputable source, is it not?
Literal (grammatical) interpretation of a term is not always the correct one, you should be aware of that.

For leo: that experiment need not be conducted (nor could it, ethically, since it would require control groups that are indoctrinated; others that aren't; etc).
correct
it would require rearing a child with no human intervention from birth
and not just one child but enough to insure accuracy

I made up no definition! And I had the idea that Merriam-Webster is a reputable source, is it not? The problem with getting the definition this way is that every dictionary will have a different version. The definition is best arrived at looking at the Greek etymology as Geeser pointed out.

But, if we were to hypothetically consider the M-W definition as being a non-colloquial one and one derived from the true meaning of the Greek origin of the word (which it doesn't appear to be), what then would we call a toddler that has no knowledge of religion. Agnostic doesn't work, since this implies that the knowledge is not only unknown, but unattainable.

The best term to describe someone without a deity belief is to say they are atheist.

It would seem that I've ignored my QED, so let me reassert it here.

QED.

correct
it would require rearing a child with no human intervention from birth
and not just one child but enough to insure accuracy

There *is* evidence that religion is biological, there just isn't any that indicates that the religiosity of humans is regarding a genuine god. Indeed, the sheer number of religions in the world, past and present, -most with very contradicting doctrines- indicates all cannot be true. That leaves only a few possibilities: only a few are true (those that are similar); one is true; none are true. The other hundreds or thousands of religions must not be true and, since every culture has religion, there must be something physiological that provides the sense of religiosity to humanity.

Unfortunately, since most of the world is afflicted with this apparent "mind virus," there are few qualified to actually observe the phenomenon. I, of course, would argue that the non-religious are the only qualified observers since they aren't biased by their cults. Members of specific religious cults like Baptists, Catholics, Muslims, etc would obviously argue that the non-religious are biased against the religious. To some extent this may be true, but it would be better to scientifically study religion from the vantage point that they are all equally valid, and only a non-religious researcher could do this since, to him, all are just beliefs and thus equally valid.

What article in what thread, I see no links?

Well I told where it was, but now I am home from work I have time to find it for you. I should really put it in my favourites because I get it out everytime an idiot on here say's religion is needed to improve society.

http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/atheism.html

Meanwhile what a load of rubbish, the things about these countries may be true but in no way does it prove in any way shape or form its related to atheism! You may as well say blondes are better/healthier people! If most of them are blonde that is? Whatever their predominant hair colour is...irrelevant. Lots of predominantly religious countries don't war, just the bully, power seeking ones, so again no proof of anything there. Where is your proof that athiests are better /healthier people? proof, proof? links?

Well it's up to the reader to make up his own mind, but the only conclusions that you can make from it are that the higher the levels of atheism, the better for society OR at the very least, religion simply isn't required or does not help society.

"High levels of organic atheism are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low homicide rates, low poverty rates, low infant mortality rates, and low illiteracy rates, as well as high levels of educational attainment, per capita income, and gender equality. Most nations characterized by high degrees of individual and societal security have the highest rates of organic atheism, and conversely, nations characterized by low degrees of individual and societal security have the lowest rates of organic atheism. In some societies, particularly Europe, atheism is growing. However, throughout much of the world – particularly nations with high birth rates – atheism is barely discernable."

what then would we call a toddler that has no knowledge of religion.
If no word suits the situation, then perhaps a new word/term is in order.
Such a person should be called "a person with no concept of a divine being" or the same in some shorter word. Having no concept of something doesn't mean the same as disbelieving that something.
There is a difference between these two, such a difference that no one term should be applied for both.
You may agree or disagree, but I am pretty firm on this.

[QUOTE=SkinWalker]Babies are atheist at birth. They are without religion and without the belief of any gods.

My four-year old is a perfect atheist. She has no concept of a god nor does she care to have one. She doesn't "believe" there is no god any more than I believe there aren't igglelundermops on the planet orbiting a nearby star: she hasn't had the need to think about it.

QUOTE]

are not, your 4 yr old is merely perfectly ignorant of the concept of God, as she gets older through some source she will learn of the concept and then decide, whether she is or is not.

athiest is disbelief in God

There *is* evidence that religion is biological, there just isn't any that indicates that the religiosity of humans is regarding a genuine god. Indeed, the sheer number of religions in the world, past and present, -most with very contradicting doctrines- indicates all cannot be true. That leaves only a few possibilities: only a few are true (those that are similar); one is true; none are true. The other hundreds or thousands of religions must not be true and, since every culture has religion, there must be something physiological that provides the sense of religiosity to humanity.


the question i now have is why would something like that evolve?
what would be the purpose of such an evolution?

There's no need for another word. "Atheist" works just find. Without diety. I don't "believe" there is no god, I simply refuse to believe in one. Should evidence of a god present itself, I may change my position. Until then, I'm atheist -without a god. You can be as firm as you want to be, but you are still wrong.

You can be as firm as you want to be, but you are still wrong.
That's just your subjective opinion, nothing more, just as mine. I'll still sleep at night. ;)

I simply refuse to believe in one
But that child hasn't refused. (S)he has no idea what to refuse.
I'm surprised you don't see the difference, maybe because you base it on your daughter which you want to be atheist, just like you are. Nothing unnatural with that, parents tend to do that. :)

the burden of proof falls on your shoulders,
Proving Existence or Non-Existence.

.

It was not me who said there was no God, it was you.

You cannot prove it becuase as you say you cannot know, better to be agnostic than adopt an 'opinon' (hich is what atheism is ) of assuming to 'know it all' (we can continue to disagree on that point) which is what atheists do.

meanwhile the thread point is not that babies ARE NOT born atheists, but about how 'special ' each group presumes they are compared to the rest.

That's just your subjective opinion, nothing more, just as mine. I'll still sleep at night. ;)


But that child hasn't refused. (S)he has no idea what to refuse.
I'm surprised you don't see the difference, maybe because you base it on your daughter which you want to be atheist. Nothing wrong with that. :)

agreed

Babies are born atheists. They are without-god. No god. No knowledge of a god. Call it ignorant if you want (it is, I agree) but they are atheist.

The problem is, there are those that are trying to separate out the pejorative version of "atheist" that exists in the minds of the superstitious (the theists) from the reality that there are simply those that don't know of the anthropomorphic deity they refer to as the one "true" god. Obviously the infants cannot be blamed, so "lets not call them 'atheist' since this is the term we reserve for those that have 'heard' the word and refuse it." Bollocks.

Well I told where it was, but now I am home from work I have time to find it for you. I should really put it in my favourites because I get it out everytime an idiot on here say's religion is needed to improve society.

http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/atheism.html



Well it's up to the reader to make up his own mind, but the only conclusions that you can make from it are that the higher the levels of atheism, the better for society OR at the very least, religion simply isn't required or does not help society.

."[/i]
so what we have here is: the to quote you "idiot who believes religion is needed to improve society", and an idiot who believes atheism is needed to improve society.

Interesting

Were there no wars, battles, crimes before religion came into being?
What were all these atheists doing..that neccessitated religion and encouraged it to rise to these epic proprotions in the first place?

I shall look at that link but as I said there really is NO evidence that better lifestyle stems from atheism, not unless they inerviewed every single individual and asked them what their personal phiolosophy was and where there morals came from..and that what they said was the truth and that were not sunbconciously influenced by the colour of their hair afterall!

I'm a religious atheist.

Bollocks.
That doesn't make your argument less subjective. Believe what you wish, really, I have no need for you to agree with me.
Enjoy your atheist daughter.

I'm a religious atheist.

so you have religion but do not believe in god or you have made your disbelief in God your religion? Or you are taking the piss?

Babies are born atheists. They are without-god. No god. No knowledge of a god. Call it ignorant if you want (it is, I agree) but they are atheist.

The problem is, there are those that are trying to separate out the pejorative version of "atheist" that exists in the minds of the superstitious (the theists) from the reality that there are simply those that don't know of the anthropomorphic deity they refer to as the one "true" god. Obviously the infants cannot be blamed, so "lets not call them 'atheist' since this is the term we reserve for those that have 'heard' the word and refuse it." Bollocks.

agreed, what you said is bollocks :) atheism as defined is disbelief in existance of God, babies are therefore ignorant not atheist.

meanhwhile Kenny keeps telling us what makes atheists special, what makes you special, especially as for you, you are merely not disbelieving but not knowing.

However, consider the incidence of deity-worship and spirituality in human culture: multiple independent foundings, over wide geographic and temporal distances. In short: all emergent humans societies have religion of some kind.

This suggests to me a common cause, although it need not be necessarily external. Are humans somehow prone to superstition? Where does it arise?

Geoff

I believe I answered that question, at least partially, please see the 4th page, post @ Today, 06:49 PM GMT+2.

I believe I answered that question, at least partially, please see the previous page.

indeed you did, magical somethings...


The concept of god is an archetype of the human psyche, it has occured in every culture and society that we have knowledge of and it has to do with human perception of the world, i.e., how our brain works.
You can read on a topic related to this subject here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking

A bit of it:


Now back to why you all think you are special please!!!!!

Now back to why you all think you are special please!!!!!
Why do you think they think that they are special?

You define atheism as "disbelief" in the existance of "God." But the actual definition, looking at the etymology of the word is without belief in a god. Indeed, you are so ethnocentric as to exclude the gods of other cults and limit the "disbelief to your own!

It is the result which the term "atheist" describes, not the cause. Spin it any way you want, but a lack of belief is what it is. Whether born without it or chose to reject the belief on the basis of logic and a lack of evidence. The result is a lack of belief. That is what it is to be atheist.

"Antitheist" on the other hand, I'm that as well.

And no babies minds are far from being blank at birth, they can hear sounds outside of the womb and can indeed demonstrate recognition of them after birth.

This has been rehashed before, I'm not going to repeat myself. Look at it here: http://www.sciforums.com/archive/index.php/t-41392

A baby that's dumped in a dumpster has no chance of survival, why?, because it's brain does not have the capacity to think, and survive on it's own, thus TABULA RAZA!.

Godless

We as species all are born premature compared to other apes (and that has been our big advantage), but that doesn't mean that helpless == thinkless.

it's 'bullucks' is it ;)

copied from web, link to follow:

""They invented mathematics and science." Surely, Bertrand Russell could not have expected to be taken seriously. The Egyptian invented mathematics, which he decided to denigrated as, 'form of rule of thumbs.' Pythagoras, whom the White people like to credit with the mathematical theorem that bore his name was a student in Egypt. So much for the so-called 'Father of mathematics!' This fact alone, which could not have escaped Bertrand Russell, demolished the argument that the Greek invented mathematics. Aristotle, Plato borrowed their ideas from the Egyptian - although without giving any credit. Not less a personage than Herodotus affirmed that Greece borrowed from Egypt all the elements of her civilization, even the cults of her gods. We have to ask Bertrand Russell how a people could could something as imposing as the pyramids with a working knowledge of trigonometry! The Papyrus of Moscow and the Rhind Papyrus greatly enrich our knowledge of these facts.

When it is not sufficient to ascribed any notion of ingenuity on the ancient Greeks, Western scholars fall back on an old-trick, looking for a mythical White origin of the Egyptian civilization - the most impressive of all ancient civilizations.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/30/009.html

Firstly I may have misunderstood your claim I notced you said invented maths while I first read it to mean you were claiming invented math(as in the entire concept). So perhaps you could set me straight on that.
However above I am getting the impression that you are claiming the ancient egyptians were arabs, is that correct?

You define atheism as "disbelief" in the existance of "God." But the actual definition, looking at the etymology of the word is without belief in a god. Indeed, you are so ethnocentric as to exclude the gods of other cults and limit the "disbelief to your own!

It is the result which the term "atheist" describes, not the cause. Spin it any way you want, but a lack of belief is what it is. Whether born without it or chose to reject the belief on the basis of logic and a lack of evidence. The result is a lack of belief. That is what it is to be atheist.

"Antitheist" on the other hand, I'm that as well.

*************
M*W: I agree with your definition of "antitheist." "Atheist" means "lack of belief." "Antitheist" means "against theism." That's what I am.

Why do you think they think that they are special?

I don't think anyone is more sepcial than anyone else. I have merely observed that some most deffinately do believe they are more special...look at Kenny, "it is fact athiests are better"......

This has been rehashed before, I'm not going to repeat myself. Look at it here: http://www.sciforums.com/archive/index.php/t-41392

A baby that's dumped in a dumpster has no chance of survival, why?, because it's brain does not have the capacity to think, and survive on it's own, thus TABULA RAZA!.

Godless

what has this got to do with anything? A baby can hardly survive on its own, that is not the argument. doesn't mean the babies not learning and thinking and processing stimulus and new information while stuck in the dumpster? keep it relevantish at least?

how can you say something like I cant prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are no pink polka dotted elephants wearing roller skates, somewhere in the universe, but I'd be pretty damn foolish to actually believe there are, therefore I can say by good reasoning that there are no such thing.

It was not me who said there was no God, it was you. read it properly, it does not matter whether I said theres no god, I dont assert that one exists. the relevent part is colored red, see below.
Proving Existence or Non-Existence.

The existence of a thing can be conclusively proved by producing one single instance of the thing.

To put that another way: -
When the existence of a thing is denied, This can be proven wrong by producing one single instance of the thing said not to exist

The non-existence of a thing can never be conclusively proved because there is always the theoretical assumption that the thing exists but has not been seen yet or it exists in a place that can not be visited. Unless all places in the universe have been visited and are being constantly observed, we can not be absolutely certain.

From this we can say that there are only two possible statements we can make about the existence of a thing:


The thing exists.

It is unknown if the thing exists or not.

It is not possible to prove that a thing "does not exist" without further qualifying criteria.

If a thing does NOT exist it can not leave any evidence of it's non-existence. Only things that DO exist can leave evidence. From this we can derive that conclusive proof can only come from the person that claims that a thing exists. It is nonsensical to demand proof of non-existence. this is the answer I gave to you asking me to ( 1) Prove there are/is no God/s)so therefore the onus is on whom ever asserts that god/s exists, I dont.

I cant proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that there are no pink polka dotted elephants wearing roller skates, somewhere in the universe, but I'd be pretty damn foolish to actually believe there are, therefore I can say by good reasoning that there are no such thing.

read it properly, it does not matter whether I said theres no god, I dont assert that one exists. the relevent part is colored red, see below.
Proving Existence or Non-Existence.

The existence of a thing can be conclusively proved by producing one single instance of the thing.

To put that another way: -
When the existence of a thing is denied, This can be proven wrong by producing one single instance of the thing said not to exist

The non-existence of a thing can never be conclusively proved because there is always the theoretical assumption that the thing exists but has not been seen yet or it exists in a place that can not be visited. Unless all places in the universe have been visited and are being constantly observed, we can not be absolutely certain.

From this we can say that there are only two possible statements we can make about the existence of a thing:


The thing exists.

It is unknown if the thing exists or not.

It is not possible to prove that a thing "does not exist" without further qualifying criteria.

If a thing does NOT exist it can not leave any evidence of it's non-existence. Only things that DO exist can leave evidence. From this we can derive that conclusive proof can only come from the person that claims that a thing exists. It is nonsensical to demand proof of non-existence. this is the answer I gave to you asking me to ( 1) Prove there are/is no God/s)so therefore the onus is on whom ever asserts that god/s exists, I dont.

You know an unborn child does not know the world exists until it is born.
It has no concept of the world even. By your logic the fact the baby knows the world does not exists but cannot prove it therefore means the world does not exist? What logic is that??

If I believe in God I have to prove it do I..why? I never said 'there is a god'..the end, whereas you said...(paraphrasing) there is 'no god'.

So why does a comment you made mean that I have to present proof?

Womb is a part of the world just as his or her mother is.
After being born baby knows just what to do - reach for the mother's breast, it knows where the mother's breast is, it know what to do with it, and it demands her attention upon any need.
Young turtles after being born know just what a hawk's shadow on the sand looks like and they react appropriate to it, and not any shadow, it has to be in the shape of a predatory bird. Scientists have done experiments with cardboard shapes. Even if all the predatory birds die out and after generations in a zoo turtles will still hide if see such a shadow.

Instincts, nervous wiring, call it what you wish, but there is information there.
How does it get there? You tell me.

Womb is a part of the world just as his or her mother is.
After being born baby knows just what to do - reach for the mother's breast, it knows where the mother's breast is, it know what to do with it, and it demands her attention upon any need.
Young turtles after being born know just what a hawk's shadow on the sand looks like and they react appropriate to it, and not any shadow, it has to be in the shape of a predatory bird. Scientists have done experiments with cardboard shapes. Even if all the predatory birds die out and after generations in a zoo turtles will still hide if see such a shadow.

Instincts, nervous wiring, call it what you wish, but there is information there.
How does it get there? You tell me.

It is innate knowledge, human babies have very little compared to other sepcies, our brains have a larger capacity for learning, whereas other species brains less so. Innate knowledge is a fascinating thing. I guess its coded in the genes?

unrelated to thread question but very ineresting link about how learned knowledge is heritable! (In animals at least??)
http://www.grandin.com/references/genetics.html

from above link:
"The Science of Behavior Today
Two years after the Brelands article, Jerry Hirsh (1963) at the University of Illinois wrote a paper emphasizing the importance of studying individual differences. He wrote, "Individual differences are no accident. They are generated by properties of organisms as fundamental to behavior science as thermodynamic properties are to physical science." Today, scientists recognize the contributions of both the Skinnerian and the ethologists approach to understanding behavior Modern neuroscience supports Darwin's view on behavior. Bird and mammal brains are constructed with the same basic design. They all have a brain stem, limbic system, cerebellum, and cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex is the part of the brain used for thinking and flexible problem solving. The major difference between the brains of people and animals is in the size and complexity of the cortex. Primates have a larger and more complex cortex than a dog or a pig; pigs have a more complex cortex than a rat or a mouse. Furthermore, all animals possess innate species-specific motor patterns which interact with experience and learning in the formation of behavior. Certain behaviors in both wild and domestic animals are governed largely by innate (hard-wired) programs; however, experiencing and learning are the most important factors in other behaviors.
A basic principle to remember is that animals with large, complex brains are less governed by innate behavior patterns. For example, bird behavior is governed more by instinct than that of a dog, whereas an insect would have more hard-wired behavior patterns than that of a bird. This principle was clear to Yerkes (1905) who wrote:

Certain animals are markedly plastic or voluntary in their behavior, others are as markedly fixed or instinctive. In the primates plasticity has reached its highest known stage of development; in the insects fixity has triumphed, instinctive action is predominant. The ant has apparently sacrificed adapt-ability to the development of ability to react quickly, accurately and uniformly in a certain way Roughly, animals might he separated into two classes: those which are in high degree capable of immediate adaptation to their conditions, and those that are apparently automatic since they depend upon instinct tendencies to action instead of upon rapid adaptation."


and on the subject of demestication and 'heritable' knowledge

"In any event, wolves kept for companions had to be easy to handle and socialize to humans. Within a few generations, early humans may have turned wolves into dogs by selecting and breeding the tamest ones. Thousands of years ago, humans were not aware that behavior in animals was heritable. However, even today people who raise dogs, horses, pigs, cattle, or chickens notice differences in the behavior of the offspring. Some animals are friendly and readily approach people, while others may be shy and nervous."

Well, we certainly are animals. Thanks for the link.

speaking of animals- relating to the basically good or evil question-

On one level a theologian can insist on a "basically evil" standpoint, but there is another level, the human level, on which a person can in fact be basically good, and nobody is ever really asked to be anything other than human by their own power - so in essence they never are, and there is no qualitative difference between the "believer" and "unbeliever".
A dog can be a good dog or a bad dog, but none of the dogs are going to go use the toilet instead of pooping on the ground. (you know what I mean, although I'm sure dogs have done it.)

The point is - if someone cleans up after you, or trains you, that doesn't make you a "better" dog.

I copied this from another thread I was typing in but it basically shows why a theist can't have false superiority.

Regarding the athiest - I love it when someone tries to say that atheists are smarter or more rational - some atheists are very stupid and irrational, and I am a theist who is smarter and more rational than most atheists, guaranteed. There is no rule. QED.

speaking of animals- relating to the basically good or evil question-

On one level a theologian can insist on a "basically evil" standpoint, but there is another level, the human level, on which a person can in fact be basically good, and nobody is ever really asked to be anything other than human by their own power - so in essence they never are, and there is no qualitative difference between the "believer" and "unbeliever".
A dog can be a good dog or a bad dog, but none of the dogs are going to go use the toilet instead of pooping on the ground. (you know what I mean, although I'm sure dogs have done it.)

The point is - if someone cleans up after you, or trains you, that doesn't make you a "better" dog.

I copied this from another thread I was typing in but it basically shows why a theist can't have false superiority.

Regarding the athiest - I love it when someone tries to say that atheists are smarter or more rational - some atheists are very stupid and irrational, and I am a theist who is smarter and more rational than most atheists, guaranteed. There is no rule. QED.

lol, deary me, ok, so what we have is here a good dog does not a good atheist make? you may have to explain that a bit more ;)

meanwhile you are telling me that you as a theist are "smarter and more rational than most atheists" Do you know most atheists? lol

you are special coley, but I feel it is not your theism that makes it so.......

I don't think anyone is more sepcial than anyone else. I have merely observed that some most deffinately do believe they are more special...look at Kenny, "it is fact athiests are better"......

Listen, if you keep misquoting me, it just makes you look stupid. I said society, not atheism itself. The statistics don't say that society improves where there is most religion does it? Whatever assumption you come to, you can not get away from the fact that my point still stands - Good societies tend to have high levels of atheism... That is the fact. Just why that is... is theory.

Listen, if you keep misquoting me, it just makes you look stupid. I said society, not atheism itself. The statistics don't say that society improves where there is most religion does it? Whatever assumption you come to, you can not get away from the fact that my point still stands - Good societies tend to have high levels of atheism... That is the fact. Just why that is... is theory.

Comparing the two is pretty pointless. It's like when people constantly say atheism is a belief that is on a par with being religious.

I think atheists are 'better than the religious' because they make up a better society. That is a fact. And this is ignoring the obvious delusion which really... you have to be of low intelligence to accept as being true.

The only reason they still to this day maintain some dwindling respect in modern society is because there is still so many of them. A belief (no matter how rediculous) will be respected so long as it is popular.


Kenny? why are you saying I misquoted you, these are your words here? You said "I think atheists are better than the religious because......" where did I misquote you?

Yes, and notice how that line has quotes in it. This was in reply to this:

Religious: you ALL kind of think you are somehow special, and better than the non religious, whether you state it directly or merely imply it.

Athiests: you ALL kind of think you are somehow special, and better than the religious, whether you state it directly or merely imply it.

Which I think is half correct. Theists believe they are special (afterall they are going to heaven aren't they?) Atheists have to put up with theists thinking they are special. Atheists do not think they are special that is the point. As for atheism being better or working better, I have provided evidence that does say that maybe atheism is better for society as a whole. Had the statistics been the other way around and said that where religion is tends to be where the best societies are, then I would hold up my hands and admit that religion is better for society than atheism... but it isn't.

lol, deary me, ok, so what we have is here a good dog does not a good atheist make? you may have to explain that a bit more ;)

meanwhile you are telling me that you as a theist are "smarter and more rational than most atheists" Do you know most atheists? lol

you are special coley, but I feel it is not your theism that makes it so.......
You missed the point of my story entirely. I didn't explain it very thoroughly because i was depending on people knowing about the reasons theists might have for pretending they are special.
The theist has no right for pride that they are cleaned up after, they are not better "dogs", so no, the theist is not special.

The athiest is also not categorically special, due to their supposed critical thinking and "intelligence". This is shown by the basic reality that my ratiocinative functions are exercised more than most atheists.

And my intelligence, especially as ill-used and seldom employed as it is, or some athiests' ditto the ill-used and seldom employed, doesn't make me, or them, any better than anyone who is mentally deficient either.

Yes, and notice how that line has quotes in it. This was in reply to this:



Which I think is half correct. Theists believe they are special (afterall they are going to heaven aren't they?) Atheists have to put up with theists thinking they are special. Atheists do not think they are special that is the point. As for atheism being better or working better, I have provided evidence that does say that maybe atheism is better for society as a whole. Had the statistics been the other way around and said that where religion is tends to be where the best societies are, then I would hold up my hands and admit that religion is better for society than atheism... but it isn't.

oh so you were quoting me.....well re statistics as I said before, they are VERY easy to manipulate, you can get them to say anything you want.

apologies to kenny everyone! he doesn't believe atheists are better people afterall, just that they make better societies...is that correct?
well it take men to make up societies, so its still the same thing! Isn't it?

Had the statistics been the other way around and said that where religion is tends to be where the best societies are, then I would hold up my hands and admit that religion is better for society than atheism... but it isn't.
perhaps large societies would have never been established without religion, that is quite possible you know.
I'm not saying large societies have done any better than letting us run around naked in the forest (garden of eden?) would have.
Qualitative better and worse between atheist and theist is down to opinion via perception, nothing more- you have to make a lot of assumptions about how things could have, might have, would have been.

perhaps large societies would have never been established without religion, that is quite possible you know.
I'm not saying large societies have done any better than letting us run around naked in the forest (garden of eden?) would have.
Qualitative better and worse between atheist and theist is down to opinion via perception, nothing more- you have to make a lot of assumptions about how things could have, might have, would have been.

you know I really must complain about the lack of 'I'm not worthy..bowing' smiley! :)

Listen, if you keep misquoting me, it just makes you look stupid. I said society, not atheism itself. The statistics don't say that society improves where there is most religion does it? Whatever assumption you come to, you can not get away from the fact that my point still stands - Good societies tend to have high levels of atheism... That is the fact. Just why that is... is theory.
but what you comparing it with.....?
actually what's happened in last 500 years and post 'Enlightenment' has been a complete and utter disaster. the mechanization of the 'human' mind--ie., a mechanized mindset which imposes itself on everyone else and on Nature, and we are reaping the evil of it, and generations o come will UNLESS 'we' wake up out of it!

so, what? am i being special now cause i am seeing thru your 'religion vs atheists game, and vice versa?
let me answer this way. if wees talking Judeo Christian indotrination, whats it say in yo creation myth? to have 'dominion' over Nature. what this myth does/...........
it doesn't 'go away' when you say 'i am athiest'...it goes Unconscious! hence the reason the same shit gong ON. only it is mechanized-dominion, andmaterialistic science is 'god'.

oh so you were quoting me.....well re statistics as I said before, they are VERY easy to manipulate, you can get them to say anything you want.

This tells me you have not read the article. It is easy to chart the most atheistic countries in the world, perhaps not 100% accurately but if you look at what the survey say's is the top 50 atheistic countries in the world - I don't think anyone could argue that they do not have high levels of atheism.

Example: The survey says the USA has between 3 to 9% atheism. Would you argue with that? No.

but what you comparing it with.....?
actually what's happened in last 500 years and post 'Enlightenment' has been a complete and utter disaster. the mechanization of the 'human' mind--ie., a mechanized mindset which imposes itself on everyone else and on Nature, and we are reaping the evil of it, and generations o come will UNLESS 'we' wake up out of it!

so, what? am i being special now cause i am seeing thru your 'religion vs atheists game, and vice versa?
let me answer this way. if wees talking Judeo Christian indotrination, whats it say in yo creation myth? to have 'dominion' over Nature. what this myth does/...........
it doesn't 'go away' when you say 'i am athiest'...it goes Unconscious! hence the reason the same shit gong ON. only it is mechanized-dominion, andmaterialistic science is 'god'.

Indeed! Which brings me back to, what were we doing before religion? Running about naked, having orgies, having incestuous sex, killing, raping pillaging, ok now I know this sounds like America, but seriosuly what were we doing?

You cannot take a few countries (kenny) and say this is the reason for their civilised ways becuase atheism is predominant, there could be MANY other reasons!

You cannot take a few countries (kenny) and say this is the reason for their civilised ways becuase atheism is predominant, there could be MANY other reasons!
Obviously there are other factors. Japan and spain, for example were incredibly religious at times in their history - perhaps they are reaping the benefits of having consolidated power structure in the past as opposed to what Kennyjc is saying.

Also, some of those countires are horrible places to live, from what I have heard.
Ask a russian who lives in the U.S. whether they want to move back. I know a few of them, and those people I know would literally laugh at you.

There are many, many other factors to why a regional society prospers and fades.
Kenny's argument reminds me of christians who say Rome fell because of their lack of stricter morals.

Edit - sorry, that post was confusing because i was responding to kenny jc, using a jumping off point from what t.o.r said, not to t.o.r., so i fixed it.

You cannot take a few countries (kenny) and say this is the reason for their civilised ways becuase atheism is predominant, there could be MANY other reasons!

Why the trend though? I think it has a lot to do with the fact that religious countries are not very tolerant... And that goes a long long way towards preventing a free society. Atheism is on the other hand very tolerant and all religions are free to practice their faith in countries with high amounts of atheism. I would not use communist countries in this argument, as we are talking about organic atheism here, and not atheism that is forced.

Indeed! Which brings me back to, what were we doing before religion? Running about naked, having orgies, having incestuous sex, killing, raping pillaging, ok now I know this sounds like America, but seriosuly what were we doing?

You cannot take a few countries (kenny) and say this is the reason for their civilised ways becuase atheism is predominant, there could be MANY other reasons!

Are you saying that before religion or without religion normal human behaviour is
Running about naked, having orgies, having incestuous sex, killing, raping pillaging,

?

I am Muslim and personally would like it if the entire world became Muslim because I believe Islam is the correct way. I believe that believing in Islam and being a good person is a guarantee of Paradise.

I believe that even those who aren't Muslim and are still good people will be compensated for their good works some way as is stated in the Quran. Allah swt can give Paradise to anyone He wishes. It's not humans who decide who goes where, its Allah swt. Instead of damning or cursing others, we should just accept our own beliefs and follow what we ourselves believe to the end.

Peace.

I am Muslim and personally would like it if the entire world became Muslim because I believe Islam is the correct way. I believe that believing in Islam and being a good person is a guarantee of Paradise.

I believe that even those who aren't Muslim and are still good people will be compensated for their good works some way as is stated in the Quran. Allah swt can give Paradise to anyone He wishes. It's not humans who decide who goes where, its Allah swt. Instead of damning or cursing others, we should just accept our own beliefs and follow what we ourselves believe to the end.

Peace.

respect

I am Muslim and personally would like it if the entire world became Muslim because I believe Islam is the correct way. I believe that believing in Islam and being a good person is a guarantee of Paradise.

I believe that even those who aren't Muslim and are still good people will be compensated for their good works some way as is stated in the Quran. Allah swt can give Paradise to anyone He wishes. It's not humans who decide who goes where, its Allah swt. Instead of damning or cursing others, we should just accept our own beliefs and follow what we ourselves believe to the end.

Peace.
well you are BOUND...to believe that aren't you? seeing you have been indoctrinated in Islam, you assume everyone should be Muslim, and under 'sumbimssion' to your 'God'. not me mate!

If pnly you patriarchal religionists knew. Paradise is right here! NOT some conceptual heaven with the '7o virgins' awaiting. that is conjecture. you dont KNOWthat. a book/someone has told you this---and told you and told you since , probably, you were small?or even since conversion to Islam. and you've bought it. so now youu dream of it. it is your destination, and goal and gives you a sense of purpose

Meanwhile, you are A C T U A L L Y here. aren't you?this is not conjecture. you are living and breating nd eating etc here. And what patriarchal religions, and mindsets have DONE is create a MISERY being here. a HELL!...is it then any wonder some people dream of 'paradise' away from what they have made of it, and what hasbeen IMPOSED on them via such Nature-negative beliefs. But dreaming wont take away this hell. Oly waking up out of your divisiveness will!

well you are BOUND...to believe that aren't you? seeing you have been indoctrinated in Islam, you assume everyone should be Muslim, and under 'sumbimssion' to your 'God'. not me mate!

If pnly you patriarchal religionists knew. Paradise is right here! NOT some conceptual heaven with the '7o virgins' awaiting. that is conjecture. you dont KNOWthat. a book/someone has told you this---and told you and told you since , probably, you were small?or even since conversion to Islam. and you've bought it. so now youu dream of it. it is your destination, and goal and gives you a sense of purpose

Meanwhile, you are A C T U A L L Y here. aren't you?this is not conjecture. you are living and breating nd eating etc here. And what patriarchal religions, and mindsets have DONE is create a MISERY being here. a HELL!...is it then any wonder some people dream of 'paradise' away from what they have made of it, and what hasbeen IMPOSED on them via such Nature-negative beliefs. But dreaming wont take away this hell. Oly waking up out of your divisiveness will!

I understand where you are coming from. I was just stating what I believe. I acknowledge that not all people will believe in Islam that is why I said I believe that Allah swt is capable of giving rewards for even those who aren't Muslim but still do good. I said instead of insulting ot cursing other people or trying to convert them, people should just listen. If they agree with a concept of belief, then follow it and see if you believe it.

Because we believe in a paradise and hell, does not mean we believe we should neglect this life. In Islamic belief this is completely wrong, Allah swt says if we work good and are righteous, He will give us good in this world and the afterlife. Also Allah swt says those who work for this life only, will be given this life, those who work for only afterlife will be given only afterlife, however those who work for this life and after life, will be given both. All glory be to Allah swt.

I agree, the life of this world is important. I also believe however life in after life is also important.

I would not believe in an afterlife if I did not actually believe Islam. Personally, I believe Islam to be the perfect religion and the complete truth, and this is why I believe the Quran's word of afterlife.

Best of luck to you.

Peace.

I understand where you are coming from. I was just stating what I believe. I acknowledge that not all people will believe in Islam that is why I said I believe that Allah swt is capable of giving rewards for even those who aren't Muslim but still do good. I said instead of insulting ot cursing other people or trying to convert them, people should just listen. If they agree with a concept of belief, then follow it and see if you believe it.

Because we believe in a paradise and hell, does not mean we believe we should neglect this life. In Islamic belief this is completely wrong, Allah swt says if we work good and are righteous, He will give us good in this world and the afterlife. Also Allah swt says those who work for this life only, will be given this life, those who work for only afterlife will be given only afterlife, however those who work for this life and after life, will be given both. All glory be to Allah swt.

I agree, the life of this world is important. I also believe however life in after life is also important.

I would not believe in an afterlife if I did not actually believe Islam. Personally, I believe Islam to be the perfect religion and the complete truth, and this is why I believe the Quran's word of afterlife.

Best of luck to you.

Peace.

Was watching a documentary i had taped last night. Was about Gay Muslims.
All but two of the gay muslims featured chose to not have their identities shown. So we saw feet, backs, blurred images, and hands.
Oly one of the peoples parents agreed to appear---the ones who KNEW that it. And we saw them sat on a couch, but only their feet!

I was thinking---how sad. That people are So fearful of showing themselves. MADE to feel So ashamed of being what they are.

Is that not Islam making them feel like that? What do you say?

duendy, I have discussed this topic in thread http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=53336&page=2&pp=20

If you want to discuss it, please read my posts and post there. i will respond to you there. lets allow these people have their athiest, antitheist argument.

Peace.

Personally, I believe Islam to be the perfect religion and the complete truth...
Personally I would say that nothing humans participate in will be perfect. Religion is no exception, so no on the islam=perfect religion thing. Perhaps the true ideals of that religion are perfect but they are obviously getting warped by some hateful people sometimes.

I am Muslim and personally would like it if the entire world became Muslim because I believe Islam is the correct way. I believe that believing in Islam and being a good person is a guarantee of Paradise.

Fortunately, that will never happen.

As people around the world become more educated, they understand that religion is based on myths and that certain religions, like Islam, are more dangerous to mankind than many other concepts or ideals.

Hence, we have atheism flourishing around the world, that is of course, where people actually have the freedom to make such a choice.

And that may be the one thing that Muslims, in their quest to spread Islam, won't take into consideration, and that is that those people who don't have the freedom to make choices would rather die than commit to Islam.

And that will be Islams downfall and eventual erradication.

That will be the future, Diamondhearts, whether you are willing to accept it or not.

Obviously there are other factors. Japan and spain, for example were incredibly religious at times in their history - perhaps they are reaping the benefits of having consolidated power structure in the past as opposed to what Kennyjc is saying.

Shinto religion's "Kami" was not anything described as a monotheistic god described in Christianity or Islam. It can't be compared.

Ask a russian who lives in the U.S. whether they want to move back. I know a few of them, and those people I know would literally laugh at you.

Of course they wouldn't go back, but that has nothing to do with religion.

Atheists numbers are growing:

Nonreligious Increasing (http://atheism.about.com/b/a/100289.htm)

Trends in the Growth and Decline of Religion versus Atheism and Agnosticism (http://www.geocities.com/richleebruce/b/atheist.html)

Atheist wins discrimination case (http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/57728.html)

Religions are declining:

Germany (http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51554.htm)

India (http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/Mar112005/n32.asp)

Two 2004 reports—by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Institute for Jewish and Community Research—both raise the “none” group to 16 percent of the U.S. population. This trend toward rationality, away from supernaturalism, someday may weaken the Religious Right. click (http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=haught_25_2)

Yep, slowly but surely, the meak shall inheret the earth. ;)

Godless

That will be the future, Diamondhearts, whether you are willing to accept it or not.

I don't know the future and neither do you.

Your hope is that it wll become majority athiest, but my hope is that Islam will become dominant.

Peace.

I know the future. This planet will end in a ball of fire and the atoms which now make up your body won't care and won't know anything about Allah or atheism or any of the other silly ideas of humanity.

Shinto religion's "Kami" was not anything described as a monotheistic god described in Christianity or Islam. It can't be compared.
Please, there was a long period of time where the political head of state was considered divine. Sounds pretty religious to me. We are talking about religion, not a specific religion. There has been no christian society yet on earth, i.e one in accordance with christian ideology, ever, so we can't even know what that would be like. It most certainly, ad infinitum, would not be like conservative americans, for example, would have it.


Of course they wouldn't go back, but that has nothing to do with religion.
Oh, so their society got fucked up, with "nothing to do with religion"? There goes your argument. I thought societies got messed up by religion??!?

Yep, slowly but surely, the meak shall inheret the earth. ;)

Godless
I hope the meek do inherit the earth, but you aren't meek, you insist that your way is the only rational way, so your kind will fade, according to your statement.
If there is one way for us to survive, it is for the meek to inherit the earth.

edit- I would hope pray beg insist, etc. that the only way we could ever have a completely christian society is to have the actual return of Christ and have the athiests convert by using their own eyes and believing, and since you guys aren't worried about that ever happening, and I have my doubts about when that will ever literally happen, we don't have to worry about it. If we ever had a "christian" society insisting athiesm be removed from the society, I would leave too, it is just too unreasonable.

edit- I would hope pray beg insist, etc. that the only way we could ever have a completely christian society is to have the actual return of Christ and have the athiests convert by using their own eyes and believing, and since you guys aren't worried about that ever happening, and I have my doubts about when that will ever literally happen, we don't have to worry about it. If we ever had a "christian" society insisting athiesm be removed from the society, I would leave too, it is just too unreasonable.

It's been 2500 years, it's time to give it up. The prophesis of jesus return was supposed to have happened during the life time of his disiples, it didn't! It has't, and it will never happen. Jesus is dead. :rolleyes: He was a demi-god created 100 years or so after the fact, we don't have proof of him ever even existed, it's all mythical bs, made to manipulate the masses. Once people start accepting that we are on our own, perhaps we be united by "reason" to survive.

Godless

It's been 2500 years, it's time to give it up. The prophesis of jesus return was supposed to have happened during the life time of his disiples, it didn't! It has't, and it will never happen. Jesus is dead. :rolleyes: He was a demi-god created 100 years or so after the fact, we don't have proof of him ever even existed, it's all mythical bs, made to manipulate the masses. Once people start accepting that we are on our own, perhaps we be united by "reason" to survive.

Godless
That's ok. I'll stick with my meek, "you believe what you believe and I'll believe what i believe", and "can't we all just get along?", and I get to be here on the earth when the inheritence comes through.
Have fun wherever your kind goes. Maybe you get to be part of the super-race that makes a new start on some space station, while the loser race of humanity stays here, good for you.
I'm just messing around obviously, but a little bit of realising that other people might not be as dumb and irrational as you think they are wouldn't hurt you at all.
But you're alright, at least you care about spiritual matters enough to always be talking about them. Hahaha.

Well cole, my background does involve religion, I was idoctrinated catholic as a child, became christian in my early teens, a babtist by my later teens, and an atheist as an adult. I just grew out of religion ;)

Have fun wherever your kind goes.

My kind? Humans die, and perish, wether they believe in fary tales or not. There's no life after death. For anyone. Jesus proved that! since he hasn't been back for the past 2500 years :p

I'm just messing around obviously, but a little bit of realising that other people might not be as dumb and irrational as you think they are wouldn't hurt you at all.

I don't assume everyone is dumb, just mislead. ;) BTW I have lots of friends that are religious, i get along just fine.

But you're alright, at least you care about spiritual matters enough to always be talking about them.

How can one avoid it? when the main stream believe us to be outcasts!
click (http://www.ur.umn.edu/FMPro?-db=releases&-lay=web&-format=umnnewsreleases/releasesdetail.html&ID=2816&-Find)

I'm only here to settle a score against main stream thought and rhetoric.

Godless

My kind? Humans die, and perish, wether they believe in fary tales or not. There's no life after death. For anyone. Jesus proved that! since he hasn't been back for the past 2500 years :p
Your kind= the not meek. I hope you have read enough of my posts to understand i wasn't talking about hell or any of that, i was just playing with the idea that the meek inherit the earth, and you don't, NOT relating to the athiest/theist thing at all. The actual working out of the meek inheriting the earth is far too full of conjecture to really literally argue about, but i didn't mean the afterlife or hell or whatever. Just so you know.

I'm only here to settle a score against main stream thought and rhetoric.

Godless
Good luck with that one, hahaha.
No seriously, I hope the psychological factors involving religion and your (now) freedom from it are all worked out in the best possible way. Perhaps you will get to the point someday where you are truly uninfluenced by the negative religious experiences you had and perceive, and can experience spirituality in a way that is unbiased, which for you may be a complete lack of influence of it in your life, it is not my place to judge that. I do think you show signs of it still being a wound of some sort, or you wouldn't be SO vigilant in your attacks, but I have my own issues to work out/figure out, so whatever.

I don't know the future and neither do you.

Your hope is that it wll become majority athiest, but my hope is that Islam will become dominant.

Since your way of life is based on faith and not reality, yours can be the only hope.

Please, there was a long period of time where the political head of state was considered divine. Sounds pretty religious to me.

Perhaps you may wish to check the definition of religion, then.

Oh, so their society got fucked up, with "nothing to do with religion"? There goes your argument. I thought societies got messed up by religion??!?

You sure like to words in everyone elses mouth, don't ya?

Who said they're society was fucked up?

Perhaps you may wish to check the definition of religion, then.
Perhaps you should look up the definition of "divine". I have a pretty well-founded idea that "divinity" can only be involved in a religious society of some sort. An athiest, for example, would say there is nothine "divine", because it implies a spiritual heirarchy, and the existence of God or Gods.
Maybe you would say that the Japanese religious life in that historical period is acceptable, because it isn't as bad as the monotheistic religions, but I thought we were talking about religion as a whole.

You sure like to words in everyone elses mouth, don't ya?
Who said they're society was fucked up?
The people from the ussr said it to me, three different cases from three different situations, I didn't make it up. They would laugh at you if you said the USA (an example to you of a more religious society), wasn't way better. I personallly have no experience in which is better.
Russia is on the 'top 50 list of least religious countries' that I looked at.
Perhaps you were saying the reason they wouldn't want to go back is not because it is messed up, but I thought you would agree with them and say, ok your country is messed up, but not because of religion- that is what it looked like you were saying. Please feel free to explain what you meant, when you agreed they would not want to go back, but not because of religion.

What about africa? They weren't involved in organized religion until missionaries came (besides the northern parts of the continent at least), so basically for a long long time, and I'm quite sure you wouldn't want to have been born in a randomly chosen african country instead of a religious european one. Things are very rough in some areas due to ethnic wars.

The entire argument between both groups I find laughable. Deplorable, from a logical or sane point of view. The idea of "better" and "worse" are speculative, which is why there's fighting in the first place. It's not zero tolerance, really, it's just a lack of open mindedness. And because these two extremes are entirely speculative, neither side will ever "win" unless they STOP fighting.

Heh, religious conflict is going to be the end of the world one day...

Well having read all the posts here, it seems to me that athiests are more intolerant towards religious mindset than than the religious are of the athiest mindset. Is this a correct and fair conclusion reading through the posts?

Religious want to remain true to their belief system but athiests actually seem keener on trying to 'convert' others to their non belief system.

Why is it so important to religious and athiest to spread their view as far and wide as possible? Why can you not hold your view privately and live accordingly by whatever rules/morals you set yourselves..why the need to go forth and multiply?

Can only be one reason...power/strength in numbers...what do want this power for?

Power to effect social change? Power to influence political system? Power to weald over others? What

Meanwhile re poll, so far the majority (slight) poller believes in God which surprises me as this is science forum, so inspite of science, belief in God remains strong, even though religion is being increasingly rejected.

I know the future. This planet will end in a ball of fire and the atoms which now make up your body won't care and won't know anything about Allah or atheism or any of the other silly ideas of humanity.


maybe,

peace.

Well having read all the posts here, it seems to me that athiests are more intolerant towards religious mindset than than the religious are of the athiest mindset. Is this a correct and fair conclusion reading through the posts?

Religious want to remain true to their belief system but athiests actually seem keener on trying to 'convert' others to their non belief system.

Why is it so important to religious and athiest to spread their view as far and wide as possible? Why can you not hold your view privately and live accordingly by whatever rules/morals you set yourselves..why the need to go forth and multiply?

Can only be one reason...power/strength in numbers...what do want this power for?

Power to effect social change? Power to influence political system? Power to weald over others? What


i agree totaly, i touched on this subject a while ago,

peace,

i wanted to vote on the poll, but i am unsure wich one to vote for?

i dont class myself as any of those, what does a daoist class as?, because daoism dosent ever speak of "god/s" so is it a religion if t has nothing to do with gods? only understanding of human nature, the universe and the natural flow of existence,

give me a seperate daoist vote selection please,

peace.

i wanted to vote on the poll, but i am unsure wich one to vote for?

i dont class myself as any of those, what does a daoist class as?, because daoism dosent ever speak of "god/s" so is it a religion if t has nothing to do with gods? only understanding of human nature, the universe and the natural flow of existence,

give me a seperate daoist vote selection please,

peace.

I would say its a religion? There is daoist religion (numerous hells and heavens!) and then there is the philosophy.

I don't know the future and neither do you.

Your hope is that it wll become majority athiest, but my hope is that Islam will become dominant.

Peace.

That's odd: I thought you told me you didn't want islam to dominate the world.

Geoff

no the dimensions are the samsara, the 6 or so co existing dimentions, god realm earth realm etc, that is from certain buddhist teachings and sects, not daoism, the dao philosophy and following resides in the scripts from the tao te ching, and lao tzu.
there is no heaven and hell to daoists, just the real universe that we can study, and the empty force that holds form tot he whole universe, the ever changing universe, the unseen energy that runs through everything, the dao,

the buddhist teaching of samsara is not daoism, confunctionism buddhism and taoism are mixed and jumbled up in china they are not seperated all are accepted at the same time,

there is no god, heaven or hell in daoism,

http://www.luckymojo.com/esoteric/religion/taoism/taofaq.htm

quote from link "TAOISTS do not believe in the Wheel of Life of the Buddhists nor in the Heaven or Hell of Christianity. "TAOISTS view existence as glorious. The whole Universe, they teach, is a marvelous, vibrant Unity wherein everything, visible and invisible, pulses with energy and changes. As being develops through the experience of existence, its vessels ... are swept onwards by the mighty stream of the eternal TAO to other forms of expression and activity. Man does not die; he merely extends into new fields ."





peace.

no the dimensions are the samsara, the 6 or so co existing dimentions, god realm earth realm etc, that is from certain buddhist teachings and sects, not daoism, the dao philosophy and following resides in the scripts from the tao te ching, and lao tzu.
there is no heaven and hell to daoists, just the real universe that we can study, and the empty force that holds form tot he whole universe, the ever changing universe, the unseen energy that runs through everything, the dao,

the buddhist teaching of samsara is not daoism, confunctionism buddhism and taoism are mixed and jumbled up in china they are not seperated all are accepted at the same time,

there is no god, heaven or hell in daoism,

http://www.luckymojo.com/esoteric/religion/taoism/taofaq.htm

quote from link "TAOISTS do not believe in the Wheel of Life of the Buddhists nor in the Heaven or Hell of Christianity. "TAOISTS view existence as glorious. The whole Universe, they teach, is a marvelous, vibrant Unity wherein everything, visible and invisible, pulses with energy and changes. As being develops through the experience of existence, its vessels ... are swept onwards by the mighty stream of the eternal TAO to other forms of expression and activity. Man does not die; he merely extends into new fields ."



peace.

This quote is taken from the link you provided, it states it's a religion if you use it as way of life.

"Is TAOISM a Religion or Philosophy?
TAOISM is both a Religion and a Philosophy. It is a philosophy when it is discussed as such, it is a religion when it's teachings are adopted as a way to live.
[sez]

Scholars divide TAOISM into philosophical and religious systems. "Philosophical TAOISM" refers to the writings of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu and the "Religious TAOISM" to a vast range of "popular" religious traditions in China. Religious Taoism is historically related (mainly as an ancestor) to Chinese [Chan] Zen Buddhism.

[ch]

I have a very technical answer for you.

Religion is the set of behavior manifest by people based on the things they believe to be true. This set of beliefs may be conditioned or rationally founded but not superficial. For example, people frequently act in ways that are contrary to the things they profess - and this is because even though they profess a thing their belief in it may only be superficial. By this definition "socialism" and "capitalism" are both religions and this is a little controversial. However, I prefer this definition to the popular one because it is far less vague.

Philosophy is rather more detached - an intellectual exercise. TAOIST Philosophy is what you might find enumerated in a philosophical encyclopedia or text book and would, in general, be that set of premises put forward by Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. There is nothing in Philosophy which dictates that a person act upon it. When the behavior of a person is directly influenced by a belief in a philosophical premise then that behavior is religious.

The Western TAOIST begins by acknowledging their Western nature, influences and history yet is inspired by the philosophy of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. The Western TAOIST witnesses the truth of the non-theistic TAO vision and the other insights of TAOIST Philosophy and believes them to be eternal truths beyond culture. So, a person does not need to be Chinese or even pay any attention to Chinese Religious Taoism or Chinese Culture to be a TAOIST. The Western TAOIST goes further and asks an important question. In the light of the TAOIST enlightenment what are the implications on how we now behave? With that question Western TAOISM becomes a religion which at times challenges established Western behavior and at times affirms it.

You'll note that my definition of religion does not require the notion of "God" - we frequently mistake Theism for Religion - they are not one and the same thing. Religious Chinese Taoism has all the trappings that we would popularly associate with "religion" in the West."

http://www.crystalinks.com/taoism.html

from above link:

"Some Taoists searched for "isles of the immortals," or for herbs or chemical compounds that could ensure immortality. More often, Taoists were interested in health and vitality; they experimented with herbal medicine and pharmacology, greatly advancing these arts; they developed principles of macrobiotic cooking and other healthy diets; they developed systems of gymnastics and massage to keep the body strong and youthful.

Taoists were supporters both of magic and of proto-science; they were the element of Chinese culture most interested in the study of and experiments with nature.

Some Taoists believed that spirits pervaded nature (both the natural world and the internal world within the human body). Theologically, these myriad spirits were simply many manifestations of the one Dao, which could not be represented as an image or a particular thing.

As the Taoist pantheon developed, it came to mirror the imperial bureaucracy in heaven and hell. The head of the heavenly bureaucracy was the jade Emperor, who governed spirits assigned to oversee the workings of the natural world and the administration of moral justice.

The gods in heaven acted like and were treated like the officials in the world of men; worshipping the gods was a kind of rehearsal of attitudes toward secular authorities. On the other hand, the demons and ghosts of hell acted like and were treated like the bullies, outlaws, and threatening strangers in the real world; they were bribed by the people and were ritually arrested by the martial forces of the spirit officials. The common people, who after all had little influence with their earthly rulers, sought by worshipping spirits to keep troubles at bay and ensure the blessings of health, wealth, and longevity.

The initiated Taoist priest saw the many gods as manifestations of the one Dao. He had been ritually trained to know the names, ranks, and powers of important spirits, and to ritually direct them through meditation and visualization. In his meditations, he harmonized and reunited them into their unity with the one Dao. ...."


What's this all about then Chi?

I think I'm special (so special) and better (faster stronger harder) than everyone else, but that's because I'm me and not you and you are not me. Pretty simple really.

My beliefs (or adamant refusal to admit that my non-believing is a system of belief or whatever) aren't inherently better than anyone elses; they're better because they're mine.

It's quite simple, really.

Btw, there's more secularism in the Uk than there is here.
Oh, yes, the UK, the country with an established state church, a monarch using a religious title, and with religious figures serving as legislators...oh, yeah, you're real secular... :rolleyes:

Personally, I'm athiest, but I don't care if people believe in a god as long as they aren't so fucktarded fanatics about it.

Im too special of an atheist for this thread...too special.

Personally, I'm athiest, but I don't care if people believe in a god as long as they aren't so fucktarded fanatics about it.


i aplaud you as a true atheist as few who claim that title on this site are as true to the ideal as you

I consider myself an atheist, meaning that I don't believe in any ruling superbeing. There are many definitions of God, and the one I am referring to is a sentient, conscious, and thinking God. To me that seems ridiculous. I do not feel that I am better than religious folk, as theoryofrelativity put it, but I do feel like I am closer to the 'truth.' Then again, doesn't every person feel that way no matter what their beliefs?

Nonetheless, I readily admit that my beliefs and/or views about the way the universe is could be 100% wrong.

they're better because they're mine.

It's quite simple, really.

My thoughts exactly

My beliefs (or adamant refusal to admit that my non-believing is a system of belief or whatever) aren't inherently better than anyone elses; they're better because they're mine.

It's quite simple, really.
This is, in a nutshell, the most pervasive erroneous tenet of human philosophy.
The word, "better", when applied to a belief should mean "more accurate", or on the other hand, "more beneficial", if not more accurate.

Your beliefs are yours, that is all - don't pretend they gain some value because you hold them, but we need to define "better" to really discuss this.

don't pretend they gain some value because you hold them

That is precisely what I pretend.

as do I.

Well, as long as you know it is a false construct, you aren't silly people.

Oh, yes, the UK, the country with an established state church, a monarch using a religious title, and with religious figures serving as legislators...oh, yeah, you're real secular.

You know! I looked back as far to the start of the thread, I never mentioned the above. However it has been said around here an other atheistic forums that the "people" in Uk are secularist more than here in the US.

The most striking contrast was between the religious attitudes of Americans and those of several Western European countries. It underlined how secularised many nominally Catholic European countries have become and how relatively religious the US as a whole remains. click (http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2005/aug2005p7_2016.html)

NufSaid!!

Godless

i aplaud you as a true atheist as few who claim that title on this site are as true to the ideal as you

Stick around, you'd be aplauding some more! :D

Godless